Privacy Policy

How we collect, use, and protect your personal information.

Last updated: August 28, 2026

Kara Van Slyke Accounting (“Kara Van Slyke Accounting”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal information when you visit https://karavanslykeaccounting.ca, contact us, book an appointment, use the client portal, or receive accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, or related services from us.

We are based in Ontario, Canada. Our privacy practices are intended to comply with applicable Canadian privacy laws, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), and any substantially similar provincial privacy laws where they apply. This Privacy Policy is a public summary of our practices and does not limit any additional privacy rights you may have under applicable law.

Summary of Key Practices

We collect contact, appointment, portal, accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, and website information to provide our services and operate the website.
The client portal is intended for sensitive tax and financial documents and is designed to restrict access to authorized users through authenticated account access and permission-based controls.
We use or may use Google Analytics, Google Ads measurement, cookies, pixels, tags, anti-spam tools, Cloudflare security services, and similar technologies to measure public website performance, improve marketing, protect forms and logins, and secure the website.
The client portal is excluded from Google Analytics, Google Ads, remarketing, advertising pixels, and similar marketing or analytics tracking. Necessary authentication, security, fraud-prevention, access logging, and security protections may still apply to the portal.
We do not intentionally use the contents of portal documents, tax records, Social Insurance Numbers, financial account records, payroll records, questionnaire answers, information about minors or dependants, or other sensitive client file contents for advertising or remarketing.
We do not sell personal information. We also do not sell or share SMS opt-in data or mobile numbers with third parties for their own marketing or promotional purposes.
We keep client and tax-related records for as long as needed to provide services, meet legal and professional obligations, respond to tax authority requirements, and protect legal rights.

Personal Information We Collect

“Personal information” means information about an identifiable individual. Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following types of personal information.

Website, Contact, and Appointment Information

Contact details, such as your name, company name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and the contents of your message.
Appointment details, such as the service you are interested in, selected appointment date and time, notes you provide, appointment status, and appointment history.
Communication preferences and consent records, including whether you have agreed to receive communications from us and when consent was provided or withdrawn.
Technical information collected when you visit the website, such as IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, referring page, pages viewed, links clicked, approximate location inferred from IP address, date and time of visit, session information, cookies, pixels, tags, and other diagnostic or security log information.

Client Portal Information

If you use the client portal, we may collect and process information needed to provide portal access and accounting services, including:

Portal account information, such as your username, email address, login credentials, authentication information, account status, invitation and activation dates, password reset information, login/session information, and role or permission information.
Client profile information, such as client name, primary contact, email address, phone number, relationship to a client account, service history, and internal or client-facing notes.
Engagement and request information, such as service type, tax year, request title, instructions, due dates, status updates, next steps, and related correspondence.
Documents and files you upload or download, including tax slips, receipts, bookkeeping records, financial statements, business records, payroll records, bank or credit card statements, government forms, identification documents, and other information you choose or are asked to provide.
Document metadata, such as original file name, file type, file size, upload date, related client or request, document visibility, uploader, and related storage, security, or access-control information.
Questionnaire and intake information, including answers you submit for annual tax, bookkeeping, payroll, or other service intake forms.
Activity records, such as portal logins, uploads, downloads, request updates, notification events, administrative changes, and other actions needed for security, audit, troubleshooting, and client service.

Accounting, Bookkeeping, Tax, and Payroll Information

When we provide services, we may collect sensitive financial, tax, business, employment, and identity information. This may include Social Insurance Numbers, business numbers, dates of birth, marital or dependant information, employment and income information, banking or payment details, investment information, rental or property information, expense records, payroll information, employee or contractor information, GST/HST information, corporate records, shareholder or director information, prior-year returns, notices of assessment, correspondence from tax authorities, authorization forms, and other records needed to complete, review, file, or support the work you request.

Information About Other People

You may provide personal information about another person, such as a spouse, common-law partner, dependant, employee, contractor, shareholder, director, officer, trustee, beneficiary, authorized representative, or business contact. By providing that information, you confirm that you have the authority or consent needed to provide it to us and for us to use it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Information From Third Parties

Where needed to provide services or verify information, we may receive personal information from third parties, such as the Canada Revenue Agency, other tax authorities, government portals, accounting or payroll systems, financial institutions, employers, benefit providers, prior accountants, bookkeepers, legal advisors, authorized representatives, or other parties you direct or authorize.

