Privacy Policy

Youth Careers Canada ("YCC," "we," "us," or "our") runs youthcareerscanada.ca. We're a job board for young adults in Canada who are starting out and building a career. This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use and share it, and how we look after it.

It covers everyone on YCC: candidates, employers, recruitment agencies, and visitors. By using our services, you consent to the practices described here. This policy does not cover other websites we link to, or content embedded from them, which may collect information about you under their own policies.

This policy is designed to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) at the federal level and the BC Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) at the provincial level.

Effective date: March 1, 2026. Last updated: October 27, 2026.

PIPEDA Principle 1: Accountability

Youth Careers Canada is responsible for the personal information under its control. We have designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with PIPEDA, BC PIPA, and this Privacy Policy.

• Privacy Officer: Inquiries, access requests, and complaints may be directed to [email protected]
• Anyone at YCC who handles personal information is expected to follow this policy.
• We use contractual terms to require the service providers who process personal information for us to protect it and use it only to provide their services to us.

PIPEDA Principle 2: Identifying Purposes

We identify the purposes for which personal information is collected before or at the time of collection. We collect and use personal information only for the following purposes:

• Platform Operations: Providing, maintaining, and improving the Youth Careers Canada platform and its features.
• Job Matching: Connecting candidates with relevant job opportunities based on their profiles, skills, and preferences.
• Jobs Near You: Opening our jobs page on your province, worked out from your internet connection or, if you allow it, your device, and remembering your choice in your browser. We never receive your exact location.
• Transaction Processing: Processing payments, managing billing, and fulfilling purchased packages and subscriptions.
• Communications: Sending account notifications, application updates, platform announcements, and marketing communications where consent has been obtained.
• Security and Fraud Prevention: Detecting, investigating, and preventing security threats, fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms of Service.
• Service Improvement: Analyzing platform usage patterns to understand how users interact with our services and to make data-driven improvements.
• Legal Compliance: Complying with applicable laws, regulations, court orders, and lawful government requests.
• Research and Insights: Conducting research and generating aggregated, anonymized insights about labour market trends and platform usage.

Want to use your information for something new that isn't listed here? We'll ask for your consent first, unless the law allows otherwise.

PIPEDA Principle 3: Consent

The knowledge and consent of the individual is required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information, except where otherwise required or permitted by law.

• Express Consent: We obtain express (explicit) consent at the point of registration and for specific processing activities such as marketing communications.
• Implied Consent: For purposes that are reasonably expected given the nature of the service, such as sharing your application with the employer to whom you applied, we rely on implied consent arising from your voluntary action.
• CASL Compliance: Commercial electronic messages (marketing emails) are only sent where we have obtained express opt-in consent in accordance with Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).
• Minimum Age: The Service is intended only for adults. You must be at least 18 years of age, or the age of majority in your province or territory of residence, if that is higher, to use the Service, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone below this age.
• Withdrawing Consent: You may withdraw consent at any time by adjusting your account settings, using the unsubscribe link in any email, or by contacting our Privacy Officer. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent prior to its withdrawal.
• Consequences of Withdrawal: If you withdraw consent for processing that is essential to providing the service, such as account authentication, certain features or the entire service may become unavailable to you. We'll explain what withdrawing means for your account.
• No More Than Needed: We will not require you to consent to more than is needed to provide the service you asked for.

PIPEDA Principle 4: Limiting Collection

We collect only the personal information necessary for the purposes we have identified. Collection is done by fair and lawful means. The categories of personal information we collect include:

• Account Information: Full name, email address, hashed password, phone number (optional), and profile photo. Before uploading a photo, consider removing any location data stored in it. Collected at registration and maintained throughout your account lifetime.
• Social Sign-In Information (optional): If you choose to sign in with Google or LinkedIn, we receive from that provider a unique account identifier, your name, and your email address to create or match your YCC account. We do not request permission to post on your behalf or access your contacts. Social sign-in is available only where enabled, and you may also register with an email address and password at any time.
• Professional Information: Resume, work history, educational background, skills, professional certifications, and career preferences. Provided voluntarily by candidates.
• Company Information: Company name, industry, size, website URL, job postings, and team member details. Provided by employers and agencies during onboarding.
• Payment Information: Billing name, billing address, and payment method details. Card numbers and payment credentials are processed exclusively by Stripe. We do not store, transmit, or have access to raw card numbers.
• Technical Information: IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system, and referral URLs. Collected automatically when you access our platform.
• Approximate Location: When you open our jobs page without a search, we may show jobs in the province your internet connection appears to come from. We don't save it to your account or profile, but like any search filter it can appear in our usage records. If you're signed in as a candidate, we may use the province saved in your profile instead. If you select "Use my location", your browser asks your permission, then works out your province on your device: your exact location is never sent to us. Once you allow it, the jobs page uses your device's location the same way on later visits. The province becomes part of the page address like any search filter, and your last choice is saved in your browser so the page opens on it next time. You can switch to all of Canada at any time, or turn off location in your browser settings.
• Usage Information: Pages visited, features used, search queries, click patterns, and session duration. Collected through cookies and server-side logging.
• Communications: Support requests submitted to our team and feedback you provide.

