Privacy Policy

We are not a law firm and we do not provide legal advice. When you submit a case review request, it may be sent to one or more independent partner lawyers licensed by the Law Society of Ontario. Those lawyers contact you directly and assess your situation themselves. Submitting a form does not create a lawyer-client relationship. That relationship begins only when a lawyer formally agrees to represent you. “Users” and “you” mean anyone who visits or uses our Services or contacts us.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and share it, and what choices you have. “Personal information” means any information about an identifiable individual. It does not include business contact information used to reach someone about their work.

You can refuse any collection, use or disclosure that is not reasonably needed to provide what you asked for, or to protect your rights or ours. The section “Your Choices” explains how.

Summary

Our platform helps Ontario residents who were hurt in a motor vehicle accident connect with a personal injury lawyer who can review their claim. This covers:

Statutory Accident Benefits (SABS)
Tort claims against an at-fault driver
Disputes with an insurer
Claims involving pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and trucks

The Website also offers free educational content on how these claims work, the deadlines that apply, and your rights as an accident victim.

You can request a case review through our online form, or email us with questions.

To reach our privacy team, write to [email protected] or use our contact form at ontario-car-accident-lawyer.ca/contact-us/.

Agreement to This Policy

Please read this Privacy Policy before using the Services or giving us personal information, and contact us if you have questions. By using the Website or submitting information, you accept the practices described here. If you do not accept this policy, please do not use the Website or the Services. This Privacy Policy forms part of our Terms of Use.

The Services are intended for people located in Ontario and, more broadly, in Canada. If you do not live in Canada, please do not use the Services.

The case review request form has a separate consent checkbox. You must tick it before your request can be sent. It reads:

“I agree that my personal information may be shared with Ontario Car Accident Lawyer and its partner lawyers to review my claim, in accordance with the Privacy Policy.”

How the checkbox works:

A link to this Privacy Policy appears next to the checkbox and opens in a new tab, so you don’t lose what you’ve already entered in the form.
The box is never pre-checked. You must tick it yourself to give consent.
Until it is ticked, your request cannot be sent to any partner lawyer.
If you try to submit without ticking it, this message appears next to the box: “To send your request, you must give your consent.”
The submit button always stays clickable, so the error message is clear and accessible to everyone, rather than the button being silently disabled.

This consent applies only to the case review form. Our general “Contact Us” form, used for questions or comments, does not include this checkbox. It does not send your information to any partner lawyer.

Personal Information We Collect

We collect personal information to provide the Services you request, to keep the Website running properly, and to improve your experience. We collect only what is reasonably related to those purposes. What we collect depends on what you choose to share. It includes, but is not limited to:

Contact information. Your name, email address, phone number, city or region, and any other details you provide so we can respond to you.

Accident and claim information. When you request a case review and give consent through the checkbox above, we may ask for details needed to send a complete file to a partner lawyer. These include:

The date and location of the accident in Ontario
The type of collision and whether you were a driver, passenger, pedestrian or cyclist
Who you believe was at fault
Your insurer and the status of any claim or accident benefits application
Whether a police report was filed
A short description of what happened

Sensitive information. To assess a personal injury claim, a lawyer usually needs to know about your injuries, the medical treatment you have received, and how the accident has affected your work and daily life. We treat this health information as sensitive. We collect it only with your express consent, share it only with the partner lawyer(s) reviewing your request, and protect it with stricter access controls.

Please do not send medical records, insurance documents or other confidential files through the Website. Wait until a lawyer contacts you and tells you how to share them securely.

Communications. When you contact us through the “Contact Us” form, or voluntarily answer surveys or feedback requests, we collect the information you provide. Providing it is optional, and this form does not send anything to a partner lawyer.

Referral information. We may keep a record of the requests you made through the Services and which partner lawyer they were sent to.

Social media information. We may have accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. When you interact with our pages there, we receive the personal information you choose to share.