How We Use Personal Information

We use personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances, including to:

respond to inquiries and manage contact form submissions;
book, confirm, manage, and follow up on appointments;
confirm identity and authority to act for a client, business, estate, trust, family member, or other person;
create, authenticate, secure, and manage client portal accounts;
request, receive, review, store, organize, and share client documents through the portal;
prepare, review, file, amend, and support accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, GST/HST, and related work;
communicate with you about services, document requests, filing deadlines, missing information, appointments, invoices, account matters, and support requests;
send portal invitations, password reset notices, upload confirmations, questionnaire notices, file request reminders, status updates, and other client-service messages;
send newsletters, offers, or other commercial electronic messages only where we have consent or are otherwise permitted by law, and to manage unsubscribe requests;
operate, maintain, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the website, client portal, email systems, backups, forms, booking tools, and other technology systems;
measure public website traffic, marketing performance, and advertising conversions;
detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to unauthorized access, spam, fraud, abuse, misuse, malware, technical issues, or security incidents;
maintain records required for tax, accounting, business, professional, insurance, legal, regulatory, audit, and compliance purposes;
comply with legal obligations and respond to lawful requests from courts, regulators, tax authorities, law enforcement, or other public authorities; and
establish, exercise, or defend legal rights.

Consent

We collect, use, and disclose personal information with your consent, where consent is required, or as otherwise permitted or required by law. Consent may be express, such as when you submit a form, upload files, sign an engagement letter, authorize a tax filing, opt in to communications, or provide documents for a specific purpose. Consent may also be implied where the purpose is obvious and reasonably necessary to provide the service you requested.

Where a website form, appointment booking flow, client portal upload, intake questionnaire, or similar process asks you to agree to this Privacy Policy, checking the box is an express confirmation that you have reviewed this Privacy Policy and consent to our collection, use, disclosure, retention, and protection of personal information as described in this Privacy Policy for the service, request, upload, or submission you are making. If you provide personal information about another person, you confirm that you have the authority or consent needed to do so.

We will not require consent to optional marketing, non-essential advertising tracking, or other non-integral uses as a condition of providing accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, or related services where applicable law requires a separate choice. Cookie, analytics, advertising, SMS, and commercial electronic message preferences may be managed separately where those choices are available or required.

Because accounting, bookkeeping, tax, and payroll services often involve sensitive information, we may require express consent, written authorization, identity verification, or other safeguards before collecting, using, disclosing, or acting on certain information.

You may withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal, contractual, professional, tax, audit, security, or recordkeeping requirements and reasonable notice. If you withdraw consent, we will explain any effect this may have on our ability to provide services.

Client Portal and Sensitive Documents

The client portal is intended to provide a more secure way to exchange sensitive tax and financial documents than regular email. The portal is designed to restrict access to client files through authenticated account access and permission-based controls. Portal documents are not intended to be publicly accessible through public website pages.

Portal pages are intended to be private and not indexed by search engines. Where the website and hosting environment allow, caching and public access are restricted for portal areas that contain private client information.

The client portal is excluded from Google Analytics, Google Ads, remarketing, advertising pixels, and similar marketing or analytics tracking. We may still use necessary portal technologies for authentication, session management, security, access logs, upload/download controls, abuse prevention, and troubleshooting. These necessary technologies are used to operate and protect the portal, not for advertising.

We use or may use additional security controls for the client portal and other sensitive website areas. These controls may help protect portal logins, forms, uploads, downloads, account access, and sensitive paths from automated traffic, suspicious activity, abuse, malicious requests, or unauthorized access attempts.

Portal emails are used for notifications, such as invitations, upload confirmations, file requests, questionnaire notices, status updates, and password reset notices. For privacy, documents are not attached to portal notification emails. Please avoid sending sensitive tax, identity, payroll, or financial documents by regular email unless we specifically agree on that method.

You are responsible for keeping your portal login credentials confidential, using a strong password, signing out after using the portal on shared devices, and notifying us promptly if you believe your account or information has been accessed without authorization.

Cookies, Analytics, Advertising, and Security Technologies

We use or may use cookies, pixels, tags, scripts, local storage, server logs, and similar technologies to operate the website and portal, remember preferences, authenticate users, secure forms and logins, prevent spam and abuse, measure public website performance, understand how visitors use public website pages, and measure advertising performance on public website pages. Marketing and analytics tracking is not intended to run in the client portal.

Necessary Cookies and Security Technologies

Some cookies and similar technologies are necessary for the website and portal to work. These may include login, authentication, session, security, load-balancing, fraud-prevention, form-protection, access-control, and preference cookies. If you block these technologies, parts of the website or portal may not function properly.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics on public website pages to understand how visitors use the website and to improve the site and our services. The client portal is excluded from Google Analytics. Google Analytics may use first-party cookies, such as _ga and related cookies, and may collect information such as pages visited, session statistics, approximate location, device and browser information, referring websites, and interactions with public website pages. Google may receive information such as the URL of the page you visit and your IP address as part of providing these services.

