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Privacy Policy

Last updated April 2026

The short version

  • ✓GovTrace displays only public government data published by the Government of Canada.
  • ✓We do not collect personal information about visitors.
  • ✓No cookies, no tracking, no analytics.
  • ✓No user accounts.
  • ✓The source code is fully open — anyone can audit it.

What data GovTrace displays

GovTrace displays information drawn entirely from public datasets published by the Government of Canada and its agencies. All data is provided under the Open Government Licence — Canada or is otherwise publicly accessible on official government websites.

The names, amounts, and relationships shown in GovTrace are the same ones already published on Elections Canada, open.canada.ca, lobbycanada.gc.ca, ourcommons.ca, and other government sources. GovTrace does not add, infer, or editorialize on that data. See the About page for the full list of sources.

What data GovTrace does NOT collect

GovTrace does not collect, store, or process any personal information about the people who visit this website.

  • No accounts — there is no login, no registration, and no user database.
  • No cookies — GovTrace does not set any first-party or third-party cookies. Your theme preference is stored in your browser’s local storage and never sent to any server.
  • No analytics — we do not use Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or any similar tracking service.
  • No advertising — there are no ads and no advertising networks with access to visitor data.
  • No personal data sent to AI — AI (Claude by Anthropic) is used only to match entity names across government datasets and to generate plain-language summaries of public statistics. No visitor data is ever sent to the AI.

Server logs

Like any web server, GovTrace’s hosting infrastructure may retain standard HTTP access logs (IP address, request path, timestamp, response code) for a limited period for security and debugging purposes. These logs are not shared with third parties and are not used for any form of user tracking or profiling.

Third-party services

GovTrace loads fonts from Google Fonts. Google’s own privacy policy applies to those requests. No other third-party scripts are loaded on this site.

Open source

GovTrace is fully open source under the MIT licence. You can inspect the complete source code — including database schema, ingestion pipeline, and the web application — on GitHub. If you believe something in this policy is inaccurate or that the code does not reflect what is stated here, please open an issue.

Contact

Questions about this privacy policy or about GovTrace in general can be directed to GitHub Issues.