Privacy Policy

Who we are

Hume is a marketplace for Experiences built around people, operating in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hume is currently operated by Vsevolod Losev, carrying on business as Hume. When Hume incorporates, the corporation will take on this policy and everything under it, and we'll update this page and tell you.

For anything about your information, email withhume@gmail.com with "Privacy" in the subject line. That address reaches the person accountable for privacy at Hume.

This policy covers withhume.web.app, the Hume app, and everything we do to set up and run Experiences — including the Creator Profiles and Experience Pages we currently build and send as links.

What we collect

If you join the Explorer waitlist

Your name and email address.
Anything you choose to tell us about what you're looking for.
Which link brought you to us (the ?ref= tag on the URL), so we know which channels are working.

If you apply to be an Experience Creator

Name, email, phone number, and the city or neighbourhood you're in.
Links you give us — social profiles, a portfolio, a website.
Your answers about what you'd run and why, plus anything you send during the review conversation.
Photos and video you submit for your profile and your Experience.
Government-issued photo ID, which we check to confirm you are who you say you are. We record that a check was done and the result. We do not keep a copy of the document once the check is complete.

If you book an Experience

Which Experience, when, how many spots, and any messages between you and the Experience Creator.
Your signed waiver for that booking.
Anything you tell the Creator that affects the day — allergies, mobility, access needs. You choose what to share, and it goes to the Creator running your Experience.
Whether you attended, cancelled, or didn't show.
Your review or feedback afterwards.

Payments

Card payments are processed by Stripe, on the website and in the app. Hume never receives or stores your full card number, CVV or bank details — they go straight to Stripe, who are regulated to hold them.

What we do receive and keep: a transaction reference, the amount and currency, whether it succeeded, the card type and last four digits, your billing name and postal code, refund and chargeback status, and Stripe's fraud signals. We need those to run bookings, issue refunds, answer disputes, and keep our books.

If you're an Experience Creator, Stripe also collects what it needs to pay you and to satisfy its own identity rules — your name, date of birth, address and payout account details. That goes to Stripe, not to us; we see that you're verified and where your payouts stand.

Tax reporting: because we collect payment for Experiences, we expect to be a reporting platform operator under the Canada Revenue Agency's digital platform rules. That means we file identifying and earnings information about Experience Creators with the CRA each year, and give each Creator a copy of what we filed. This is a legal obligation, not something you can opt out of while being paid through Hume.

Automatically, when you use the site or app

Device and browser type, approximate location from your IP address, pages viewed, and the date and time.
Error and crash information, so we can fix things.

We do not track you across other apps or websites, we do not sell your information, and we do not run advertising on Hume.

What we use it for

Every use of your information falls into one of these. If we ever want to do something that isn't on this list, we'll ask you first.

What we do	Why	Our basis	How long
Run your booking	Taking payment, getting you and the Experience Creator each other's details, handling changes and cancellations	Necessary to perform your booking	7 years (tax and accounting rules)
Show you Experiences	Ranking the video feed and suggesting Experiences that fit what you've told us and looked at — see how the feed works	Legitimate interest in a useful product; consent where the law requires it	While your account is open
Review Experience Creators	The conversation and ID check that every Creator goes through before publishing — the basis of the trust in this thing	Legitimate interest in member safety	Result of the check: while the account is open. The ID document itself: not kept
Keep people safe	Investigating reports, enforcing the Community Guidelines, stopping removed accounts from returning	Legitimate interest in member safety; legal obligation where reporting is required	Safety records: as long as needed to protect people, including after an account closes. Removed accounts: 6 years, or 15 years where serious harm was involved
Talk to you	Booking confirmations, safety notices, answers to your emails	Necessary to perform your booking	Support conversations: 3 years
Marketing	Telling you about Hume, new Experience Creators, things happening in Toronto	Consent — and you can withdraw it in one click, in any message	Until you unsubscribe
Make Hume better	Which Experiences work, which channels bring people in, where the product breaks	Legitimate interest in improving the service	Aggregated after 2 years so it's no longer about you
Meet our legal obligations	Tax, accounting, CRA reporting of Experience Creator earnings, and lawful requests	Legal obligation	As the relevant law requires — generally 7 years
Defend a claim	Signed waivers and the records around a booking, if something is disputed later	Legitimate interest in establishing or defending legal claims	As long as a claim could be brought in Ontario — at least 2 years, often longer

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

We don't sell your information, we don't share it with data brokers, and we don't run advertising on Hume.

How the feed decides what you see

Discovery on Hume is a ranked video feed. That ranking decides which Experience Creators get seen — and therefore who earns — so you're entitled to know how it works rather than having to guess.

If you're an Explorer

What we use to order your feed: the city and neighbourhood you're in, what you've told us you're interested in, which Experiences you've watched, opened, saved or booked, and how long you watched for. Newer Experiences and Creators get some visibility regardless, so the feed doesn't ossify around whoever was early.

What we don't use: your gender, your age beyond confirming you're an adult, your race or any inference about it, your income, or anything we've guessed about your health. We don't build a psychological profile of you, and nobody pays us for placement — there are no promoted Experiences on Hume.

If you're an Experience Creator

What lifts you: Explorers watching your video through, booking after watching, and coming away from your Experience saying it was what the page promised. What lowers you: cancellations, no-shows on your side, and reports upheld against you. Your appearance is not an input, and neither is anything you can pay us for.