Technical and internet activity information. When you use the Services, we, or third-party tracking tools, may automatically record:

Device information: device type, device identifier, IP address, browser type, operating system, time spent on the site, visit frequency, and unique device identifiers.
Usage information: the pages you view, the features you use, and the time, frequency and duration of your activity. We use Google Analytics, a service provided by Google LLC, to help collect and analyze this information.
Email activity: when you open our emails or click links in them.

Some of this technical information may be recorded whether or not you submit a request. Where non-essential tracking requires consent, we ask for it first through our cookie banner.

How We Collect Information

We collect personal information in several ways, mainly through the Services.

In general, you can browse the Website without telling us who you are or revealing personal information. To use the Services, we ask for certain information so they work as expected and so we can keep everyone’s information secure.

We may use the following technologies:

Cookies. Small text files stored on your device that identify your browser, remember your preferences and settings, and enable certain features. We may use cookies from Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and other technology or advertising platforms.
Local storage, such as HTML5. This works like cookies but can store larger amounts of data on your device, outside your browser.
Web beacons. Also called invisible pixels. They are used to confirm that a page or email was viewed or opened.
Third-party analytics, including Google Analytics. These help us understand visitor traffic, measure our campaigns and find areas of the Website to improve.
Social media. If you post a review, comment or personal information in a public forum, such as one of our social media accounts, the public may be able to see it.

You are not required to use the Services if you do not want to share your information.

How We Use Personal Information

We use personal information to:

Provide the Services. This includes operating, maintaining and securing the Website, and sending your case review request to a suitable independent lawyer in our network, who then contacts you directly.
Communicate with you. This includes administrative updates, such as changes to our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy, and responses to your questions and comments.
Improve the Services. This includes improving the Website, building new features, personalizing your experience, and drawing insights from aggregated, de-identified information.
Marketing and advertising. This includes sending you information about our Services by email, text message or phone, and showing interest-based ads through advertising partners, including third-party ad networks and social media companies.
Compliance and security. This includes complying with applicable laws, legal requests and court proceedings; protecting our rights, safety and property, and those of others; and preventing and detecting fraud, unauthorized activity and identity theft.

Commercial electronic messages. Under Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), we send marketing messages only if you have not unsubscribed and one of these applies:

You gave express consent by ticking a separate, unchecked marketing opt-in box.
You gave implied consent by submitting an inquiry or request to us. Implied consent based on an inquiry expires six months after you submit it.

We never use your accident or injury details for marketing.

Ontario Car Accident Lawyer limits access to personal information. Only team members who need it for their role can access it:

The technical team, for reporting, development, monitoring and maintenance of our systems.
The marketing team, for reporting and marketing operations such as email campaigns. Marketing staff do not have access to injury or health information.
The legal and privacy team, for deletion requests and other privacy requests.

We do not sell, rent or license your personal information to third parties. The one exception is sending your case review request to partner lawyers, and only when you have ticked the consent checkbox described above. This does not authorize anyone to send you marketing messages in violation of anti-spam law.

Personal information may be accessed by:

Partner lawyers. These are independent personal injury lawyers and law firms licensed by the Law Society of Ontario. When you submit a request and give consent, your information may be shared with one or more partner lawyers so they can assess your claim. Once a lawyer receives your information, their own privacy policy and professional confidentiality obligations govern how they handle it.
Technology service providers. These include hosting, email delivery, form and CRM tools, analytics, and advertising and marketing services. We take commercially reasonable steps to ensure our providers meet the same security standards we apply.
Professional advisors, such as lawyers and accountants, where needed for the services they provide to us.
Parties to a business transaction, such as those involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets, and successors in such a transaction.
Government and regulatory bodies, where required to comply with applicable laws.

We may disclose personal information:

to a government body investigating our compliance with applicable laws
in response to a court order, subpoena or other legal process
as required or permitted by applicable law
in good faith, to protect or defend our rights or those of a third party.

