Privacy Policy — TriCities Board

1. Introduction

TriCities Board is the operating name of Community Print & Publishing Ltd. ("we", "our", or "us"), which owns and operates the website tricitiesboard.org and is the organization responsible for the personal information described in this policy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website or create an account. This site uses YouTube API Services.

2. Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of information:

Account Information: When you register, we collect your display name, email address, and password (encrypted). If you sign in via Google or Facebook, we receive your name, email, and profile picture from those services.
Profile Information: Any additional information you choose to add to your profile, such as your city or avatar.
User Content: Posts, comments, listings, videos, and other content you create on the platform.
Usage Data: We may collect information about how you access and use the website, including your IP address, browser type, and pages visited.
Marketplace safety information: Mobile-number confirmation status; listing and account identifiers; reports and complaint details; linked conversation content; server-generated listing images; structured listing, account, media, and message snapshots; cryptographic hashes; moderation events; and internal risk signals used to prioritize Admin review.
Identity verification outcomes: For Homes & Spaces advertisers and business or organization claimants, the result of a Stripe Identity check — verified legal name, document type, session identifier, and dates. We never receive or store your identity document images. See Section 6B.
YouTube-related data: When we publish or display video content through YouTube API Services, we may process video files you upload, titles, descriptions, tags, and resulting YouTube video identifiers and watch URLs. See Section 6.

3. How We Use Your Information

To create and manage your account
To provide and maintain our services
To enable community features such as forums, marketplace, and event listings
To publish and display video content via YouTube API Services (for example, business profile videos and volunteer opportunity Shorts)
To communicate with you about your account or our services
To enforce our terms of service and community guidelines
To prevent, detect, document, review, and respond to suspected Marketplace fraud or safety concerns
To calculate an explainable internal Marketplace risk score that prioritizes Admin review but does not automatically enforce against a listing or account
To improve our website and user experience

4. Third-Party Sign-In Services

We offer sign-in through Google and Facebook. When you use these services, we receive basic profile information (name, email, profile picture) as authorized by you through those platforms. We do not receive your passwords from these services. You can revoke access at any time through your Google or Facebook account settings.

5. Data Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

With your consent
To comply with legal obligations
To protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property
To police or another competent authority when required by law, needed to address an emergency, or an administrator determines that suspected serious criminal conduct should be reported
With service providers who assist us in operating our website (e.g., hosting, authentication)
With Google / YouTube when we use YouTube API Services to upload, update, or display video content, as described in Section 6

6. YouTube API Services

TriCities Board uses YouTube API Services to upload, update, delete, and display video content on our community platform (including business profile videos, volunteer opportunity Shorts, and Perks deal videos published to the Tri-Cities Board and Perks YouTube channels, both of which we own).

By using features that rely on YouTube, you also agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google's collection and use of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

What we access and store. When you submit a video through our site, we may temporarily store the video file and metadata you provide (title, description, tags) in order to publish it to YouTube. After a successful publish, we store the YouTube video ID / watch URL and related metadata needed to show the video on TriCities Board and to support later edits. We do not sell this data.

How we use it. We use YouTube API Services solely to operate video features on TriCities Board (upload a video, update its metadata, remove it, and embed/display videos). Only the owners of our own channels authorize this access, once — visitors and members never connect a personal YouTube account to TriCities Board. We do not use YouTube API data for advertising networks or unrelated profiling.

Third-party content. Embedded YouTube players may allow Google / YouTube to collect information (including via cookies or similar technologies) according to Google's policies when you watch or interact with a video.

Revoking Google access. If you have granted Google permissions related to our use of Google services, you can review and revoke access at any time via Google's security settings: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions.

6A. Marketplace Reports, Evidence & Risk Review

When you report suspected Marketplace fraud, we create a private case record. It may include the reporter and reported-party account identifiers and contact details, the complaint, a server-generated image and structured snapshot of the advertisement, media references, linked conversation messages, hashes, and later Admin actions. A case-scoped hold may preserve later messages in the reported conversation while the case is open. We do not use this process to monitor unrelated private conversations.

We may automatically calculate an internal risk score from explainable signals such as independent reports, confirmed prior Marketplace actions, unusual listing velocity, duplicate media or identifiers across accounts, missing authority fields, and public scam-related payment language. The score is visible only to authorized administrators. It prioritizes review and does not automatically remove content, restrict an account, decide guilt, or contact police.

