Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Vida Auto (“Vida”, “we”, “us” or “our”) operates govida.ca (the “Site”). Vida Auto is a vehicle financing broker and matching service based in Alberta, serving drivers across Western Canada. We are not a lender and not a dealership: we help you find financing options from Canadian banks and lender partners, and help you choose a vehicle through a network of dealer partners.

This policy explains what personal information we collect through the Site, why we collect it, who we share it with and the choices you have. It is written to meet Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) for the electronic messages we send.

You can reach us about anything in this policy at:

• Email: hello@govida.ca

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

When you submit a request through our application form, call us or email us, we collect:

• Contact details: first and last name, phone number, email address and city.
• Vehicle and budget preferences: the type of vehicle you are interested in and an approximate price or preferred payment range.
• Optional qualification details, only if you choose to provide them: employment status, monthly income range, residence status (for example, rent or own), how you would describe your credit, whether you have a trade-in or co-signer, your preferred contact method and any notes you add.
• Your consent: whether you agreed to be contacted, and when.
• Your communications with us: what you tell us when you call, text or email, so we can follow up.

We do not ask for your Social Insurance Number, banking credentials, account numbers or documents through the Site. If a lender needs information like that later, it is collected through the lender’s own secure process, or through a separate secure process that we will explain to you first.

Information collected automatically

When you use the Site, our hosting provider and the analytics services described below record technical data such as your IP address, the approximate location derived from it, device type, operating system, browser, screen size, language, the pages you view, the links and buttons you use, how long you stay, the page that referred you and any errors that occur.

If you use the payment calculator, the values you enter (vehicle price, down payment, trade-in, rate, term and payment frequency) may be recorded as analytics events so we can understand how the calculator is used. These values are recorded without your name or contact details.

Marketing attribution

When you arrive from an ad or a link, the address may include campaign parameters (UTM source, medium, campaign, term and content) and click identifiers used by advertising platforms, including Google Ads (gclid, gbraid and wbraid), Microsoft Advertising (msclkid) and Meta (fbclid). We store these, together with the page you landed on, the referring site and the time of your first visit, in a first-party cookie for 90 days. If you submit a request, we attach them to your lead record so we can tell which advertising brought you to us.

3. How we use your information

• To match you with financing and vehicles: reviewing your request, contacting you, and working with banks, lender partners and dealer partners on your behalf.
• To communicate with you about your request by phone, text message or email.
• To operate, secure and improve the Site: detecting spam and abuse (for example, limiting the number of submissions from one IP address), diagnosing errors, and understanding which pages and tools are useful.
• To measure advertising: understanding which ads, campaigns and keywords lead to requests, and reporting conversions to the advertising platforms listed below.
• To meet legal obligations and to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We collect only the information that is reasonable for these purposes and use it only for them, or for purposes you would reasonably expect. If we want to use your information for a new purpose, we will ask for your consent first unless the law allows or requires otherwise.

4. Consent and electronic messages (CASL)

By checking the consent box on our form and submitting it, you give your express consent for Vida to contact you about your request by phone, text message and email. We record the date and time of your consent.

Commercial electronic messages we send will identify Vida Auto, include our contact information and include a way to unsubscribe. You can withdraw your consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link in an email or by contacting us at the email address or phone number above. We will act on your request within ten business days. Withdrawing consent does not affect anything we did while your consent was in effect, and we may still contact you where the law allows, for example to complete a transaction you asked for.

5. Who we share your information with

We do not sell personal information. We share it only as described here.

• Banks and lender partners. To identify and arrange financing options we share the information in your request with banks and other lenders. If you proceed with a lender, you will complete that lender’s application and the lender’s own privacy policy will govern how it handles your information, including any credit checks it performs.
• Dealer partners. To source and deliver a vehicle we share the details needed to find a vehicle and complete the purchase.
• Service providers. Companies that process information on our behalf, under contracts that limit them to the purposes above:
  • Vercel: Website hosting and delivery. Server logs include IP addresses and request details.
  • Supabase: The database where lead records are stored.
  • Resend: Transactional email, including notifying our team when you submit a request.
  • Google Analytics 4: Website usage statistics such as pages viewed, device type and how visitors move through the site.
  • Google Tag Manager: Loads and manages our analytics and advertising tags.
  • Google Ads: Measures which ads lead to requests and supports remarketing where Google policy and the law permit.
  • PostHog: Product analytics and session replay. Every form input is masked, so replays never contain what you type, and we do not send your name, email or phone number to PostHog.
• Legal and safety. When required by law, court order or a lawful government request, or when necessary to protect the rights, safety or property of Vida, our customers or others.
• Business transitions. If Vida Auto is sold, merged or reorganized, personal information may be transferred to the successor, who must honour this policy.

6. Cookies and tracking

Cookies are small files stored on your device. The Site uses the cookies below. Durations are maximums; you can delete cookies at any time.

Google Tag Manager does not set cookies of its own; it loads the Google tags listed above.

Your choices

• Browser settings. You can block or delete cookies in your browser. The Site will still work, although we may not be able to attribute your request to the ad that brought you here.
• Google Ads. Manage personalized advertising in Google Ads Settings.
• Google Analytics. Install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. You can read how Google uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

7. How long we keep your information

• Requests (leads): up to 24 months after our last contact with you, unless a financing relationship begins. In that case we keep the records for as long as needed to service the relationship and for the period required by law afterward.
• Analytics data: according to the retention settings in our Google Analytics and PostHog accounts.
• Server and security logs: for short periods to keep the Site secure and diagnose problems.

When we no longer need personal information we securely delete it or remove anything that identifies you.

8. How we protect your information

• The Site is served over HTTPS, so information you send us is encrypted in transit.
• Lead records are stored with a provider that encrypts data at rest. Database access keys stay on our servers and are never sent to your browser.
• Access is limited to Vida staff and contractors who need it for their work.
• Our forms include spam and abuse controls.
• We choose service providers with recognized security practices and bind them by contract.

No method of storage or transmission is completely secure. If a breach of our security safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta as PIPA requires.

9. Your rights and choices

• Access: ask what personal information we hold about you, how we have used it and who we have shared it with.
• Correction: ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Withdrawal of consent: withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. We will explain what withdrawing means for the services we can provide, for example that we may no longer be able to help with your financing request.
• Deletion: ask us to delete personal information we no longer need for the purposes it was collected for.

To make a request, contact us using the details in the Contact us section. We may need to verify your identity first. We respond within the time allowed by the applicable law, and we will explain any reasons we cannot fully meet a request.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

10. Storage outside Canada

Some of our service providers, including Vercel, Supabase, Resend, Google and PostHog, may store or process personal information in the United States or other countries, depending on where their data centres are located. While information is outside Canada it is subject to the laws of that country and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. We use contractual and technical protections with these providers to safeguard your information.

You can ask for written information about our policies and practices for service providers outside Canada, and direct questions about their collection, use, disclosure or storage of personal information, to our Privacy Officer using the contact details below.

11. Children

The Site and our services are intended for adults. You must be the age of majority in your province (18 in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 19 in British Columbia) to apply for vehicle financing. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of majority. If you believe a minor has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the new version on this page and update the effective date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention and seek your consent where the law requires it.

13. Contact us

Direct questions, requests or complaints about this policy or your personal information to our Privacy Officer using the details below.

See also our Terms & Conditions.