Privacy Policy

Effective 29 September 2026 · Version 2026-09-29

This Privacy Policy is provided by Spark Jobs Platform Inc. ("Spark", "we", "us"), Ontario, Canada, the developer of the Spark Jobs mobile app on the Apple App Store and Google Play. It explains how the Spark Jobs app (iOS and Android), the Spark Jobs web app at sparkjobs.ca/app/, and this website (sparkjobs.ca) collect, use, share, keep and delete your information. The web app is the same product as the mobile app, on the same account and database, so everything below about "the app" applies to it too. When this policy changes materially, the app asks you to read and accept the new version before you continue.

1. Information we collect, and why

We collect only what the product needs. For each category: what it is, whether it is required, and what it is used for.

• Account (required): your email address, an account ID, and how you sign in (email and password, Sign in with Apple, or Google on the web). Used to create and secure your account and to sign you in.
• Date of birth and region (required for every account): used to enforce our minimum age of 14, to decide whether a parent or guardian must confirm your account (ages 14 and 15) or give consent before employers can find you (under 18), and to apply the legal working age for local gigs in your region. Once saved, your date of birth can only be corrected by contacting us. It is never shown to employers or other users. When a poster asks for a verified badge, Spark staff see their age (not their full date of birth) to check they are an adult.
• Parent or guardian details (ages 14 to 17): your parent's or guardian's name and email address and a record of their consent (when, and how: by email link, by a Spark staff member after checking with them, or, for ages 16 and 17, your confirmation that they are aware). For ages 14 and 15 we email your parent or guardian a confirmation link; we use their email only for that and for questions about your account.
• Profile (partly required): your name, photo, school, program, education level, skills, interests, availability, work-eligibility status, general location (city) and bio. Employers also give a company name (required), website, industry, size and their role. Used for matching, your profile and what you choose to show others.
• School verification (optional): if you choose to verify with a school that partners with Spark, a record of that membership: the school, your grade or year if you give it, its status, how you verified (a join code, the school's approval, a school account, or a one-time code sent to your school email when email delivery is switched on) and the dates, plus the school email or school account address that verified you, if one did. Picking a school on your profile does not create one. See section 8.
• Work email and poster verification (optional): an employer who asks for a verified badge gives their business website, a work email address (which we confirm with a one-time code), optionally a business number, and a note. A community or gig poster who asks for a verified badge gives their full name, phone number, city, an email address (confirmed with a one-time code) and a note, and must be 18 or older. Spark staff review these requests. We do not ask for or keep government ID.
• Location (optional): if you allow the location permission, your device's approximate position is used to show jobs and gigs near you and for the distance part of your match score. We do not keep a history of your device's location. The city you type on your profile, and its map coordinates, are stored on your profile. You can deny the permission; the app still works with region-wide results.
• Resumes and files (optional): resume files you upload (PDF, Word, text), the text we read from them, and the resumes you build. Used for the resume builder, resume checks and, only when you choose, the display resume employers can see.
• Messages: your chats with other users (including images you attach) and your Spark Assistant conversations, including a short memory summary that keeps the Assistant useful. Used to deliver those features and, for chats with other users, to review reports.
• Community posts: posts, comments, photos and videos you share in community groups, your group memberships, likes, reports and blocks. If you post anonymously, other users do not see your name, but Spark moderators can see who posted so we can act on reports.
• Photos and videos (optional): your profile photo and the images or videos you attach to posts, listings or chats.
• App activity: saved jobs, swipes and seen jobs, applications, gig posts and claims, reviews of gig posters, and employer view and interest events. Used to run core features and to show employers statistics about their own listings.
• Analytics (first-party only): a small set of in-app events stored in our own database: app opened, a search was made (never what you searched for), the subscription screen was viewed, and an employer's apply link was opened. Each is tied to your account and a random session number that changes every time the app starts. There is no third-party analytics or advertising SDK. Used to measure and improve Spark.
• Purchases: your subscription status (for example Spark Pro), received from Apple or Google through RevenueCat. Spark never sees or stores your card details; payment runs entirely through Apple or Google.
• Notifications (optional): if you turn notifications on, a push token for your device.
• Consent records: which version of our Terms and this policy you accepted, your marketing email choice, your Spark AI permission and your guardian confirmation, each with a date.
• On these website pages: only what you type into a form (name, email, company and message) and the page it was sent from. These pages set no cookies and run no analytics or advertising trackers.
• In the web app: your browser stores your sign-in session on your own device so you stay signed in. Signing out or clearing your browser data removes it.

