Privacy Policy
Effective date: September 6, 2026
TicketRelief (“TicketRelief”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) provides a website, mobile application, and related services that help people upload traffic tickets and related documents, understand intake next steps, request connection with participating Ontario lawyers and paralegals, handle platform support or handoff communication, and pay TicketRelief platform fees. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, protect, and retain personal information when you use our services. TicketRelief operates in a way intended to align with Canada’s federal private-sector privacy law, including PIPEDA’s requirements for openness, consent, safeguards, access, correction, and retention.
Who this policy applies to
This Privacy Policy applies to personal information we collect through our website, app, customer support channels, intake forms, support or handoff messages, payment flows for TicketRelief platform fees, and related communications. It applies to people who upload tickets or request legal help, and to participating lawyers and paralegals to the extent we collect business contact and profile information from them.
It does not replace the privacy policy, retainer terms, confidentiality obligations, or professional rules of any lawyer or paralegal you choose to retain. Once your matter is shared with, reviewed by, or accepted by a participating lawyer or paralegal, that professional may also collect, use, retain, and protect your information under their own legal and professional obligations. Lawyers and paralegals in Ontario owe confidentiality duties even to prospective clients, but solicitor-client privilege is narrower than confidentiality and depends on the lawyer-client relationship and the purpose of the communication.
What personal information we collect
Depending on how you use TicketRelief, we may collect the following categories of personal information:
Information you provide directly
- name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and account credentials;
- traffic ticket images, PDFs, court notices, disclosure materials, supporting documents, and other uploads;
- offence details such as ticket number, date, time, location, issuing authority, charge details, fine amount, demerit-point implications if shown on the face of the ticket or provided by you, court office, hearing dates, and related matter details;
- information you include in intake forms, notes, questionnaires, and messages, including your explanation of events, legal concerns, timing constraints, insurance concerns, or outcome preferences;
- support and handoff communications sent through TicketRelief tools;
- payment and billing information for TicketRelief platform fees, such as billing name, postal code, card type, last four digits, transaction status, receipts, refunds, and chargeback data. If we use a hosted processor integration, full card data is processed by the payment processor, not stored directly by TicketRelief.
Information we collect automatically
- device type, operating system, browser type, app version, language, referring URLs, IP address, approximate location inferred from IP, timestamps, pages/screens viewed, usage events, crash logs, and session identifiers;
- cookie, SDK, or similar identifier data used for authentication, preferences, analytics, fraud prevention, and service performance;
- support and security logs, including sign-in events, password reset events, suspicious activity signals, and audit records.
Information we receive from others
- participating lawyers/paralegals may send us updates about whether they accepted a matter, requested additional information, or marked a matter closed;
- payment processors may provide us with payment tokens, transaction confirmation, decline reasons, risk signals, and refund status;
- analytics and hosting providers may provide technical usage and performance information;
- in some cases, we may receive information from identity, fraud, or communications providers used to secure the service.
Why we collect and use personal information
We collect and use personal information for the following purposes:
- to create and administer your account;
- to receive, store, and display uploaded tickets and related case materials to you within the service;
- to extract, organize, or summarize ticket details so they can be reviewed more efficiently;
- to show eligible participating lawyers or paralegals anonymized intake information when matching is available, so that you can choose whether to authorize a handoff;
- to support intake, consent, handoff, and platform-support communication;
- to send service messages such as account verification, matter-status updates, reminders, payment confirmations, and support responses;
- to process TicketRelief platform fees, refunds, disputes, and related bookkeeping;
- to secure the platform, detect fraud, monitor abuse, investigate suspicious activity, and maintain audit trails;
- to improve usability, performance, and product design through analytics and testing;
- to send marketing communications where permitted by law and where you have consented or where another lawful Canadian rule allows it; and
- to comply with law, court orders, regulatory requests, and to establish, exercise, or defend legal rights.
We do not require you, as a condition of using TicketRelief, to consent to the collection, use, or disclosure of information beyond what is reasonably necessary for the core service, unless an optional feature clearly says otherwise. Optional uses, such as marketing or non-essential tracking, are separately presented and controllable.
Our basis for processing under Canadian privacy law
Because TicketRelief is an Ontario commercial service, our main legal basis under Canadian law is consent, together with the rule that our purposes must be ones a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances. In practice, that means:
- we generally rely on express consent for sensitive or contextually sensitive information, including ticket images, uploaded case documents, detailed matter descriptions, and a handoff of identifying information or uploaded materials to the professional you select;
- we may rely on implied consent for obvious service operations within your reasonable expectations, such as essential account administration, security logging, or sending service notices you need to use the platform;
- we may process without consent only where PIPEDA or another law permits or requires it, including certain fraud-prevention, law-enforcement, litigation, court-order, emergency, or breach-response scenarios;
- if we introduce a new purpose that is materially different from what was originally explained, we will identify it before using the information for that purpose and obtain consent where required.