We use Google Analytics for aggregate website measurement. We do not intentionally send Google Analytics the contents of contact forms, portal documents, questionnaire answers, tax records, portal passwords, Social Insurance Numbers, payroll records, financial account records, or other sensitive client file contents.

Google Ads and Advertising Measurement

We use or may use Google Ads, Google tags, Google Ads conversion tracking, remarketing, audience, and related measurement services on public website pages. The client portal is excluded from Google Ads, remarketing, advertising pixels, and similar advertising tracking. Google Ads tools may use cookies, pixels, tags, device identifiers, IP address, browser information, page visit information, ad click information, and conversion event information from public website pages to help us understand whether our advertising is effective and to show more relevant ads.

We do not use client lists, portal data, tax records, financial records, payroll records, Social Insurance Numbers, information about dependants or minors, or private client file contents for advertising audiences, customer match lists, remarketing lists, or similar advertising features.

Anti-Spam and Security Tools

We use or may use anti-spam, bot-detection, challenge, and security tools to protect forms, login pages, password reset flows, and other website or portal functions from spam, fraud, abuse, automated traffic, suspicious activity, malicious requests, or unauthorized access attempts. These tools may process technical information such as IP address, browser and device information, interaction signals, request data, cookies, traffic data, and similar security signals needed to provide and maintain these protections.

Google reCAPTCHA

We use or may use Google reCAPTCHA, including invisible, score-based, or similar modes, to protect forms, login pages, password reset flows, and other website or portal functions from spam, fraud, abuse, and automated traffic. reCAPTCHA may process technical and interaction information such as IP address, browser and device information, cookies, page and application data, and user interaction signals for security and abuse-prevention purposes. We use reCAPTCHA for security, not advertising.

Cloudflare Security and Turnstile

We use or may use Cloudflare services to help deliver, secure, monitor, and protect the website and portal. Cloudflare may process IP addresses, request headers, traffic routing data, device and browser signals, TLS or network information, security event information, bot-detection signals, challenge results, and similar technical information to help provide security, performance, firewall, bot-management, DDoS-protection, caching, DNS, and related services. These security services are not used for advertising.

We use or may use Cloudflare Turnstile to help distinguish human visitors from automated traffic and protect forms, logins, and other sensitive actions. Turnstile may run security checks in the background. Cloudflare states that Turnstile processes signals such as client IP address, TLS fingerprint, user agent header, sitekey, and associated origin for bot detection and blocking, and that Turnstile does not access, store, or transmit user communications, form entries, or other page inputs. More information is available in Cloudflare’s Turnstile Privacy Addendum.

Your Cookie and Advertising Choices

Where required by law, we use non-essential analytics, advertising, and similar cookies only with consent or as otherwise permitted by law. You can manage cookies through our cookie preferences tool if one is available, through your browser settings, or through settings provided by third-party platforms. Blocking or deleting cookies may affect how the website works.

You can learn more about how Google uses information from sites and apps that use Google services at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can also use browser settings to block or delete cookies, Google ad settings to manage ad personalization, and Google’s browser add-on for opting out of Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Text Messages and Commercial Electronic Messages

If we communicate with you by SMS text message, we may collect your phone number, consent record, message preferences, and delivery information. Consent to receive marketing text messages is not a condition of purchasing or using our services. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency may vary. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. SMS opt-in data and consent records will not be sold or shared with any third party for its own marketing or promotional purposes. We may disclose mobile information to telecommunications providers, messaging platforms, and service providers only as needed to deliver, manage, support, secure, or document the messages.

If we send commercial electronic messages, such as promotional emails or texts, we do so in accordance with CASL, where it applies. You can unsubscribe from marketing messages by using the unsubscribe instructions in the message or by contacting us. Transactional, service, security, tax, portal, appointment, and account-related messages may still be sent where necessary to provide services or meet legal obligations.

