Privacy & Data Handling

What We Collect

When you submit a price, we collect:

• Service category (e.g., plumbing, dental work)
• Price paid in Canadian dollars
• Location (province, city, and optionally postal code)
• Experience ratings (satisfaction, timeliness, quality)

What We Never Collect

We are committed to privacy-by-design. We never collect:

• Your name or any personal identifiers
• Vendor or service provider identities
• Your home address
• Email addresses tied to transactions
• Phone numbers
• Payment details or credit card information
• IP addresses or device fingerprints

How Anonymization Works

Your data is anonymized from the moment it's submitted:

• Submissions cannot be traced back to individuals
• Postal codes are stored internally but only the first 3 characters (FSA) are used for clustering
• We never display individual transactions — only aggregated statistics
• All data is processed server-side before any insights are generated

Aggregation Thresholds

To protect privacy, we only display aggregated data when minimum thresholds are met:

• Postal code area: At least 25 submissions required
• City level: At least 10 submissions required
• Category-wide: At least 10 submissions required

If a threshold is not met, the system automatically falls back to a higher-level aggregation to prevent individual identification.

Data Commitment

We commit to:

• Never selling individual-level data
• Never sharing raw transaction records with third parties
• Only providing aggregated, anonymized insights
• Maintaining transparency about our data practices

Canadian Privacy Standards

TrueCost Index is designed to meet Canadian privacy standards, including principles from PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act). We collect only what is necessary, use data only for stated purposes, and maintain appropriate safeguards.