Privacy Policy

Version 2026-11-02. This policy explains what personal information Vancouver Island Fishing Exchange ("we", "us") collects through Vancouver Island Fishing Exchange at https://vife.ca (the "site"), why, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and your rights. We follow Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

1. Who is responsible

We are responsible for the personal information we hold. Our privacy contact answers questions and requests about it: Daryl, info@vife.ca, Vancouver Island Fishing Exchange.

2. What we collect

• Your account: your email address, username, first and last name, what you choose the public sees (your name, initial or username), your region and postal code, and optionally your phone number, address and business details. Your address is kept for your account and your orders, and is never shown to anyone else. Your password is stored only as a secure hash.
• Sign-in with Google or Facebook, if you use it: the provider's identifier for you, and the email address and name it gives us. We don't receive your password there or your contacts.
• Location: the postal code of an item or business, which we turn into a rough area (the first three characters, the area's centre) for "near me" searches and our maps (a listing's map, the map of search results and the business directory's map show that area, never an address); a fishing charter's page shows a rough area around the marina it departs from, or its postal code's area. If you press the "use my location" button, your browser's location is used once to choose your region or the area to search near, and is not stored.
• Your fishing log, if you keep one: your trips (the date, any name you give it, your note on the area, the species you targeted, its start and end times, and any location you set for it), your catches (the time, species, depth and gear, and any weight and length you add) and your trap drops (the time, kind of trap, depth, bait and label, and what you count when you pull one) with the exact GPS position of each catch and each trap drop. A position is taken only when you press a button in your log that asks for it, or when you choose it on the map or type it, and never otherwise; one from your phone is stored with its accuracy. Photos you add to a trip or a pull are private to you too, and we keep the GPS position, time and camera details your photo holds with it. Your log is private to you: it is not shown on any public page, to other members, or in search, and its positions are never sent to another company (its map uses this site's own map tiles). While you use the log, your browser keeps a copy on your device so it works without a signal, until it is sent or you log out. It is part of "Download my data", photos' details included, goes when your account is deleted, photos included (the sealed reference file described in section 8 keeps a copy, as for everything else we hold), and our team does not look at it in the ordinary course of running the site.
• Listings, business pages and photos. A new listing is a draft, seen only by you, until you publish or discard it; while you fill it in, your browser may keep a copy of the form on your device in case the connection drops. We remove the hidden information (EXIF) from photos before they are shown. A photo's GPS position, if it had one, is kept for our moderators only, to help spot stolen goods and fraud; it is never shown to the public.
• Messages between you and other members, and the item they are about.
• Saved items and followed sellers: the listings you save (with each one's title and price as it was last listed, so we can show it as sold or removed), the sellers you follow, how often you want to be emailed about their new listings and about price drops on your saved items, and which new listings, price drops and listings ending soon we told you about. A seller sees only how many members saved a listing, never who. A seller sees only how many members follow them, never who; nobody is told when you follow or unfollow them. A seller who blocks you also ends your follow of them.
• Sales and ratings: when a seller marks a listing sold to a member who messaged them about it, we record the sale (the listing, its title, both members and the date). For 30 days each can rate the other, as a buyer or as a seller: the stars, the review and the reply. A rating is shown on the rated member's profile, with the rater's public name, once both have rated or the 30 days end; the seller's average is shown on their listings. Ratings removed by our moderators are kept but no longer shown or counted.
• Charter bookings: when you ask a fishing charter for a trip, we record the request (the trip, the date and departure, the number of guests, your message in the conversation it opens) and the charter's answer. Once the charter accepts your booking, it can download it with your name, email address and phone number (from your account), for its own records; that copy is then the charter's, under its own care. If the charter has connected its Google Calendar, an accepted booking is also added to that calendar as an event (the trip, its time, the number of guests and your first name, never your email or phone). After the trip, each of you can rate the other, as after a sale.
• Reports, moderation and strikes: the reports you make, the reports about your content, our decisions, warnings and strikes, and any restriction on your account.
• Payments: the plans you buy, your orders and invoices. Paying with PayPal, we receive the payment details PayPal gives (your name, PayPal email, the transaction); we never see your card or bank details. Paying by Interac e-Transfer, we receive the name and details your bank sends with the transfer.
• Push notifications, only if you turn them on: for each device, the push address and keys your browser gives us, when you turned them on and when we last sent one; and your quiet hours (with your time zone) and which kinds of notification you chose. You can turn them off in the member area's Notification Settings or in your browser.
• Records of use: your logins (the date, IP address and browser), the emails we send you (the type, subject and date), your notifications, the date and IP address of your sign-up and last login, the versions of these terms and this policy you accepted (with the date, IP address and browser), and daily counts of the views of your listings and business page.
• Visits: like most sites, the site's visit log records the IP address, browser, referring page and first page of each visit. With your consent, Google Analytics also measures visits (section 7).
• Your use of the listings API, if your plans include it and you make a key: each key's name, when it was made and last used and from which IP address, and a record of what's done with your keys: each call with its time, key, IP address, the browser or program that made it and the answer it got, regular checks of your listings counted by the hour, and everything that happens to a key. For each change made with a key, and later changes to a listing changed with one, we keep the listing as it was before and after, and the photos replaced or deleted. Those later changes are yours in your member area, and also what you didn't do yourself: our team's moderation (with the team member's name and the reason, which only our team sees), your plan changing, the 30-day inactivity rule, our place data being updated and your account being deleted. We never keep a key itself, only a hash of it.
• Being a verified seller, if your plans include it and you ask: the business name and website on your business page, then what we found when we phoned the number shown on that website (the number, the page, who we spoke to and the date), who decided and any reason given. We use it to check your business and to show that we did. Only the badge is shown publicly because of this, and we don't collect identity documents.
• What you send us through a contact form or by email.

