Privacy Policy

Last Updated: March 7, 2026

Version: 2

1. About This Privacy Policy and ClearEstate

ClearEstate Technologies Inc. (“ClearEstate,” “we,” “us” or “our”) is a company that provides a Platform for the delivery of technology-enabled estate planning and estate administration services. ClearEstate is a federal company, with its registered address at 614 Saint-Jacques St., Suite 100, Montreal, QC H3C 1E2, Canada.

This Privacy Policy describes ClearEstate’s practices with respect to the collection, use, disclosure, retention and protection of personal information concerning ClearEstate’s clients and other users of the ClearEstate estate plans, which are accessible by creating an online account (hereinafter an “Account”) on the ClearEstate platform (the website at app.clearestate.com) (hereinafter the “Platform”), and human support and assistance (hereinafter the “Services”), including authorized third parties such as beneficiaries, executors, accountants, lawyers, and attorneys.

The ClearEstate plans (all together the “ClearEstate Plans”), include the following:

• “Online Wills”, which are self-served plans that allow users to create simple Wills and powers of attorney for property and health.
• “Estate Plans”, which are guided plans that allow users to create complete Wills and powers of attorney for property and health.
• “Estate Settlement Plans”, which are plans that allow executors to settle a loved one estate.
• “Professional Plans”, where users receive fiduciary services from Natcan Trust Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Bank of Canada, which acts as attorney, trustee and/or executor via the Platform.
• “Advisor Plans”, which are plans that allow wealth managers, financial planners, insurance brokers, financial advisors and their firms (“Advisor”) to (a) view or access a users’ account, if such user grants consent; and (b) store information and documentation from their clients; and (c) receive optimization opportunities generated by ClearEstate's algorithmic analysis of such clients' data. Features are subject to the type of Plan. Advisors retain full discretion as to which opportunities are presented to their clients. ClearEstate does not provide financial advice.
• Vaults, which are digital accounts that allow users to store their estate planning documents - it doesn’t allow the creation of documents. Vaults are a feature of Advisor Pro Plans and Advisors obtain an unlimited amount which they can give to their customers.

There are two types of users:

“Primary Users”, who are the primary user of an Account under an Estate Plan, Estate Settlement Plan, or Professional Plan, i.e. an executor, a testator, and can invite Guest Users to their Account.

“Guest Users”, who are invited by Primary Users to view their Account, i.e. lawyers, Advisors, realtors.

This Policy applies to personal information collected through all of ClearEstate’s channels, including our website, Platform, and in the course of providing professional services.

1a. Person Responsible for Privacy – Privacy Officer

ClearEstate has designated a Privacy Officer who oversees the privacy matters of the company and addresses compliance with privacy applicable law.

The Privacy Officer can be contacted at: Privacy@clearestate.com or by telephone at +1 888-572-0766, or by mail at ClearEstate Technologies Inc., Attn: Privacy Officer, 614 Saint-Jacques St., Suite 100, Montreal, QC H3C 1E2.

1b. Consent

By creating an Account or using our Services, you will be asked to provide your express consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for each of the purposes identified in this Policy. Your consent will be obtained through consent mechanisms (such as checkboxes) presented at or before the time of collection.

We will obtain consents for different purposes of processing your information, including consent for: (a) collection and use of personal information necessary to provide our Services; (b) collection of sensitive personal information such as social insurance numbers and government identification; (c) disclosure of personal information to third-party professionals involved in your estate planning or administration; (d) disclosure of personal information to Advisors enrolled in an Advisor Plan in order to provide you with professional advice regarding your estate plan; (e) marketing communications; and (f) international transfer of personal information. Consent for marketing communications is optional and is not required to access our core Services.

You may withdraw your consent at any time (see Section 12 below). Withdrawal of consent for core service purposes may affect our ability to provide Services to you.

1c. Minors

Our Services are designed and intended to be used by individuals who are of legal age in the jurisdiction where they reside. We do not knowingly collect personal information from any person under the age of 16. If you become aware that a minor under 16 has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us at Privacy@clearestate.com.

2. What Personal Information Do We Collect and Why?

You can access ClearEstate’s public website without providing personal information. If you choose to use our Services, sign up for an Account, or contact us by email, video or phone, we will ask you to provide personal information depending on the type of Plan and access your request. ClearEstate identifies the purposes for which personal information will be collected, used or disclosed either in this Policy or in a separate notice provided at the time of collection.

2a. To Provide Our Services

ClearEstate collects and uses only the personal information that is necessary for us to provide you the Services under the ClearEstate Plans. Information can be collected (a) directly from you via the Platform, email, telephone or video; (b) from a Primary User via the Platform, email, telephone or video; (c) orally given via audio or video by a user to ClearEstate’s customer service who then transcribes it on the Platform; or (d) transmitted, recorded or uploaded by an Advisors user after the Advisor has obtained the Primary User’s prior consent.

