Who provides the service
PermitLane is provided by SPAKLABS AI INC. Contact hello@permitlane.ca for support, privacy requests and account recovery. Support is best effort on Alberta business days, with no guaranteed response time.
Account and company information
The application uses sign-in email addresses, company memberships, roles, project responsibilities and security records to provide access to the right workspace.
Project records and documents
Project work can include client and property details, requirements, dates, document records, municipal submission records and inspection outcomes. Access is scoped to the company and the user’s permissions.
A homeowner link exposes a limited server-selected update. It does not expose private documents, internal notes or the full project record. Links can expire or be revoked by an authorized team member.
Application and file providers
Hostinger hosts the application and database on the selected VPS in the United States. Backblaze stores primary customer files in its CA East region in Canada; account and support processing also involves the United States. Hostinger’s residual retention and Backblaze’s exact backend purge timing remain unverified.
GitHub stores PermitLane’s encrypted nightly backups as artifacts of a private repository for seven days, and a copy taken before each release for two days. GitHub receives only the encrypted file, its checksums, sizes, record and file counts, capture times and the software version; the key that decrypts it is held by SPAKLABS AI INC. and never enters GitHub. GitHub processes data in the United States and other countries; its exact residual purge timing and support processing locations remain unconfirmed.
Email and abuse protection
Resend processes sign-in codes, invitations and service notices. Its normal retention for email bodies and request logs is 30 days. Complete residual purge timing, backup periods and some support or subprocessor processing locations remain unconfirmed. Email messages can be delivered outside Canada.
Cloudflare Turnstile processes access and device signals to help prevent automated abuse. Some signal processing supports service improvement. Its exact signal-retention period, processing countries and complete service-specific subprocessor list remain unconfirmed. Essential session and security controls are separate from the visit counting described below.
Model processing and limits
Model-assisted features require published information about the providers, data sent, processing locations and retention terms before customer use. Accepting this notice does not authorize processing by an undisclosed model provider. Municipal review and approval remain external.
Cookies and tracking
The home page, the subscription page, the account-creation page and the Calgary permit guides count visits using PermitLane’s own analytics, running on PermitLane’s servers and origin. It records the page, the time, whether the visit followed a paid search advertisement, whether someone used the link that opens the account-creation page — and on a permit guide, which guide that link was on — and an approximate location: country, region and city, estimated from the network address your request arrives with. That estimate is frequently the city your internet provider routes through rather than where you are; only those three names are stored, and the network address itself is not. On permit guides, it also records when at least half of the trial button at the end of the guide is on screen for one continuous second in the foreground. This is recorded at most once per page view, including whether the visit came from paid search. It does not show whether you read the guide. It does not use cookies for this, does not identify you, does not record what you type and is never loaded inside your company workspace. Query strings and fragments are removed before anything is recorded, and a browser sending “Do Not Track” is not counted. No advertising pixel or third-party analytics service is used. Application sign-in uses an essential session cookie. Technical requests may generate access and security records.
Separately from that counting, when you arrive from a Google Ads advertisement, the click identifier that Google appends to the address (gclid) is kept in your browser’s own storage for up to 90 days. It is never sent to PermitLane’s analytics, and it is not read from a browser sending “Do Not Track”. If you create a company account within those 90 days, that identifier is recorded beside the account creation and removed from PermitLane’s records once 90 days have passed. In that time PermitLane may report to Google Ads that the click led to an account being created and, if the company then subscribes, to a first payment, by uploading the identifier, the name of the event and the time it happened. No name, e-mail address, company name, project or other account detail is sent to Google, and no other advertising identifier is read.
PermitLane keeps monthly records indefinitely to measure what its Google Ads advertising produced. Each record counts self-service trials started after an advertising click in a calendar month that has ended in Edmonton. For months with at least five such trials, it also records how many made a first payment, the total of those first payments in Canadian dollars when the amounts are known, and the portion paid more than 90 days after the click. Below five trials, only the trial count is kept. These records contain no click, account, company or other identifier, and no date finer than the month. Updates stop before the month’s click records can begin to expire, or if a previously counted trial is no longer available. The saved figures are observations, not complete lifetime revenue: later payments and payments after a click record has been removed cannot be attributed. Click identifier retention remains 90 days. The monthly records are never sent to Google.
When the trial ends
At the recorded trial expiry, normal writes and work that incurs provider costs stop, and public homeowner links are disabled. Current authorized members can read and export records, recover access and safely revoke access until 60 days after trial expiry. Normal access then closes. A disposition review allows seven full days from its actual start; a delayed review cannot shorten that period.
Service notices are scheduled three days before trial expiry, at expiry, and 30 and 53 days after expiry. A failed, missing or uncertain notice requires review before deletion. Expiry or silence alone never authorizes deletion.
Before company deletion, PermitLane must resolve notice delivery and preservation holds, and verify a complete export package with the authorized customer’s acknowledgement, or the customer’s explicit verified request declining export and requesting deletion. A prepared download, incomplete package or silence is insufficient. A hold suspends deletion without restoring normal product writes.
The limited record after deletion
After primary deletion completes, PermitLane retains a limited trial-use record for 24 months. Primary deletion removes the company’s data from active storage; it does not mean every backup or provider copy has been erased.
The record contains a versioned digest of the former Owner’s normalized email; random company and deletion-receipt identifiers; the trial activation, primary-deletion and record-expiry timestamps in UTC; the policy version; the deletion outcome; and total counts of records and files removed.
The email digest is used only to recognize a previously used trial. It remains personal data: a candidate email address can be matched to it. This record contains no original email, names, addresses, project or file content, filenames, storage locations, provider identifiers or recovery codes. Access is restricted to authorized operators and protected recovery custody.
Expiry and preservation exceptions
The limited record is scheduled for removal at its recorded expiry unless an applicable preservation hold requires longer retention. A hold records its purpose and next review date and requires explicit release. An overdue review does not silently release it. Preservation does not create a permanent automatic trial blacklist.
Creating another account or company does not reset eligibility before the trial-use record’s original 24-month expiry. After that instant, a further trial requires a new operator admission, duplicate-organization review and available capacity. Another trial is never automatic. A preservation hold does not itself extend the automatic eligibility block.
Recovery and backup copies
PermitLane takes an encrypted backup of company records and accepted files every night and keeps the seven most recent copies outside the application host. Keep your original files and export your records regularly: a backup is a recovery aid, and recovery of lost customer data is not guaranteed.
After primary deletion, the target is to rotate ordinary encrypted backups containing deleted data within 35 further days, unless an applicable preservation hold requires longer retention. This is not a guarantee that every provider copy is erased within 35 days. The limited trial-use record follows its separate 24-month period. Completed deletions must be reapplied before restored data becomes accessible.
Access, correction and privacy requests
Contact hello@permitlane.ca to request access, correction, export or deletion. PermitLane verifies your identity and company authority before acting; knowing a company or project identifier does not authorize access. Do not email payment cards, recovery codes or private documents unless a separately authorized secure process has been provided.
What changed in version 9
Version 9 adds measurement of whether the trial button at the end of a permit guide was on screen, and separates clicks on that button from the header link for visits from paid search. Visibility does not establish reading. Every other paragraph is unchanged. Version 8 stays published at its own address with every acceptance recorded against it.