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Ask Canada.

Privacy

Your questions stay yours.

Ask Canada works without knowing who you are. Here’s exactly what happens to a question, what we keep and what we never do.

Last updated September 29, 2026

At a glance

No account

You don’t sign up, log in or tell us who you are.

Filtered on your device

Names, ID numbers, emails and phone numbers are removed before your question leaves your browser.

Conversations aren’t saved

Your conversation isn’t saved. It disappears when you close or reload the page.

Deleted after 30 days

We keep questions, with identifying details removed, for 30 days to improve answers. Then they’re gone.

Stored in Montréal

The website and our database run in Montréal.

No ads, no tracking

We don’t sell data, show ads or follow you around the web.

The life of a question

From the moment you press Enter to the answer on your screen.

  1. 01

    On your device

    A filter in your browser swaps personal details for placeholders like [NAME]. What you typed stays on your screen.

  2. 02

    Checked again

    Our server runs the same check as a backup, then counts the question toward a daily limit.

  3. 03

    Searched

    We look it up in our copy of 1,678 official Canada.ca pages. We don’t search anywhere else.

  4. 04

    Answered

    OpenAI writes the answer from those pages. It processes the question in the United States.

  5. 05

    Cited

    You get the answer with links to the exact Canada.ca pages it came from.

The privacy filter, explained

It’s called Rampart. It’s open source, and it was built by the U.S. National Design Studio for America.gov. We use it as is and add rules for Canada.

See the filter’s code on GitHub ↗Model by National Design Studio, licensed CC BY 4.0
1

It runs entirely in your browser. Your text isn’t sent anywhere to be checked.

2

It combines exact rules for numbers (card numbers, account numbers, IDs) with a small AI model that recognizes names, addresses, emails and phone numbers in context.

3

Anything it finds is replaced with a placeholder like [GIVEN_NAME_1] before your question is sent. Cities and provinces are kept, since they can matter for your answer.

4

It works in English and French.

5

It loads from our own site, never from a third party, and your browser keeps it for next time. With data saver on, on a slow connection or on a low-memory phone, only its rule-based part runs, and our server checks again.

+ CanadaOn top of it, we added rules for Canadian numbers: Social Insurance Numbers and IRCC client IDs. Our server runs these rules again as a backup.

What we keep, and for how long

Short list. Nothing here is linked to you.

Questions, with identifying details removedTo see which topics need better answers30 days
Feedback you choose to sendTo fix wrong or unclear answers90 days
Topic suggestionsTo decide what to add nextUp to 1 year
A daily question count per visitorTo keep the service free and fair. It uses a scrambled (hashed) IP address, never the address itself.Deleted the next day
One “verified human” cookieSo you don’t get the bot check again today24 hours
Your language choiceSaved in your browser only, so the site stays in English or FrenchUntil you clear it
Anonymous usage counts, like “a question was asked” (never its text)To know how many people use Ask Canada and which features help. No cookies.Stored by PostHog

Who’s involved

Every company that touches your question, what it can see and where it runs.

OpenAI

Searches our copy of Canada.ca and writes the answer

United States

What it sees

Your question after the filter, plus the page excerpts it answers from. OpenAI says it doesn’t use this data to train its models and keeps abuse-monitoring logs for up to 30 days.

Their data policy ↗

Supabase

Our database

Montréal, Canada

What it sees

Only what’s in the “What we keep” table above.

Their data policy ↗

Vercel

Hosts the website

Montréal, Canada

What it sees

Requests to the site, like any web host.

Their data policy ↗

Cloudflare Turnstile

The quick check that you’re not a bot

Worldwide network

What it sees

Technical signals from your browser, not your question.

Their data policy ↗

PostHog

Anonymous usage statistics

United States

What it sees

Events like “a question was asked” or “an answer was shown”, with the language used. No cookies, no question text, no personal details, and IP addresses aren’t stored.

Their data policy ↗

What we never do.

  • Ask for your name, email or phone number
  • Save your conversation
  • Show ads or sell your data
  • Track you on other websites
  • Send your questions to the Government of Canada

Questions people ask

No. Ask Canada is an independent project, not affiliated with the Government of Canada. Your questions go to our service, never to a government department.

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