Online Will and Estate Plans: We collect your full name, email address, date of birth, place of residence, password, marital status, social insurance number and/or government-issued identification, information about dependants, and assets and financial information.

Estate Settlement Plans and Professional Plans: We collect information about the deceased (full name, date of birth and death, place of death, marital status, social insurance number, government identification, assets and financial information), about the executor or liquidator (full name, social insurance number, government identification, relationship to the deceased), and about beneficiaries (names, relationships to the deceased, government identification where required for asset transfers).

When a user provides personal information about other individuals (such as beneficiaries, the deceased or other professionals), ClearEstate relies on such users to have informed those individuals that their information will be processed by ClearEstate in accordance with this Policy. ClearEstate will use such information only as necessary to provide Services and comply with legal requirements.

2b. To Operate Our Website (Cookies and Analytics)

Our website and Platform use cookies, including cookies set by third-party service providers integrated into our Platform. These may include functional and analytical cookies. We are currently implementing a cookie consent management solution to provide users with appropriate choices regarding non-essential cookies. In the meantime, users may manage cookie preferences through their browser settings.

2c. To Send You Communications

We use your personal information to send you transactional communications related to your Account and the Services you have requested (such as Account confirmations, service updates and notifications about the ClearEstate Plan you are under). These communications are necessary for the provision of our Services.

Separately, with your consent, we may send you marketing communications about ClearEstate’s Services by email or text message. You may opt out of marketing communications at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions included in the communication, or by contacting us at Privacy@clearestate.com. Opting out of marketing communications will not affect receipt of transactional communications.

2d. To Process Payments

We use a third-party payment service provider to process payments on our behalf. Our payment provider collects your name, billing address and payment card information (card number, expiry date and security code) in order to process payments. ClearEstate does not directly store your full payment card information.

2e. To Comply with Legal Requirements

ClearEstate may collect, use or disclose personal information without your consent where required or authorized by law, including in response to court orders, subpoenas, government investigations, tax reporting requirements, or to comply with other legal obligations.

2f. Privacy Impact Assessments

ClearEstate conducts Privacy Impact Assessments before implementing new information systems, service offerings or processing activities that involves personal information which may present a risk to the privacy of individuals. These assessments evaluate the necessity of the collection, the risks to privacy and the measures implemented to mitigate those risks.

3. Who Do We Share Personal Information With?

ClearEstate does not sell personal information to third parties for any purpose. Unless we have your express consent or a legal basis for disclosure, we will only disclose your personal information to organizations outside ClearEstate in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers: To service providers that perform administrative, technical or operational services on our behalf (such as data hosting, payment processing and customer relationship management). These service providers are contractually bound to use personal information only for the purposes we specify and to implement appropriate safeguards.
• Third-Party Professionals: To organizations and individuals involved in managing the estate, including notaries, lawyers, accountants, banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and other entities responsible for the succession’s assets, where such disclosure is necessary to provide you with our Services.
• Advisors: To Advisors to view Primary Users’ Accounts and analyze that data to obtain optimization opportunities of the Primary User’s estate plans (if consent has been granted).
• Fraud prevention: To another organization for fraud prevention, detection or investigation where ClearEstate has reasonable grounds to believe unlawful activity has occurred and where seeking consent from you would compromise the investigation. Disclosure is limited to the personal information necessary for the investigation.
• Law enforcement: To a law enforcement or regulatory body where required by law or where we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have provided false or misleading information or are involved in unlawful activities.
• Business transactions: To a prospective purchaser of substantially all of ClearEstate’s assets or business, solely for the purpose of assessing the business transaction and subject to a non-disclosure agreement. Any such purchaser will be required to honour the terms of this Privacy Policy. We will notify you in accordance with applicable law if such a transaction is completed.

When we disclose personal information to third parties, we disclose only the information necessary for the identified purpose, obtain contractual commitments that the information will be used only for that purpose and that appropriate safeguards will be maintained, and document the disclosure in our records.

4. How Is Personal Information Kept Accurate?

ClearEstate takes reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date, having regard to the purposes for which it is collected and used. As a user of our Platform, you are responsible for providing accurate information at the time of collection and for updating your personal information as needed through your Account settings or by contacting us.

When a user of the Platform provides us with information about other individuals, ClearEstate relies on that user to ensure the accuracy of such information. If we become aware that information is inaccurate, we will take reasonable steps to inform you and correct it.

To request rectification of personal information, please submit a written request to support@clearestate.com. Our team will acknowledge your request within 30 days and will make corrections without unreasonable delay. Upon making any correction, we will promptly notify any third parties to whom the information was previously disclosed. If we determine that a correction is not warranted, you may request that a note of disagreement be appended to the information in our records.

