Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and Scope

This Policy applies to personal information we collect through the Services, in person at our events, and in our communications with you. "Personal information" means information about an identifiable individual. This Policy does not apply to: (a) information that is aggregated or de-identified so that it can no longer reasonably identify you; (b) the independent practices of third-party platforms and services we do not control (such as Discord, payment processors, brokers, prop firms, and charting platforms), which are governed by their own privacy policies; or (c) business contact information used to communicate with you in your professional capacity, to the extent exempted by applicable law.

2. Privacy Officer and Contact

We have designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with PIPA and this Policy:

Privacy Officer: Pawandeep Singh Padda
S.O.T. School of Trading Inc.
Email: info@schooloftrading.ca

Please direct privacy questions, access and correction requests, consent withdrawals, and complaints to the Privacy Officer using the contact details above.

3. Personal Information We Collect

3.1 Information you provide

1. Identity and contact data: name, preferred/display name or alias, email address, phone number (if provided), country/province, and date of birth or age confirmation where required for eligibility.
2. Account data: username, password (stored in hashed form by us or our platforms), profile details, community handles (for example, your Discord username and ID), and settings.
3. Parental consent records: where a minor participates, the parent/guardian's identity and contact details, the consent given, and verification records.
4. Payment data: processed by third-party payment processors (Stripe). We receive confirmation of payment, the product purchased, amounts, currency, partial card details (such as brand and last four digits), and billing country, but we do not receive or store full card numbers.
5. Educational and performance data: enrolment and progress records, quiz and assignment results, attendance, trade journals or logs you submit, chart screenshots and mark-ups you submit, self-reported statistics, behavioural and adherence metrics, grades, report cards, and leaderboard data.
6. Communications and User Content: messages you send us, support requests, survey responses, and content you post in our communities (text, images, audio, video, screen shares, chat).
7. Recordings: if you speak, appear on camera, share your screen, or post in chat during recorded classes, calls, or events, the recording will include your voice, image, screen content, display name, and messages.
8. Testimonial and media materials: where you separately consent, testimonials, images, video, and results you provide for marketing.

3.2 Information collected automatically

When you use the Services we and our service providers may automatically collect technical data such as IP address, approximate location derived from IP, device and browser type, operating system, language, referring pages, pages viewed, links clicked, session times, video-playback events, and diagnostic logs, using cookies and similar technologies described in Section 11.

3.3 Information from third parties

We may receive limited information from platforms you connect or interact with — for example, Discord (username, ID, server activity relevant to moderation), our learning-management system (course activity), payment processors (payment status, fraud signals), and analytics providers — and, where you use an affiliate link, confirmation from the partner that a referral occurred (we do not receive your trading account contents from brokers or prop firms).

3.4 Sensitive information

We do not seek, and ask that you do not share, government identifiers, financial account numbers, health information, or other sensitive data through the Services except where we expressly request it for a stated purpose. Information about your trading performance can be sensitive; Sections 7 and 8 explain how we handle it.

4. How We Use Personal Information

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

1. create and administer accounts, verify eligibility and age, and record parental consents;
2. provide the Services: deliver courses, classes, replays, tools, and community access; track progress; generate grades, report cards, and leaderboards; and operate accountability features;
3. process payments, subscriptions, invoices, taxes, refunds where applicable, and prevent payment fraud and abuse;
4. communicate with you about the Services, including transactional and service messages (receipts, schedules, changes, security and legal notices);
5. send marketing communications where permitted by law and by your consent (Section 12);
6. moderate communities, enforce our Terms and community rules, protect Members (including minors), and investigate misuse, infringement, and fraud;
7. record and archive classes and events for Member replays and internal training and quality purposes;
8. use testimonials, likenesses, and identifiable results in external marketing only with the separate consent described in Section 8;
9. analyze and improve the Services, develop curricula and features, and produce aggregated or de-identified statistics (which we may use for any lawful purpose);
10. maintain security, back-ups, and business records; exercise or defend legal claims; and comply with applicable law, court orders, and regulatory requirements.

If we intend to use personal information for a materially different purpose, we will identify that purpose and obtain any required consent before doing so.

5. Consent and Your Choices

We obtain consent that is meaningful and appropriate to the sensitivity of the information — express (for example, ticking a box, signing a release, or a parent's verified consent) or implied where appropriate (for example, providing your email to receive a receipt). By creating an account, enrolling, participating in the community, or otherwise using the Services after being presented with this Policy, you consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information for the purposes described in it, to the extent permitted by law.

Withdrawal. Subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the Privacy Officer. Withdrawal is prospective. If you withdraw consent that is necessary for us to provide the Services (for example, consent to maintain your account records), we may be unable to continue providing some or all of the Services to you, and we will explain the consequences before acting on the withdrawal.