3. Why we use it

• To run your account and the marketplace: showing your listings and business page, letting members contact you, searching by region and distance.
• To sell and manage plans: payments, invoices, reminders before a plan ends, and our accounting and tax records.
• To keep the site safe: preventing spam (a bot check at sign-up), fraud and stolen goods, moderating content, and recognising members who were removed and come back.
• To settle disputes, for example a payment dispute with PayPal or a bank, using the records described here.
• To send you the emails and notifications you need (confirming your address, messages, plan reminders, moderation decisions, a sale you can rate) and those you choose (saved searches' alerts, followed sellers' new listings, price drops on your saved items, push notifications).
• To understand how the site is used, only if you allow analytics cookies.
• To meet our legal obligations, and to answer lawful requests from the police or the courts.

We do not sell personal information. We do not use advertising networks or remarketing, and we don't use your information to target ads: the only advertising on the site is local sponsors shown by the site itself.

4. Your consent

When you make an account you consent to the uses in this policy. We ask separately before using analytics cookies, and you can change that choice at any time with "Cookies" at the bottom of every page. You can withdraw your consent by deleting your account; some records are still kept, for the reasons in section 8, as the law allows.

5. What other people see

The public sees your listings and business page, with the public name you chose, your username, and your region. Your phone number is shown only if you choose, and then only to members who are logged in, never to visitors (a fishing charter that has accepted your booking also receives it, as section 2 says). Your email address and your address are never shown to the public or to the members you message (except to a fishing charter that has accepted your booking, as section 2 says): when another member needs your address, you give it to them yourself in a message. A message is seen only by the two members in the conversation and, when it is reported or needed for a dispute, by our team. A conversation you start with the "Message the administrator" button, or one someone with the Administrator badge starts with you, is with our team: every member of the team who holds the badge can read and answer it. They can write to any member, whether or not you've written to them or have anything public on the site, and we email you about it as we do for any message, by your choice under Messages. If we disable or restrict your account you can still write to the team, and the team to you, so that you can ask why or appeal: a disabled account reaches only those conversations, for an hour after each time you sign in. Nothing can block a message between a member and someone with the badge.

