Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information khaledhawari.ca collects, why, where it goes, how long it is kept and what you can ask me to do with it. The site is run by Khaled Hawari, a tax and financial consultant in Ottawa, Ontario. I handle personal information in line with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

What I collect through the contact form If you use the contact form, I collect what you type into it:

your first and last name
your email address
your phone number, if you choose to give one (it is optional)
the topic you pick (tax, bookkeeping, crypto or planning)
the message you write

The form also carries three small items that are not about you: a hidden field that real visitors leave empty, a timer that notes how quickly the form was submitted, and a label saying which of my sites the message came from. The script that receives the form does not get your IP address. I use what you send to reply to you, to scope and carry out any work you ask me to do, and to keep a record of the enquiry.

Where your message goes The form sends your message to a small script that runs in my own Google account (Google Apps Script). The script emails the message to me and keeps a record of it in a private Google Sheet in that same account. No third-party form service sees your message. Google processes it as the provider of my account, and that processing may take place outside Canada, including in the United States.

Analytics and cookies This site uses Google Analytics (a Google tag, ID GT-M6386CX, feeding a Google Analytics 4 property) to count visits and see which pages are read. It loads on every page. The site does not currently show a cookie banner or ask for consent before it loads, so if you do not want to be measured, use the options at the end of this section.

Google Analytics sets two first-party cookies on your browser:

Cookie	What it does	Lifetime set by Google
`_ga`	Gives your browser a random ID so repeat visits can be recognised	Up to 2 years
`_ga_` plus an ID	Keeps the state of your current session	Up to 2 years

Through those cookies and the page request itself, Google Analytics receives the pages you view, how you arrived (for example a search result or another site), your approximate location, and your device, browser and screen details. It does not receive what you type into the contact form. Google states that Google Analytics 4 does not log or store individual IP addresses. The data is processed by Google and may be stored on servers outside Canada, including in the United States.

Apart from those, this site does not set cookies of its own: there are no accounts, no logins, no advertising cookies and no embedded social media widgets. Fonts and images are served from this site, not from a third party.

To opt out of Google Analytics, you can install Google’s Analytics opt-out browser add-on (tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout), block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or turn on your browser’s tracking protection. The site works normally without the cookies.

Who else sees your information I do not sell, rent or trade personal information. The only outside party that handles it for me is Google, which provides the hosting, the script that handles the contact form, the Google Sheet, the Gmail inbox and the analytics described above. I may also disclose information if the law requires it.

How long I keep it Contact form messages: the email and the row in the private Google Sheet are kept for as long as they are useful for dealing with your enquiry and, if you become a client, to meet my professional and legal record-keeping duties. I delete them when you ask. Analytics data is kept by Google for the retention period set in the Google Analytics property, and the cookies expire as shown in the table above.

Your choices and rights Under PIPEDA you can ask me to:

tell you what personal information I hold about you and how it has been used
correct information that is wrong
delete your information, or stop using it, and withdraw your consent where you gave it

To make a request, send a message through the contact form and say that it is a privacy request, or phone the number shown on that page. Tell me which email address you used so I can find your message. I will respond within 30 days. I may need to confirm who you are first, and I may be unable to delete something I am legally required to keep, in which case I will tell you why.

If you are not satisfied with my response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Security Messages travel over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) and are kept in my Google account, which is protected by Google’s account and access controls. No method of sending or storing information is perfectly secure, so please do not put sensitive details such as a Social Insurance Number or bank information in the contact form. I will tell you how to send documents securely once we are working together.

Changes to this policy If I change how the site handles personal information, I will update this page and the date at the top. The current version is the one that applies.

Contacting me Questions about this policy or your information: use the contact form or the phone number shown on that page.