A-B Solutions: Website Privacy Policy

This document outlines how A-B Solutions (Asif Bacchus) collects, handles, uses, stores and discloses information collected about and relating to visitors to our websites with the root domain “a-b.solutions”.

Questions, concerns or any other inquiries about this document, our privacy policies and practices in general or specific privacy-related requests may be directed to [email protected]. We aim to respond to any such inquiries within seventy-two (72) hours.

This document is located at "https://a-b.solutions/privacy/policies/website-privacy-policy.html" and was last updated on Friday, March 31, 2023.

Definitions

The following conventions are used throughout this document:

"we", "us", and "our" refer to A-B Solutions (Asif Bacchus) located at 175 1500 14th Ave S.W., Calgary AB, T3C 3N7.
"website" and "site" refer to the site accessible at https://a-b.solutions and all its subdomains.
"page", "pages", "webpage", and "webpages" refer to individual pages that are part of our website(s).
"you", "your", "visitor", "visitors", "user", "users", "customer", and "customers" refer to the individuals or other legal entities that are accessing and/or using our website.
“usage data” appearing in single-quotes (as ‘usage data’) shall be construed as described in the “Information we collect: Usage data” section of this document.
“personal data” appearing in single-quotes (as ‘personal data’) shall be construed as described in the “Information we collect: Personal data” section of this document.

Overview

To continue hosting, monitoring, developing, updating and refining our website along with the products/services offered through it, we must collect some information about our visitors and how they interact with our site. Such information is collected solely for our internal use and we DO NOT EVER sell, rent or share any such information, whether for profit or not, with any third-parties unless legally required. All information collected about visitors is used only as outlined in this document and never for any other purposes.

All information we collect is anonymized wherever and whenever possible to prevent it from being identified as belonging to any individual and is stored only so long as is necessary for business and legal obligations. Information falling out of these scopes is permanently removed from our databases.

We respect our visitors’ right to privacy and strive to exceed commonly held standards in this area. To this end, our visitors always have full access to all data about them that we have collected and may request to have such data purged from our databases. To make such a request, please review the relevant sections of this document and send your request(s) to [email protected].

Information we collect

The types of information we collect fall broadly into two categories: 'usage data' and 'personal data'.

Usage data

Usage data helps us in running a functional, useful and secure website. It assists in understanding how many users are accessing our websites, from where and how much bandwidth is being allocated. It also allows us to understand which specific pages are being viewed so we can gauge interest in our products/services. Finally, usage data can help us determine unusual and potentially dangerous patterns of site activity so we can protect our websites from bad actors.

Usage data is automatically collected unless you opt-out of providing it. This data is collected in an ‘opt-out’ fashion because it is always fully anonymized and never directly contains personally identifiable data. In addition, this information is nearly always aggregated and never used or accessed as an individual data point for 'analytical purposes' as defined later in this document.

Types of usage data

We may collect the following information about our visitors as ‘usage data’:

Visitor’s IP address (anonymized by dropping the last, or ‘host’, octet - only the ‘network’ portion is retained)
Our own generated Visitor ID*
User ID, if applicable (i.e. your login username)*
E-commerce tags and order identification numbers, if applicable*
Date and time of resource requests along with the current time in the user’s timezone**
Title and URL of the resource being viewed
URL of the resource that led to the current resource being viewed (‘Referrer URL’)**
Links and anchors clicked by the user (internal and external)**
Internal site-search keywords used**
Form and/or other such input-field completions**
Files downloaded by the user**
Page generation time and download time**
User-agent of the browser being used so that we may infer or directly detect:
- The name/brand/type of the user’s browser
- The user’s operating system
- The device (desktop, tablet, phone, etc.) being used by the user and its make/model/brand
- The user’s screen resolution
Preferred language setting of the user’s browser
Approximate location of the user using IP address geolocation which may lead to determining any or all of the user’s:
- Country
- Locality (province/state/county/city, etc.)
- Approximate latitude and longitude

Items marked with an asterisk (*) can and will only be collected if a user has explicitly agreed to accept 'cookies'. Please refer to the 'cookies' section of this document for more information. Items marked with two asterisks (**) require the user to have JavaScript enabled. If this is not the case, we will obtain partial data or none at all in these categories.

Personal data

Personal data is that which is definitely personally identifiable and cannot be anonymized while still being of any practical use. The best example of such data is a user providing their email address when requesting more information. In such a case, anonymizing this data would render it unusable. Personal data is NEVER collected without the user being fully aware, informed and explicitly agreeing. In addition, the purpose for such data being collected is always disclosed adjacent to the request itself on the page(s) in question. Personal data is never used for reasons other than explicitly stated when collected and is destroyed/discarded as soon as is practically possible.