6. Who we share it with, and where it is processed

We share personal information only as needed with the service providers that run parts of the site for us, under agreements that protect it, and as the law requires:

• Hosting: the site and all of its data are stored and hosted in Canada.
• SMTP2GO sends the site's emails (your email address, name and the message).
• PayPal processes PayPal payments.
• Google: Google Analytics, only if you allow it (with Google signals and ad personalisation off); Google sign-in, only if you use it; and Google Calendar, only for a charter that connects its own calendar (its accepted bookings go into it, and the site reads only when its busy events start and end, to block those times here; the site keeps its access encrypted, and Disconnect revokes it and removes what was read).
• Meta (Facebook): Facebook sign-in, only if you use it.
• Cloudflare: the bot check (Turnstile) on the sign-up and password forms.
• Your browser's push service (Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft, depending on your browser), only if you turn push notifications on: it carries each notification to your device. What it carries is encrypted so that only your browser can read it: a short title and which page it opens, no message text. The service sees your device's push address and when a notification is sent.
• The police, courts and other authorities, when the law requires it or allows it (for example a warrant, or to report fraud or stolen goods), and the payment provider or bank in a payment dispute you are part of.

Some of the other providers listed here process what they receive from us outside Canada, including in the United States. While it is there it is subject to that country's laws, and its authorities may be able to obtain it.

7. Cookies

The site uses only the cookies it needs to work and, if you allow them, Google Analytics' cookies. No advertising cookies.

8. How long we keep it

• Your account and profile: until you or we delete the account.
• Listings (and their drafts), business pages and photos: until you remove them; when the account is deleted, at once.
• Messages: kept indefinitely, also after either account is deleted, to prevent fraud and to settle disputes. The other member keeps the conversation, shown as from "Deleted member". A message our team removed stays in our records, hidden.
• A deleted account's record: we keep the account's number, username, email address and the dates and IP addresses of its sign-up and last login, so that the messages, reports and strikes stay tied together and a member who was removed is recognised if they sign up again. Only our team sees it; the public sees "Deleted member".
• Reports, strikes and moderation decisions, sales and ratings (part of the record if a sale is disputed; a deleted member's ratings show as "Deleted member"), verified seller checks and the versions of the terms you accepted: kept, also after the account is deleted.
• The sealed reference file: before an account is deleted, we write one encrypted file of everything we hold about the person at that moment. It is kept, and is opened only by our most senior administrator to answer a request from the police or a legal request (for example a court order); each opening is recorded with its reason.
• The listings API's record: while your account exists, and for 7 years after it is deleted, to settle disputes and to prevent fraud and scams: it shows what was done with your keys and from where, and what your listings said and showed at the time, so a listing you delete and its photos stay in this record, off the site, where only our team can see them. You can see its last 90 days under Settings, API keys, and you get a copy when you download your data, without our team's own notes on it (why a key was revoked, and the alerts below). Our team can search it and revoke a key, and it emails us about a burst of deletes or many price changes on reported listings; that only asks us to look, and nothing is decided automatically. A key itself goes as soon as the account is deleted, and the IP addresses of calls with a key nobody holds go after a year.
• Orders and invoices: as long as tax and accounting law requires (six years in Canada), also after the account is deleted.
• Login records: 90 days (the browser is part of them). Notifications: 90 days after you read them. Visit log and contact form messages: about two years. Statistics: the daily counts of your listings and business page are kept 30 days; after that only each one's all-time totals are kept, until the account is deleted. The log of the emails we sent you, your saved items, followed sellers, saved searches and fishing log (you can also delete a trip or catch at any time): until the account is deleted (deleting a seller's account also ends their followers' follows). Push notifications: a device's push address and keys until you turn them off, the push service says they are no longer valid, or the account is deleted; your quiet hours and choices until the account is deleted; a notification waiting to be sent at most 7 days.
• Dispute evidence: when a payment is disputed, we put together the records above about that member and order and send them to the payment provider or bank handling the dispute.

9. Your rights

• Access: download a copy of your data at any time from your account's privacy settings ("Download my data"), or ask us.
• Correction: change your details in your account's settings, or ask us to correct something.
• Deletion: delete your account from your account's privacy settings; we confirm by email first. What is kept afterwards is listed in section 8.
• Withdrawing consent to analytics at any time, with "Cookies" at the bottom of every page.

We answer requests within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (oipc.bc.ca).

10. How we protect it

The site uses encrypted connections (HTTPS); passwords are stored as hashes; secrets and reference files are encrypted; only the members of our team who need it can see personal information, and their actions are recorded. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm, we will tell you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.

11. Children

The site is not meant for children. You must be 19 or older (or the age of majority where you live) to make an account.

12. Changes to this policy

Each version of this policy has a date (above). When we change it, we show the new version here and ask members to accept it the next time they log in. See also our terms of use.