Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated October 7, 2026

Who we are

The Patina Record is operated by Nicolas Consens in Toronto, Ontario. We are responsible for the personal information described here, on this site and on Patina Record Pro, our site for developers and planning professionals, which uses the same accounts. Questions, requests or complaints: hello@thepatinarecord.ca.

What we collect and why

• Your email address, when you sign in or join the update list. We use it to send sign-in links, the alerts you set up, and (if you joined the list) occasional updates about new cities and launches.
• What you watch: the properties, streets, wards or municipalities you follow, and a record of which alerts we sent, so we never send the same one twice.
• Research records you build with Save This Building. Drafts you haven't saved to an account stay in your own browser and never reach us. If you send a record to the public archive, the reviewed copy and the credit name you choose are public until you withdraw it; your email is never shown.
• Volunteer hours you log for a heritage group: the date, hours and an optional note, visible to the group's members; only totals appear on the group's public impact report.
• Community collection items you add to a property (photos, documents, recordings or links, with the title, description, credit and licence you choose): private until we review them, then public with your credit line but never your email; you can delete them, and declined files are deleted.
• Tours and plaque programs you create: public once you publish them; drafts are visible only to you and your group's admins.
• Street survey entries stay on your phone until you send them; sent entries become condition reports (reviewed before they are published).
• Research you send to a municipality from a research record: the record as it is when you send it, including its contact details, goes to that municipality's heritage staff, who can see it and set its status; you can withdraw it while it is open.
• Municipal staff accounts (Register desk): your work email, municipality and title, and a log of the changes you make, visible to your municipality's staff.
• Staff cross-check subscriptions: which municipalities you asked to get the Monday email for.
• Teammates' email addresses that a Firm subscriber adds to their team, so those people get Firm access when they sign in. The subscriber can remove them at any time.
• Buildings you say you're researching on the volunteer watchlist, with the group name you choose to give. Others see that a building has been taken and the group name, never who you are.
• Support pledges: the buildings you support designating, with the name and the first three characters of your postal code if you give them. The public sees the count and the names people chose to show. If you tick the box, heritage groups working on that area may pass your name and postal area to the municipality; your email is never shared. You can change or withdraw a pledge at any time.
• Condition reports and corrections: what you report about a building, when, and your photos (which are public once we publish the report; we delete declined photos). A correction can include an email address, used only to ask you about it.
• Directory listings and open-data requests: the business details a firm submits (shown publicly once approved), and the municipality, date and optional group name when you log a request for open data.
• Heritage group workspaces: the group's name, area and details, the emails of its members, and its board (buildings, status, who is on each and notes). Members of the group see the member emails, board and notes; the public sees only the group's name, area, description and the buildings it is working on. A group admin can remove members, and you can leave a group at any time.
• Update list details: the municipality and role you choose to tell us, so updates are relevant.
• Demo requests: the email, firm and municipality you give when you ask for a demo, so we can send it. If we send you a private demo link, we count when it is opened and when its spreadsheet is downloaded.
• Payment status, for paid plans on Developer Record (The Patina Record itself is free). Payments are handled by Stripe; we receive your plan and whether it's active, never your card number.
• Technical information: our hosting providers process your IP address and basic request logs to deliver and protect the site. The map loads its background tiles from OpenFreeMap, which receives your IP address to do so.

We use a single cookie to keep you signed in. To see which pages are useful, we count page views with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and doesn't identify you or follow you across sites; account, sign-in, research record and admin pages aren't counted. We don't use advertising trackers.

Property information

Heritage information on the site comes from public municipal heritage registers, municipal notices and open data (see sources). Some properties are private homes, listed by their address as the municipality publishes them. We don't collect or show owners' names: where a source includes owner or mailing details, we remove them before storing anything. If you think a record is wrong, tell us and the municipality.

Who helps us run the service

We share information only with providers that run parts of the service for us, and only what each one needs:

• Supabase: database and sign-in. Our data is stored in Supabase's Canada (Central) region.
• Vercel: hosts the website (United States).
• Resend: sends alert and sign-in emails (United States).
• GitHub: runs our daily data updates, alert sending and encrypted nightly backups (United States).
• Stripe: processes payments for Developer Record's paid plans.

Some of these providers process information outside Canada, where it can be subject to the laws of that country. We don't sell, rent or trade personal information, and we don't share it for others' marketing.

Emails

We only email you about things you asked for. Every alert and update email says why you're getting it and has a one-click unsubscribe link. You can also turn alerts off on your account page.

How long we keep it

Account information, watches, alert history and saved research records stay until you delete your account. Update list details stay until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove them; after you unsubscribe we keep only enough to make sure we don't email you again. Encrypted backups of the database are kept for 14 days, so deleted information disappears from them within 14 days.

Your choices and rights

• See, correct or get a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Delete your account and everything tied to it from your account page, or by asking us.
• Withdraw consent to emails at any time with the unsubscribe link.

Email hello@thepatinarecord.ca and we'll respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Security

Connections are encrypted, each user's watches and research records are walled off from other users in the database, and the website itself can only read public heritage data. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that puts you at risk, we'll tell you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.

Children

The service isn't meant for children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll update the date above and, for significant changes, email account holders before the change takes effect.