Privacy
Privacy policy
What TC Exam Prep collects when you use tcexamprep.ca, why, who handles it for us, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it.
Last updated 19 October 2026
Who we are
TC Exam Prep runs tcexamprep.ca, a study site for the Transport Canada pilot written exams. “We” and “us” in this policy mean TC Exam Prep.
Our privacy contact is responsible for the personal information we hold. For any question about this policy or about your information, email them at info@tcexamprep.ca.
What we collect and why
Your account
- Your name, email address and password, when you register. We use them to sign you in and to show your name on your account. Your password is stored only in scrambled form (see Security).
- A random account id and the date you registered, which link your account to everything else below.
- We do not check that an email address belongs to the person who registers it. If an account uses your address and you did not make it, email us and we will delete it.
- If we set up your account for you, we enter your name and email address ourselves and send you a one-time link to choose your password.
Your studies
So you can pick up where you left off and see your results, we keep:
- for each chapter: whether you have finished it, your quiz score, how many times you have taken the quiz, and when you finished it;
- your reading position: the last section you reached in each chapter and when you last read it, updated every few seconds while you read;
- an exam in progress: the question you are on, your answers so far, the questions you flagged and the time left. We delete it when you submit the exam or choose Start over;
- every quiz and exam you finish: the questions in the order you saw them, each answer you chose, your flags, your score overall and by subject area, the time you took and when you finished.
Purchases
- For each course you buy or we give you: which course, Stripe’s reference numbers for the payment (if you paid), when you got it and when your access ends (3 months after a purchase). We keep this after your access ends.
- A record of each checkout you start and complete: the course, the amount and currency charged, and any promotion code used.
We never see your card details (see Payments).
Messages to our team
If you have a paid course, you can write to us from your account. We keep each message’s text, whether you or our team wrote it, the page of the site you wrote it from, and when it was sent and read. Our replies are kept in the same conversation. We do not email you when we reply.
The AI instructor
We count the questions you ask Capt. Mike each day and the amount of text processed. We do not keep the conversation (see The AI instructor).
Sign-in activity
Each time someone registers, signs in, signs out or fails to sign in, we record the account id and email address, what happened, the time, and:
- the approximate location (country, region and city) that our host, Vercel, provides with each request;
- the browser and operating system (for example “Chrome” and “Windows”) and the type of device (phone, tablet or computer);
- the page you came from, without anything after a “?” in its address.
We do not store your IP address or your browser’s full identification string. If you mistype your email address when signing in and no account uses what you typed, we still record what you typed, with the location and device.
Page views
Each time you open a page, your browser tells our server which page it is. We record:
- the page’s address, with its query string removed except for campaign tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content);
- when you arrive from another site, that site’s name (not the full address);
- a visitor code, made from the date, your IP address and your browser’s identification string, scrambled with a secret key. It changes every day, and the IP address itself is not stored;
- your country and region, your type of device and the time;
- if you are signed in, your account id, so these records show which pages your account visited.
We skip visits we can tell come from search engines and other automated tools.
We use the sign-in activity and page views to see how the site is used. Administrators see both on our admin page.
Where you came from
On your first page view we set a first_touch cookie (see Cookies). If you create an account while it is in your browser, we copy what it holds to your account, so we can count which sites, links and campaigns bring sign-ups and purchases.
Question of the Day
When you answer the Question of the Day, we add one to the count of answers for the option you chose, so the page can show what share of pilots answered correctly. We keep only these counts, for each question (each day’s morning and evening question): not your account, your IP address or anything else that could tell your answer apart from anyone else’s. A cookie and an entry in your browser’s local storage help stop the same browser being counted twice (see Cookies).
The Share buttons are plain links to X, Facebook and Reddit. Nothing is sent to them unless you choose one, and what you then share there is covered by their own privacy policies.
Password resets
When we send a password reset email, we record which account it went to and when, so we can limit how many emails an account gets. Password links are stored only in scrambled form (see Security).
Study tips by email
If you tick “Email me study tips, reminders and course offers” when you register, or switch on Study tips by email on your account page, we keep a record of your consent: the words you were shown, with our mailing address, where you agreed (when you registered, or on your account page) and when. If you unsubscribe, we record when, and keep the record of what you had agreed to.
