Privacy policy

BookProwl is run by Bookfox Inc., a company based in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. This policy explains what personal information we collect when you use BookProwl, why we collect it, who helps us handle it, and the choices you have. We collect, use, and share personal information with your consent or as the law otherwise permits or requires. Questions? Email us at [email protected].

What we collect

You can browse and search BookProwl without an account. We collect personal information when you create an account and use the features that need one:

• Account details. Your email address, and a display name if you set one. You can sign in with an email link, a password, or your Google account. If you sign in with Google, we receive your email and basic profile from Google to set up your account.
• Favorites. The sales you save so you can find them again.
• Sales you're interested in. When you mark a sale as interested or attending, we store that so we can show it back to you.
• Sale alerts and location preferences. If you turn on alerts, we store your alert settings, including a search radius and the location you want alerts around, so we can email you when a new sale is listed nearby or a saved sale is coming up.
• Reviews. A rating and any review text, title, and visit date you write about a sale. These are shown publicly with your display name.
• Photos. Photos you upload of a sale, plus any caption. These are shown publicly once they've been checked.
• Sale submissions. When you submit a sale, the sale details plus the contact name and email you provide, so we can follow up about the listing.
• Organization claims. When you claim an organization's page, your role there and the explanation you give of how we can verify your affiliation, so we can review the request.
• Photo reports. If you're signed in and report a photo, we keep the reason you give so we can review it.
• Email you send us. If you email [email protected] or reply to one of our emails, we keep that correspondence.
• Basic technical data. Standard information our hosting provider records to run the site and keep it secure, such as IP addresses in server logs, and an anti-bot check (below) when you sign in or submit a form.

We don't collect payment details (there's nothing to buy), we don't run advertising or tracking networks, and we don't buy data about you from anyone.

Why we use it

• Account details: to create and run your account, sign you in, and send you service messages like sign-in links.
• Favorites and alert preferences: to show you your saved sales and email you the alerts you turned on. Alert emails only go out because you asked for them, and every one includes an unsubscribe link. You can also change your email preferences on your account page any time.
• Reviews and photos: to display them on the sale pages you posted them to, and to moderate them.
• Sale submissions and organization claims: to review them, follow up with you, and keep the directory accurate.
• Technical data: to keep BookProwl secure and prevent spam and abuse.
• Correspondence: to answer your questions.

We don't sell your personal information, we don't share your email for anyone else's marketing, and we don't use your information for anything unrelated to running BookProwl.

Automated help and moderation

We use outside AI services to help run BookProwl. When you submit a sale by pasting a link, we send that page's content to an AI service to draft the sale details for you to check and edit. When a photo is uploaded or reported, we send the photo and any report reason to an AI service to screen it for relevance and safety. These AI providers are located in the United States, and under our agreements with them they are contractually committed not to use your information to train their models by default. These tools do a first pass only. Anything they flag is held for a person to review, and no automated check removes your content or decides a report on its own. If you think a moderation decision was wrong, email us at [email protected] and we'll take another look.

Who processes your information

We keep the number of companies that touch your data small. The ones that help us run BookProwl are:

• Cloud database, authentication, and file storage: holds our database, sign-in system, and the photos you upload.
• Website hosting: runs the site itself.
• Bot protection: verifies you're a person when you sign in or submit a form, so automated bots can't flood the site.
• Email delivery: sends the emails you've asked for, like sale alerts and account messages.
• AI processing services: providers located in the United States that help us draft sale details from submitted pages and screen photos and report text.
• Third-party sign-in: if you choose to sign in with Google, Google handles that sign-in and its own privacy policy applies to it.

These providers handle your information only to provide their service to us, under their own contractual and security commitments. If this list changes, we'll update this policy.

Beyond that, we share personal information only if the law requires it (for example, a valid legal demand), to protect the rights and safety of our users, the public, or Bookfox Inc., or if Bookfox Inc. is ever part of a business sale or merger, in which case this policy would continue to apply to your information.

Where your information is handled

Bookfox Inc. is in Canada. The providers above may store and process your information on servers outside Canada, including in the United States. While your information is in another country, it is subject to the laws of that country, and courts, law enforcement, and regulators there may be able to access it under those laws. Wherever your information goes, this policy still applies to how we handle it. If you have questions about how our providers handle information outside Canada, email us at [email protected].

Cookies

We use essential cookies and browser storage, not advertising. A cookie keeps you signed in. An anonymous session cookie, plus our bot-protection check, help keep the site secure. Your browser also remembers your recent searches on your device, and the sale-submission form notes how long it's been open as an anti-abuse signal. We don't use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking cookies.

How long we keep it

We keep each type of information only as long as we reasonably need it. Your account, favorites, and alert settings stay until you remove them or close your account. Reviews and photos you post stay published until you or we remove them.

We keep sale submissions, organization claims, photo reports, and the moderation records tied to them for as long as we need them to run an accurate directory, follow up with you, handle complaints, and prevent abuse.

When you close your account, we delete or anonymize the personal information in it. Reviews, photos, and sale information you contributed may stay published without your name attached, so the directory stays useful; you can ask us to remove them when you close your account or at any time afterward. Deleted information may linger in our backups until they're overwritten in the normal course, and our operational logs are kept for a limited time. We may also keep a limited amount of information where the law requires it or where we need it to resolve a dispute, and we stop using it for anything else.

Your rights

You can ask us to show you the personal information we hold about you, correct it, or delete it, and you can withdraw your consent to our handling of it (which may mean closing your account, since we need some information to run it). Email [email protected] and we'll respond as soon as we can, and in any case within the time the law allows. You can edit your display name and email preferences yourself on your account page.

These rights come from Canada's federal privacy law (PIPEDA) and British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which govern how we handle personal information. If you're not happy with how we've handled a request, we'd like the chance to put it right, so please contact us first. You also have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.

Closing your account

Account closure is handled by us, not through a self-serve button. Email [email protected] to ask us to close your account. We close it manually and confirm by email. If you've borrowed any equipment from us, we'll arrange its return before we finish closing the account. When we close it, we delete or anonymize your personal details; reviews and photos you posted may stay published without your name, as described under "How long we keep it."

Children

BookProwl isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us their information, email us at [email protected] and we'll remove it.

Security

We use reasonable safeguards appropriate to the kind of information we hold. Connections to BookProwl are encrypted, your data is stored with established providers that maintain their own security programs, and access to it is limited to the people who need it to run the service. No online service can be perfectly secure, but if we ever learn of a breach that creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we'll notify you and the privacy regulator as the law requires.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as BookProwl changes. When we do, we'll post the updated policy here and change the date at the top. If a change meaningfully affects how we handle your personal information, we'll give you notice before it takes effect, by email if you have an account or by a notice on the site.

Contact

For any privacy question or request, including access, correction, or deletion, contact our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer, Bookfox Inc.
Office 8, 12160 103A Avenue, Surrey, BC V3V 3G7, Canada
[email protected]

The Privacy Officer is responsible for Bookfox Inc.'s compliance with applicable privacy law and for handling privacy questions, access and correction requests, and complaints. You can also read our terms of service.