Privacy Policy
CAW records the condition of the public realm: sidewalks, curb ramps, street trees, lighting, and the other shared infrastructure a city maintains. People are not the subject of what we build, and this policy explains, in plain language, what information we collect, why, what happens to imagery that inevitably includes passers-by, and the choices and rights you have. We operate under British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and Canada's federal PIPEDA.
1. Who we are
CAW is operated by Ponder Technologies Inc., a British Columbia company based in Vancouver, Canada. Ponder Technologies is the organization responsible for personal information handled through CAW, and our privacy contact is listed at the end of this policy.
2. What we collect
Account information (spotters)
When you create a spotter account we collect your name, email address, and password (stored as a secure hash, never in plain text). Your earnings ledger, session history, and payout records are attached to your account. Payouts are sent by e-transfer to the email on your account.
Capture telemetry (spotters, during an active walk only)
While you are actively capturing a zone, the app records the sensor data needed to place every frame precisely on the map. This can include GPS position, altitude, accuracy, speed, compass heading, and device orientation (pitch and roll), together with timestamps, capture settings, and basic device information such as model and screen characteristics. Location and camera run only during an active capture session that you start and end yourself. They never run in the background.
Imagery
The camera captures continuous street-level frames of the public realm along your route while a session is live. Imagery is uploaded with its telemetry and stored in access-controlled systems. Section 3 explains how people who appear in it are handled.
Website and waitlist
If you join the waitlist on cawapp.ca we collect the email, role, and area you submit. The website itself does not run third-party advertising trackers.
3. Street-level imagery and people in it
CAW's cameras point at infrastructure, but streets have people on them, and we treat that seriously rather than pretending it away.
Faces and licence plates are automatically blurred when imagery enters CAW's systems, before it is reviewed, analyzed, or delivered to anyone. Blurring is part of the ingestion pipeline, not an optional step.
- People are incidental, never the subject. Routes follow public sidewalks and rights-of-way. Spotters are instructed and contractually required to capture the streetscape, not to follow, focus on, or photograph individuals, and never to capture into windows, backyards, or other private spaces.
- No identification. We do not run facial recognition, we do not attempt to identify anyone appearing in imagery, and we do not link imagery of people to any identity.
- Not a public map. Imagery is not published as a browsable public street map. Access is limited to CAW's condition-analysis systems, trained reviewers, and the specific customer deliverables described in section 5.
- Removal on request. If you believe you, your vehicle, or something personal to you appears in CAW imagery, contact us (section 11) with the approximate location and time. We will locate the material, apply additional masking or deletion where appropriate, and reply to you.
4. How we use information
- To run the capture network: routing zones, verifying captures, crediting earnings, and processing payouts.
- To build condition intelligence: analyzing imagery of public assets, sidewalks, curb ramps, trees, lighting, signage, surfaces, and aggregating findings by zone for cities and operators.
- To operate and improve the service: quality review, fraud prevention, support, and debugging.
- To communicate: account and payout notices, and waitlist updates you asked for. We do not sell contact lists or send third-party marketing.
We do not sell personal information. We do not use imagery to profile, score, or market to individuals or individual properties.
5. When information is shared
- Customers (municipalities, transit agencies, utilities, business improvement areas, researchers) receive condition data and reporting about public assets, organized by zone. Where imagery is included in deliverables, it is blurred as described in section 3 and scoped to the public assets in question. Customers never receive spotter identities alongside imagery.
- Service providers that host our infrastructure (for example, our database and storage provider) process data on our behalf under contractual confidentiality. We choose providers that allow Canadian-region hosting wherever available.
- Legal requirements. We disclose information if required by a valid legal process, and only to the extent required.
- Business changes. If Ponder Technologies is ever merged or acquired, information transfers with the business under this policy's protections, and we will notify affected users.
6. Retention
Account and ledger records are kept while your account is active and for the period needed to meet tax and accounting obligations after it closes. Capture telemetry and imagery are retained while they serve the living condition record; superseded or rejected imagery is deleted on a scheduled basis. When you ask us to delete your account, we remove your personal identifiers and close your ledger, retaining only what payment and tax law requires us to keep.
7. Security
Imagery and personal data are stored in access-controlled systems with authentication on every administrative surface. Passwords are hashed, transport is encrypted (HTTPS), storage access is signed and time-limited, and admin access is limited to authorized Ponder Technologies personnel. No system is perfectly secure, but we design as if the data matters, because it does.
8. Your rights and choices
Under PIPA and PIPEDA you may request access to the personal information we hold about you, request correction of inaccurate information, withdraw consent (which may end our ability to provide the service), and request deletion of your account. Anyone, account or not, may use the imagery-removal process in section 3. To exercise any of these, contact us at the address below; we respond within 30 days. If you are unsatisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
9. Age requirement
You must be at least 18 years old to create a spotter account and capture for CAW. The service is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect children's personal information.
10. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the effective date at the top, and for material changes we notify account holders by email or in the app before the change takes effect.
11. Contact
Privacy questions, access requests, and imagery-removal requests:
Ponder Technologies Inc. · Vancouver, BC, Canada
privacy@cawapp.ca (or hello@cawapp.ca)