Privacy policy

Who we are

Where’s Anu is written by Anu Jolliffe and published by 9181873 Canada Ltd., doing business as Grey Sky Tech (“Grey Sky Tech”, “we” or “us”). Grey Sky Tech is responsible for the personal information collected through wheresanu.ca and in Where’s Anu’s emails.

• Mailing address: 186-4111 Hastings Street, Burnaby, BC V5C 6T7, Canada.
• Privacy Officer: Anu Jolliffe, at privacy@mail.wheresanu.ca. The Privacy Officer makes sure we follow this policy and the law, and answers your questions and requests.

We follow British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and, where it applies, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Our emails follow Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

What this policy covers

This policy covers wheresanu.ca and the emails Where’s Anu sends. Event pages link to other sites, such as organizers’ own pages, Eventbrite, Luma, Meetup and LinkedIn. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and this one doesn’t cover them.

Where’s Anu is for adults who work in or follow tech. It isn’t meant for children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them.

When you visit

Like every website, ours receives some technical details with each visit: your IP address, your browser and device type, the page you asked for, and the time. Our hosting company, Vercel, uses them to deliver pages and to protect the site from attacks. It keeps these records for a short time, at most 30 days. We don’t use them to work out who you are.

We also count how the site is used: which pages, events and filters are used, which event buttons are clicked, whether the visitor was signed in, and whether they came from another page of this site. We don’t record who you are or your internet address, and we don’t set a cookie for it.

Our pages load nothing from other companies’ sites, so no other company learns that you visited, unless you agree to Google Analytics (below).

Cookies and Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people use, so we can improve Where’s Anu. It stays off until you say yes.

• You choose. On your first visit, a banner asks whether you agree. Google Analytics loads only if you choose “Accept”. You can change your mind at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page.
• What it collects. The pages you view and for how long, your browser and device type, the site that sent you, and your approximate location (city and country). Google says Google Analytics 4 doesn’t log or store IP addresses.
• Its cookies. Two cookies, named _ga and _ga_ followed by a code, tell your visits apart. They expire 13 months after you accept, instead of Google’s usual 2 years. If you change your mind, we delete them.
• What we switch off. Google’s advertising features, Google signals and data sharing are off. Detailed data is kept for 2 months, the shortest Google allows. Totals, such as visits per month, are kept longer.
• Where it goes. Google LLC processes the data for us in the United States. You can read how Google uses information from sites that use its services (in a new tab), and stop Google Analytics on every site with Google’s opt-out add-on (in a new tab).

Either way, your browser keeps your choice for 13 months, so the banner doesn’t ask on every visit, then asks again. If you say no, nothing else is saved. We use no other cookies for visitors, except one for an hour while you wait for Get in touch’s link (When you write to us, below). If you sign in, two more keep you signed in (When you sign in with LinkedIn, below).

People named on Where’s Anu

Event pages name the people who host, speak at or are featured at each event, as the organizers name them in their public listings. Many names link to the person’s LinkedIn page. We do this so readers know who is presenting, and to keep an accurate record of Victoria’s tech events over time.

• Where names come from. Organizers’ public event listings (their own sites, Eventbrite, Luma and Meetup), and what organizers tell us. AI tools help us read the listings, so the names in them pass through those tools.
• Event pictures. Each event’s picture comes from its public listing, and may show people. If one shows you and you’d rather it didn’t, email us and we’ll take it down within 2 business days.
• Portraits. We publish a photo of a person we name only when they’ve explicitly agreed to it, and we’ve approved it. Otherwise, the only pictures are event pictures.

To correct or remove your name, use Get in touch or write to the Privacy Officer. To be taken off, pick “I’m listed and I’d like my name taken off”. We’ll ask you to confirm your email address, and check the request is really from you. We’ll fix a mistake within 2 business days. If you’d rather not be listed, we’ll take your name off every event within 5 business days. Either way, we’ll do it before the event if it hasn’t happened yet. We keep a private record of your request, so we can honour it. Search engines and saved calendars can take a little longer to catch up.

When you sign in with LinkedIn

You can sign in to Where’s Anu with your LinkedIn account. You don’t have to: the calendar is open to everyone. Signing in lets you get email notifications, send Anu an event, write to him, and connect your profile to your People page.

