Privacy Policy

Amest ("Amest," "we," "us," or "our") is operated by Jasman Gill (operating as Amest), based in Calgary, Alberta. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting the personal information you entrust to us.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, store, and protect personal information when you visit the Amest website, create an account, use our tools, communicate with us, or otherwise use our services (collectively, the "Services"). By using Amest, you acknowledge the practices described here.

1. What Amest is and what each tool does with your information

Amest is a property-analysis website for Calgary. It is not a municipality, government or planning authority, architecture, engineering or surveying firm, law firm, real estate brokerage, or appraiser. Our tools:

• Address Lookup — you enter a Calgary address; we show its zoning district, setbacks, a buildable-area estimate, and permitted uses, drawn from the City of Calgary's Land Use Bylaw and open data. The written summary is generated by our own templates, not AI. In some cases a City satellite image tile for the parcel is sent to our AI provider to help detect a rear lane.
• Find Lots — you describe what you want to build; we return matching parcels. The short rationale shown for each lot and the "best pick" are generated by our AI provider from parcel facts (address, zone, lot size, year built). Your search text is sent to a third-party service to find relevant bylaw sections.
• Cost Predictor — you enter project details (or upload a plan); we return an estimated construction cost and related figures. The estimate is produced by a statistical model trained on historical Calgary permit data — not AI. If you upload a plan or document, it is first read by local text recognition, and only sent to our AI provider when that fails to read it clearly.

2. Information We Collect

Account and contact information

When you create an account or contact us, we may collect:

• Email address (and your name, if you sign in with Google)
• Messages, support requests, and partnership enquiries you send us
• Your subscription status and a payment-processor customer identifier

Property and project information

• Property addresses and parcel details you look up
• Project details you enter into the Cost Predictor or other tools
• Documents, plans, or images you choose to upload

Some property information is also obtained from public and governmental sources, primarily the City of Calgary's open data.

Payment information

Amest offers a paid subscription. Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details are entered on and handled by Stripe — Amest never receives or stores them. We receive limited transaction information such as payment status, subscription level, and a customer identifier needed to administer your account.

Technical and usage information

When you use Amest, some information is collected automatically:

• IP address, browser and device type, operating system
• Pages viewed, features used, dates and times of access, referring pages
• Approximate location derived from your IP address
• Diagnostic, performance, and error information
• A device identifier stored in your browser, used to administer the one free estimate available before you create an account

3. Artificial Intelligence and Automated Processing

Some features use artificial intelligence provided by Anthropic (the Claude models) and text-embedding technology from Voyage AI. Both operate in the United States. Depending on which tool you use, the following may be sent to these providers: the property address and parcel facts, your Find Lots search text, and any plan or document you upload to the Cost Predictor (only when local text recognition cannot read it).

Under our standard API arrangements with these providers, your inputs and outputs are not used to train their models. Anthropic may retain API data for a limited period (generally up to 30 days) for abuse monitoring, after which it is deleted.

Uploaded files are not stored by Amest. They are held in memory only for the length of processing and are never written to our database or servers.

AI-generated output can be wrong. You should avoid submitting unnecessary sensitive personal information through search boxes, project details, or uploaded documents.

4. How We Use Personal Information

• Create and manage your account and subscription
• Provide the tools and generate the results you request
• Respond to questions and support requests
• Send service-related messages (e.g. sign-in links, receipts, confirmations)
• Maintain security, detect and prevent fraud or misuse, and diagnose technical problems
• Analyze usage and improve Amest, and develop and test new functionality
• Keep appropriate business and transaction records
• Comply with legal and regulatory requirements

5. How We Share Information

Amest does not sell personal information and does not use advertising or behavioural-tracking pixels. We share information only with service providers who help us operate the Services:

Providers receive only what is reasonably necessary for their function. We may also disclose information where required or permitted by law, in response to lawful requests, or in connection with a merger, financing, or sale of the business (subject to confidentiality protections).

6. Storage and Processing Outside Canada

Most of Amest's service providers store and process information in the United States. As a result, your personal information is subject to U.S. law and may be accessible to U.S. courts, government agencies, or regulators in accordance with that law. By creating an account or using the Services, you consent to this processing. If you have questions about our providers or cross-border processing, contact us using the details below.

7. Cookies and Local Storage

Amest uses very few cookies. We use browser local storage to keep you signed in and to remember preferences (such as the free-estimate device identifier and interface settings). Our analytics provider (Vercel) is cookieless. Stripe may set cookies during checkout for fraud prevention. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. You can block or clear cookies and local storage in your browser settings; some features may stop working if you do.

8. Data Retention

We keep personal information only as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, maintain your account, complete transactions, meet legal and accounting obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When it is no longer needed, we take reasonable steps to delete, destroy, or anonymize it.

9. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to the information we handle, including access controls and row-level database security. No system can be guaranteed completely secure. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential and for notifying us if you believe your account has been compromised. If a breach occurs that poses a real risk of significant harm, we will notify affected individuals and the applicable privacy regulator as required by law.

10. Your Choices and Rights

Subject to applicable law, you may:

• Request access to the personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Withdraw consent to certain uses (this may limit the Services we can provide)
• Unsubscribe from any non-essential email
• Request deletion of your account or personal information

We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request, and some information may be retained where required for legal, security, fraud-prevention, accounting, or dispute-resolution purposes. Send requests to privacy@amest.ca.

11. Email Communications

We send transactional emails necessary to operate your account — sign-in links, payment receipts, and confirmations. Amest does not currently send marketing or newsletter emails. If we begin to, we will seek consent where required by Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation and every such message will include a working unsubscribe option.

12. Third-Party Websites

Amest links to third-party and government websites (such as the City of Calgary). We do not control their privacy practices; review their policies before providing information to them.

13. Children

Amest is intended for users with the legal capacity to enter into these terms and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy to reflect changes to our Services, technologies, or legal requirements. The updated version will be posted here with a new "Last updated" date. Where required by law, we will provide additional notice or seek consent for material changes.

15. Contact

Jasman Gill (operating as Amest)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Privacy contact: privacy@amest.ca

We handle personal information in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy law, including Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act and the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act where applicable. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.