Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

BG8 is a marketplace where customers find and book independent vendors (service providers, restaurants, and real estate professionals) with the help of AI assistants. This policy covers personal information we collect as the operator of the Platform. It does not cover what a vendor does with your information once you have booked with them (see section 7), or third-party websites we link to.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account and profile: name, email address, phone number, password (held by our sign-in provider, never by us in readable form), profile photo, and the location you choose for your profile (country, province, city, area, neighbourhood).
• Sign-in with Google or Apple: the name, email, and account identifier those services share with us.
• Searches and conversations: what you type or say to the search assistant and to vendor agents, including voice recordings and their transcripts, images you attach, and your conversation history.
• Bookings and reservations: the service requested, service address or area, dates and times, party size, quotes, prices, notes, messages exchanged with the vendor, and booking status.
• Ratings, reviews, and reports: the ratings and reviews you leave, any “something’s wrong” report, and what you tell us about a completed job, including what you paid.
• Payment details: when a deposit or hold applies, your card is entered directly with Stripe, our payment processor. We receive a token, the card brand, the last four digits, and the status of the hold or charge, never the full card number.
• Vendor business information: company name, description, licences and insurance details, business address and coverage area, services, prices, deals, photos, blog posts, team members, AI-agent knowledge and instructions, billing details, invoices, and fee records.
• Support and feedback: what you send to BeeGee support, help feedback, and messages to info@bg8.ai.

Information collected automatically

• Device and usage data: IP address, browser and device type, operating system, language, pages and features used, timestamps, error logs, and notification delivery events.
• Approximate location: the country, region, and city our hosting provider infers from your IP address, used to pre-fill location fields for you to confirm. We do not collect precise GPS location unless you enter an address.
• Push and notification tokens for the devices where you enable notifications.
• Browser storage as described in section 13.

Information from other sources

• From vendors: details of a booking you made, their responses, and their rating of you as a customer.
• From customers: their ratings, reviews, and reports about a vendor.
• From public and licensed sources: business contact details used to invite businesses to BG8 (section 8), and real estate listing and market data supplied by licensed data providers.

3. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• create and manage your account, verify your identity, and sign you in;
• understand your request, find and recommend vendors, create and manage bookings and reservations, and relay messages between you and vendors;
• operate the AI assistants (section 4), including transcribing voice input and generating spoken responses;
• estimate the value and size of jobs to determine vendor platform fees, and issue, collect, and account for invoices, deposits, and holds;
• send booking, reservation, account, security, and service notifications, and marketing messages where you have consented;
• publish ratings and reviews and calculate rating summaries;
• provide support, investigate reports and disputes, and enforce our Terms;
• detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, security incidents, and other harmful activity;
• keep the Platform running well: measure, maintain, and troubleshoot it;
• learn from how people use BG8 so we can make it better for everyone: clearer answers from the assistants, better matches, fairer fees, and new features. This includes developing and improving the products, services, and technologies of BG8 and VLS AI Corporation, including the AI systems that power the Platform. We do this carefully, using de-identified or aggregated data wherever practical;
• comply with legal obligations, such as tax and accounting rules, and respond to lawful requests; and
• for any other purpose we describe when we collect the information, or with your consent.

4. AI processing

• Your searches, conversations, voice recordings, images, and booking details are processed by artificial-intelligence services to understand requests, generate responses, act for vendors, and estimate job value. We use business and API services from providers including OpenAI (voice transcription and speech), Google (Gemini and Vertex AI), and Anthropic. Under the terms of those services, the providers do not use your content to train their general models.
• AI output may be reviewed by BG8 staff to check quality and safety, resolve disputes, and confirm fee determinations.
• Every conversation teaches BG8 a little more about what Vancouver needs. We may use information collected through the Platform to develop and improve our own AI systems and other products, as services like ours generally do. We treat that responsibility seriously: where practical we de-identify or aggregate the information first, we limit who inside BG8 can see it, and we never publish your conversations.
• Decisions with a significant effect on you, such as suspending a vendor account or resolving a fee contest, involve a human at BG8. Automated systems inform those decisions but do not make them alone.
• Please do not share sensitive personal information (such as health, financial-account, or government-ID details) in a conversation unless the booking requires it.

