Privacy Policy

AscendPrep is operated by Cook and Company Coaching Ltd. ("we", "us"), a Canadian limited company at 704 – 1630 Quadra St., Victoria, BC V8W 3J5. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. We comply with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), British Columbia's PIPA, and the EU GDPR for visitors from the European Economic Area.

What we collect

• Account information — name, email, phone, country of origin, current city/province, occupation, first language, and target CELPIP score.
• Practice content — your answers to drills, written essays, and audio recordings of speaking tasks.
• Voice transcripts — when you speak to Maple, your audio is transcribed by OpenAI Whisper and the text is stored.
• Coaching conversations — your chat history with Maple, used to give continuity across sessions.
• Usage data — pages viewed, time spent, feature usage. We use Vercel Analytics (privacy-first, no cookies).
• Payment information — Stripe processes your card. We never see or store full card numbers.

Why we collect it

• To deliver the coaching service you signed up for.
• To personalize Maple's coaching to your background, goals, and weak spots.
• To process payments and prevent fraud.
• To send transactional messages (exam reminders, score reports, billing notices). With your explicit opt-in, marketing communications too.
• To improve the product. We may use de-identified, aggregated data to evaluate model performance — never your raw inputs to train third-party models.

Who we share it with (subprocessors)

We use trusted third-party services to run AscendPrep. Each is bound by a Data Processing Agreement and processes your data only on our instructions:

• Supabase — database and authentication (data stored in the United States).
• Anthropic — Claude AI model that powers Maple's coaching (US). Anthropic does not train on your conversations.
• OpenAI — Whisper API for voice transcription (US). OpenAI does not train on API inputs.
• ElevenLabs — voice synthesis for Maple's spoken replies (US).
• Stripe — payment processing (US/Canada).
• Vercel — application hosting (US).
• Twilio — SMS and voice (US/Canada), only if you have opted in to phone communications.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (US).

International transfers

Your data may be processed in the United States by the subprocessors listed above. We rely on standard contractual clauses and each provider's certified compliance frameworks. By using AscendPrep you consent to this transfer.

Your rights

You can at any time:

• Access the data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate information.
• Delete your account and all associated data (some records like billing history are retained for legal compliance — typically 7 years).
• Export your data in a portable format.
• Withdraw marketing consent at any time without losing access to the service.

Email privacy@ascendprep.io to make any of these requests. We respond within 30 days.

Data retention

• Active accounts: data retained for the life of the account.
• Closed accounts: deleted within 90 days, except billing records (7 years for tax compliance) and consent logs (7 years for CASL audit).
• Voice recordings: deleted 30 days after processing.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest. Access is restricted to authorized staff under written confidentiality obligations. We notify affected users within 72 hours of any confirmed breach involving personal data.

Children

AscendPrep is not directed at anyone under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. CELPIP candidates under the age of majority must use the service with parental consent.

Changes

Material changes to this policy will be emailed to active account holders at least 30 days before they take effect.

Contact

Privacy Officer · Cook and Company Coaching Ltd. · 704 – 1630 Quadra St., Victoria, BC V8W 3J5, Canada · privacy@ascendprep.io

If you are dissatisfied with our response you may file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca).