Privacy Policy
The Advance Crew is a digital studio in Manitoba, Canada. This policy explains what personal information we collect through theadvancecrew.com and The Advance Crew app at work.theadvancecrew.com, including our client portal, how we use it, and the choices you have. We follow Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
What we collect
- Enquiries. Your name, email address, organization and what you tell us when you fill in our start form or email us.
- Clients and their teams. Names, email addresses, phone numbers and roles of the people we work with; the files, feedback, approvals and messages shared through the client portal; signed agreements, invoices and payment status; and when you last signed in.
- People we invite by link. When we ask someone to review work or join a shoot, their name, email address and anything they submit through that link.
- Email. Emails about a project may be saved to that project in our app so the team can follow the conversation.
- Email opens and clicks. Some emails we send through our app include a small image and tracked links that tell us whether the email was probably opened and whether a link was clicked.
- Technical information. Our hosting providers record IP addresses, browser details and the pages requested, to keep our systems secure. The website uses Google Analytics to count visits and see how people find and use the site. It sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_RSYNYB78T5, which last up to 400 days, and sends Google details such as the pages you view, your device and browser, your general location and the site that referred you. You can block these cookies in your browser settings or install Google's opt-out add-on. The website uses no advertising cookies. The app uses cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your display preferences.
Our accounting connects our own business bank and card accounts through Plaid. We do not ask clients or website visitors to connect their bank accounts.
How we use it
- To reply to enquiries and prepare estimates and proposals.
- To deliver projects, run the client portal and send project emails.
- To invoice, take payments and keep our books, including meeting our tax obligations.
- To understand how many people visit the website and which pages they use.
- To keep our systems and your information secure.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
Consent
We collect and use personal information with your consent, which you give by sending us an enquiry, signing an agreement or using the client portal. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us, subject to legal or contractual limits. Withdrawing it may mean we can no longer provide some services.
Who we share it with
We share personal information only with service providers that run our systems on our behalf, under contracts that require them to protect it, or when the law requires us to.
| Provider | What it does for us |
|---|---|
| Supabase | Stores the app's database and files, hosted in Canada |
| Vercel | Hosts the website and the app, running in Canada |
| Google Workspace | Email, documents, file storage, and the distance of our business trips |
| Google Analytics | Measures visits to the website |
| Resend | Delivers the app's emails |
| Stripe | Processes payments on our invoices; card details stay with Stripe |
| Wave | Creates and sends some of our invoices and keeps our accounting records |
| Plaid | Connects our own business bank and card accounts to our books |
| Anthropic | Powers AI features that help us draft and check text, suggests which account our own business transactions belong in, and drafts a note on what each was for from our own calendar and email, which can include the name of a client we met; it does not use this information to train its models |
Some of these providers are based in the United States and may process information there, where it is subject to the laws of that country.
How we protect it
Our database is hosted in Canada. Information is encrypted in transit and at rest, and access is limited to the people who need it for their work. Every staff account is protected by two-step verification.
How long we keep it
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected. Financial and tax records are kept for six years, as the Canada Revenue Agency requires. When we no longer need information, we delete it or make it anonymous.
Your rights
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, withdraw your consent, or ask us to delete it, except where the law requires us to keep it. We will reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Contact us
For privacy questions or requests, email studio@theadvancecrew.com.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we post the new version here with its effective date.