Privacy and cookies policy

BECS, 2355 avenue Lalonde, Montréal (Québec) H2K 1Y9, is responsible for the personal information described here. Our person in charge of the protection of personal information can be reached at info@becs.ca. Write to this address for any question, access request or complaint.

Visitors: technical data sent by your browser (IP address, browser type, pages requested), and anything you type in the contact form (name, email, phone, message).

Members: name, email address, password (stored in hashed form, never readable), phone numbers, address and postal code, gender, year of birth, photo, profile description, the services you offer, your hour balance and exchanges (with ratings and comments), messages sent to other members, membership and renewal dates, and login dates.

• Create and manage your membership and record hour exchanges;
• Let members find each other, according to the confidentiality choices in your profile;
• Send service messages (approvals, renewals, password resets) and, if you agreed, the Jongl'heure newsletter;
• Keep the site secure and prevent fraud and abuse;
• Understand how the site is used and improve it — only if you accept analytics cookies;
• Meet our legal and accounting obligations.

We do not sell your information and do not use it for advertising.

• Visitors only see masked member information (no names, photos or contact details).
• Signed-in members see your name, photo, member number, services and the contact details you have not marked confidential. Phone numbers, email and address each have a confidentiality setting you control in your profile.
• The member map shows approximate positions only: members who keep their address confidential are placed by neighbourhood, and other positions are deliberately offset. Street addresses are never displayed.
• BECS volunteers and administrators access your information only as needed to run the organization.

We rely on a few technical providers. Some may process data outside Québec or Canada; we share only what is necessary and require appropriate protection.

• Web hosting and email delivery — to run the site and send messages.
• Hotjar (analytics and anonymised session recordings) — only if you accept analytics cookies.
• OpenStreetMap — map tiles are loaded from its servers (your IP address is visible to them), and, for members who share their address, the address is sent to its Nominatim service to find its position on the map.
• Content delivery networks (for page styling, scripts and fonts, e.g. jsDelivr, Tailwind CDN, Google Fonts) — they receive your IP address when you load a page.

A cookie is a small file stored by your browser. We use:

Essential cookies cannot be turned off because the site would not work without them. Analytics cookies stay off unless you accept them, and we honour the browser "Global Privacy Control" signal. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of every page, or delete cookies in your browser settings.

We keep member information while the membership is active, then only as long as needed for the purposes above and for accounting and legal reasons (for example, the record of hour exchanges). A deactivated profile is hidden from other members. Contact-form messages are kept only as long as needed to answer you. When information is no longer needed, we delete or anonymise it.

Passwords are stored hashed, the member area is protected by sign-in, forms are protected against forgery, and access by volunteers is limited. If a confidentiality incident presents a risk of serious injury, we will notify the people concerned and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, as the law requires.

You may ask us to: see the personal information we hold about you; correct it; stop using or delete it where the law allows; withdraw a consent you gave (for example the newsletter or analytics cookies); or deactivate your account. Most of this you can do yourself in My profile. For anything else write to info@becs.ca; we will answer within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied, you may file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

BECS is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 14 without the consent of a parent or guardian.

If we change this policy in a significant way, we will say so on the site. The date at the top shows the latest version.