For each study tip or reminder we send you (see Emails), we record which email it was, the purchase it was about (for a reminder before your access ends) and when, so that none is sent twice.
Analytics
We measure how the site is used in two ways, and we use no advertising or social-media trackers.
- Our own records of page views and sign-in activity, described above, kept in our database.
- Vercel Web Analytics, a traffic-measurement service from our host, Vercel, which runs on every page. It receives the address of each page you view. Before the address is sent, we remove every query parameter except those that start with utm_. Anything after a “#” in the address is sent as it is. When you arrive from another site, it also receives, with the first page you open, the address of the page that sent you, as your browser reports it (usually only that site’s address). We do not filter that address.
Payments (Stripe)
Payments are handled by Stripe. When you choose to buy a course, we send Stripe your account’s email address, our id for your account and the course you chose, and take you to Stripe’s checkout page. You enter your card details there, on Stripe’s site, never on ours, and we never see them. We accept cards only, and promotion codes.
When you have paid, Stripe tells us. From its message we keep Stripe’s reference numbers for the checkout and the payment, the amount and currency charged and any promotion code, and we open the course for 3 months. We do not keep your card or billing details.
What you enter on Stripe’s page, and Stripe’s own record of the payment, are covered by Stripe’s privacy policy. Deleting your account here does not delete Stripe’s record or refund the payment.
Emails (Resend)
The site sends email through Resend, an email delivery service. For each email, Resend receives your email address and the email itself. None of our emails includes your name.
Password emails
The “Forgot your password?” email has a subject line and a one-time link to choose a new password, and no other information about your account.
- The link works once, for 1 hour.
- An account is sent at most one of these emails a minute, and five a day.
If we set up your account for you, or you ask us for a password link, we make a one-time link that works for 14 days and send it to you ourselves.
Study tips and reminders
If you asked for study tips (see What we collect), we send you:
- a welcome email when you register, with where to start on the site;
- the first time you pass a PSTAR mock exam, one email about the PPL written exam (the PPAER) and our PPL course, with your score and the course’s price. We do not send it if you already have the PPL course.
If you buy a course, we also send you one reminder about a week before your access to it ends, with the date it ends and how many of its mock exams you have not written yet, whether or not you asked for study tips. A course we give you for free gets no reminder.
Each of these emails is sent once at most, and each has an unsubscribe link that works without signing in: it carries your account id and a code made from it with a secret key, so it works only for your account. Choosing Unsubscribe on the page it opens, or the unsubscribe button your email app may show, stops all of them, the reminders included. On your account page, switching off Study tips by email does the same. If you never switched it on but a reminder is still to come, the page says so, and Stop that email too stops it. Unsubscribing does not stop the password emails you ask for.
Email you send to info@tcexamprep.ca arrives in a mailbox hosted by Microsoft 365.
The AI instructor (Anthropic)
Capt. Mike, the AI instructor, is available to signed-in students. Its answers are written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. Each time you ask a question, we send Anthropic:
- the instructor’s fixed instructions;
- the course material you have open: the chapter you are reading; or the exam question with its options, the correct answer, the explanation, its source, the answer you chose and the part of the chapter that teaches it; or, with nothing open, a summary of your exam and its chapters;
- the conversation so far, up to 17 messages: everything you typed, word for word (up to 1,500 characters a message), and the instructor’s earlier answers.
We do not send your name, email address or account id. Only what you type could identify you, so please do not type personal information into the chat. To answer follow-up questions faster, Anthropic briefly caches each request.
The conversation exists only in the open page, in your browser’s memory. We do not save it, on our servers or in your browser, and it is gone when you reload or close the page.
We do keep a count of the questions you ask each day and of the text processed, to apply the daily limit (5 questions with a free account, 30 with a paid course, reset at 00:00 UTC) and to track what the service costs us.
Google sign-in
If you choose “Continue with Google”, Google asks you to share your name, email address and profile picture with us. We accept the sign-in only if Google has verified the email address.