2. What we do NOT collect

• No contacts or address book; connections inside Spark are in-app only.
• No microphone access (blocked at the build level), no calendar, no SMS or call logs, no browsing history, no health data.
• No advertising ID, no advertising SDKs, no third-party analytics SDKs, and no tracking of your activity across other companies' apps or websites.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for third-party advertising. Ever.

3. Service providers, and where your data is processed

We use a small set of service providers that process data only to run Spark's features, under agreements that limit them to that purpose:

• Supabase: our database, sign-in, file storage and server functions. Your account data is stored with Supabase in the United States (Amazon Web Services, US East).
• OpenAI and Anthropic (United States): the AI models behind Spark AI. They receive the text a feature needs, only after you give permission (see section 10, including the note on older app versions). Under their business terms they process it for Spark and do not use it to train their models; they may keep it for a limited period (typically up to 30 days) for abuse and safety monitoring. Job and gig posts written for publication are also screened by AI for safety before they go live.
• Resend (United States): sends our transactional emails (parent or guardian confirmation links and one-time verification codes) once email delivery is switched on.
• Expo: delivers push notifications, only if you turn them on.
• RevenueCat: processes subscription status alongside Apple and Google billing.
• Apple App Store and Google Play: payment processing, under their own terms.
• OpenStreetMap Nominatim: turns the city or place name you type into map coordinates. Only the place name is sent.

Processing outside Canada: your information is stored and processed outside Canada, mainly in the United States, where it may be accessible to courts and authorities under local law. Job listings shown in the app also come from public job feeds and partners; those are public data about jobs, not data about you.

4. Who can see what

• Employers see your display resume and profile only if you are a student who chose to share it and, if you are under 18, your guardian's consent is on file. When you apply, that employer sees your application and the resume you send. Employers you apply to can use Spark AI to compare your resume with their job only if you have allowed Spark AI; otherwise they see that you haven't turned on AI review.
• Downloads by employers you apply to. An employer can download the résumé you sent with an application as a PDF, and export a list of the people who applied to their jobs as a CSV spreadsheet (your name, the post, your application status and date, school and program, skills, availability, approximate distance, your interview time, the reason recorded if you were turned down, whether a résumé is attached, and the employer's own notes and ratings). This applies only to people who applied to that employer's jobs. Once downloaded, that copy is held by the employer, who must keep it secure, use it only to consider you for their jobs, and delete it when no longer needed (our Employer Terms, section 7). Deleting your Spark account removes your data from Spark, but it cannot reach copies an employer has already downloaded; you can ask that employer to delete them.
• Company shared pipeline. Some employers belong to a company team on Spark. If the employer you applied to has chosen to share its applicant pipeline with colleagues at the same company, and those colleagues have also chosen to share, those colleagues can see your application and résumé and update its status, notes and interview details. Sharing is opt-in for each employer account; it is never switched on automatically, and it covers only that company's team.
• Other users see your public profile, your posts and comments (without your name when you post anonymously), and messages you send them.
• Your school sees only the details in section 8, and only if you verify with it.
• Spark staff access account data only to run and support the service, review reports and verification requests, and meet legal obligations.
• We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

5. How long we keep it, and deletion

• While your account is open we keep your account, profile, date of birth, resumes and files, messages, community posts, applications, analytics events, consent records, guardian records and verification requests. All of it is erased when you delete your account.
• Shorter periods: parent or guardian confirmation links expire after 14 days; one-time email codes expire after 15 minutes and are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form; school email codes are deleted within 7 days and our log of verification attempts within 30 days; push tokens are removed 180 days after they were last used; job listings from public feeds are removed after 14 days.
• Delete it yourself any time: Settings, then Delete account, in the phone app or the web app. Deletion is immediate and permanent: your profile, resumes and files, saved jobs, applications, messages and attachments, community posts, comments, photos and videos, job and gig posts, push tokens, subscription records, consent and guardian records, verification records and uploaded files are erased. There is no recovery window. A minimal deletion record (not your content) is kept for security and legal compliance. Full steps: Delete your account.
• No app access? Email support@sparkjobs.ca from your account email with the subject "Delete my Spark Jobs account"; we verify and complete it within 30 days. A parent or guardian of a user under 18 can ask us the same way.
• You can download a copy of your data first: Settings, then Download my data.

6. Security

• All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS).
• Row-level security is enforced on every database table, so your private data is readable only by you and the people you choose to share it with, plus the limited school view in section 8.
• Once saved, your date of birth cannot be changed from your own account, and your guardian confirmation, school membership status and verification badges are set only by our server, Spark staff or your school, never by editing your own profile.
• Server-side access controls, rate limits and AI usage limits protect every sensitive operation.

