Privacy Policy | MudWheelz.ca

1. Information We Collect

Information you give us

Account details: name, email address, password, phone number, city and province.
Listings: vehicle details, description, price, photos and the contact information shown on your listing.
Enquiries: your name, phone, email and message when you contact a seller or dealer through the site.
Financing applications: full name, contact details, home address, date of birth, income, employment history, address history and, optionally, your Social Insurance Number.
Insurance quote requests: contact details, postal code, date of birth, vehicle details, how and where the machine is used and stored, and claims history.
Inspection requests: your contact details, the machine details, and the seller's name and contact information where you provide it.
Dealer applications: business name, address, website and business description.
Trail and article submissions: the content you submit, along with your account details.
Messages: anything you send us through the contact form or by email.

Information collected automatically

IP address, browser type, device type and operating system.
Pages viewed, listings viewed, and how you arrived at the site.
Date and time of your visits.
Session data needed to keep you signed in.

Information from others

If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google to create or access your account. We do not receive your Google password.

2. How We Use Your Information

To create and manage your account, and keep you signed in.
To publish the listings, trails and articles you submit.
To connect buyers with sellers and dealers.
To pass financing, insurance and inspection requests to the partners who can act on them.
To send transactional email: verification codes, password resets, and confirmations of things you submitted.
To review dealer, writer and trail submissions before publishing them.
To detect and prevent fraud, scams, spam and abuse.
To understand how the site is used so we can improve it.
To meet legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not rent or trade it. We do not send marketing email to people who have not asked for it.

3. Who We Share It With

Sellers and dealers

When you send an enquiry about a listing, we pass your name, phone number, message and the vehicle you are interested in to that seller or dealership so they can respond. This is the whole purpose of the enquiry.

Financing and insurance partners

When you submit a financing application or an insurance quote request, we pass the information in that form to the Canadian lenders, dealerships or insurance brokers who can provide you with options. They handle your information under their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to read them before proceeding.

We may receive a referral fee or commission from a partner if you go on to complete a financing agreement or insurance policy. This never changes what you are quoted, and we tell you this so you understand how the site is funded.

Service providers

We use third party providers to run the site, such as web hosting and email delivery. They only access what they need to perform their service, and are not permitted to use your information for their own purposes.

Legal reasons

We may disclose information where required by law, a court order or a lawful request from an authority, or where we reasonably believe it is necessary to investigate fraud or protect the safety of a person.

Business transfer

If MudWheelz is ever sold, merged or reorganised, personal information may transfer as part of that transaction. We would notify you and any successor would remain bound by this policy.

4. Information You Make Public

Some things you submit are published on the site and visible to anyone, including search engines:

Your listings, including photos, description, price, and the city and province.
Your seller name as shown on your listing.
Dealer profiles, including business name, address, website and description.
Articles you publish, along with your author name.
Trails you submit once approved.

Contact details are gated. Phone numbers and email addresses on listings are shown only to signed-in users, not to the public or to search engines. Even so, please only include information in your listing that you are comfortable sharing with potential buyers.

5. Sensitive Information and Your SIN

Your Social Insurance Number is optional on our financing form and you do not have to provide it. Some lenders can process an application faster with it, but you are equally free to leave the field blank and give it directly to the lender later, only if you decide to proceed with them.

Where a SIN is provided, we use it only to pass your application to financing partners, we do not use it for any other purpose, and we do not display it anywhere on the site. We also collect date of birth and income details on financing and insurance forms, which we treat with the same care.

You can ask us to delete a SIN we hold at any time by emailing info@mudwheelz.ca.

6. Cookies and Tracking

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies:

Essential cookies: keep you signed in and keep forms secure. The site does not work without these.
Preference data: remembers choices such as filters you have applied.
Analytics: helps us understand which pages are useful and where the site is failing people.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, but blocking essential cookies will stop you being able to sign in. We do not use cookies to build advertising profiles, and we do not run third party advertising networks on the site.

7. Third Party Services We Use

Running the site involves a few outside services. Each has its own privacy policy:

Web hosting: our hosting provider stores the site and its database on servers, and processes standard server logs.
Google Sign-In (Firebase Authentication): used if you choose to sign in with Google.
Email delivery: used to send verification codes, password resets, confirmations and enquiry notifications.
Google Fonts: used to load the typefaces on the site.
OpenStreetMap and Leaflet: used to display trail maps.

Some of these providers may process or store data outside Canada, including in the United States. Where that happens, your information may be subject to the laws of that country, including lawful access requests by foreign authorities.

8. How Long We Keep Your Information

Account information: kept while your account is open, and removed on request when you close it.
Listings: kept while active, and for a reasonable period after being sold or removed so we can resolve any dispute.
Enquiries and lead forms: kept while we need them to follow up, and for a reasonable period afterwards for record keeping.
Financing and insurance applications: kept only as long as necessary to process the request and meet our record keeping obligations.
Server logs: kept for a short period for security and troubleshooting.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or render it anonymous. You can ask us to delete your information sooner, and we will do so unless we are legally required to keep it.

9. How We Protect It

The whole site is served over encrypted HTTPS.
Passwords are stored using one-way hashing, so we cannot read them.
Database queries use prepared statements to guard against injection.
Forms are protected against cross-site request forgery.
Access to personal information is limited to the people who need it.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we ever become aware of a breach that creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as required by law.

10. Your Rights and Choices

Under Canadian privacy law you have the right to:

Access the personal information we hold about you.
Correct anything that is inaccurate or out of date.
Delete your account and the personal information attached to it.
Withdraw consent to our use of your information, subject to legal and contractual limits.
Ask how your information has been used and who it has been shared with.
Complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada if you are not satisfied with our response.

Much of this you can do yourself from your dashboard and profile. For anything else, email info@mudwheelz.ca and we will respond within 30 days.

11. Children and Young Riders

MudWheelz is intended for adults. You must be at least 18 to apply for financing, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the site develops or as the law changes. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. If we make a significant change to how we handle your information, we will tell you by email or with a clear notice on the site. Continuing to use MudWheelz after a change means you accept the updated policy.

13. How to Contact Us

For any privacy question, request or complaint, email info@mudwheelz.ca with "Privacy" in the subject line, or use our contact page. We respond to privacy requests within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca.

This policy is written in plain language to be genuinely useful rather than to cover every legal eventuality. It is not legal advice. If you need advice about your own privacy rights, speak to a lawyer.