Privacy policy

Foothills Trades is a directory website based in Alberta.
Last updated: October 8, 2026.

This page explains, in plain language, what personal information this website handles, why, and what you can do about it. We follow Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), the law that covers private-sector organizations in Alberta.

The short version

You can browse this site without giving us anything. There are no accounts and no sign-ups. The only form is the contact form, and you choose what to send.
We don’t use advertising or tracking tools, and we don’t set cookies.
We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits in aggregate without cookies.
Our web host (Cloudflare) sees basic technical information, such as your IP address, when your browser loads a page. Maps are served from this website itself, not from an outside map service.
If you use the contact form, your message is emailed to our inbox. The form itself stores nothing.
The directory lists businesses using information they or others have made public. We don’t publish personal names.

What we collect and why

When you visit the site

We collect nothing directly. The site is a set of static pages. We haven’t added tracking pixels, advertising, comment boxes or accounts. The contact form is described below.
Cookies: we don’t set any. When we checked on October 8, 2026, the site set no cookies and stored nothing in your browser (no local storage, session storage or cache storage), including on the contact page with the spam check loaded.
Our host: the site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes each request, including your IP address, browser details and the page requested, to deliver the page and protect the site from abuse. We haven’t set up any logging of our own.
Visitor statistics (Cloudflare Web Analytics): to see how the site is used and how fast it loads, we use Cloudflare Web Analytics. Each page loads a small script (“beacon”) from Cloudflare (static.cloudflareinsights.com). The script sends Cloudflare page-load and performance measurements. We only see aggregate statistics: page views and visits, which pages are viewed, referring websites, country, device type (desktop, mobile or tablet), browser, operating system, and page-load speed. Cloudflare says Web Analytics “does not use any client-side state, such as cookies or localStorage” and that it doesn’t “fingerprint” individuals by their IP address, browser details or other data to produce the analytics. Cloudflare also says it doesn’t track individual visitors across different websites. As with any web request, Cloudflare sees your IP address when your browser loads the beacon and sends the measurements. We can’t see who you are in these reports. Ad blockers often block the beacon; that’s fine, and the site works the same either way.
Maps: listing pages with a mapped business address show a small map. The map images and data are served from this website itself (built from OpenStreetMap data with Protomaps), so your browser doesn’t contact an outside map service to show them.

When you use the contact form

What we get: your name, your email address, the firm or listing you name (optional), your message, and your tick in the consent box.
Why: we use it only to reply to you and act on your request, such as correcting or removing a listing. We don’t add you to any list.
How it reaches us: the form stores nothing itself. When you press Send, the site’s server code (run by Cloudflare) passes your message to Resend, an email delivery service in the United States, which emails it to our inbox at Proton Mail (Proton AG, Switzerland).
Spam check: to check that you’re not a bot, Cloudflare Turnstile processes your IP address and browser details. Our server code sends Cloudflare the check’s result and your IP address to confirm it.
How long we keep it: we keep your message only as long as we need it to deal with your request and any follow-up, then delete it.
If you email us directly instead, the same applies to your email.

About the businesses we list

Listings describe businesses: name, trades, towns served, business phone number, website, stated after-hours service, and stated trade certificates. We collect this only from public sources: the firms’ own websites, chamber of commerce member directories, Service Alberta open data and Town of Okotoks open data. Each listing links to its sources.
We don’t publish personal names. Some firms’ websites say things like “our owner is a Master Electrician”. Where that is the only information about a certificate, the listing may mention the role (“owner”, “founder”) but never the person’s name.
Some small businesses use a personal phone number as their business number. We list a phone number only when the business itself has published it as a business contact.

Visitors: you choose what to send us. If you send us a message, you consent to us using it to reply and handle your request. You can withdraw that consent at any time by asking us to delete your messages, unless we need to keep something for a legal reason.
Businesses: we list business information that the business or a public directory has already published for people to contact the business. If you don’t want your business listed, tell us (see below) and we’ll remove it.

Correcting or removing a listing

If your business is listed and something is wrong or out of date, or you want it removed:

Use the contact form. Each listing page has a “Request a correction” link that fills in the listing for you.
Tell us what should change, and how we can confirm you represent the business (for example, by replying from an email address at the business’s own website domain).
We’ll make the change, or explain why we can’t, as soon as we can. Removal requests are honoured.

Seeing or correcting your personal information

Under PIPA you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it.

Send your request in writing through the contact form, with enough detail for us to find the information. We’ll reply by email.
We’ll respond within 45 days, the limit PIPA sets, unless the law allows an extension, in which case we’ll tell you why.
PIPA allows an organization to charge a reasonable fee for access to personal information. If we were ever to charge one, we’d give you a written estimate first.

Who to contact

Privacy questions and requests: Foothills Trades, through our contact form. We reply by email.

Complaints

Please contact us first; we’ll try to fix the problem. If you’re not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC), which oversees PIPA. The OIPC asks people to raise a complaint with the organization first and give it time to respond.

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta
410-9925 109 Street NW, Edmonton, AB T5K 2J8
Phone: 780-422-6860 · Toll-free: 1-888-878-4044
Website: oipc.ab.ca

Service providers outside Canada

The services that handle visitor data for this site are based outside Canada:

Cloudflare, Inc. (United States) hosts the site and processes requests through its global network to deliver and secure it. It also runs the Web Analytics service and the Turnstile spam check described above.
Resend (United States) delivers contact form messages to our inbox by email.
Proton AG (Switzerland) provides our email inbox (Proton Mail), where contact form messages arrive.

They may process your data in the United States, Switzerland, the European Union or other countries where their servers are. The law of those countries may allow authorities there to access the data.

How we protect information

The little personal information we have is mainly messages sent to us. We keep them in our Proton Mail inbox, with access limited to Foothills Trades. The public site and the contact form don’t store personal information about visitors.

Changes

If we add a claim-listing form, featured or paid listings, other analytics, or anything else that collects personal information, we’ll update this page first.