When we share personal information
We share personal information only as described below, or as otherwise authorized or required by law.
Participating lawyers and paralegals
We use your intake to identify eligible participating Ontario lawyers and paralegals. Before personal information or uploaded materials are shared, you choose a participating professional and complete the recorded sharing consent shown in the Platform. The consent screen names the professional and describes the contact information, ticket details, uploaded ticket image, and additional intake details that will be released. The selected professional remains responsible for deciding whether to review, respond to, or accept the matter. We do not guarantee that any participating professional will respond or accept a matter.
TicketRelief records the selected professional, the consent time, and the release event. The professional independently handles conflicts, client identification and verification, fees, retainers, legal advice, and any later legal work. TicketRelief remains responsible for its own collection, use, disclosure, safeguards, retention, and deletion, while the selected professional is responsible for information they receive and control in their own legal-service file.
Service providers
We may share personal information with vendors who help us operate the service, such as cloud hosting providers, customer-support tools, email providers, analytics vendors, and fraud-prevention vendors. We remain responsible for personal information under our control and use contractual and other measures intended to ensure a comparable level of protection when service providers process it for us.
Legal and regulatory disclosures
We may disclose personal information where required by law, court order, subpoena, warrant, or regulatory process, or where permitted under PIPEDA for matters such as investigations, fraud detection, emergencies, or defending our legal rights. If permitted, we limit disclosure to what is reasonably necessary.
Business transactions
If TicketRelief is involved in a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, personal information may be disclosed as part of that process subject to applicable legal and contractual protections.
We do not sell your personal information in the ordinary consumer-ad-tech sense.
Support, handoff, and professional communications
Platform support and handoff communications may contain sensitive information and must be treated accordingly. TicketRelief uses security and access controls to protect those records. Participating lawyers and paralegals are independently responsible for complying with their confidentiality and professional obligations once they receive or access client or prospective-client information. Ontario lawyers and paralegals must keep confidential information in strict confidence, including information from prospective clients, and lawyers must also distinguish general confidentiality from solicitor-client privilege.
Cookies, analytics, and similar technologies
We use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies to support account authentication, security, user preferences, session continuity, and service performance. We may also use limited analytics tools to understand how the website or app is used and to improve functionality. We do not use non-essential cookies or similar technologies unless we provide any notice and choices required by applicable law.
Optional analytics and advertising pixels are not used on ticket upload, ticket result, tracking, account, client dashboard, professional portal, or administrator pages. Ticket images, extracted ticket fields, case identifiers, court dates, and other intake details are not sent as analytics or advertising events.
You can manage cookies through your browser settings and, where available, through our in-product cookie controls. Disabling certain cookies or local storage may affect sign-in, session continuity, security features, or saved preferences.
Marketing communications
We may send you service-related emails, texts, or push notifications that are necessary for account administration or matter status. These are different from promotional messages. If we send commercial electronic messages about TicketRelief offers, product updates, newsletters, or partner promotions, we will do so in accordance with Canadian anti-spam rules, which generally require consent, sender identification, and a working unsubscribe mechanism. You may unsubscribe from marketing at any time, but you may still receive non-promotional service communications that are necessary to provide the service.
Marketing preferences do not stop service notices about your account, upload, authorized sharing, support request, or security issue. Promotional broadcasts are sent only through the marketing workflow, which checks your opt-out preference and includes an unsubscribe link.
Cross-border processing
TicketRelief may use service providers that process or store personal information outside your province or outside Canada, including in the United States. PIPEDA does not prohibit cross-border transfers for processing, but requires us to remain accountable for the information and to use contractual or other measures to provide a comparable level of protection.
When your information is processed in another jurisdiction, it may be accessible to courts, law enforcement agencies, or national security authorities in that jurisdiction under local laws. We are transparent about that possibility so you can make an informed decision about using TicketRelief.
How long we retain personal information
We retain personal information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, for legal or dispute-resolution needs, and for our recordkeeping obligations. Where information has been used to decide about you, we retain it long enough to allow you to request access and understand the basis of that decision. Security-breach records are retained for at least the period required by law.