- If an account here already uses that email address, you are signed in to it. The first time, any password that account had stops working, and sessions signed in with it end within about 5 minutes, because we never checked that whoever registered the address owned it. You can choose a new password with “Forgot your password?”.
- If no account uses it, we create one with the name on your Google account (or, without one, the part of your email address before the @) and a random password no one knows. You can choose a password later with “Forgot your password?”.
- We do not store your Google account id, Google’s sign-in tokens or your profile picture. We do record that your account has used Google sign-in, and when it first did.
- Google sign-ins are recorded in our sign-in activity like any other, under your account here. A new account keeps where you came from, as any other sign-up does.
What Google records when you use it to sign in is covered by Google’s own privacy policy.
How long we keep it
- Sign-in activity and page views: we delete entries older than 90 days. The clean-up runs when an administrator opens our admin page, so an entry can stay longer than 90 days until it next runs.
- Password reset email records: 24 hours. Older records are deleted the next time a reset is requested for an address that has an account.
- An exam in progress: until you submit it or choose Start over.
- Question of the Day answer counts: with no time limit. They are totals, not linked to anyone.
- Password links: until the link is used or a new one replaces it. A link that expires unused no longer works, but stays until it is replaced or your account is deleted.
- Messages with our team: until both you and our team have deleted the conversation, or your account is deleted. If only one side deletes it, it is hidden for that side only.
- Your study tips consent, and the record of the study tips and reminders we sent you: until your account is deleted. Unsubscribing marks the consent record as withdrawn rather than deleting it, so we know not to email you again.
- Everything else (your account; purchases, including after your access ends; chapter progress; quiz and exam history; reading positions; AI instructor counts; where you came from; checkout records; the record that it used Google sign-in): until your account is deleted. We do not delete these automatically.
When an account is deleted, its page views stay in our traffic counts without the account id, until the 90-day clean-up removes them. Stripe, Resend, Vercel, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft keep what they hold under their own policies.
Your choices and rights
Canada’s federal privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), gives you the right to ask what personal information we hold about you and how we use it, and to have it corrected if it is wrong.
To ask for a copy of your information, a correction, or for your account to be deleted, email info@tcexamprep.ca from the address your account uses, so we can match the request to the account. We reply within 30 days. There are no buttons for these yet: your account page shows your name, email address and course access, but you cannot download your data, change your name or email address, or delete your account yourself.
When we delete an account, we remove it in one step, with everything kept for it: purchases, progress, quiz and exam history, reading positions, messages with our team, AI instructor counts, password links and reset records, where you came from, checkout records, the record that it used Google sign-in, its study tips consent and the record of the emails we sent it, and the sign-in activity recorded under its id or email address. Anyone signed in to it is signed out within about 5 minutes. Deleting an account does not refund a purchase, and does not delete what Stripe, Resend, Vercel, Anthropic, Google or Microsoft hold. A failed sign-in under a mistyped email address is not linked to the account, so it stays until the 90-day clean-up.
You can also, yourself:
- delete your conversation with our team, on your messages page;
- unsubscribe from study tips and reminders, with the link in any of them or on your account page;
- discard an exam in progress with Start over;
- choose a new password with “Forgot your password?”, which signs out every session that used the old one within about 5 minutes;
- delete or block cookies in your browser’s settings. The sign-in cookies are needed to stay signed in.
If you are not satisfied with how we handle a request, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Security
- Passwords are stored only as bcrypt hashes, a one-way scrambled form, never as you typed them, and are never written to our logs.
- The sign-in cookie is encrypted. Apart from
tcx_notice, which holds no personal information, no cookie we set can be read by scripts on the page. - Changing your password signs out sessions that used the old one, and a deleted account’s sessions end within about 5 minutes.
- Password links are stored only as a SHA-256 hash. Each works once, and expires: after 1 hour when emailed, after 14 days when we make one.
- Card details go to Stripe, never to us.
- We do not store IP addresses in our database.
- Query strings, which can carry one-time links, are removed from page addresses before either kind of analytics records them; only campaign tags that start with utm_ are kept.
Changes to this policy
When the way the site handles personal information changes, we update this page and the date below.
Last updated: 19 October 2026.