• What LinkedIn shares. Your name, your email address, whether LinkedIn has confirmed that address, your profile photo, and an ID for you that only Where’s Anu uses. Not your connections, your posts, your job or your profile’s address. We never post anything to LinkedIn. LinkedIn knows you signed in to Where’s Anu, and its own privacy policy covers that.
• What we keep for your profile. Your first and last name, your email address, a copy of your photo, LinkedIn’s ID for you, and when you first and last signed in. If LinkedIn adds something after your name, such as a credential after a comma, we leave it out of your name on Where’s Anu, and keep the name as LinkedIn sent it too. Each time you sign in, we update them from LinkedIn. If you change your email address on your profile, we email you a 6-digit code first, to check the address is yours. If email notifications are on, changing your email address turns them off. You can turn them on again for the new address.
• Your LinkedIn address. If you type your LinkedIn profile’s address on your profile, we keep it with your account, and with any request you send to connect your People page. Anu uses it only to check that a People page is yours when you ask him to connect it. We never show it on the site. You can change or clear it on the LinkedIn tab, and it’s deleted with your account.
• Your People page. If Where’s Anu names you, we look for your People page when you sign in, by your name, or by your LinkedIn address if you’ve given it. Anu decides whether to connect it to your profile: nothing connects until he approves it. Once it’s connected, your photo shows on your People page only while you choose to show it, and Anu can take it down. When you change your People page, we keep a record of each change, what it was and what it became, for a year. It’s deleted with your account.
• Staying signed in. Signing in puts a cookie in your browser that keeps you signed in for 30 days, or until you sign out. While you sign in, a second cookie, for 10 minutes, checks that LinkedIn’s answer is for your browser. Both are needed for signing in to work, so the cookie banner doesn’t ask about them. Your LinkedIn password never reaches us, and we keep no key to your LinkedIn account.
• Our sign-in log. We record each try at signing in, good or bad: when, whether it worked, and what your browser says it is, but never your internet address. We use it to spot and stop attacks. After 13 months, a record no longer shows who it was about.
• Deleting your account. You can delete your account on your profile at any time. We delete your profile, your photo, your requests to connect, the messages you wrote with their screenshots, and the events you sent us, right away, and sign you out everywhere. An event Anu listed from one you sent stays on the site, as his. Your People page stays, as it’s about the events you were part of: write to us if you’d rather not be named (above). We keep your email notifications’ consent record, as that section says.

If we switch off your account

If an account breaks our house rules, we may switch it off. Switched off, you can still sign in, see your profile, download your data, turn off email notifications and delete your account. If we also stop it signing in, you can still read every event without signing in, and write to us from the sign-in page. We tell you why.

• What we keep. Why we switched it off, from a short list of reasons; a short note of what happened, facts only, which only the site’s owners see and which you can ask to read; who switched it off, when, and when we’ll look at it again.
• Coming back. So the same LinkedIn account can’t delete itself and come straight back, we keep a scrambled code made from LinkedIn’s ID for you, with a key of our own. It can’t be turned back into your ID, and it matches only that same LinkedIn account signing in again. A different LinkedIn account isn’t blocked.
• How long. We keep these while your account is switched off, even if you delete it, and look at each switch-off again at least every 12 months. When we switch an account back on, the code is deleted right away and the rest a year later.
• Your email notifications. They pause while you can still sign in, and stop if we also stop you signing in. Every email’s unsubscribe link always works.
• Writing to us about it. The site adds your account to your message, so you don’t have to say which one. We reply within 10 business days, and answer a request to read the note within 30 days.

When you write to us

You can write to Anu with the Get in touch form. Signed in with LinkedIn, you give us what it’s about, your message and, if you wrote from one of our pages, which page. It’s tied to your profile, and Anu answers by email, to the address on it. You can see what you sent, his answers and where each message stands under My Messages on your profile. If your profile has no confirmed email address, his answers show only there, unless you give an address for that message (below).

Without LinkedIn, you give us the same, with your name and email address. We email you a link, and nothing reaches Anu until you press its button: that shows the address is yours, so his answer can reach you. The email with the link holds none of the words you typed. If you don’t press it within 24 hours, we delete your message and your address, and our record of that email no longer shows the address. Once you’ve pressed it, we email you a copy of what you wrote, and keep it like any other message. The same happens if you’re signed in, your profile has no confirmed email address, and you give one for that message.

