Privacy policy

Polar Sharks Dry Ice makes and sells dry ice from 2-730 Eaton Way, Delta, BC V3M 6J9. In this policy "we" means Polar Sharks Dry Ice. We handle personal information under British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and under the federal PIPEDA where information crosses provincial or national borders.

Our privacy officer answers every question about this policy: info@polarsharks.ca, 604 239 9333, or by mail to Privacy Officer, Polar Sharks Dry Ice, at the address above.

Only what you give us for a specific job, plus basic site statistics.

• Quote requests. Name, email, and anything else you choose to add: company, phone, product, quantity, date and a message. We also note which page or ad brought you to the form.
• Accounts. Name, email, password (stored only as a one-way hash), and optionally phone, company and business address. Later you can add a default PO number, a default pickup contact, saved delivery addresses and a separate email for invoices and receipts.
• Orders. Your name, email, phone, company, PO number, who the order is for (your customer, site or job), the email for invoices and receipts if it differs from yours, notes, pickup or delivery date and how you want updates (email, text or both). If someone else collects the order, their name and phone.
• Your team. An account may add the names and phone numbers of people who order for it. We use them to recognise the company when they call or text us.
• Pickup. The name of the person who collects the order and their signature on the packing slip.
• Delivery.The delivery address, the name and phone number of the contact on site, and any note you leave for the driver. A saved address keeps the address text and the place ID Google gives it, and its distance from our plant is worked out again for each quote. Whoever receives a delivery signs the packing slip on the driver's phone. If nobody can sign, we text a signing link to the contact on site.
• Payments. Card and bank payments are entered in our payment processor's secure window. Your full card number never reaches us. We keep what appears on a receipt: card type, last four digits and the name on the card. Saved payment methods are held by Helcim, our payment processor. We keep no card or bank account numbers. We keep the time and IP address of each payment you make in one click.
• Credit applications (business customers who want to pay on invoice). Company details, accounts payable contacts, owner names and addresses, a bank reference, trade references, signatures and, if you choose to give them, social insurance numbers and a bank account number. A personal guarantee is part of the application.
• Retailer applications. Store name and type, contact name, email, phone, address and the details you give about your freezer and volume.
• Calls, texts and chat. When you call or text 604 239 9333 we see your number. Calls and texts are answered first by Sharky, our AI assistant, and so is the chat on this site. Calls are recorded: we keep the recording, a written transcript, a short summary and what you tell the assistant (for example your name, company and what you need). We keep the texts you send us and the texts we send you.
• Site use. Pages viewed, the ad or link that brought you, device and browser type and an approximate location, through Google Analytics, Google Ads and the Meta Pixel (see Cookies below).

• To answer your quote request and prepare a price.
• To answer your call, pass your request to our team and call you back.
• To take your order, make it for your pickup or delivery day, take payment, hand or deliver it to the right person and send you the receipt or invoice.
• To tell you, by the channel you chose, when your order is scheduled, ready, on its way, delivered, changed or cancelled.
• To work out the delivery price and plan the driver's route.
• To decide whether to open a credit account and on what terms, and to collect what is owed on it.
• To keep the tax and accounting records the law requires.
• To see which pages and ads bring customers, so we spend less on the ones that do not.
• To protect accounts and payments from fraud and abuse.

We do not sell personal information and we do not rent or share mailing lists.

When you fill in a form or place an order, you agree to us using the information for the purpose the form or order states. For a credit application we ask for express consent and a signature, because we contact your bank and trade references and rely on the guarantee.

You can withdraw consent at any time by writing to us. We will tell you what follows from that: for example, we cannot keep a credit account open without a current application, and we must keep invoices for tax purposes even after you withdraw.

We only send messages about a quote, an order, an invoice, your account or your credit line. At checkout you choose email, text messages or both for order updates, and you can change that in your account. We do not put you on a newsletter or promotional list. If we ever start one, we will ask first, and every message will carry a way to unsubscribe.

We use a small number of service providers to run the shop. Each one gets only what its job needs and is bound by its own privacy terms to protect it.

• Helcim (Calgary, AB): card and bank payments, our customer records for billing, invoices and refunds.
• Resend: sends our order, receipt and account emails.
• Telnyx: sends our text messages and carries calls to our phone line.
• ElevenLabs: runs Sharky, the AI assistant that answers our phone line, our texts and the chat on this site, and records and transcribes calls.
• Anthropic: the language model behind the assistant and its call summaries.
• Google: Google Workspace for our email, a Google Sheets order log our team works from, and Google Analytics and Google Ads for site statistics.
• Meta: the Meta Pixel, to measure which Facebook and Instagram ads lead to quote requests and orders.
• Google Maps: when you type a delivery address, the letters you type go to Google Places to suggest an address, and Google Routes works out the driving distance from our plant and the order of the day's stops. We call Google from our server and keep the address text and the place ID only.
• Our driver: an independent driver who delivers the orders. The driver sees the delivery address, the contact name and phone, your note, the ice and bins on the order, and your signature on the packing slip. The driver does not see prices.
• Telegram: private group chats where our team receives new orders and quote requests.
• Vercel and Neon: host the website and its database.

Outside these providers, we share personal information only when you ask us to (for example, the bank and trade references you list on a credit application), or when the law requires it.

Some of our providers store information outside Canada, mainly in the United States: our website database is hosted in the eastern United States. Information held in another country is subject to that country's laws, and its courts and authorities may be able to obtain it.

The site sets a few cookies of its own. None of them is used for advertising.

• ps_session: keeps you signed in to your account, for up to 30 days.
• ps_cart: remembers what is in your cart (products and quantities only), for up to 14 days.
• ps_acct: one letter, so the menu can show you are signed in, for up to 30 days.

On public pages such as the home page, shop, cart and checkout, Google Analytics, Google Ads and the Meta Pixel set their own cookies to count visits and measure which ads lead to quote requests and orders. They are not loaded on your account pages, order pages or the pickup and delivery signature screens. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the shop still works without them.

• Orders, invoices, receipts and pickup and delivery signatures: six years after the end of the tax year they belong to, as Canadian tax law requires.
• Credit applications: for as long as the account is open, then for the period our tax and collection records require. An application we decline is kept for at least one year, so you can ask to see what the decision was based on.
• Accounts: until you ask us to close the account, apart from the order records above.
• Quote requests and retailer applications: as long as we are in contact about them, and no longer than we need them.
• Call recordings and transcripts: 90 days, then deleted. The summary of the call stays with your quote request or account for as long as that record is kept.
• Text and chat transcripts at our assistant's provider: 30 days, then deleted.

After that we delete the information or remove anything that identifies you.

The site runs over an encrypted connection. Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes. Credit applications, including any social insurance and bank account numbers and the signed copy, are stored encrypted, and only our administrators can open them. Card numbers are entered with our payment processor and never pass through our servers. Access to customer records is limited to the people who fill and bill orders.

If a breach puts your information at real risk, we will tell you, and we will report it to the privacy regulator where the law requires.

You can ask what personal information we hold about you, how we have used it and who we have given it to, and you can ask us to correct it. Write to info@polarsharks.ca. We may ask you to confirm who you are. We answer within 30 business days and do not charge for a request about your own information. Most account details you can also change yourself under Account.

Start with our privacy officer at info@polarsharks.ca. If we cannot resolve your concern, you can contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia at oipc.bc.ca.

When we change how we handle personal information, we update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects information we already hold, we will tell you before it applies.