In these cases, we may have to share your information with or without your consent. In some cases, the law may prevent us from telling you that we have done so.

Retention and Destruction of Personal Information

We keep personal information until:

we no longer need it for the purposes described in this policy; and
it is no longer reasonably needed to comply with legal requirements, or to protect or defend our rights, your rights or those of a third party.

Case review requests are deleted from our systems after a reasonable period. If you gave express marketing consent, we keep your basic contact details for as long as that consent remains in place.

Data held by Ontario Car Accident Lawyer is stored securely on servers managed by our hosting providers. Email marketing data is stored and managed by our transactional and marketing email providers.

To ask us to delete your data from our servers, email [email protected] or use the form at ontario-car-accident-lawyer.ca/contact-us/.

Children

The Services are intended for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from minors.

If a child was injured in a car accident, a parent or legal guardian may submit a request on the child’s behalf. In that case, the parent or guardian provides the information and gives consent.

If you believe a person under 18 has sent us personal information through the Services, contact us and we will make efforts to delete it.

Job Applicants

When you apply for a job with Ontario Car Accident Lawyer, we collect the information you provide in your application. This may include:

your name and contact details
your professional qualifications and skills
your education and work history
other information in your résumé or shared during interviews.

We may also carry out background checks and receive information from them.

We use applicant information to run our hiring process and handle applications. We may also use and disclose it to comply with applicable laws, respond to subpoenas, and protect our rights or the rights of others.

Links to Other Websites

The Services may contain links to websites we do not operate or control, including social media services and the websites of partner lawyers. Information you share with those sites is governed by their own privacy policies, not this one. Please contact those sites directly about their privacy practices.

Data Security and Risks

You use the Website at your own risk. We protect personal information, online and offline, with commercially reasonable technical, administrative and organizational safeguards against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. All Ontario Car Accident Lawyer employees and contractors are expected to keep personal information confidential.

No internet or email transmission is completely secure or error-free. Please take care in deciding what information you send us through the Services or by email. We are not responsible for anyone getting around the privacy settings or security measures of the Services or third-party sites.

We encourage you to:

share only information you are comfortable providing
watch for suspicious communications
report any suspicious activity to us promptly.

Transfer of Personal Information Outside Canada

Some of our service providers may store or process personal information outside Canada. In that case, your information may be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions and may be accessible to their authorities. We take appropriate safeguards to protect your personal information and require our providers and partners to do the same.

Your Choices

Access and correction. You can ask to access the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it so it stays accurate, current and complete.
Withdrawing consent to your case review request. You can withdraw the consent you gave through the form checkbox at any time by contacting us. Withdrawal does not affect processing already done before you withdrew. It also does not affect information a partner lawyer already received; contact that lawyer directly about their records.
Unsubscribing from marketing. You can unsubscribe using the link in any marketing email we send.
Refusing other processing. You can refuse any processing described in this policy that is not reasonably needed to provide what you asked for.
Limiting online tracking:
Blocking cookies: most browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Safari, let you remove or reject cookies.
Limiting advertising identifiers: you can limit the use of your advertising ID in your device settings.
Privacy browsers and plug-ins: you can block cookies by using a privacy-focused browser or a plug-in that blocks third-party cookies.
Industry opt-outs: you can use the opt-out tools offered by the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (AdChoices) or the Network Advertising Initiative.
Do Not Track. We do not respond to “Do Not Track” or similar signals.

Governing Law

This Privacy Policy and all related matters are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy at any time. The updated version will be posted on this page, with its effective date shown at the top. If you continue to use the Services after an update is posted, you accept the revised policy.

Contact, Complaints and Data Deletion Requests

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, or want to withdraw your consent to sharing your information with partner lawyers, please contact us:

AddressScotia Plaza
40 King Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 3Y2
HoursMonday to Friday
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (ET)
Weekends: closed
Email[email protected]
Case review requestUse the form on the contact page

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376.