Decisions made automatically

We don't use automated systems to remove accounts, refuse bookings, or decide reports. A person makes every one of those calls — see the enforcement ladder.
We don't use facial recognition, and we don't scan your photos or video to infer anything about you.
Anything automated can be questioned. If you think the feed is treating you unfairly, email us with "Feed" in the subject and a person will look at it and tell you what they found.

If we ever add automated moderation — for example to screen video before it's published — we'll say so here, say what it does, and keep the appeal to a human.

Video, photos and your likeness

Discovery on Hume runs on short-form video, which means someone's face is the product. We treat that carefully.

Experience Creators give us permission to show their profile video, photos, name and Experience content on Hume and in our marketing. The specifics are in the Terms of Use, and a Creator can withdraw it for future use at any time by emailing us.
Explorers are never filmed by Hume. Every Experience carries a filming label — Filming required, Filming optional, or No participant filming — shown before you book, so you know before you pay. Booking is not consent to be filmed, and you can withdraw consent at any time. The rules are in Terms §14.
We don't publish an Explorer's face without asking that specific person, for that specific use, in a way you can say no to.
We don't use facial recognition, and we don't build biometric profiles from photos or video.
If something of you is already published and you want it gone, email us and we'll remove it from anywhere we control. We can't retrieve what other people have already downloaded or reposted.

What other people see

Experience Creator profiles are public — first name, photo, video, what you offer, the Experiences you run. Creators choose what goes on them, and don't have to publish a surname, an address or a personal social handle.
Explorer profiles are not public. An Experience Creator sees your first name and photo when you book; the other Explorers in your group see your first name at the Experience itself, in person.
Reviews you leave appear with your first name and photo.
Messages between an Explorer and an Experience Creator are visible to the two of you, and to us where we need to look into a report.

Where it's stored

Hume's database, files and email are hosted by Google, Creator Profiles and Experience Pages by Notion Labs, and payments by Stripe. All three are United States companies and your information is stored and processed on servers outside Canada, including in the United States.

That matters for a specific reason: while your information is in another country, it is subject to that country's laws, and may be accessible to that country's courts and law enforcement through lawful process. We use providers with recognised security practices and contractual protections, but we can't put your data beyond the reach of a foreign legal order. You should know that before you sign up.

Cookies and tracking

We use the minimum that makes the site work: cookies or local storage to keep you signed in and remember your preferences, and basic analytics to understand how many people visit and which links they arrived from.

We don't use advertising cookies, cross-site trackers, or third-party marketing pixels. The ?ref= tag on some of our links tells us which channel sent you — it doesn't identify you personally.

How long we keep it

The table in What we use it for gives the period for each purpose. The headlines:

While your account is open, plus the time needed to finish anything outstanding.
Booking and payment records: 7 years. Canadian tax and business record-keeping rules.
Signed waivers: as long as a claim could be brought in Ontario — at least 2 years, often longer.
Support conversations: 3 years.
Safety reports and enforcement records: as long as needed to keep people safe, including after an account closes.
Permanently removed accounts: 6 years — or 15 years where the removal involved serious harm to someone — kept as a one-way scrambled version of the email address or phone number, so the same person can't quietly sign up again. It can't be read or reversed.
Dormant accounts: if you haven't used Hume for 2 years, we'll email you and then close and delete the account.
Everything else is deleted within 30 days of your account closing.

Anything you shared with another person — a message, a photo you sent them — may still exist on their device or in their account. We can't reach that, and we don't pretend we can.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

Show you what we hold about you, and tell you who we've shared it with.
Correct anything inaccurate or incomplete.
Delete your information, subject to what we're required to keep above.
Export your information in a portable format.
Withdraw consent, including for marketing and for use of your video or photos going forward.

Email withhume@gmail.com with "Privacy" in the subject. We'll confirm it's you, and answer within 30 days as PIPEDA requires. It's free, unless a request is repetitive or unreasonable, in which case we'll tell you the cost before doing anything.

Deleting your account

Email withhume@gmail.com with "Delete my account" in the subject, from the address on the account. No form and no retention offer. You can't delete an account with an Experience still to come — cancel or complete the booking first, so the other people involved aren't left guessing.

Your profile comes down immediately. You then have 14 days to change your mind — email us and we'll restore the account exactly as it was. After that we start deleting, and nothing can be brought back. Your information is gone within 30 days apart from what's listed under How long we keep it. Messages you sent to an Experience Creator stay in their record of that booking. Reviews you left stay up, with your name removed.

The step-by-step version, including what happens if you're an Experience Creator with bookings on the calendar, is on the Support page.

Security

Information is encrypted in transit, access to the database is restricted to the people who need it, and we keep the number of those people very small. We don't store card numbers at all — we never receive them.

No system is perfectly secure, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. If a breach happens that creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as PIPEDA requires.

Age

Hume is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use it, and 19 or older for Experiences involving alcohol. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we find out we have, we close the account and delete the information. If you believe a minor has an account, email withhume@gmail.com with "Child safety" in the subject — see the Safety page.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change materially affects how we handle your information — a new processor, a new use, payments moving in-app — we'll tell you directly before it takes effect, and ask again for your consent where that's what's required.

Contact and complaints

withhume@gmail.com, subject line "Privacy". Hume, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

If we don't resolve your concern, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada — priv.gc.ca, 1-800-282-1376. We'd rather hear from you first, but that route is always open to you.