We don't ask for sensitive information like health data, biometric data, or political opinions, and we won't collect it without your express consent unless the law allows otherwise.

PIPEDA Principle 5: Limiting Use, Disclosure & Retention

Personal information is used or disclosed only for the purposes for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law.

Disclosure Scenarios

• To Employers: When you apply to a job posting, your application materials and candidate profile are shared with that employer. This disclosure is a core and expected function of the platform.
• To Agencies: Employers and agencies cannot browse or search candidate profiles. They see your information only when you apply to one of their jobs.
• To Service Providers: We share information with Stripe (payment processing), cloud hosting and file storage providers, an email delivery provider, a content delivery and security provider, Google (Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager: first-party analytics only, loaded after your consent), Mixpanel (first-party product analytics, loaded after your consent), an error and performance monitoring provider (configured to minimize personal data), third-party AI providers (optional AI-assisted features, see below), and Google and LinkedIn as identity providers (if you use social sign-in). These providers handle personal information for us under contractual terms that limit how they can use it.
• For Legal Compliance: We may disclose personal information when required by applicable law, court order, subpoena, or other valid legal process, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of YCC, our users, or the public.
• For Safety: To prevent, detect, or investigate fraud, security incidents, or other unlawful activity, or to respond to emergencies involving a risk to life.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, personal information may be transferred as a business asset. We will give notice of the transfer where required by law.

We do not sell personal information to third parties for any purpose, including marketing or advertising.

AI-Assisted Features

We offer optional AI-assisted features including resume parsing, profile summaries, skill suggestions, resume-to-job tailoring, and ATS compatibility scoring. When you use these features, relevant text (such as your resume content or a job description) is sent to third-party AI providers, who act as our data processors under binding data-processing terms. We do not authorize these providers to use your personal information for their own purposes, including training their models, except as needed to provide the feature to you. AI outputs are assistive suggestions only; they do not make hiring decisions, and you should always review any AI-generated content before relying on it. These features are available only where enabled and you can decline to use them at any time.

Retention Periods

Once we no longer need personal information, we delete it or anonymize it so it can't be linked back to you.

PIPEDA Principle 6: Accuracy

Personal information must be as accurate, complete, and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.

• Candidates and employers can update their personal information any time in account settings. Keep your profile fresh so it stays accurate.
• Employers who identify inaccurate information about their company in our system may request corrections by contacting our support team.
• If we discover that personal information we hold is inaccurate or incomplete, we will take reasonable steps to correct it.
• Where a correction is made, and that information has been disclosed to third parties, we will pass the correction on to those parties where required by law.
• We rely on users to provide accurate information. We are not responsible for inaccuracies that result from information you provide to us that is false or out of date.

PIPEDA Principle 7: Safeguards

We protect personal information with safeguards that match how sensitive it is, to keep it from being lost, stolen, or used without permission.

Technical Measures

• Your data is encrypted while it travels, and certain sensitive information is also encrypted where we store it.
• Sign-in sessions are handled so your login is hard to hijack.
• We work to keep our software and its dependencies up to date.
• We watch for suspicious access and unusual activity.
• We use protections against bots, automated abuse, and denial-of-service attacks.
• Every account can turn on multi-factor authentication.

Organizational Measures

• Only people who need personal information to do their job can get to it.
• We have a process for handling suspected privacy breaches.
• We consider a provider's privacy and security practices before we start using it.

Physical Measures

• Our cloud infrastructure and associated services are operated by providers in Canada, the European Union, the United States and other countries. Your information may be processed and stored in those places. We use contractual measures to protect information we transfer to our service providers, and we remain accountable under PIPEDA for it.
• Physical access controls and environmental protections at data centre facilities are managed by our cloud infrastructure providers.

Nothing online is 100% secure. We use reasonable safeguards, but we can't promise your information will never be accessed without permission. If a breach happens, Section 14 explains what we do.

PIPEDA Principle 8: Openness

We are open and transparent about our policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.