Evidence images document how listing data appeared to our server; they are not proof that a listing or complaint is true. Authorized administrators assess the underlying information and decide whether to take no action, contact users, remove content, restrict an account, preserve records, or consider lawful disclosure.

See the Marketplace Safety & Participation Policy for the plain-language process.

6B. Identity Verification

Advertising in Homes & Spaces, or submitting or claiming a business or organization profile, requires one-time government photo-identification verification. Ordinary marketplace item listings do not.

We never handle your identity documents. Verification is performed by Stripe Identity. You submit your document and a selfie directly to Stripe, which processes and retains those images under its own privacy terms. We do not receive, view, or store document images or biometric data.

From Stripe we receive and store only the verification outcome, your verified legal name, the document type (for example passport or driver's licence), the verification session identifier, and the dates the fee was paid and verification completed. We use this to publish the “ID verified” badge, to prevent duplicate and impersonated accounts, and to compare your verified legal name against the contact name, company, and any professional licence claim on your listings so administrators can review a mismatch.

The CAD $5.00 verification fee is processed by Stripe as a payment; we store the payment reference, not your card details. See the Stripe Privacy Policy for how Stripe handles the documents and payment.

Verification outcomes are retained while your account is active because they support the badges shown on your listings and profiles, and are deleted with your account subject to the limits in section 7. You may ask us to remove your verification record; doing so removes your badges and returns you to the unverified state.

7. Data Retention & Deletion Policies

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time by contacting us at admin@tricitiesboard.org or using the self-service controls on our Data Deletion page (including YouTube-related data).

Account deletion: Upon a verified deletion request, your personal account data will be permanently removed from our systems as soon as practicable and within 30 days, except where we must retain limited information for legal, security, or accounting reasons.
User-requested deletion of stored data: If you ask us to delete stored data related to you (including YouTube-related metadata we store on TriCities Board), we will delete that stored data as soon as possible and within 7 calendar days of the request.
Google / YouTube access revocation: If authorization related to Google services is revoked through Google's security settings, we will delete associated API data we stored pursuant to that authorization as soon as practicable and within 30 calendar days of detecting the revocation, in line with YouTube API Services Developer Policies.
Videos on YouTube: Deleting data from TriCities Board does not automatically delete videos that already exist on YouTube's platform. YouTube content hosted by Google remains subject to YouTube's own terms and deletion tools. Contact us if you need help removing a video we published on the Tri-Cities Board channel.
Marketplace and Homes & Spaces videos: These stay on our site and are never copied to a backup archive. When you remove a listing the file is kept for 72 hours so you can download a copy, and is then deleted. See our Terms of Use for what we do and do not restore.
Marketplace fraud evidence: Evidence for a dismissed case is ordinarily scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Evidence for an actioned or escalated case is ordinarily retained for up to two years. A documented legal, safety, dispute, or law-enforcement hold may extend retention and is periodically reviewed. Case outcomes, audit metadata, and cryptographic hashes may remain after source files and detailed snapshots are deleted.

8. Cookies & Analytics

We use essential cookies and local storage to maintain your login session and preferences. We also use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used — how many people visit, which pages they read, and roughly where they are — reported to us in aggregate rather than as a profile of you. It sets cookies beginning with _ga containing a randomly generated identifier, and we do not combine it with your account, sell it, or use it for advertising. You can opt out with Google's opt-out add-on or by blocking analytics cookies; the site keeps working either way. Embedded YouTube players may separately set or access cookies or similar technologies on your device when you interact with video content, as described in the Google Privacy Policy. We do not use separate third-party advertising cookies on TriCities Board beyond what embedded players may load. See our Cookie Policy for detail.

9. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data, including encrypted passwords, HTTPS connections, and secure authentication via Supabase. However, no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure.

10. Your Rights

Under applicable privacy laws (including Canada's PIPEDA), you have the right to:

Access the personal information we hold about you
Request correction of inaccurate information
Ask us to review inaccurate personal information or risk signals used in a Marketplace moderation decision, subject to legal, safety, privilege, and third-party privacy limits
Request deletion of your account and data
Withdraw consent for data processing

11. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 14. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 14.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new policy on this page with an updated date.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our YouTube / privacy practices, please contact us at: admin@tricitiesboard.org