No forced marketing consent. We do not require you to consent to marketing uses of your information, or to external testimonial/media use, as a condition of purchasing or using the Services, beyond what is necessary to provide them.

6. Minors and Parental Consent

1. Under 13: the Services are not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If we learn we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it and terminate the related access.
2. 13 to the age of majority: a minor may use the Services only with the verifiable consent of a parent or legal guardian as described in our Terms. We collect the minimum information reasonably necessary about minors; the parent/guardian provides consents, manages the account and purchases, and may exercise the minor's privacy rights on their behalf.
3. Extra protections: we do not use minors' identifiable information, likenesses, report cards, or results in external marketing under any circumstances without separate, express, written parental consent; we encourage minors to use pseudonymous display names in the community; and parents may contact the Privacy Officer at any time to review, correct, restrict, or delete their child's information, subject to legal retention requirements.

7. Report Cards, Leaderboards, Recordings, and Community Visibility

What other Members can see. Our community model includes accountability features. If you participate, other Members may see, under your display name: your community posts and messages; your report card summaries, grades, streaks, and similar metrics where the program includes member-visible report cards; your leaderboard placement where the program includes leaderboards; and your appearance, voice, screen shares, and chat in live sessions and their replays. Program pages disclose which of these features apply before you enrol.

Your controls. You may use a pseudonymous display name; keep your camera and microphone off; refrain from posting; and request exclusion from leaderboards or member-visible report cards as described in the Terms (some accountability-based programs may require these features as a disclosed condition of that program). Requests are applied prospectively; content already embedded in past recordings or archives may persist in that historical material.

What the public can see. Nothing identifying you is published outside the member community — on public websites, social media, or advertising — without the separate consent described in Section 8, except content you yourself choose to make public.

A note on what you share. Community spaces are visible to other Members, and we cannot control what other individuals do with information you choose to reveal there. Share only what you are comfortable sharing, and do not post other people's personal information.

8. Testimonials and Marketing (Separate Consent)

We use your identifiable name, image, voice, video, story, report card, or results in external marketing only with your separate, express consent, given through our written Consent & Media Release (or equivalent recorded consent). That release states the scope, media, and duration of the permitted use. You may withdraw this consent at any time by written notice to the Privacy Officer; withdrawal is prospective — we will stop creating new materials and make commercially reasonable efforts to discontinue further distribution of existing materials, but copies already published, downloaded, or shared by others may be beyond our ability to recall. For minors, only a parent or legal guardian may give or withdraw this consent. We may at any time use statistics that are aggregated or fully de-identified.

9. How We Share Personal Information

We do not sell personal information, and we do not disclose it to third parties for their own marketing. We share personal information only:

1. With service providers who process it on our behalf under contractual confidentiality and data-protection obligations — including, as of the Last Updated date: website hosting and infrastructure (e.g., Vercel), community platforms (e.g., Discord), learning-management systems (e.g., Thinkific, Teachable, or TalentLMS), payment processors (Stripe), email and communications providers (info@schooloftrading.ca), video hosting and recording tools, analytics providers (Google Analytics), and cloud storage and back-up providers;
2. Within the community, as described in Section 7;
3. With your direction or consent — for example, when you ask us to share something, use an integration, or give the marketing consent in Section 8 (affiliate partners receive at most confirmation that a referral occurred, not your account contents);
4. For legal reasons — to comply with applicable law, subpoenas, court orders, or lawful requests of public authorities; to enforce our Terms; to detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, infringement, security incidents, or harm to any person (including minors); and to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; and
5. In business transactions — in connection with a prospective or completed financing, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, in which case personal information may be disclosed to and used by the counterparties and their advisers under confidentiality obligations, and any successor will be bound to respect this Policy or provide notice of changes.

10. International Storage and Transfers

We operate from British Columbia, Canada, but our service providers may store and process personal information outside of Canada — including in the United States (for example, hosting on Vercel and communications through Discord) and other jurisdictions. While personal information is outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of those jurisdictions, and courts, law enforcement, and national-security authorities there may be able to compel its disclosure under their local law. By using the Services, you acknowledge and, where required, consent to the storage and processing of your personal information outside Canada as described here. You may contact the Privacy Officer for more information about our policies and practices regarding service providers outside Canada.

