Privacy policy

Welcome to People’s Law School (“People’s,” “us,” “we”), a source of everyday legal information for all British Columbians. We’re so glad you found us. 

Below is the privacy policy (the “privacy policy”) for peopleslawschool.ca and any related services, including Dial-A-Law, Unbundled Legal Services, the Beagle chatbot service, and the question-and-answer service we provide (each being a “website”, and together being the “services”). Please read the policy carefully. 

At this point you might be asking: Wait, what’s a “privacy policy”? Good question. Our privacy policy protects you, the user. It explains how we store and use your personal information. 

We also have a terms of use. Think of these as a set of rules for using the website. They make sure users understand the scope and limitations of the information we provide. And they protect us if users get up to any shenanigans. 

You should read both. The terms of use and the privacy policy are a package deal.

At People’s, we pride ourselves on explaining everyday legal concepts in language that non-lawyers can understand. No fifty-dollar words here.

That said, some of the legal concepts below are complicated. And sometimes we have to go into the legal weeds, well … for legal reasons. But first we provide a plain language summary to help you understand the legal terms that follow.

We reserve the right to update and change the privacy policy from time to time by posting updates and changes to the website. By continuing to use the services after such changes are posted, you agree to the changes. 

By accessing or using any part of the website, you consent to our collection, use, sharing, and storing of your personal information according to this privacy policy. If you don’t accept this privacy policy, do not access or use the website. 

Some terms in this policy have specific meanings. In the legal world, we call these defined terms. For example, when we say “privacy policy”, we mean this privacy policy specifically. Below are a few more defined terms.

“contact information” means where a person can be found at their place of business. It includes name, position name or title, business telephone number, business address, business email, or business fax number. Contact information is not covered by this privacy policy.

“personal information” means anything that identifies a specific person (e.g., name, age, home address, phone number, social insurance number). We do not consider personal information to include: (a) contact information, and (b) information that has been generalized or aggregated so that a specific person can no longer be identified, whether in combination with other information or otherwise.

“privacy officer” means the individual(s) designated responsible for ensuring that People’s complies with this privacy policy.

Here’s what we collect and why we collect it. In the digital era, personal information is more than just your name, address and SIN number. In some cases, it can include digital data, like your IP address, if that information can be linked to you specifically. Read on for more detail on what we may collect.

People’s collects and stores only the personal information necessary or appropriate to fulfill the services. We may collect personal information from you in a number of ways.

1. Using our services. We collect, process, and retain personal information from you and any devices (including mobile devices) you may use when you sign up for offerings such as our email newsletter, engage or communicate with us or third parties in connection with the services, post or complete transactions using the services, or otherwise access or use any part of the services. Such information may include: 

• identifying information such as your name, address, telephone number, and email address,

• geographic or location data, which may be precise or imprecise,

• content of your communications via the services,

• information relating to the performance of the services you experience, and

• information you provide in any communications with us. 

2. Automatic collection. When you use the services, we may automatically gather information about how you’re using them, as well as information about your computer or mobile device, such as your Internet protocol (IP) address, device ID, physical location, browser and operating system type, resolution of your screen, language settings in your browser, referring URLs, and other technical information. This information is necessary for providing personalized and location-based content and services, as well as for analyzing web traffic, troubleshooting problems, preventing fraud, and improving the services.

3. Third-party data. We may obtain data from third parties. We protect that data according to the practices described in this policy, plus any additional restrictions imposed by the source of the data and applicable laws. These third-party data sources vary over time, but may include data brokers from which we may purchase demographic data to supplement the data we collect, service providers that help us determine a location based on your IP address in order to customize certain offerings to your location, and any partners with whom we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities. 

Here’s what you’re agreeing to around our use of your personal information. We use your information in a variety of ways — like to decide on where to expand certain topic areas, or to generate statistics on what communities our users are based in.

You consent to our using any of the personal information we collect on you: 

• to deliver our services to you,

• to improve our services in order to better serve you (for example, by retaining and evaluating information on your visits to our website or mobile application for analytic purposes to understand how users navigate the services so that we can make them more intuitive),

• to appropriately respond to your communications,

• to provide you with a personalized experience when using our services (for example, by retaining and evaluating information on your use of the services to make suggestions to you for other offers which we believe you may also be interested in),

• to provide targeted advertising to you (presuming you’ve already agreed to receive promotional messages or emails from us!),

• to contact you about new and enhanced informational services (again, presuming you’ve already agreed to receive promotional messages or emails from us),

• for internal statistical, marketing or operational purposes, including measuring and understanding demographics, user interest, and other trends among our users, and

• to detect, prevent, mitigate, and investigate fraudulent or illegal activities or security issues.

We may share your personal information with third parties, but only in strictly defined circumstances. We aren’t just going to “sell” your data to Facebook or Google in order to make money. Here’s how it works. 

1. General privacy policy. We do not disclose, trade, rent, sell or otherwise transfer your personal information, without your consent, except as otherwise set out here. Anytime we disclose your personal information to third parties, we take reasonable measures to ensure that: (a) the rules in this privacy policy are complied with and these third parties provide contractual guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures in accordance with privacy and data protection laws, and (b) we minimize the amount of personal information we disclose to what is directly relevant and necessary to accomplish the specified purpose. 

2. Service providers. We will provide your personal information to third parties who provide services to help us with our business activities and the provision of the services. For example, we use carrier services to send a physical package to you. Further, we may use third-party service providers to help us analyze usage of our services, provide personalized advertising, track the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and communications, assist with the prevention and investigation of potentially illegal acts or violations of our terms of use or this privacy policy, collect and process error and crash reports, and host web servers and store data. These third parties are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us, and we do not authorize them to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes.

