Privacy Policy
Last modified: May 27, 2026
CanadaVisa Media ("Company" or "we", "us", "our") respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it by complying with this Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy").
This Privacy Policy describes:
- How we collect, use, disclose, and protect the personal information of users of our website at start.canadavisa.com and related applications and services ("you").
- The types of personal information we may collect from you, or that you may provide, when you visit or use our website at start.canadavisa.com or related applications and services, including telephone consultations with our AI voice assistant ("Sam") and SMS messaging service (together, our "Service") or otherwise interact with us.
- Our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.
As used in this Privacy Policy, "personal information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with an individual. It may also include other types of more technical information, but only when this information can identify you as an individual. Aggregated, anonymized and de-identified information that cannot be reasonably linked to an identifiable individual is not considered personal information.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices for collecting, processing, and storing your information. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Service. By accessing or using this Service, you indicate that you understand, accept, and consent to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy).
1. Information We Collect About You
The types of personal information we collect depend on a variety of factors, such as the type of services or products you request or use, applicable legal and regulatory requirements, and the means by which you communicate with us. Personal information collected may include:
- contact information, such as your name, email, phone number, and mailing address;
- demographic information, such as your date of birth and language abilities;
- citizenship or residency information, such as your country and province of residence, residency status, and citizenship, which allows us to establish and verify your identity, including government-issued identification, name, date of birth, and occupation;
- ancestry and lineage information, such as the names, birth dates, birthplaces, and citizenship status of your Canadian ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents), which is necessary to assess your eligibility for Canadian citizenship by descent under Bill C-3;
- supporting documentation that you provide for verification of lineage, including birth certificates, marriage records, naturalization records, and similar official records;
- financial information, such as payment card information processed via Stripe, our secure payment processor;
- voice recordings and transcripts of conversations with our AI voice assistant ("Sam") and any subsequent calls with case managers or attorneys;
- location information collected when you browse our Website or use our applications;
- technical information, including your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, or information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website, and usage details, such as pages and events viewed, clickstream data, account logins, preferences and IP addresses if they can be used to identify you as an individual; and
- any other information you provide to us.
Please note that, when you provide personal information of other persons such as ancestors, dependants, or relatives, you represent AND WARRANT to us that you have obtained all necessary consents from such persons to do so (where applicable). For information about deceased ancestors used for citizenship lineage verification, no living-person consent is required, but information must be accurate to your knowledge.
2. How We Collect Information About You
We use different methods to collect your information, including through:
- Direct interactions with you when you provide it to us, for example, by filling in forms on our Website, speaking with our AI voice assistant Sam by phone, replying to SMS messages, or speaking with our case managers and attorneys.
- Automated technologies or interactions, as you navigate through our Website. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies.
- Voice and SMS communications, including phone calls placed to or received from +1 (484) 878-5040 and any subsequent firm phone numbers used during your matter.
Information We Collect Through Automated Technologies
As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use cookies or other automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:
- Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
- Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.
The information we collect automatically helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service.
Third Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
Some content or applications on the Website, including advertisements, are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies, alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies, to collect information about you when you use our Website.
We do not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they are used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Interactions
To provide responsive intake and assistance, we use an artificial intelligence voice technology ("Sam") powered by third-party service providers (Eleven Labs Conversational AI and supporting language model providers) to discuss your inquiry, answer questions about Canadian citizenship by descent, and guide you through our intake process by telephone. When you interact with Sam, the system processes the information you submit through our assessment form (such as your name, contact information, and Canadian ancestry details), any questions or personal information you voluntarily provide during the conversation, and metadata regarding your interaction.
To ensure the accuracy, safety, and regulatory compliance of the AI voice assistant, the system is supervised by Cohen Immigration Law. Attorneys and staff at Cohen Immigration Law have access to your call recordings, transcripts, and assessment data for the specific purpose of quality assurance, technical supervision, and monitoring the AI's performance. By using Sam, you acknowledge that this supervision is technical and regulatory in nature and does not create a solicitor-client relationship between you and Cohen Immigration Law unless you sign a separate Retainer Agreement.
In compliance with professional obligations and applicable privacy laws, all conversations with Sam are recorded and retained. By continuing your call with Sam, you explicitly consent to this recording and the sharing of your transcript and audio with Cohen Immigration Law for the supervision purposes described above. You further acknowledge that your data may be processed by our third-party technology providers (including but not limited to Eleven Labs, Twilio for telephony and SMS, Stripe for payment processing, and language model API providers) solely for the purpose of generating automated responses, delivering messages, and processing payments.
4. How We Use Your Information
We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:
- To present our Website and its contents to you.
- To provide you with information or services that you request from us.
- To fulfill the purposes for which you provided the information or that were described when it was collected, including evaluating your eligibility for Canadian citizenship by descent.
- To provide you with notices about your account, case status, payments, and document requests.
- To send transactional SMS messages (including payment links, appointment confirmations, document requests, and case updates) to mobile numbers for which we have received opt-in consent.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights, or to comply with legal requirements.
- To measure or understand the effectiveness of, and to improve, our Website, services, marketing, your user experience or our relationship with you.
- In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
- For any other purpose with your consent.
5. Disclosure of Your Information
We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:
- To our subsidiaries and affiliates, including Cohen Immigration Law and its partners and staff working on your matter.