5. How Can You Access Personal Information About You?

You are entitled to access the personal information that ClearEstate holds about you. This includes information you provided during the creation of your Account, information about your estate plan or succession, and information about your Account activity. Requests for access can be sent in writing to the Privacy Officer at Privacy@clearestate.com.

ClearEstate will respond to your access request within 30 days of receipt. If ClearEstate is unable to respond within 30 days, we will notify you within that period of the reason for the extension and the revised timeline.

Access to your personal information is generally provided free of charge. Where a request is unusually extensive, ClearEstate may charge a reasonable fee after notifying you of the anticipated cost and providing you with the opportunity to withdraw the request.

In certain situations, ClearEstate may not be able to provide access, including where: (a) the information is protected by solicitor-client privilege; (b) disclosure would reveal personal information about another individual; (c) disclosure could compromise the security of ClearEstate’s systems; or (d) disclosure is prohibited by law. If access is denied in whole or in part, we will notify you of the reasons for refusal and inform you of your right to file a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, for Quebec residents, the Commission d’accès à l’information (“CAI”).

5a. Right to Data Portability

Upon request, ClearEstate will provide you with a copy of the personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format (such as CSV or JSON). Where technically feasible, you may also request that ClearEstate transmit this information directly to another organization. Data portability requests should be directed to the Privacy Officer and will be fulfilled within 30 days.

6. How Do We Protect Personal Information?

ClearEstate implements safeguards commensurate with the sensitivity of the personal information in its custody. Given the highly sensitive nature of estate-related personal information (including government identification numbers, social insurance numbers and financial information), ClearEstate has adopted a comprehensive security program that includes:

• Technical safeguards: Encryption of personal information in transit (TLS 1.2 or higher) and at rest (AES-256 or equivalent); firewalls and intrusion detection systems; multi-factor authentication for employee access to sensitive data; regular security patches; and regular backups with encryption.
• Administrative safeguards: Role-based access controls on a need-to-know basis; confidentiality agreements for employees; employees’ background checks when hiring; mandatory annual privacy and cybersecurity training; and documented security policies and procedures.
• Physical safeguards: Restricted access to facilities housing personal information; secure disposal of physical records; and secure storage of devices containing personal information.
• Data segregation: The information under each Account is logically segregated and accessible only by that user, unless the user has invited guest users to view information of their Account.
• Consent-gated access: Guest use is technically controlled through the consent mechanism. Beneficiaries and Advisors who have access to a Primary User’s Account can only access the information in such Primary User’s Account with consent from the Primary User. Primary Users can revoke such consent at any time.
• Audit logging: Users All users’ data is logged, including the identity of the user, and the date and time of access. These logs are retained for a minimum of two years and are available for audit by ClearEstate.

6a. Confidentiality by Default

ClearEstate’s Platform and services are designed to ensure the highest level of confidentiality by default. All personal information is encrypted and restricted by default, non-essential data collection features (such as analytics cookies) are disabled by default, and access to personal information is limited to what is strictly necessary for the identified purpose.

6b. Retention and Destruction

After the Services have been terminated for whatever reason, ClearEstate retains personal information only for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, subject to minimum retention periods required by applicable law. Our retention schedule is as follows:

• Online Will and Estate PlansEstate records: retained for the duration of the client relationship and for a minimum of 7 years following completion or final amendment (to comply with estate, tax and professional regulatory requirements).
• Estate Settlement Plans and Professional Plans records: 11 years following completion of estate settlement, executor, trustee, or attorney mandate (to comply with tax and accounting requirements).
• Financial and payment transaction records: 7 years (as required by tax and financial reporting laws).
• Advisor access logs: minimum 2 years (for audit and compliance purposes).
• Marketing contact information: until consent is withdrawn or the individual opts out.
• Website analytics data: 13 months.

Upon expiration of the applicable retention period, personal information will be securely destroyed or irreversibly anonymized. Destruction methods include secure electronic deletion using industry-standard processes and secure disposal of physical records. Anonymization means processing information so that it can no longer be attributed to an identified or identifiable individual by any reasonably foreseeable means.

7. Where Is Personal Information Stored?

ClearEstate may process and store your personal information in Canada and, depending on the location of the succession and the services required, in the United States.

Before transferring personal information outside of Quebec or outside of Canada, ClearEstate conducts an assessment to determine whether the personal information would be afforded protection equivalent to that provided under applicable Canadian and Quebec privacy laws. Where a destination jurisdiction does not provide equivalent protection, ClearEstate implements contractual safeguards to ensure an equivalent level of protection.

