Privacy policy

This site is run by Home North Co. We make personalized pieces to order in Toronto and sell them across Canada. We’re responsible for the personal information described here, and our privacy contact is at the end of this page.

Canada’s privacy law for businesses, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), applies to what we collect, and Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL) to the emails we send.

When you order

• Your name, email address and shipping address, and your phone number if you give one — it’s only for the courier.
• What you order: the pieces, colours and sizes, and the personalization — the place, its coordinates, and any year or family name you add.
• A gift note, if you write one, and a code, if you use one.
• Whether you said yes to our emails, and the version of our Terms of sale you agreed to, each with the time.

When you pay

You type your card details into Square’s own payment form, and they go straight to Square. We receive confirmation that the payment went through, a payment reference and a receipt link — never your card number.

When you join the mailing list

Your email address, and what you choose to add: your answer to “What makes Canada home to you?”, and the place you’d chosen on the site. We keep a record of your consent — the words you agreed to, which form you used and when — and of when you confirmed it from your inbox.

When you talk to Luna

What you write to Luna, our shopping assistant, and what she answers, with the page you were on and the place you’d set on the site. If you give her your email — for example, so our team can reply — it’s kept with the conversation. The chat says so before you start.

When you look for a place

The words you type into the place search. Your location only if you choose to share it — see Your location.

Where you came from

On your first visit, your browser notes the site or campaign link that brought you here, the first page you saw, and when. The note stays in your browser and goes with your order or sign-up, so we can tell which links and campaigns bring customers. On its own, it doesn’t identify you.

When you browse

Like any website, ours receives your internet (IP) address and basic browser details with each visit. Our hosting provider keeps them briefly in technical logs, to run the site and protect it. To stop abuse, the site also counts how often each address uses the order, sign-up and place-search forms; those counts expire within the hour.

Vercel Web Analytics counts visits to our pages: which page, the site that sent you, and general details such as country, browser and type of device. It uses no cookies and doesn’t follow you to other sites. It never counts our staff pages, and the private keys in order and unsubscribe links are removed before anything is counted.

• To make, check and ship your order, and to email you about it: your confirmation, your tracking number, and any question about your piece.
• To answer you when you write to us, or talk to Luna, and to pass your question to our team when you ask her to.
• To improve Luna’s answers: our team reads what visitors ask and writes the answers she should give.
• To send news about new pieces, if you said yes.
• To see which links and campaigns bring visitors and customers.
• To keep the records Canadian tax law asks a business to keep.
• To protect the shop, and you, from fraud and abuse.

We don’t sell your information, and we don’t use it for advertising.

We ask for your location only when you tap “Use my location”, or open the map before you’ve chosen a place, so it can start near you. Your browser asks for your permission first. If you say no, everything still works — type your place instead.

If you say yes, your position is used to find the place you’re at, or to centre the map. When a point is chosen, our server asks the place search whether it’s in Canada and what it’s called. We don’t keep your position unless you make that place part of an order — then its coordinates are what we print.

Only what each one needs, for the reasons above:

• Our production partner in Toronto, who makes and ships your piece: the personalization, your gift note, and your name, shipping address and phone number. Never your email address or payment details.
• The courier, usually Canada Post: your name and address, and your phone number if you gave one.
• Square processes card payments, and Apple Pay or Google Pay where you use them, under its own privacy notice.
• Vercel hosts this site, keeps orders and sign-ups in private storage in the United States, and runs our visit counts.
• Resend sends our emails, from the United States.
• Anthropic runs Luna: what you write to her, with the page you’re on, goes to Anthropic’s AI model, in the United States, to write her answer.
• Place search: our server looks up what you type in OpenStreetMap data, using Photon, and in the Government of Canada’s official geographical names (Natural Resources Canada). The lookups come from our server, so those services see the words or the point, not who you are.
• The map: when you open it, your browser loads it directly from OpenFreeMap (map data © OpenStreetMap contributors), which sees your internet address, as any website you visit does.

We’d share your information beyond this only if the law required it — for example, a court order.

Some of these services store or handle information outside Canada, mostly in the United States. While it’s there, it’s subject to that country’s laws, and its courts and authorities may be able to see it.

The shop itself sets no cookies for visitors — the only cookies on this site are for our staff, when they sign in. What you’d expect the site to remember, it keeps in your own browser’s storage:

• your bag, until you place the order or empty it;
• the place you’ve chosen, and the details you’ve typed at checkout, until you close the tab — the boxes you tick are never saved;
• where you first came from (see above);
• your conversation with Luna, for fourteen days, so she can pick it up when you come back — “Start over” clears it.

You can clear these at any time in your browser’s settings. Square’s payment form, on the checkout page, may use its own cookies and information about your device to prevent fraud.

Order emails — your confirmation, and the email with your tracking number — are part of your order, so they come whether or not you’re on our list.

Anything else, such as news about new pieces, we send only if you said yes — at checkout or in one of our sign-up forms — and then confirmed it by following the link we emailed you. We keep a record of what you agreed to, and when.

Every one of those emails has an unsubscribe link, which takes you off the list straight away. You can also unsubscribe here, or reply to any of our emails and we’ll take you off by hand.

• Orders: six years after the end of the year you ordered — how long Canadian tax law asks businesses to keep their records — then we delete them. The print-ready files for your piece are kept with the order, so it can be made again if anything goes wrong.
• The mailing list: until you unsubscribe, or ask us to delete your sign-up. A sign-up that isn’t confirmed within 30 days is deleted.
• After you unsubscribe: your sign-up stays on file marked as unsubscribed, unless you ask us to delete it, and we keep a note of when you left, so you’re never added back by mistake. That note holds only a one-way scrambled form of your address, never the address itself.
• Conversations with Luna: we keep them to improve her answers. Ask us and we’ll delete yours.
• Technical logs and abuse counts: briefly, then they’re gone.
• Payments: Square keeps its own records, under its own rules.

Orders and sign-ups are kept in private storage that only the shop’s own systems and our signed-in staff can reach. The link to your order page carries a signature, so it can’t be guessed, and the links our production partner uses open one order at a time. Card details never reach us at all. No system is perfectly secure: if a breach ever put you at real risk of significant harm, we’d tell you, and report it to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as the law requires.

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, and to correct it if it’s wrong. You can also ask us to delete it; we will, except for what the law asks us to keep, such as order records for tax.

Write to us at tecnomerec@gmail.com. We’ll answer within 30 days, and it costs you nothing. We may ask you to show it’s you — usually by writing from the email address on your order.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. For our emails, that’s one click on unsubscribe. Without the rest, we can’t take or complete an order — we’ll tell you what it would change.

When we change this policy, we post the new version here, with its date. If a change would mean using information you’ve already given us in a new way, we’ll ask you first.

For questions, requests or concerns about your privacy, write to us or call.

If we can’t settle a concern, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.