Privacy

This describes what 519 Cars Inc. (“519 Cars”) collects when you use 519Cars.io, why we hold it, and how to have it corrected or removed. Almost everything here is business information about a dealership rather than personal information about a person, but the two are handled the same way.

1. What we hold

• Your account. Name, work email, phone number, role, your dealership and its OMVIC registration number and address. Your password is stored only as a bcrypt hash — we cannot read it.
• What you do here. Offers, messages, watchlists, saved search filters, and the vehicles you have bought.
• Signatures. The signature image you adopt, and the date, IP address and browser recorded with it. That record is what makes a signed bill of sale hold up, so it is kept with the document and never changed.
• Claims. If you file an arbitration claim, the claim, the photos, estimates and odometer readings you send with it, and how it was resolved.
• Fees. The buyer fee on each vehicle you buy, and for consigning dealerships, the seller fee recorded against each sale.
• Sign-in security. Sessions, and failed sign-in and password-reset attempts with the email address tried and the IP it came from. This is what stops someone guessing at a dealer’s password.
• Email. A record of the messages we send you and whether they were delivered, plus what you have chosen to receive.
• Text messages. If you turn them on, your mobile number, the record of when and how you consented (including the wording you agreed to), the messages we send you and whether they were delivered, and what you have chosen to receive.

We do not use advertising trackers, we do not sell anything to anyone, and there is no third-party analytics on the site.

2. Why we hold it

To run your account, show you the vehicles you asked to see, carry offers and messages between you and 519 Cars, produce and store bills of sale, bill and record fees, handle claims, keep the records the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, 2002 requires a dealer to keep, and protect accounts from people who should not be in them.

3. Email you receive

Some email is part of the service and cannot be turned off: invitations, password resets, offer and sale confirmations, bills of sale, claim correspondence, and security notices.

Everything else — new-vehicle digests, message and offer notifications, listings ending soon — is yours to switch off at any time, from your preferences in the app or from the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. That is how we meet Canada’s anti-spam legislation, and unsubscribing takes effect immediately.

4. Text messages you receive

If you provide a mobile number and tick the text-message box at signup or in your account settings, 519 Cars Inc. may send you SMS messages about your own activity on the platform: updates on offers you have made (counter-offers, acceptances and declines), vehicles a 519 Cars team member sends you, bills of sale ready for your signature, and vehicles you have made an offer on that are ending soon. We also send account approval notices and, if you choose text delivery, password-reset links you request. We do not send marketing by text.

Message frequency varies. Standard message and data rates may apply. You can stop at any time by replying STOP to any message or from your account settings, and this takes effect immediately; reply HELP for help or contact support@519cars.io.

We record when and how you consented, including the wording you agreed to. We use Twilio to deliver text messages; your mobile number and message content are processed by Twilio for that purpose. This is how we meet Canada’s anti-spam legislation for text messages, in the same way as for email.

5. Who else sees it

• Other dealers: nobody. Buyers negotiate with 519 Cars, one to one. No dealer sees another dealer’s offers, messages, watchlists or identity. A consigning dealership is not told who bought its vehicle.
• Service providers. SendGrid delivers our email and Twilio delivers our text messages, so an email address or mobile number and message content pass through them. Our hosting provider holds the rest — see section 6. An independent repair estimator involved in a claim sees the vehicle and the claim, not your account.
• When the law requires it, including a valid request from OMVIC or a court.

6. Where your information is stored

Vehicle records, photos, signatures, bills of sale and account data are hosted by Amazon Web Services in its Canada (Central) region, in Montréal, Québec. Data at rest stays in Canada. If that changes, we will say so here before it happens.

Email and text messages are the exception. They are delivered by SendGrid and Twilio, both American companies, so an address or mobile number we send to and what the message says are handled in the United States. American authorities can require information held there under American law. We pick providers that commit to protecting what they hold, but anything outside Canada is governed by the law of the place it sits.

7. Cookies

One cookie, and it is the one that keeps you signed in. There is no advertising, no analytics and no tracking on this site, so signals like Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control have nothing here to switch off.

8. How long we keep it

Sale records, bills of sale, their signatures, fee records and claim records are kept for at least seven years, because a registered dealer is required to keep them. Failed sign-in attempts are discarded after a short window. Everything else is kept while your account is open and for a reasonable period after it closes.

9. How it is protected

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are hashed, sessions are held in a cookie your browser will not hand to another site, and vehicle photos and signed documents are served only to people entitled to see them. Repeated failed sign-ins are slowed down automatically.

10. Seeing or correcting your information

Write to support@519cars.io and we will tell you what we hold about you and correct anything wrong. We will also close your account and remove what we are not required to keep — a signed bill of sale is the main thing we cannot delete, because the law says a dealer keeps it.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled a request, you can raise it with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

11. Changes to this notice

If we change something that matters — what we collect, who we share it with, how long we keep it — we will tell you by email before the change takes effect. The date at the top of this page is always the version you are reading.

12. Contact

Privacy requests and complaints go to support@519cars.io with “Privacy” in the subject line. They are handled by Robert Lucas, VP, Auction Platform & Sales, who is accountable for how 519 Cars looks after information.

519 Cars Inc.

1905 Wharncliffe Rd. S., London, ON N6P 1K9

519-652-0666 · support@519cars.io