• What goes along with it. The page you wrote from, the version of the site you were using, whether you used the Feedback button, and whether it’s about that page or the whole site. If you tick the box for it, also your browser’s name and version, your device’s system, and your screen’s size, to help Anu find a problem. The box is ticked for “Something’s wrong” and not for the other topics. We never keep the full details your browser sends, or your internet address.
• Screenshots. You can add up to 5 pictures to a message (PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF, up to 10 MB each). We check each one, and keep a clean copy without its hidden details, such as where it was taken, the device and any comments; the original is deleted. Only you and the people who run Where’s Anu can see them, and never in an email. Close other tabs and crop out anything private first. Pictures you add but never send are deleted after a day. Sent ones are kept as long as their message, and deleted right away if you delete them, if you delete your account, or if the message is spam.
• Spam. We delete a message we judge to be spam, with its screenshots, without telling anyone.
• While you write. Your browser tab keeps your words, until you send them, so a reload doesn’t lose them. We don’t receive them until you press Send.

While you wait for the link, a cookie keeps track of your message for an hour, so you can send the link again. It’s needed for that, so the cookie banner doesn’t ask about it.

To stop the form being misused, we count how often each internet address uses it, for an hour and for a day, under a scrambled form we can’t turn back into the address, and delete each count when its hour or day ends. We never keep the internet address itself.

If you email us instead, we receive your name, your email address and what you write. We use them to answer you, and to correct our data when you point out a mistake. Our email runs on Microsoft 365. We keep messages for up to 2 years after the conversation ends, then delete them, unless the law requires us to keep them longer.

When you send us an event

You can send Anu an event to list, once you’ve signed in with LinkedIn. You give us its link, and a note if you add one. We also keep where on the site you pressed Send Anu an event, such as the header or a day with nothing listed.

• On your profile. You can follow it there, or withdraw it while it waits. Anu sees your name with it. We email you a copy, and his answer.
• What Anu does with it. He opens the link and decides whether to list the event. If he doesn’t, he may give a short reason. An event he lists is public like any other, and your name and address are never shown with it.
• What we don’t keep. Your internet address, or anything about your browser.

The emails we send you

We keep a record of each email Where’s Anu sends you, whatever kind it is: what it was, when we sent it, the address it went to, its subject and its words, and whether our email service accepted it. Codes, and the codes inside links, are never kept. Only the site’s owners can read these records. After 13 months, a record no longer shows your address, the subject or the words.

Email notifications

If you sign up for email notifications, we keep your email address, and your name if you give it. We also keep a record of your consent: the words you agreed to, when, and on which page.

• What we record about each email. We keep a record of each email we send you: its type, when we sent it, whether our email service accepted it for sending, and whether it bounced. After 13 months, the record no longer shows that it was sent to you.
• No tracking. Our emails have no tracking pixels and no rewritten links, so we don’t know whether you open them or which links you click.
• This week’s picks. While they’re on, our other emails to you, such as the copy of an event you send us and Anu’s answer, also show this week’s picks: the events Anu is going to or recommends in the next 7 days.
• Unsubscribing. Every email names Grey Sky Tech, gives our mailing address, and has a link to unsubscribe in one click. We stop right away, and always within the 10 business days the law allows.
• After you leave. We keep your address and consent record for 3 years, only to show that we had your consent and honoured your choice. Then we delete them.

Who handles it for us, and where

A few companies handle personal information for us. Each may use it only to do this work for us, and must protect it.

Information stored or handled outside Canada is subject to the laws of that country, and its courts, police and national security agencies may be able to get it. We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it with anyone else unless the law requires us to.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it, then delete it or remove what ties it to you.

If we use personal information to make a decision about you, such as turning down a request about your name, or approving or declining a request to connect your profile, we keep it for at least a year afterwards, as BC’s law requires.

Your rights and choices

You can ask us to:

• Show you the personal information we hold about you, how we’ve used it, and who we’ve shared it with.
• Correct it if it’s wrong.
• Stop: turn off email notifications, change your cookie choice, or have your name taken off.
• Delete it once we no longer need it.

Write to the Privacy Officer at privacy@mail.wheresanu.ca. We may ask you to confirm who you are first. We answer within 30 days, and we don’t charge for it.

If you’re not happy with our answer, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (in a new tab) or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (in a new tab).

How we protect it

• Only the people who run Where’s Anu can see the personal information we hold, and they must sign in to do so.
• Information travels encrypted (HTTPS), and our providers encrypt it where they store it.
• If a breach of our security creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we’ll tell you as soon as we can, and report it to the privacy commissioner as the law requires.

Changes, and how to reach us

We’ll update this policy before Where’s Anu collects anything new. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change affects how we use information we already hold, we’ll email the people who get our notifications first.

Questions, requests or complaints: Anu Jolliffe, Privacy Officer, at privacy@mail.wheresanu.ca, or by mail to Grey Sky Tech, 186-4111 Hastings Street, Burnaby, BC V5C 6T7.