3. Business reorganization. We may also disclose or transfer your personal information to an affiliate or a third party in the event of a proposed reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or equity, including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceeding. In connection with same, your consent to our terms of use and this privacy policy is deemed transferable to the benefit of People’s and its assigns, without notice to you. 

4. Legal disclosure. Subject to applicable laws in your jurisdiction, People’s may also disclose personal information about you to others as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law or regulation, including laws or regulations outside your country of residence, (b) to comply with legal process, respond to legal claims, (c) to respond to requests from public authorities and law enforcement officials, including officials outside your country of residence, (d) to assist or support theft investigations involving our services or property, (e) to enforce our terms of use and this privacy policy, (f) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates, (g) to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of People’s, its affiliates, you and others, or (h) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

5. International transfer and storage. Your information may cross international borders in order to facilitate the services. By using the services, you consent to the disclosure, processing, storage, and transfer of Information to countries outside your country of residence, which may have different data-protection rules than in your country and therefore may be available to government authorities under lawful orders and laws applicable there. However, our practices regarding your information will at all times continue to be governed by this privacy policy. If applicable, we will comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements providing adequate protection for the transfer of personal information from the EU/EEA to a third country.

British Columbians are concerned about data breaches, and they should be. We strive to keep your personal information secure. But we can’t 100% guarantee it.

We take steps to ensure that your personal information is only accessed by those employees whose job requires it. We have implemented measures to help protect personal information in our custody and control. We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification, and disclosure of personal information in our custody and control. We have personal information retention processes designed to keep our customers’ personal information for no longer than necessary for the purposes stated above or to otherwise meet legal requirements. 

People’s follows generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

It’s your information, after all. Below are all the things you’re entitled to ask us to do concerning storing, correcting, or updating your personal information. You may have heard of the General Data Protection Regulation, which creates a benchmark of rights for users and their personal information. Our goal here is compliance with those rules.

You have the right to access, update, and correct inaccuracies in your personal information in our custody and control, subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law. You may request access, updating and corrections of inaccuracies in personal information we have in our custody or control by emailing or writing to us at the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information for the purposes of verifying the identity of the individual seeking access to their personal information records.

Under the GDPR, you may be entitled to specific rights, including: (a) the right to access your personal information and certain other supplementary information, under certain conditions, (b) the right to object to unlawful data processing, under certain conditions, (c) the right to erasure of personal information about you, under certain conditions, (d) the right to demand that we restrict processing of your personal information, (e) the right to data portability of personal data concerning you that you provided us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, under certain conditions, (f) the right to object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you, under certain conditions, and (g) the right to lodge a complaint with data protection authorities. If you want to learn more about your rights under the GDPR, you can visit the European Commission’s page on data protection.

People’s retains personal information for as long as necessary to provide the services, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes and enforcing our agreements. Because these needs can vary for each case, actual retention periods can vary significantly. Once it’s no longer necessary for us to keep your personal information, we dispose of it securely, according to our data retention and deletion policies. We are not responsible for any liability or loss you experience as a result of our disposal of personal information.

You may withdraw your consent for our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information at any time. If you wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us. This will affect your ability to access or use the services. Your access to the services will be revoked if you withdraw consent, and if you continue to use the services thereafter, your consent to this privacy policy is deemed unconditionally renewed.  

Cookies help the internet to run more smoothly. You always have the option to view our site without cookies. For further information about cookies, visit All About Cookies.

We may use cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, or other similar tools on our services or in our communications with you to help personalize and maximize your experience. We may also engage one or more third-party service providers to issue online advertisements on our behalf. We may use, or authorize the use of cookies, pixel tags, web beacons or other similar technology to collect information about your visits to the services, and we may use that information to send you targeted advertisements. 

If you do not wish to accept cookies, you have the option to block or disable them. Your computer or device lets you clear all stored cookies, should you wish to do so. However, please be aware that you may be unable to access certain parts of the services if you block or disable our cookies. 

If you link out from our site, a different privacy policy may apply. Ours is specific to British Columbia, Canada. Other websites may have to follow different laws, which may be more or less strict. Proceed with caution.

This privacy policy addresses only the use and disclosure of personal information we collect from you. If you disclose your personal information to others, or if you engage any third-party sites or services, the third party’s privacy notices and practices will apply. We can’t guarantee the privacy or security of your personal information once you provide it to a third party. We encourage you to evaluate the privacy and security policies of each third party before any such engagement or disclosure.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you are legally eligible to use our services under any laws applicable to you in your jurisdiction of residence or otherwise. You must be fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations, and warranties set forth in this privacy policy and to abide by and comply with this privacy policy. 

If we learn that personal information has been collected through use of the services from persons under the applicable age of majority, and without verifiable parental/guardian consent, then we will take the appropriate steps to delete that personal information. If you are a parent or legal guardian and discover that your child under the applicable age of majority has provided personal information, then you may alert us via the contact methods below and request that we delete that child’s personal information from our systems.

Any suggestions or comments you offer us for improving or modifying the services will be deemed non-confidential and non-proprietary to you. In offering such feedback to us, you agree that: (a) People’s won’t have to keep this information confidential, (b) you have all of the necessary rights to disclose the feedback to us, (c) People’s may freely use, reproduce, and publicize your feedback, and (d) you are not, nor is any other party, entitled to receive any compensation or reimbursement from us in relation to your feedback.

This privacy policy is a dense read. If you have any questions about it, please reach out to us.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, like how we collect your information, how you can retrieve your information that we store, or to make a complaint, reach out to our privacy officer, Patricia Byrne, at pbyrne@peopleslawschool.ca, or at the mailing address:

People's Law School, Attn: Privacy Officer

1433 - 1130 W Pender Street

Vancouver, BC, Canada

V6E 4A4