7. Minimum age and young users

• Spark Jobs is for people 14 and older. The app and our servers refuse a date of birth under 14. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 14, we delete it.
• Ages 14 and 15: a parent or guardian must confirm by email. Until they do, the account can browse jobs and build resumes but cannot apply, message, claim gigs or post. While our email delivery is not yet switched on, a Spark staff member contacts the parent or guardian and confirms manually.
• Under 18: your resume does not appear in employer searches until a guardian's consent is on file (the email confirmation for ages 14 and 15; for ages 16 and 17, your confirmation that a parent or guardian is aware).
• Local gigs: claiming a gig enforces your region's minimum legal working age; higher-risk gig types require 18 or older.
• A parent or guardian can ask us to review, correct or delete their child's information at support@sparkjobs.ca.

8. If you verify with your school

Some high schools, school boards, colleges, universities and co-op offices partner with Spark and pay for their students' Spark Pro. Picking your school on your profile never shares anything with that school and never unlocks anything. Your school only learns about you if you choose to verify with it, for example by entering a join code it issued or by asking it to approve you. Verifying with a one-time code sent to your school email address works once our email delivery is switched on; Resend sends that code on our behalf.

• What your school sees: your name and profile photo (if you set one), the school you verified with, your grade or year if you gave it, how you verified, your status (waiting, verified, declined, left, removed or ended), the dates you asked to join, were verified and when your verification ends, and any reason its admins record when they decide on or remove your membership. School admins are notified when you ask to join.
• What verification never shows your school: your email address (including a school email you verify with), your date of birth, your resume, your messages, your location, your applications, or which jobs you swipe on. Anything you choose to show publicly on your profile stays visible to others exactly as before.
• What it is used for: so your school can confirm you are one of its students and keep its seat count accurate, and so you get Spark Pro at no cost while you are covered. If you apply to one of your school's own job posts, or message its staff, the school sees that application or conversation the same way any employer would.
• Your school can remove access at any time, for example when you leave the school; your school-provided Pro then ends. You can leave at any time from the school verification screen. Verification lapses every year on August 31, and ends for everyone if the school's contract ends. Your own account and data stay yours.
• How long we keep it: the membership record is kept while your account exists, so your coverage history and your school's seat count stay accurate, and it is erased when you delete your account.

9. Your rights and choices (Canada)

Spark operates under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA) and Canada's anti-spam law (CASL):

• Access, correct or remove your profile details at any time in the app. To correct your date of birth, contact us.
• Download a copy of your data (Settings, then Download my data).
• Give or withdraw your Spark AI permission at any time (Settings, then Spark AI and your data).
• Marketing email is opt-in only, off by default, and every message includes an unsubscribe link. Consent records are kept.
• Push notifications are opt-in and can be turned off in Settings.
• Delete your account and data as described in section 5.
• If you believe your privacy rights were not respected, contact our Privacy Officer first. You can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

10. Spark AI and your permission

• What uses AI: resume building, upload, improvement and cover letters; the Spark Assistant; job summaries and job help; and, for employers you apply to, comparing your resume with their job.
• We ask first. Before any of your personal information is sent to OpenAI or Anthropic, the app asks for your permission and shows what is sent. If you say no, AI features stay off and nothing is sent; the rest of Spark works as usual. Our server checks your permission on every AI request, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings, then Spark AI and your data.
• Older app versions. App versions released before 29 September 2026 do not have this permission screen. If you keep using one, AI features you choose to use there work as they did when you accepted the terms shown in that version. The first time you open an updated version, we ask you to accept this policy and ask for your Spark AI permission, and from then on our server checks that permission on every AI request. We will turn this check on for every app version once the update has been available for a reasonable time.
• What is sent: only what the feature needs. For the Assistant, that is your messages plus your profile details (name, school, program, skills, interests, age and city), your latest resume and the Assistant's saved notes. Your password, device location, messages with other people and payment details are never sent.
• AI can be wrong. Always review AI output before you rely on it. It is not legal, career or employment advice. AI on Spark never decides who gets hired.
• Safety screening: job and gig posts are screened automatically, partly by AI, and a post that clearly breaks our rules can be blocked before it goes live. Community posts pass an automatic keyword screen. If you think a decision about your content was wrong, email support@sparkjobs.ca and a person will review it.

11. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes materially, we update the version and date at the top and ask you to read and accept the new version in the app before you continue. We keep a record of the version you accepted.

12. Contact

Spark Jobs Platform Inc. · Privacy Officer: Alec Denby · Ontario, Canada · support@sparkjobs.ca