Court dates and filing deadlines do not create indefinite TicketRelief retention. After confirmed professional receipt, original uploaded ticket files are ordinarily deleted after about 30 days and no later than 90 days unless a documented legal, complaint, fraud, security, dispute, regulatory, or preservation hold applies. TicketRelief is not responsible for monitoring court deadlines for abandoned or unsubmitted matters.
| Category of information | Typical retention period | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Incomplete, failed, or rejected uploads | Deleted immediately where practical, with a 24-72 hour ordinary maximum and a seven-day quarantine backstop absent an investigation | Quarantine files are not exposed to browser storage policies |
| Image intermediaries and raw OCR responses | Image intermediaries are discarded after processing; raw OCR responses are deleted or minimized after validated extraction, normally within 24-72 hours | Validated ticket fields may remain while needed for intake, matching, support, or records described below |
| Guest and unmatched inactive intakes | Unsubmitted guest intakes are deleted after about 30 days; unmatched inactive intakes are reviewed around 60 days and deleted by 90 days without renewed purpose | Active matching, selected, or claimed intakes are excluded from this abandoned-intake cleanup |
| Active matching and handed-off intakes | Retained while legitimately active. After confirmed handoff, original ticket files are ordinarily deleted after about 30 days and no later than 90 days absent a legal hold or investigation | A minimal consent and handoff receipt may be kept for about two years, without the original ticket, full OCR, driver licence, address, full intake package, or retainer |
| Support conversations | Closed support conversations are deleted or anonymized after about 12 months | Complaint, fraud, security, or legal holds may extend retention for affected records only |
| Logs, audit evidence, and breach records | Ordinary logs are kept for about 30-90 days; security logs for about 12-24 months; breach records for at least 24 months | Longer retention requires a documented security, legal, fraud, dispute, or compliance purpose |
| Accounting records and backups | Required accounting records are kept for about six years where legally required; backup copies expire on a rolling 35-90 day schedule | Residual encrypted backups are not used for ordinary business access and are overwritten or expired through infrastructure controls unless a legal hold applies |
| Professional verification evidence | Active eligibility evidence is retained while needed for marketplace operation; minimized offboarding records are generally kept for about two years | Supporting documents should be deleted earlier absent a complaint, security, legal, or regulatory hold |
How we protect personal information
We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, which may include encryption in transit, encryption at rest where appropriate, restricted access, role-based permissions, multi-factor authentication, audit logging, vendor due diligence, secure development practices, staff training, and monitored backup/recovery processes. PIPEDA requires safeguards appropriate to sensitivity and specifically contemplates physical, organizational, and technological measures; the LSO also expects legal professionals to understand the benefits and risks of relevant technology in protecting confidential information.
No system can guarantee absolute security. If we determine that a breach of security safeguards involving your personal information creates a real risk of significant harm, we will report it and notify affected individuals as required by law, and we will keep records of all breaches as required.
Your privacy rights and choices
Subject to applicable law and certain limits, you may have the following rights:
Access
You may ask whether we hold personal information about you and request access to it, together with information about how it has been used and disclosed. Under PIPEDA, organizations must generally respond within 30 days, subject to limited extensions.
Correction
If your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you may ask us to correct it. Where appropriate, we will also communicate corrections to third parties who had access to the information.
Withdrawal of consent
You may ask TicketRelief to stop future platform sharing where possible, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. Information already released to a professional you selected may remain subject to that professional's independent record-keeping obligations. We will explain the material consequences where appropriate.
Deletion or anonymization requests
Canadian federal private-sector law does not currently create a broad, standalone "right to erasure" equivalent to the GDPR. However, you may ask us to delete or anonymize information we no longer require. Where we must keep information for legal, security, dispute, fraud, bookkeeping, or operational reasons, we may deny or limit the request and will explain why. PIPEDA requires us to destroy, erase, or anonymize information once it is no longer required for the identified purposes.
Portability requests
PIPEDA currently provides a right of access, but not a general explicit right to data portability. Still, where technically feasible and appropriate, we may provide a copy of information you provided to us in a commonly used format for your own use or onward transmission. If a specific portability right applies to you under another law, we will comply with that law.
Objection, restriction, and preference controls
You may object to optional marketing uses, manage cookie settings where available, challenge our handling of your information, and ask that we review a disputed data item or sharing decision. Canadian law frames many of these rights through consent withdrawal, access, correction, and complaint processes rather than a standalone GDPR-style "objection" right, but we will review requests in good faith.
Complaints
You may contact our Privacy Officer using the details below. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Minors
TicketRelief is not intended for individuals under 16. If we learn that we collected personal information directly from a person under 16 without authorization required by applicable law, we will delete it or take other appropriate steps.
Automated processing and matching
TicketRelief may use software tools to extract ticket details from uploaded images, flag missing information, rank participating lawyers/paralegals by location or practice fit, or assist with routing and triage. Users can review and correct extracted ticket details before anything is shared with a participating lawyer or paralegal. However, TicketRelief does not represent that legal representation decisions are made solely by an automated system. Participating lawyers and paralegals remain responsible for deciding whether to review, quote, or accept a matter. If you have questions about automated routing or matching, contact our Privacy Officer.
Third-party websites and services
Our service may contain links to third-party websites, court websites, law-firm websites, app stores, or payment pages. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. We encourage you to review their privacy notices.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or privacy practices. When we make a material change, we will update the “Effective date” at the top and, where appropriate, provide notice through the website, app, or email. PIPEDA’s openness principle requires organizations to make their policies and practices readily available in understandable form.