Types of personal data

The following personal data may be collected from our visitors:

Given name
Surname/Family name
Email address

How we collect data

We employ several methods of collecting the analytics data we use in running our websites. Most important, however, we are proud of using only open-source and privacy-friendly solutions which are hosted on servers we control. As such, all information we collect is done so solely by us and retained fully in-house — meaning we control the entire process and, thus, can guarantee our users' information will never be sold or shared with any other parties.

We are proud to use Matomo (https://matomo.org) as our self-hosted analytics software. We believe that Matomo shares our commitment to user privacy and the rights of users around the data they choose to disclose. We also use search-monitoring tools from Google (https://search.google.com/search-console) and Microsoft (https://www.bing.com/webmasters) to assess search-engine listing performance and keyword flow-through but do not use their analytics tools as we do not feel their privacy positions are in-line with our own.

To collect data, we use one or more of the techniques outlined in the following sections.

Tracking pixels

Tracking pixels, also known as 'image beacons', are small (usually 1x1 pixel) 'empty' pictures that are loaded from our analytics server when you request pages from our websites. These pixels allow our analytics server to determine if a particular page is being viewed. Tracking pixels offer only a subset of the ‘usage data’ tracking other methods allow and, as such, are only employed when users have disabled JavaScript. Please refer to the “Types of usage data” section earlier in this document for more information. We do not offer a method of opting-out of this type of tracking since all information is fully anonymized.

JavaScript tracking scripts

This is our primary means of gathering ‘usage data’. These scripts are downloaded to the user’s device from our analytics server at the same time as our webpage is downloaded. These scripts are then executed once the webpage is loaded and they report back the set of analytics data as outlined in the “Types of usage data” section of this document. Users may opt-out of this type of tracking as outlined in the “Opt-out of analytics” section later in this document.

Cookies

Cookies are small data files transferred to your device from our servers and stored in your web browser. Cookies allow us to better determine some of our analytics measures including, for example, determining repeat visitors. More information about which analytics measures require cookies can be found in the “Types of usage data” section of this document. Cookies used for analytics always require user consent and are never placed on a user’s system without such consent. Non-analytics cookies may be transmitted and used without such consent, however. More information about how we use cookies may be found in our “Cookies Policy” (https://a-b.solutions/privacy/policies/website-cookies-policy.html). Users may opt-out of this type of tracking as outlined in the “Opt-out of analytics” section later in this document.

User-input

This is an explicit and informed decision made by a user to share information with us. The best example of this is filling out a contact form. In such a case, the user is fully aware they are providing personally identifiable information to us in the form of their email address. User consent is always sought when asking for ‘personal data’ and such data is only used after obtaining explicit permission from the user. Users may request these data be purged from our databases as outlined in the “Rights to your data” section later in this document.

How we use your data

Information we collect about our visitors is only ever used internally by us and only for the purposes outlined in this section. Just as we collect two types of data, 'usage data' and 'personal data', so also use our data in two general ways: 'analytical purposes' and 'business purposes'.

Analytical purposes

‘Usage data’ is aggregated and assembled into various metrics that allow us to:

Determine which specific webpages are being visited and what content is being viewed and/or downloaded so that we may better understand which products and services our visitors are interested in;
Analyze aggregate visitor browsing patterns on our site so we can make informed decisions about how to improve information availability and site navigation;
Assist in making decisions regarding resource allocation in terms of creating new products based on visitor interest and prioritizing updates, upgrades and improvements to existing products based on visitor engagement;
Determine how visitors are finding our site and how long they are spending browsing various parts of our site;
Measure and enhance our search engine rankings, social media engagement and reciprocal link relationships;
Determine the general geographic areas from which users are visiting so we can optimize content delivery speed, measure the response to any geo-targeted marketing campaigns and mitigate any geographically-sourced cyber-attacks;
Rank and tally what types of devices and browser technologies visitors are using so we can enhance our website coding and design; and
Better understand aggregate visitor traffic to assist in capacity planning such as upgrading servers, service plans, bandwidth, et cetera.

The ‘usage data’ from which analytical information is derived is retained for a period of three-hundred ninety (390) days after which it is permanently deleted from our servers and databases. Analytical data (metrics) may be retained in their aggregated and anonymized form for up to twenty-four (24) months after which point they will be deleted from our servers and databases. Information may remain in a compressed and not immediately usable form in our backup archives for the greater of one (1) year beyond the aforementioned periods or the minimum period as required by any relevant Canadian laws.