When We Share Personal Information

We do not sell personal information. We may disclose personal information only as needed for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to:

website, hosting, domain, DNS, security, firewall, analytics, advertising measurement, backup, email, SMS, form, and appointment booking service providers;
client portal, authentication, database, document storage, logging, and technology service providers;
accounting, tax, payroll, bookkeeping, document management, e-signature, payment, invoicing, client management, and practice management systems used to provide services;
the Canada Revenue Agency, other tax authorities, government agencies, regulators, courts, law enforcement, or public authorities where authorized, required, or permitted by law;
financial institutions, benefits providers, payroll providers, employers, corporate registries, software providers, or other parties involved in work you request or authorize;
professional advisors, insurers, legal counsel, auditors, collection agencies, or compliance advisors where reasonably necessary for business, legal, compliance, risk-management, or insurance purposes;
a successor organization or prospective purchaser in connection with a merger, sale, financing, reorganization, or transfer of all or part of our business, subject to appropriate safeguards; and
other parties with your consent or at your direction.

When we use service providers, we require them to handle personal information only for authorized purposes and to use safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.

International Processing

Some service providers may process or store personal information outside Ontario or Canada, including in the United States or other jurisdictions. When personal information is processed outside Canada, it may be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction and may be accessible to courts, law enforcement, national security authorities, regulators, or other public authorities in that jurisdiction. We remain responsible for personal information under our control and use contractual, technical, and organizational measures designed to provide an appropriate level of protection.

Where tax, accounting, payroll, GST/HST, or business records are subject to Canadian recordkeeping requirements, we handle those records in accordance with applicable CRA retention and location requirements.

How Long We Keep Personal Information

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as required or permitted by law. Retention periods vary depending on the type of information and the reason we collected it.

Accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, GST/HST, corporate, and related client records are generally kept for at least six years from the end of the last tax year to which they relate, or longer where required for unresolved matters, audits, objections, appeals, reassessments, legal claims, professional obligations, or other lawful reasons.
Client portal accounts, documents, requests, questionnaires, activity logs, and service records are kept for as long as needed to provide services, maintain client history, meet recordkeeping obligations, respond to tax authority requirements, and protect legal rights.
Contact form submissions, appointment inquiries, and general correspondence may be kept for up to 24 months if they do not become part of a client file, unless we need to keep them longer for business, legal, security, consent-record, or compliance purposes.
Website analytics and advertising measurement information is retained according to our settings in the applicable analytics or advertising platform and may be kept in aggregated or de-identified reports for longer.
Security, server, backup, diagnostic, firewall, and activity logs may be kept as needed to operate, secure, troubleshoot, and protect the website, portal, and business.
Marketing consent, SMS consent, and unsubscribe records are kept for as long as needed to prove consent, honour communication preferences, and comply with applicable law.

When information is no longer needed, we securely delete, anonymize, or de-identify it where reasonably possible. Residual copies may remain in backups until they are overwritten or deleted through normal backup cycles.

Security

We use reasonable physical, technical, and organizational safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information we handle. These may include access controls, authentication, password protection, private document storage, permission-based access controls, upload validation, malware or file scanning where available, security monitoring, firewall and bot-protection tools, audit/activity logs, staff confidentiality practices, backups, and limits on who can access client information.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we take privacy and security seriously, especially for tax, identity, payroll, and financial information.

Privacy Incidents

If we become aware of a privacy or security incident involving personal information, we will investigate and respond in accordance with applicable law. Where required, we will notify affected individuals, regulators, or other parties and keep records of privacy breaches involving personal information as required by law.

Your Privacy Choices and Rights

You may contact us to request access to personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct inaccurate information, withdraw consent, request deletion where appropriate, ask questions about our privacy practices, or make a privacy complaint.

We may need to verify your identity before responding. We may also refuse or limit a request where permitted or required by law, including where information must be retained for tax, accounting, legal, professional, security, audit, or recordkeeping reasons, where it is subject to legal privilege, where disclosure would reveal confidential commercial information, or where disclosure would reveal personal information about someone else.

If we cannot resolve your privacy concern, you may have the right to contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at https://www.priv.gc.ca.

Children and Minors

The website and client portal are not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children through the website. However, we may process information about minors when a parent, guardian, or authorized client provides it for tax, accounting, benefit, dependant, family, payroll, or related filing purposes.

Links to Other Websites

Our website may link to websites or services that we do not operate. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of third-party websites or services. Please review the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make changes, we will post the updated version on this page and update the “Last updated” date above. Changes are effective when posted unless the updated policy says otherwise. If we make material changes, we may provide additional notice or request consent where required by law.

Privacy Contact

Kara Van Slyke Accounting is responsible for personal information under our control. Privacy questions, access requests, correction requests, withdrawal of consent requests, deletion requests where appropriate, and complaints may be directed to Kara Van Slyke Accounting:

By email: [email protected]
By phone: 226-228-2750
By mail: Kara Van Slyke Accounting, 465 Waterloo St, London, ON N6B 2P4
By visiting: https://karavanslykeaccounting.ca/contact/