Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective October 18, 2026

The short version

We collect only what's needed to run bentech.ca and BenDesk: your account details, and the business data you put into BenDesk.
Your BenDesk data is yours. We never sell it, share it for advertising, or look at it except to keep the service running or when you ask for help.
If you use Ben, the AI assistant (Pro), what you send it is processed by our AI provider, Anthropic, to do the job — and nothing is saved until you confirm it.
You can export everything to Excel, and delete your account — and all of its data — at any time.

Who we are

bentech.ca and BenDesk are run by BENTECH, a sole proprietorship registered in Ontario (Business Identification Number 1001767036), owned and operated by Behnam Mardanian in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (“BenTech”, “we”, “us”). We're responsible for the personal information described here and handle it in line with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Questions or requests go to ben@bentech.ca.

What we collect, and why

What	Why
Your BenTech account — name, email address, and a password (stored only as a one-way hash we can't read). If you sign in with Google: your Google account ID, name and email.	To create your account, sign you in, confirm your email, and send you messages about your account (sign-in codes, password resets, and notes about your plan or free trial).
Your BenDesk data — your business name and settings, projects, costs, income, hours, customers and vendors and their details, notes, invoices and bills.	To provide BenDesk to you. This is your data; we process it on your behalf.
Requests to Ben, the AI assistant (Pro, only when you use it) — what you type, any bill or receipt you attach, and the parts of your BenDesk data the assistant needs to do the job or answer your question (such as your project, customer and vendor names and each project's figures). We keep a count of how many AI tasks you ran each month, not the files.	To turn what you send into entries for you to check and confirm. Nothing is saved until you tap Confirm.
Connected email (optional, only if you connect Gmail or Outlook) — your email address, and the access Google or Microsoft gives BenDesk to send email for you, kept encrypted. For each invoice or quote BenDesk emails or schedules for you: who it went to, the subject, the message and when.	To send your invoices and quotes from your own address when you ask — right away or at a time you choose — and to show you what was sent. BenDesk can only send email; it never reads your inbox. Disconnect at any time in BenDesk, Settings → Email: we delete the access straight away (and ask Google to cancel it too).
Your plan — which plan you're on, your free-trial dates, and your Stripe customer and subscription IDs.	To give you the features you pay for and to manage billing.
Security records — failed sign-in attempts and when verification codes were sent, with the IP address they came from.	To protect accounts from password-guessing and abuse. Kept for about a day.
Messages you send us through the contact form — your name, email, message, the page you sent it from, and your IP address.	To reply to you, and to keep a copy in case an email doesn't arrive.
Newsletter sign-ups — your email, and your name and country if you give them.	To send you the updates you asked for. Ask us at any time and we'll take you off the list.
Site analytics — on our public pages (not inside BenDesk), Google Analytics records pages visited, rough location, device and browser.	To understand which pages are useful. It doesn't tell us who you are.

Information about your customers that you enter into BenDesk (their names, contact details and billing details) is yours to manage. You're responsible for having the right to store it; we keep it private and use it only to provide BenDesk to you.

Cookies and browser storage

Sign-in cookie (bt_sid) — keeps you signed in. Essential; the site can't work without it.
Preferences in your browser's local storage — for example BenDesk's light or dark theme and list layout. They never leave your device.
Google Analytics cookies on our public pages. You can block them in your browser without affecting BenDesk.

Who else handles your information

We use a small number of service providers, only for the purposes above:

IONOS — hosts the website and its database, and our email.
Brevo — sends account emails such as sign-in codes, password resets and free-trial reminders.
Stripe — takes payment if you choose a paid plan. Your card details go straight to Stripe and never reach us; we keep only your Stripe customer and subscription IDs, your plan and its renewal date. See Stripe's privacy policy.
Anthropic — provides the AI behind Ben, BenDesk's AI assistant, and “Scan a bill” (Pro). When you use them, your request, any file you attach and the business details the assistant needs are sent to Anthropic to be processed. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic doesn't use this data to train its models; it may keep it for a limited time for safety and abuse checks. BenDesk doesn't store the files you attach. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
Google — “Sign in with Google” (only if you choose it), sending invoices and quotes from your Gmail (only if you connect it), and Google Analytics on public pages. BenDesk's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements: we use Gmail access only to send the emails you ask for, never read your mail, and never use it for advertising or to train AI models.
Microsoft — sends invoices and quotes from your Outlook or Microsoft 365 address, only if you connect it. To remove BenDesk's access on Microsoft's side too, go to account.microsoft.com → Privacy → Apps and services.
GitHub — stores our nightly backups, encrypted so that only we can open them.

These providers may store or process information outside Canada, including in the United States and the European Union, where it may be accessible to authorities under those countries' laws. We choose providers with strong security and contracts that limit how they use your information.

We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it with advertisers. We'd disclose it only if the law requires us to.

How long we keep it

Your account and BenDesk data — for as long as you have an account. When you delete your account (in BenDesk, Your account → Delete my account), it's removed from the live system immediately, and from our backups within 30 days as they expire.
Backups — daily copies on our server are kept for 14 days, and encrypted copies off the server for 30 days.
Contact messages and newsletter sign-ups — until you ask us to delete them, or unsubscribe.

How we protect it

Connections to bentech.ca are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored only as secure hashes. Each BenDesk workspace can only be seen by its own account, and that's checked on the server for every request. The database isn't reachable from the web, and backups are encrypted before they leave our server. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach ever put your information at real risk of significant harm, we'd tell you and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as the law requires.

Your choices and rights

See and correct your information — in your BenTech account and in BenDesk, or by asking us.
Take your data with you — BenDesk → Settings → Export to Excel.
Delete your account and everything in it — in BenDesk, Your account → Delete my account.
Ask us what we hold about you, or to delete a contact message or newsletter sign-up — email ben@bentech.ca. We'll answer within 30 days.

If you're not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Children

bentech.ca and BenDesk are for businesses and adults. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use your information in a significant way, we'll tell account holders by email before it takes effect.