About this policy
CADLEAF is an independent educational website that provides general Canadian immigration information, tools, articles, and official-source links. This policy explains what information CADLEAF collects or processes, why it is used, and the choices available to you.
Information you choose to provide
- Contact and correction messages: The contact form requires your name, email address, and message so CADLEAF can review and respond to website feedback, corrections, broken links, or technical issues.
- Newsletter subscriptions: Subscribing is optional. The signup form requires your email address and affirmative consent so CADLEAF can manage your subscription and send the updates you requested.
- Optional chatbot answer ratings: You may choose helpful or not helpful. The rating includes limited fixed categories showing the answer route and a broad confidence band so CADLEAF can compare answer quality.
- Optional chatbot question-review collection: This is separate from ratings and is disabled by default. If you enable it, submitted question text may be sent to CADLEAF for service-improvement review after browser-side minimization and server-side redaction. Answering continues to work if you do not enable it.
The chatbot rating request does not include or store your immigration question, the chatbot answer, conversation history, name, email address, user identifier, or session identifier.
Optional chatbot question-review collection
If you separately opt in, CADLEAF may store a sanitized version of the submitted question together with the first and most recent dates it was seen, how often a similar question was submitted, whether the chatbot answered, clarified, declined or used a protected route, the matched topic when available, and an owner review status. CADLEAF does not intentionally store full conversation histories for this feature.
The browser removes some obvious email addresses, links, phone-like numbers and labelled UCI/application/passport identifiers before sending the review request. The server applies additional validation and redaction and refuses some sensitive first-person narratives or heavily redacted submissions rather than storing them. Automated redaction is imperfect: it can miss personal information written in unexpected ways, so this feature does not guarantee that a stored question is anonymous.
Do not enter names, email addresses, phone numbers, UCI/client IDs, application numbers, passport numbers, financial account information, medical or criminal case details, or other personal information in chatbot questions. CADLEAF does not need those details for service-improvement review.
Question-review records do not include an intentionally stored IP address, browser string, session identifier, user identifier or raw conversation history. Hosting and security infrastructure may still process request metadata, including an IP address, to deliver the request and prevent abuse.
Stored review questions are available only through the protected owner review endpoint. They are not published as a public question list. A visitor question is not automatically converted into published immigration guidance: any knowledge addition must be drafted separately, checked against current official sources, and approved through CADLEAF's normal editorial and pull-request workflow.
Aggregate chatbot ratings
Chatbot ratings are stored as date-bucketed aggregate counters. They are used only to compare the helpfulness of answer routes. A rating does not change an answer, create an immigration profile, or provide individualized immigration advice.
Website infrastructure may process technical information such as an IP address while transmitting or protecting a request, but CADLEAF does not add an IP address to the stored chatbot-rating totals.
Do not send sensitive information
Do not send passport numbers, UCI or application numbers, immigration forms, refusal letters, financial records, medical or criminal information, or other case documents through the contact form or chatbot. These are not secure client portals. CADLEAF does not need this information to review website feedback or improve general educational answers.
Newsletter consent and control
The newsletter is opt-in and subscribing is optional. Messages may contain Canadian immigration news, new CADLEAF guides, and useful official links. You may withdraw consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link in an email or contacting support@cadleaf.ca. Unsubscribe requests will be given effect without delay and no later than 10 business days.
Withdrawing consent stops future marketing messages. CADLEAF may keep limited consent and suppression records where reasonably necessary to document consent and make sure an unsubscribed address is not added back to the mailing list by mistake.
Optional document checklist progress
The document checklist keeps progress only in the open page unless you choose “Remember my progress on this device”. If enabled, your browser stores the selected checklist, planning stage, and item statuses on that device. This feature does not upload documents or send your checklist progress to CADLEAF. Turn the option off to remove the saved copy, or clear this site’s browser storage. Anyone using the same browser profile may be able to see saved progress; private browsing and browser storage settings can prevent it from being saved.
Website and technical data
Hosting and security systems may process basic technical information such as an IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, referring page, and date or time of access. This information is used as needed to deliver the website, prevent abuse, diagnose errors, and improve reliability and performance.
CADLEAF does not currently use advertising cookies or behavioural advertising on its public informational pages. If those practices change, this policy and any required consent choices will be updated.
Service providers and processing locations
CADLEAF uses service providers for hosting and infrastructure, form processing, email subscription and delivery, content delivery, abuse prevention, aggregate rating storage and the optional chatbot question-review store. These providers receive only the information reasonably needed to provide their services and may process it on CADLEAF's behalf.
Service providers may process information in Canada, the United States, the European Union, or other jurisdictions where they or their subcontractors operate. Information may therefore be subject to the laws and lawful access requirements of those jurisdictions.
Safeguards
CADLEAF uses reasonable administrative and technical safeguards appropriate to the information it handles. The question-review collection endpoint uses validation, request-size limits, same-site checks, automated abuse controls, redaction and separate protected owner access. No website, automated redaction process, transmission method, or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure.
External links
CADLEAF links to government, regulator, and other external websites. CADLEAF does not control those websites and is not responsible for their privacy practices. Review the privacy information on an external site before providing personal information.
Retention
- Contact messages: may be kept for up to 24 months after the last response or action, unless a longer period is reasonably needed to document a correction, address a security issue, or meet a legal requirement.
- Newsletter information: may be kept while you remain subscribed. Limited consent and suppression records may be retained after withdrawal where reasonably necessary to document consent and honour the unsubscribe request.
- Optional chatbot question-review records: expire 30 days after the most recent occurrence. Reviewed records may be deleted sooner during weekly cleanup. A new week does not itself delete unanswered or needs-answer records, but the 30-day expiry remains the maximum backstop for this inbox.
- Technical data: is kept only as long as reasonably needed for delivery, security, troubleshooting, and reliability, and is then deleted or de-identified where appropriate.
- Aggregate chatbot ratings: may be retained to compare answer-route quality over time. They do not contain the question, answer, conversation text, name, email address, user identifier, or session identifier.
Privacy Contact and your choices
You may ask to access, correct, or delete personal information held by CADLEAF, withdraw newsletter consent, or raise a privacy concern by emailing support@cadleaf.ca. You can turn chatbot question-review collection off at any time in the chatbot; doing so stops future review submissions from that browser but does not automatically identify and delete earlier sanitized records because the inbox deliberately does not store a user identifier. CADLEAF may need to verify that a privacy request relates to your information before acting on it. Some information may need to be retained where permitted or required by law.
General information only
CADLEAF is not a law firm or immigration consulting practice. Its owner is not currently an RCIC, lawyer, RISIA, or other authorized immigration representative. Information sent through the website does not create a consultant-client, lawyer-client, or other professional relationship.
Contact
Questions or requests about this policy can be sent to support@cadleaf.ca.