Business purposes

Insofar as our websites are concerned, business purposes are entirely synonymous with visitor engagement. In other words, we use 'personal data' provided to us solely for:

Replying to information requests using our contact form(s);
Responding to comments on blog posts and item reviews on our website;
Answering questions and participating in conversations via our online chat widget;
Responding to any direct requests from you to us whereby you explicitly requested such contact by any means under your control or means provided by us for such explicit purposes;
Contacting you via mailing lists or one-off special notices for which you have provided explicit consent to receive;
Managing any accounts or subscriptions related to our services that you have signed up for and/or purchased; and
Fulfilling the terms of any contracts we have with you.

We reserve the right to retain any or all ‘personal data' provided to us so that we can follow up on requests for information, sales quotations, product information and/or product support. These data are retained for the time necessary to fulfill our obligations to you or as required by relevant Canadian laws. If our business relationship with you ends, your collected ‘personal data’ will be removed within one (1) month of the end of that relationship unless we are required to retain said data for a longer period under Canadian laws.

We do not use provided ‘personal data’ for ‘cold-calling’ or unsolicited marketing efforts. We do NOT share, rent, sell or otherwise provide obtained ‘personal data’ to third-parties unless so compelled by law.

Third-party data collection

Our websites make use of several third-party services to ensure safety, availability and maintain standards of performance. These third-party services may have occasion to collect information about you that may or may not be shared with us. We believe that these companies respect the privacy of their visitors and take appropriate steps to safeguard your privacy at least to the same level that we do. That being said, we do not control these third-parties and, as such, will outline how they are used by us in this section and provide information on how you can review their privacy policies.

We self-host all of our analytics and never share your data with third-party services we rely upon.

Strasmore Inc.

Our services are hosted on virtual servers provided by SSD Nodes (https://www.ssdnodes.com) which is owned and operated by Strasmore Inc. (https://www.strasmore.com). However, we retain ROOT access to all our servers and are solely responsible for their configuration. To protect data stored on these servers from even our provider (SSD Nodes), all user data is encrypted and/or stored using passwords and a combination of software and hardware-based multi-factor access protection. Such access protections, passwords and authentication devices are not shared with our provider. To our knowledge, SSD Nodes does not collect any information on our visitors other than having access to their own network/router logs which would necessarily show your IP address. While likely not applicable to you as a visitor to our sites, you may review SSD Nodes’ privacy policy at ‘https://www.ssdnodes.com/SSD_Nodes_Privacy_Policy.pdf’.

Rsync.net

We use rsync.net (https://www.rsync.net) as our offsite backup solution. They do not have any contact with your information except as is stored in our backups in their storage system. Our backups are encrypted and compressed before being sent to rsync.net. Thus, they never have access to plainly visible information. We retain sole control over the encryption keys and key-passphrases and never share them with rsync.net. While we cannot foresee the applicability to our visitors, you may review rsync.net’s privacy policy at ‘https://www.rsync.net/resources/regulatory/privacy.html’.

Cloudflare

We use Cloudflare’s content delivery network (https://cloudflare.com) and their security, content caching/acceleration and content distribution technologies to help deliver our websites’ content quickly and reliably to you and to ease the burden on our servers. As part of these services, we receive access to anonymized and aggregated visitor information such as total visitor counts, blocked attacks, number of secured vs unsecured requests, etc. This information is used by us in helping to plan infrastructure, better protect our servers and cross-check total visitor counts against our internally gathered statistics. We receive absolutely no personally identifiable information from Cloudflare nor do we share any data with Cloudflare.

In providing services to us, Cloudflare may collect information related to you and may place cookies on your device. This is not within the scope of our control and we refer you to their privacy policy (https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy) and cookie policy (https://www.cloudflare.com/cookie-policy) for more information.

Sonetel AB

If you choose to use the chat feature on our websites or if you call us using the phone number listed on our websites, you are using services provided to us by Sonetel AB (https://sonetel.com). In providing these services, they may collect, or at least be necessarily exposed to, some information about you. In the case of a phone call, they would necessarily need to know the phone number from which you are calling. In the case of chat, they would necessarily need to know your IP address and some other User-Agent related data about your device. In addition, in the case of chat, the contents of that chat and any information you provide within that chat are first processed through their server(s) before being relayed to us. This is not within the scope of our control and we refer you to their privacy policy (https://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/terms-conditions/privacy-policy), cookies policy (https://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/terms-conditions/cookie-policy) and data processing agreement (https://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/terms-conditions/data-processing-agreement) for more information.