11. Cookies, Analytics, and Tracking

We and our providers use cookies, pixels, local storage, and similar technologies to: (a) operate the sites (authentication, security, preferences — strictly necessary); (b) measure and analyze usage so we can improve the Services (analytics); and (c) where used and permitted, measure the effectiveness of our marketing (marketing/attribution). You can control cookies through your browser settings (blocking some cookies may impair site functions), and where a consent banner is presented, through that banner. Our sites do not currently respond to "Do Not Track" browser signals in a standardized way; where a recognized opt-out preference signal applies to you under your local law, we will honour it as required. Analytics currently in use: Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel, and Microsoft Clarity.

12. Email, Messages, and CASL

We send two kinds of messages: (a) transactional/service messages — receipts, enrolment confirmations, schedule and product notices, security and legal notices — which are necessary to provide the Services; and (b) marketing messages — news, offers, and content — which we send only with consent as required by Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and other applicable law. Every marketing message identifies us and contains an unsubscribe mechanism; unsubscribes are honoured without delay and in any event within ten (10) business days. Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop transactional messages needed to serve you.

13. Retention

We retain personal information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy and to meet legal, tax, accounting, audit, and dispute-resolution requirements, after which it is securely deleted, destroyed, or de-identified. Indicative periods: account and enrolment records — for the life of the account and a reasonable period after closure; financial and tax records — generally seven (7) years as required by Canadian tax law; parental consents and age-verification records — for the period of participation plus the time needed to demonstrate compliance; recordings and course archives — for as long as the related course or archive is offered, subject to periodic review; community content — per the practices of the hosting platform and our moderation needs; information used for a decision about an individual — at least one (1) year as required by PIPA so the individual may access it; legal-hold material — until the hold ends. Back-up copies persist for a limited period on standard rotation before being overwritten.

14. Safeguards

We protect personal information with security arrangements reasonable to its sensitivity, including administrative, technical, and physical safeguards: encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS), access limited to those who need it, credential and permission management, use of reputable providers with their own security programs, logging and monitoring appropriate to our scale, and staff/contractor confidentiality obligations. No system is perfectly secure; you are responsible for keeping your own credentials confidential and for the security of your devices, and you should use a strong, unique password and enable two-factor authentication where offered.

15. Your Rights: Access, Correction, Withdrawal, Deletion

Subject to applicable law, you may: (a) access the personal information we hold about you, information about how it has been and is being used, and the names of persons and types of organizations to whom it has been disclosed; (b) request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information; (c) withdraw consent as described in Section 5; and (d) request deletion of information we are not required or permitted to retain. Parents/guardians may exercise these rights for minors in their care, and authorized representatives may act with proof of authority.

To make a request, contact the Privacy Officer in writing with enough detail to identify you and the information at issue. We will verify your identity before responding, respond within the time required by PIPA (generally 30 days, extendable in limited circumstances with notice to you), and may charge a minimal fee for access where permitted, telling you the estimate first. If we refuse a request in whole or in part, we will tell you the reasons and your recourse, including your right to ask the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia to review our decision. Certain information may be exempt from access under applicable law (for example, information subject to solicitor-client privilege or that would reveal personal information about another individual).

16. Additional Regional Notices

Québec. If you reside in Québec, we handle your personal information in accordance with the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector as amended (Law 25), including rights of access, rectification, and withdrawal, and the person in charge of the protection of personal information is the Privacy Officer identified in Section 2.

European Economic Area / United Kingdom. If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, our legal bases are: performance of a contract (providing the Services), consent (marketing; testimonials; minors' participation), legitimate interests (security, improvement, enforcement, and analytics balanced against your rights), and legal obligation. You may also have rights to portability, restriction, objection, and to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. We transfer data internationally as described in Section 10, using safeguards required by applicable law.

United States. We do not sell or "share" (for cross-context behavioural advertising) personal information as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, and we treat US residents' requests to know, correct, and delete consistently with Section 15 and applicable state law.

17. Data Incidents

If a breach of security safeguards affects personal information under our control, we will investigate, contain, and remediate the incident; assess the risk of harm; notify affected individuals and applicable regulators (including under PIPEDA's breach provisions where they apply) where required by law or where we determine there is a real risk of significant harm; and keep records of the incident as required.

18. Complaints and the OIPC

If you have a concern about our handling of your personal information, please contact the Privacy Officer first; we take complaints seriously and will investigate and respond. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC): www.oipc.bc.ca — PO Box 9038, Stn. Prov. Govt., Victoria, BC V8W 9A4 — (250) 387-5629. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your local data-protection authority.

19. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The "Last Updated" date will change, and for material changes we will provide reasonable advance notice (for example, by email or in-product notice) and obtain any consent required by law. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of a revised Policy signifies your acknowledgment of it.

20. Contact

S.O.T. School of Trading Inc.
Attn: Privacy Officer — Pawandeep Singh Padda
Email: info@schooloftrading.ca