5. How we share information

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We share it only as follows:

• With the vendor you book, and only then: while you search or chat with a vendor’s assistant, the vendor does not learn who you are. When you book, that one vendor receives what the booking needs: your name, contact details, service address or area, the booking details, and your messages, plus your rating of them afterwards. We do not pass your details to several businesses so they can compete for your quote. Vendors also see the rating other vendors have given you as a customer.
• With customers: a vendor’s business information, listings, responses, and reviews, and a vendor’s reply in a booking conversation.
• With service providers that process information for us under contract and only on our instructions: Google (Firebase authentication, Google Cloud hosting and storage, AI services), OVH (database hosting), Stripe (payments), Twilio SendGrid (email), Cloudinary (image hosting), OpenAI and Anthropic (AI services), real estate data providers, and infrastructure, monitoring, and support tools.
• With Google or Apple when you choose to sign in with them.
• For legal reasons: to comply with law, a court order, or a lawful request; to enforce our Terms; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of BG8, our users, or the public.
• In a business transaction: with a buyer or successor in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, subject to this policy.
• With your consent or at your direction.

6. Information that is public on the Platform

• Vendor profiles, including business name, description, photos, services, prices, deals, coverage area, blog posts, rating summaries, and reviews, are public and may appear in search engines.
• Reviews you leave for a vendor are public and shown with your display name. Ratings vendors leave for customers are visible to other vendors, not to the public.
• Anything you post in a vendor’s group chat is visible to every member of that group.

7. Vendors as independent organizations

When you book a vendor, the vendor receives your personal information to deliver the service. The vendor is an independent organization responsible for its own handling of that information under privacy law. Our Terms require vendors to use booking information only for the booking, to protect it, and not to add you to marketing lists without your separate consent. Contact the vendor directly, or write to us at info@bg8.ai, if you believe a vendor is misusing your information.

8. Messages to businesses

We invite businesses to join BG8 by email, using business contact details published by the business or obtained from licensed sources, in accordance with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. Every such message identifies BG8 and includes an unsubscribe link, and we keep a suppression list so that a business that opts out is not contacted again. We do not use tracking pixels in these messages; we record only whether the email was accepted, bounced, or suppressed.

9. Where your information is stored

We store and process personal information on servers in Canada and the United States, and some of our service providers (including AI, payment, and email providers) process information in the United States or other countries. Information held outside Canada is subject to the laws of those countries and may be accessible to their governments and courts under those laws. Where we transfer information, we use contracts and safeguards to protect it as this policy describes.

10. How long we keep information

• Account, profile, and vendor business information: for as long as your account is active, and afterwards as described below.
• Bookings, reservations, invoices, fee records, payment records, and related conversations: for up to seven years after the transaction, to meet tax, accounting, and legal obligations and to handle disputes.
• Search and conversation history: while your account is active, so you can return to it; we may keep de-identified copies to improve the Platform.
• Voice recordings: only as long as needed to produce the transcript and to troubleshoot the transcription service.
• Ratings and reviews: while the vendor’s profile exists, in de-identified form after you close your account.
• Logs and security records: typically no more than 12 months, unless needed for an investigation.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or de-identify it so that it no longer identifies you.

11. Your choices and rights

• Access and correction: you can view and edit most of your information on your profile page or in the vendor dashboard. You may also ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and to correct it, by writing to info@bg8.ai. We respond within the time privacy law allows, normally 30 days, and may ask you to verify your identity first.
• Deleting your account: you can delete your account from your profile page or by writing to us. We deactivate the account immediately and then delete or de-identify your personal information, except what we must keep under section 10. Vendors with unpaid fees or open bookings must settle them first.
• Notifications: you can turn off non-essential push and email notifications in your settings. We may still send essential messages about your account and confirmed bookings.
• Marketing: every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you may opt out at any time without affecting your account.
• Withdrawing consent: you may withdraw consent to our collection, use, or disclosure of your information, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. Withdrawing consent may mean we cannot provide some or all of the Platform to you.
• Complaints: see section 16.

12. Security

We protect personal information with safeguards appropriate to its sensitivity, including encryption in transit, authenticated access with short-lived tokens, role-based access controls, separation of production data, and contractual obligations on our service providers. No system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee the security of your information. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the appropriate authorities as the law requires. Keep your password private and tell us at once if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

13. Cookies and browser storage

• We use your browser’s storage for things the Platform needs to work: keeping you signed in, remembering your current search conversation and a booking you were in the middle of, the page to return to after sign-in, your theme and layout preferences, and notification state. These entries are set by BG8 alone.
• We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking, and we do not currently run third-party analytics. If we add analytics, we will update this policy and, where required, ask for your consent.
• Our sign-in and payment providers set their own cookies or storage on their domains to keep you signed in and to prevent fraud.
• Clearing your browser storage signs you out and resets your preferences.

14. Children

The Platform is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version, with its effective date, is always posted on the Privacy Policy page of the Platform. If we make a material change, we will notify you on the Platform or by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Platform after that is acceptance of the updated policy.

16. Contact and complaints

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for this policy and for answering your questions and requests: info@bg8.ai
Privacy Officer, VLS AI Corporation (BG8), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or, for matters under BC law, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (oipc.bc.ca).