Information we share with others

As stated several times throughout this document, except as required under Canadian law and/or subpoena, we DO NOT share, rent, sell or otherwise provide any information about our users with any third-parties.

External websites and services

Our sites may link to external websites that are not owned and/or operated by us. Clicking on such a link will take you to that third-party’s website/service. We do not control, influence or otherwise have any impact on any third-party’s website or privacy policies. We strongly suggest you review their privacy policy. We assume no responsibility for the content, policies or practices of third-party websites and/or services nor are we in any way suggesting that our privacy policy would or even could extend thereto.

Children's privacy

None of our products or services nor our sites’ content is addressed to or targeted at any visitor under the age of majority in their particular locality. As such, we do not knowingly collect any ‘personal data’ from anyone not considered a legal adult in the jurisdiction within which such a visitor resides. If you are the parent or legal guardian of such an individual and are aware that your child has provided us with ‘personal data’, please contact us so that we may remove such data from our databases immediately.

If we become aware we are in possession of 'personal data' from any visitor that not considered a legal adult within the locality in which they reside, we will immediately take steps to remove such data within seventy-two (72) hours of becoming so aware regardless of parental/guardian requests for the same.

Opt-out of analytics

You may opt-out of providing us with ‘usage data’ as described in the “Information we collect” section of this document. You may do this at any time regardless of any previous consent you may have provided. To do this, please visit the Privacy Centre of our website (https://a-b.solutions/privacy), click on the “Your Settings” link and follow the instructions on that page. Changes to your preferences take effect immediately.

If you prefer to manually prevent analytics collection, regardless of the settings described in the preceding paragraph, you may configure your web browser to block ‘cookies’ from our websites. You should specify the following addresses be prevented from placing cookies on your system:

https://a-b.solutions
https://*.a-b.solutions
https://webstats.a-b.solutions
- This address is implicitly included in the above exclusion. You may add it anyways to be overly cautious or if your browser does not permit ‘wildcards’ (the asterisk in the previous address).

Please note, if you manually block cookies, you may see an increased number of message overlays relating to requesting permission to use cookies, etc. This is because cookies are used to store your preferences (including cookie preferences) and, if those cookies are blocked, our server has no way to ‘remember’ your preferences. For the same reason, you may not be able to effectively use any sign-in sections of our sites if cookies are manually blocked. As such, we recommend using the tools in our Privacy Centre instead of manually blocking cookies.

Importantly, please be aware that opting-out of analytics does NOT affect the data already gathered by and/or provided to us. To request those data be deleted, or to review the data, please refer to the “Rights to your data” section of this document.

Rights to your data

It is our belief, regardless of prevailing or jurisdictional laws, that you have a right to access your private data and exercise control over it. We believe in the right to privacy for all our visitors. You have the right to be informed of all personal data processed by us and the right to rectify/correct, restrict and erase any such data as far as permitted under Canadian law. In addition, you have the right to request from us, at any time, a plain-text and/or machine-readable copy of all personal data you have provided to us.

To process requests related to ‘usage data’, we require any/all Visitor IDs assigned to your devices as this is the only way we can identify you. You may obtain these Visitor IDs by visiting the Privacy Centre of our website (https://a-b.solutions/privacy), clicking on the "Your data" link and following the instructions on that page. You must do this from each device you have used to access our websites so that you collect all Visitor IDs associated with you. Regarding ‘personal data’, we require your email address as that is the unique index we use to identify such data.

For all requests, we require you to contact us directly so that we can form a chain of evidence that it is you contacting us and not a third-party attempting to access your information. In the same vein, we reserve the right to undertake reasonable efforts and processes to confirm your identity before releasing any collected information or deleting it. We do not release any data to any third-party unless so compelled under relevant Canadian law.

To exercise your rights to review, obtain or have your data deleted, please first review the information in our Privacy Centre (https://a-b.solutions/privacy) and then contact us at [email protected] and we will work with you to respect your request(s).

If you feel we have not sufficiently adhered to our policies or are not satisfied with our responses to your information disclosure/removal requests, you may contact the relevant Canadian authorities:

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta: File a complaint (https://oipc.ab.ca/request-a-review-file-a-complaint)
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: File a complaint under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (https://oipc.ab.ca/request-a-review-file-a-complaint)

Changes to this policy

We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time. If we do make such changes, we will post an updated copy of this document on our website and update you via email if you have provided consent to such communication. The ‘last updated’ notation near the beginning of this document will always be kept up-to-date so that you may more easily identify if changes have been made to this document since the last time you reviewed it.

Any changes to this policy come into full force and effect upon being posted to our website(s) regardless of whether you have received a notice of such changes.

Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us via email at [email protected].