Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Festival for Re-imagining the Economy (“we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and shares personal information when you use our website at reimaginefestival.ca and related festival services (collectively, the “Platform”).

By registering for or using the Platform, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform.

1. Who we are

Festival for Re-imagining the Economy is an online unconference where participants co-create sessions, connect with one another, and contribute to a shared knowledge commons.

Questions about this policy or your personal information can be sent to our Privacy Coordinator at hello@reimaginefestival.ca.

2. Information we collect

We collect information you provide directly, information generated through your use of the Platform, and limited technical data.

Account and registration

• Name and email address
• Password (stored in encrypted form by our authentication provider; we do not store plain-text passwords)
• If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information from Google (such as your name and email) as permitted by your Google account settings
• Registration tier and payment amount (including pay-what-you-can selections)

Participant profile and survey

• Profile photo (if you upload one)
• Bio, sector interests, topics of interest, and organizations you list
• Your hopes for the festival and connection goals
• Non-monetary value contributions you choose to share on the pay-what-you-can ($0) path

Festival participation

• Session proposals, descriptions, schedules, and related materials you submit
• RSVPs and attendance-related activity
• Messages you send to other participants through the Platform
• Connection strength ratings and network relationships you record with other participants
• Harvest reflections, uploads, and other content you contribute after sessions
• Your messaging visibility preference (whether other participants can message you)
• AI transcripts and summaries: To grow our shared knowledge commons, session audio and text may be processed on a temporary basis by Fireflies.ai, a third-party AI transcription service. Fireflies receives session audio and chat text only for the purpose of generating transcripts and summaries. Before anything is kept for the long term in our systems (hosted in Supabase), we programmatically strip raw personally identifiable information (PII). The raw audio and transcript files held by Fireflies are permanently deleted immediately after processing is complete. What remains in the commons are de-identified summaries designed to capture ideas and themes—not personal details. If a name or other identifier is spoken aloud during a session, contact our Privacy Coordinator and we will scrub specific references upon request. (Note: If an individual host chooses to record full video or audio for sharing outside the festival, they must obtain explicit permission from participants. That activity is separate from our Platform operations.)

Payment information

Paid registrations are processed by Stripe. We receive confirmation of payment, amount paid, and a Stripe customer reference. We do not receive or store your full credit card number on our servers.

Technical and usage information

• Session cookies and authentication tokens needed to keep you signed in
• Browser type, device information, and IP address (typically collected by our hosting and infrastructure providers)
• Log data related to security, error diagnosis, and service operation

3. How we use your information

We use personal information to:

• Create and manage your account
• Process registration and payments
• Send transactional emails (such as welcome messages, password resets, and service-related notices)
• Display your participant profile to other registered participants, as described below
• Match and connect participants based on profile and survey information
• Operate sessions, scheduling, messaging, and harvest features
• Generate de-identified session transcripts and summaries for the festival commons, as described in Section 2 above
• Maintain the participant directory and network map
• Improve, secure, and troubleshoot the Platform
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service

4. What other participants can see

This is a community festival platform. After you complete registration and onboarding, certain information is visible to other registered participants, including:

• Your name, bio, profile photo, sector interests, and related profile fields
• Session proposals you publish
• Your participation in the participant directory and connection features

Your email address is not shown in the public participant directory. Other participants can contact you through in-platform messaging if you have messaging enabled.

You can update much of your profile information at any time in Settings. You can adjust whether you are messageable by other participants in Settings as well.

5. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in these circumstances:

• Service providers who help us operate the Platform, including Supabase (hosting, database, authentication, and long-term file storage), Stripe (payments), Resend (email delivery), Vercel (application hosting), and Fireflies.ai (temporary AI transcription and summarization of session audio and text). Fireflies acts as a short-term data processor only: raw session files are deleted immediately after processing, and Fireflies does not retain your data for model training purposes. These providers process data on our behalf under contractual safeguards.
• Other participants, as described in Section 4, when you use community features of the Platform.
• Legal and safety, when we believe disclosure is required by law, to protect rights and safety, or to respond to lawful requests.
• Organizational transition, in connection with a merger, restructuring, or transfer of festival operations, with notice where appropriate.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

We use essential cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in and to operate the Platform securely. We do not use third-party advertising cookies on the Platform.

When you sign in with Google, Google's own cookies and policies apply during that sign-in flow.

7. Data retention

We retain personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Platform, maintain the festival commons, resolve disputes, and comply with legal obligations. You may request deletion of your account by contacting us at hello@reimaginefestival.ca. Some information may remain in backups or logs for a limited period, or where we are required to retain it by law.

8. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information, including encryption in transit, access controls, and industry-standard authentication practices. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict certain processing of your personal information, or to withdraw consent where processing is consent-based.

Canadian residents may have rights under applicable privacy laws, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). To exercise your rights, contact us at hello@reimaginefestival.ca. We may need to verify your identity before responding.

10. Children

The Platform is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.

11. International users

The Platform is operated from Canada. When we use service providers like Supabase, Vercel, Resend, Stripe, or Fireflies.ai, your personal information may be stored or processed on servers located outside of Canada (primarily in the United States). While outside of Canada, this data is subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which it is held, and may be subject to disclosure to governments, courts, or law enforcement agencies of that jurisdiction in accordance with local laws.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the revised policy on this page and update the “Last updated” date. Material changes may also be communicated by email or a notice on the Platform.

13. Contact

For privacy questions or requests, contact us at hello@reimaginefestival.ca.