• This Privacy Policy is publicly available at youthcareerscanada.ca/privacy and is accessible without requiring registration or login.
• We aim to write this policy in plain language.
• Our Help page answers common privacy questions.
• Our Privacy Officer's contact details are in this policy.
• Section 16 explains how we tell you about changes to this policy.

PIPEDA Principle 9: Individual Access

Upon request, we will inform individuals of the existence, use, and disclosure of their personal information, and will give them access to that information.

• You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you. To make an access request, contact our Privacy Officer at [email protected].
• We will respond to your request within the time required by law.
• We may ask you to verify your identity before we share personal information, so nobody else can get your data.
• Access is generally free. If a request is unusually burdensome, we may charge a reasonable fee where the law allows, and we'll tell you the cost first.
• You also have the right to challenge the accuracy and completeness of your personal information and to have it amended where appropriate.
• We may decline access requests that are frivolous or vexatious, would disclose personal information about a third party, or where access is otherwise restricted by law. If we decline a request, we will give you reasons and tell you about your options to escalate, as required by law.

PIPEDA Principle 10: Challenging Compliance

Individuals have the right to address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the designated Privacy Officer of Youth Careers Canada.

• If you believe that YCC has not complied with this Privacy Policy or with PIPEDA or BC PIPA, you are encouraged to first raise the matter with our Privacy Officer at [email protected].
• We will look into your complaint and respond within the time required by law. If it's justified, we'll take appropriate steps to fix it.
• If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint or our investigation, you have the right to escalate to the relevant regulatory authority (see below).

Regulatory Authorities

We will cooperate with the OPC or the BC OIPC as required by law.

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate and improve our platform. Below is a description of the cookies we use and your options for managing them.

• No advertising cookies: We do not use advertising, retargeting, or behavioral profiling cookies of any kind.
• Third-party cookies: Stripe sets cookies to support secure payment processing. Our security provider sets a cookie that helps protect the platform from automated abuse. Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, and Mixpanel set analytics cookies (_ga, _gid, mp_*) only after you grant analytics consent. None of these cookies are used for advertising.
• Managing cookies: You can manage your cookie preferences using our Cookie Settings panel (accessible via the footer of any page). You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Refer to your browser's help documentation for instructions.
• Disabling essential cookies will prevent you from using core platform features including account login.

These are the kinds of third-party providers that help us run YCC. We use contractual terms to limit each provider's use of personal information to providing its service to us.

International Data Transfers

Our service providers may process personal information in Canada, the European Union, the United States and other countries. When personal information leaves Canada, we use contractual safeguards to protect it, consistent with PIPEDA. While it's stored or processed in another country, it may be accessible to that country's courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities under their laws. Youth Careers Canada remains accountable under PIPEDA for personal information disclosed to these providers.

If a breach of security safeguards involves personal information, we follow the breach reporting, notification, and record-keeping rules in PIPEDA s.10.1 and the Breach of Security Safeguards Regulations.

• If we learn of a potential breach, we will assess whether it creates a real risk of significant harm to the people affected.
• If real risk of significant harm exists: We will notify affected users and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada where required by law. Notice to affected users will be given as soon as feasible and in the way the law requires.
• Where notice is required, it will include the information the law calls for, such as a description of the breach and the circumstances, the types of personal information involved, the approximate timeframe, the steps we have taken or are taking to contain the breach, the steps affected individuals can take to protect themselves, and contact information for our Privacy Officer.
• We maintain a record of all breaches of security safeguards, regardless of whether a real risk of significant harm was identified, for a minimum period of 24 months from the date we determined that the breach occurred.

• Our platform is not directed to, and may not be used by, anyone under 18 years of age (or the age of majority in their province or territory of residence, if that is higher). We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone below this age.
• If we discover or are notified that we have inadvertently collected personal information from someone below this age, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.
• If you believe someone below this age has provided personal information to Youth Careers Canada, let our Privacy Officer know at [email protected].

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors.

• Material changes may be announced by email or a notice on the platform, and we will give any notice and ask for any consent the law requires.
• Non-material changes (clarifications of existing practices, editorial corrections, formatting improvements) may take effect immediately upon posting, with the "Last Updated" date reflecting the revision.
• The "Last Updated" date at the top of this page shows the most recent revision.
• We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of our platform after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
• If you do not agree with any changes, you must stop using the platform and may request deletion of your account and personal information.

For any questions, access requests, or complaints relating to this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please use the contact information below.

Regulatory Authorities

If you are not satisfied with our response to a privacy complaint, you may escalate your complaint to: