Trust Center

Data Handling and Retention Policy

What we hold, who can read it, where it is processed, how long it is kept, and what a firm can take out.

Effective

28 September 2026

Owner

Security Lead, RealEstAi Inc.

Questions

contactus@realestai.ca

1. Purpose

To make sure the most sensitive information receives the strictest handling, and so that a firm can see, class by class, where its information sits, who can read it, how long it stays and where it goes. This policy covers everything held by the platform and everything RealEstAi personnel handle in operating it.

2. The classes of information

Class	What it is	Who controls it
Privileged and client-confidential	Everything inside a firm’s matter: contracts, correspondence, lender and mortgage instructions, title data, trust ledger and funds-flow records, generated documents, notes, and archives imported from a previous practice system. Much of it is covered by solicitor-client privilege, which belongs to the firm’s client.	The firm
Identity data	Government photo-ID images, ID numbers, expiry dates, issuing jurisdiction, dates of birth and verification results. The most sensitive personal information we hold.	The firm
Credentials and secrets	A firm’s Land Titles and City of Calgary credentials; tokens for connected mailboxes, calendars and meeting providers; RealEstAi’s own keys and secrets.	The firm for its own credentials; RealEstAi for its own
Account and operational data	User accounts, firm profiles, billing, contact-form messages, support correspondence, audit logs, request metrics and analytics events.	RealEstAi
Public	The website and published policies.	—

Where information could fall into two classes it is handled as the stricter one.

3. How each class is handled

	Privileged and client-confidential	Identity data	Credentials and secrets	Account and operational
Where it lives	Azure Canada Central: the database and a private storage container	Same; images in the private container, numbers and dates of birth in the database	Database, encrypted; application settings	Database
Who can read it	The owning firm’s staff; external parties only the categories the firm sent them; RealEstAi support read-only and logged	Firm staff through the matter; external parties cannot open an ID image other than one they uploaded; support read-only and logged	The application only; a firm’s credentials are never shown back	Firm administrators see their own firm’s audit log
Encryption	In transit; encrypted on disk	As left, plus application-level AES-256-GCM on ID numbers and dates of birth	Application-level AES-256-GCM; passwords and codes hashed	In transit; encrypted on disk; network addresses hashed
Logging	Downloads, deletions and support reads logged; trust-ledger changes logged in the same transaction	As left; every privacy-request report that reads identity numbers is logged	Changes to firm credentials and to the sign-in setting are audited	Audit records are append-only
Retention	Ten-year hold from the day the file was created	Same, as part of the matter	For the life of the connection; removed when the firm disconnects	See section 6

4. Where information is processed

At rest, everything stays in Azure Canada Central, including automatic database backups. In processing, information leaves Canada only to a listed provider for its stated purpose, as published in the register in our Privacy Policy: to the United States for AI reading of documents (including ID images), AI drafting and question-answering, SMS, e-signature, card payments, and a firm’s own connected Microsoft, Google or Zoom account; and to the European Union for email delivery (France) and Word-to-PDF conversion (Spain). Canadian registries and identity-verification, property-data and address services are in Canada. Information held in another country is subject to that country’s laws.

5. Retention: delete means archive

Ten years from file creation. Customer matters are kept for ten years from the date the file was created. Ten years is also the minimum period for which a law firm must keep its prescribed financial records under Law Society of Alberta Rule 119.35(1).
Deleting a matter archives it. The deletion records who, when, and a retain-until date ten years after the file was created. The matter disappears from every ordinary screen. Only staff of the owning firm can delete a matter, and the deletion is audited with the user, network address and device.
Deleting a document moves it to the matter’s archive. The stored file is kept; a second deletion is refused with a retention-hold notice.
No override. Neither the firm nor RealEstAi can destroy a held matter through the product. There is no purge function.
Regulators and courts. A held matter remains retrievable for a regulator or a court for the whole retention period.

6. Retention of other records

Records	Period
Request metrics	90 days, removed automatically
Analytics events and job history	180 days, removed automatically
Audit records, support-access records and the privacy breach register	Kept; not deleted
Privacy breach register entries	At least 24 months from the date the breach was determined
A firm’s credentials and connection tokens	For the life of the connection; removed when the firm disconnects or replaces them

7. What a firm can take out

The closing package for any matter as one PDF, on the firm’s letterhead.
Accounting and trust exports for any matter in CSV, QuickBooks, Xero and CosmoLex formats, and a trust-reconciliation export.
Any individual document, from the matter or from imported archives.
A personal-information report for any one person across all the firm’s files, from Admin, Privacy requests.
The firm’s audit log, viewed in the product; bulk extracts are provided on request.

8. Copies outside the platform

RealEstAi personnel copy customer data out of the platform only for a support request or an incident. Such copies are dated, kept off personal devices and personal cloud storage, and disposed of when the work is closed. Local development uses seeded test firms and demonstration data.

9. Review

This policy is reviewed on a regular cadence and after any material change to the platform, the providers it uses or the law that applies to it.

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