ClearEstate’s third-party service providers (including data hosting and payment processing providers) store personal information in Canada, the United States or Europe. ClearEstate requires all third-party service providers handling personal information on its behalf to implement safeguards commensurate with the sensitivity of the information and to comply with written contractual obligations, including: (a) using personal information only for the purposes specified by ClearEstate; (b) implementing the safeguards described in this Policy; (c) notifying ClearEstate immediately of any security incident; (d) permitting audits of their security practices; and (e) securely destroying or returning personal information upon request or upon termination of the service agreement.

You acknowledge that, where personal information is stored outside of Canada, it may be accessible to law enforcement and government authorities of the applicable jurisdiction in accordance with the laws of that jurisdiction.

8. Automated Decision-Making

Where ClearEstate uses technology that involves automated processing of personal information to make a decision that produces legal effects or significantly affects an individual (an “automated decision”), ClearEstate will:

1. Inform you, at or before the time the decision is communicated, that the decision was made using automated processing;
2. Provide you, upon request, with an explanation of the decision and of how the personal information used to make the decision was obtained;
3. Allow you to submit observations and request a review of the decision by a qualified person at ClearEstate; and
4. Allow you to have the decision corrected if appropriate after human review.

Currently, ClearEstate uses automated processing and decision-making in providing Services under Advisor Pro Plans. It specifically uses automated processing and decision-making to identify potential optimization strategies for estate plans of their clients. Advisors retain full discretion as to what opportunities are presented to their clients and Platform users. ClearEstate does not provide financial advice.

9. Right to Deletion

You may request that ClearEstate delete personal information that we hold about you. Deletion requests should be directed to the Privacy Officer at Privacy@clearestate.com following the process that the company has in place. ClearEstate will delete your personal information where: (a) the information is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected; (b) you withdraw your consent and no other legal basis exists for continued processing; (c) the information was collected unlawfully; or (d) you have completed use of ClearEstate’s Services and the information is not required to be retained by law.

ClearEstate may decline a deletion request where retention is required to comply with a legal obligation (such as tax law, a court order or a regulatory requirement).

10. Data Breach Notification

In the event of a security incident (as defined under applicable law) involving personal information that creates a real risk of significant harm to any individual, ClearEstate will:

• Report the breach to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as soon as feasible;
• For breaches involving Quebec residents, report the breach to the CAI;
• Notify affected individuals as soon as feasible, including: a description of the breach, the types of personal information involved, the date or approximate date of the breach, the steps ClearEstate is taking to investigate and remediate the breach, and steps individuals can take to reduce their risk of harm;
• Notify any other organization or government institution that may be able to reduce the risk of harm; and
• Maintain a record of all breaches of security safeguards regardless of whether the threshold for notification is met.

If you suspect a data breach or security incident, please report it to security@clearestate.com.

11. Review of the Policy

ClearEstate reviews and updates this Privacy Policy on a regular basis to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements and industry standards. We will notify you of material changes by email or by a prominent notice on our website at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Previous versions of this Policy are available upon request to the Privacy Officer.

12. Your Rights

Under applicable privacy laws, you have the following rights with respect to your personal information:

• Right to access: You have the right to know what personal information we hold about you and to obtain a copy (see Section 5).
• Right to rectification: You have the right to have inaccurate or incomplete personal information corrected (see Section 4).
• Right to withdraw consent: You may withdraw your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time by contacting support@clearestate.com or the Privacy Officer at privacy@clearestate.com. Withdrawal of consent may be submitted by email or mail following the company’s process. Withdrawal will be processed without unreasonable delay. Please note that withdrawal of consent for core service purposes may result in our inability to continue providing Services to you.
• Right to deletion: You may request deletion of your personal information in the circumstances described in Section 9.
• Right to data portability: You may request a copy of your personal information in a structured, machine-readable format (see Section 5a).
• Right to information about automated decisions: You have the right to be informed of and to contest automated decisions (see Section 8).

To exercise any of these rights, please contact the Privacy Officer.

13. Questions, Complaints and Regulatory Recourse

You may send your questions and concerns regarding this Policy to the Privacy Officer at Privacy@clearestate.com, by telephone at +1 888-572-0766, or by mail at ClearEstate Technologies Inc., Attn: Privacy Officer, 614 Saint-Jacques St., Suite 100, Montreal, QC H3C 1E2.

The Privacy Officer will investigate each written complaint. ClearEstate will provide you with written results of the investigation and any remedial actions taken within 30 days of receipt of your complaint. If ClearEstate is unable to complete the investigation within 30 days, we will notify you within that period of the reason for the extension and the revised timeline. If a complaint is justified, remedial measures may include correcting or deleting personal information, ceasing unauthorized use or disclosure, enhancing safeguards, or modifying this Policy.

If you are not satisfied with ClearEstate’s response, you have the right to file a complaint with:

• The Privacy Commissioner of Canada – www.priv.gc.ca – 1-800-282-1376.
• The Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (CAI) (for Quebec residents) – www.cai.gouv.qc.ca – 1-888-529-2661