- To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business (including this Website and Service), who are contractually obligated to keep personal information confidential, use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them, and to process the personal information with the same standards set out in this policy. These providers include but are not limited to:
- Eleven Labs Inc. (AI voice agent platform)
- Twilio, Inc. (telephony and SMS delivery)
- Stripe, Inc. (payment processing)
- Google Cloud Platform (hosting and infrastructure)
- DocuSign, Inc. (electronic retainer agreement signing)
- In accordance with applicable law, to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of CanadaVisa Media's assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by CanadaVisa Media is among the assets transferred.
- To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
- For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
- With your consent.
We may also disclose your personal information:
- To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request (including Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in connection with your application), in accordance with applicable law.
- To enforce or apply our Terms of Use and any other agreements we may have with you.
- If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of CanadaVisa Media or others.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
Message frequency. For users who have opted in to SMS communications, message frequency varies based on the stage of your inquiry or matter — typically between two and five messages per case, though volume may be higher during active document collection or payment processing.
Message and data rates may apply. Standard message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply to any SMS messages sent to or received from us, depending on your plan. If you have questions about your text plan or data plan, please contact your wireless provider.
6. Transferring Your Personal Information
We or our service providers may access, process or store your personal information outside of the jurisdiction where we are located and where you reside. As a result, when your personal information is used or stored in a jurisdiction other than where you are residing, it may be subject to the law of this foreign jurisdiction, including any law permitting or requiring disclosure of the information to the government, government agencies, courts and law enforcement in that jurisdiction.
You are welcome to contact us to obtain further information about our use of service providers outside of the jurisdiction in which you reside.
7. Your Choices
We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. Below, we describe a variety of mechanisms designed to provide you with ways to control the collection, use or disclosure of your information:
- Cookies. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this Website may not be accessible or may not function properly.
- SMS messages. You may opt out of SMS messages at any time by replying STOP to any message. To resume messages after opting out, reply START. For help, reply HELP.
- Promotional communications. You may opt out of any promotional email communications by clicking the unsubscribe link in any such email.
- Even if you have opted out of receiving promotional communications, we may still contact you for transactional purposes (including SMS messages for which you have provided opt-in consent), in compliance with applicable laws.
While some internet browsers offer a "do not track" or "DNT" option, these features are not yet uniform and there is no common standard. Like most other companies, our Website is not currently configured to respond to browsers' "Do Not Track" signals.
8. Data Security
The security of your personal information is very important to us. We use physical, electronic, and administrative measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. In addition, we limit personal information access to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties that have a legitimate business need for such access. We implement a combination of policies and internal practices to protect your personal information, including:
- internal policies and procedures that define the roles and responsibilities of our employees throughout the life cycle of an item of information and limit their access to that information on a "need-to-know" basis and the retention or destruction of personal information;
- procedures for responding to complaints or inquiries related to privacy, including any confidentiality incident involving personal information;
- if the information is collected or stored electronically, technical safeguards such as encryption, firewalls, passwords, anti-virus software and similar measures; and
- contractual protections and other measures to ensure that service providers with whom we share personal information maintain adequate protections and security standards.
9. Data Retention
Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Records related to a Canadian immigration matter may be retained for the duration required by Canadian and Quebec professional regulations applicable to law firms. Under some circumstances we may anonymize your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you.
10. Children Under the Age of 18
Our Service is not intended for children under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18, and only collect information about children under 18 if they are dependants or named in a Canadian citizenship by descent application of an adult user of the Service, and entered by such user. If we learn we have collected or received personal information directly from a child under 18 without verifiable parental or legal guardian consent, we will delete or anonymize that information.
11. Accessing and Correcting Your Personal Information
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes. By law you have the right to request access to and to correct the personal information that we hold about you.
If you want to review, verify, or correct your personal information you may contact us using the coordinates provided in the section entitled "Contact Information", below.
We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access, and to provide you with the personal information that we hold about you or make your requested changes. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the personal information that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, erased, or made your personal information anonymous in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal information, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.
12. Withdrawing Your Consent
Where you have provided your consent to the collection, use, and transfer of your personal information, you may have the legal right to withdraw your consent under certain circumstances. To withdraw your consent, if applicable, you may contact us using the coordinates provided in the section entitled "Contact Information", below. Please note that if you withdraw your consent we may not be able to provide you with a particular service. We will explain the impact to you at the time to help you with your decision.
13. Changes to Our Privacy Policy
It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will provide more prominent notice to you as and where required by applicable law. By continuing to interact with us after the modified version of the Privacy Policy has been posted or you have been informed of such update, you agree to be bound by all such changes. If you do not agree to the changes in our Privacy Policy, it is your responsibility to stop interacting with us.
We include the date the Privacy Policy was last revised at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active, and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.
14. Contact Information
We welcome your questions, comments, and requests regarding this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices. Please contact us at:
Riley Cohen 155 University Avenue, Suite 1210 Toronto, Ontario, M5H 3B7 sysadmin@canadavisa.com 514-937-9445
We have procedures in place to receive and respond to complaints or inquiries about our handling of personal information, our compliance with this Privacy Policy, and with applicable privacy laws. To discuss our compliance with this Privacy Policy please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information listed above.