1. Who We Are
Bitnova Now Inc., operating as Bitcoin Now (“Bitcoin Now,” “we,” “us,” “our”), runs a network of self-serve Bitcoin ATMs and the website at bitcoinnowatm.ca (the “Website”). This policy covers personal information we collect through an ATM, the Website, or by phone or email — it doesn’t cover other companies’ sites you might reach through a link on ours.
We’re a Money Services Business under Canadian federal law and this policy is written to reflect that: identity verification isn’t optional for us past certain purchase amounts, so some of what follows describes information we’re legally required to collect and keep, not just information we’d like to have.
2. Information We Collect
Using an ATM under the daily verification threshold. If your same-day purchases stay under the threshold in our Terms of Service, we only ask for a phone number at the machine — no sign-up, no account.
Signing up on the Website, or buying above that threshold. We collect your first and last name, date of birth, email, phone number, employer/industry and job title, home address, how you plan to use our ATMs, whether anyone instructed you to transact, a photo of your government-issued ID, and a selfie photo. This is the information Canadian anti-money-laundering law requires us to collect and verify before we can let you transact above the threshold.
Contacting us or asking about hosting a machine. If you use our contact form or ask about hosting an ATM at your business, we collect your name, email, phone number (if given), and whatever you write to us — plus, for a hosting inquiry, your business name, type, and address.
Automatically, from visiting the Website. Like most websites, our hosting provider’s servers log standard technical information (IP address, browser type, pages visited, timestamps) for security and troubleshooting. We don’t currently run advertising trackers or analytics services that build a profile of you across other sites — if that changes, we’ll update this section first.
3. Why We Collect It
We use your information to: verify your identity where the law requires it before letting a transaction proceed; meet our recordkeeping and reporting obligations as a Money Services Business, including reporting to FINTRAC (Canada’s financial intelligence unit) where required; respond to a contact, sign-up, or hosting inquiry; protect against fraud, money laundering, and misuse of our machines; and operate, maintain, and improve the Website and our ATMs.
We don’t use your information for advertising, and we don’t sell it.
4. Who We Share It With
We don’t sell or rent your personal information to anyone. We share it only in these situations:
- Identity verification. A sign-up submission — including your ID photo and selfie — goes to a Bitcoin Now team member, who uploads it to Shufti Pro, our identity-verification provider, to confirm it’s genuine and matches you.
- Regulators and law enforcement. We disclose information to FINTRAC and other authorities where Canadian law requires it — for example, under our reporting obligations as a Money Services Business, or in response to a valid legal request.
- Service providers. Companies that host our Website and deliver our email run in the background of everything above; they process information on our behalf and aren’t allowed to use it for their own purposes.
- A sale of the business. If Bitcoin Now is ever sold or merged, personal information could transfer as part of that deal, subject to the same protections described here.
5. How Long We Keep It
Your government ID photo and selfie are never stored on our servers or in a database. They’re transmitted directly to a Bitcoin Now team member’s email and permanently deleted from our systems immediately afterward — whether or not that email succeeds. The verification email itself (containing your identifying details and those photos as attachments) is retained by us for at least five years, which is what Canadian anti-money-laundering law requires of a Money Services Business.
Contact and hosting inquiries are kept as long as we reasonably need them to respond to you and keep a record of the conversation, and are deleted or archived once that’s no longer necessary.
6. How We Protect It
Sign-up information — including ID and selfie photos — is sent directly to a dedicated business email account and never written to a public-facing part of the Website; the temporary copy our server briefly creates to send that email is deleted immediately after, success or failure. No method of transmitting or storing information online is completely secure, and we can’t guarantee absolute security — see our Terms of Service for more on this.
7. Cookies
The Website uses only the small number of cookies WordPress itself sets to run properly (for example, to keep our own team logged into the site’s back end) — nothing that tracks you across other websites. We don’t currently use cookies for advertising or analytics.
8. Your Rights
Under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA), you can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. We’ll honour that request except where we’re legally required to keep something — for instance, we can’t delete a completed verification record before the five-year retention period in Section 5 runs out. To make a request, contact us using the details in Section 10.
9. Age Requirement
Our ATMs and sign-up process are for people 18 or older, in line with our Terms of Service. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, and if we learn we have, we’ll delete it unless we’re legally required to keep it.
10. Questions or Requests
Questions about this policy, or requests about your personal information, can go to support@bitcoinnowatm.ca.
11. Changes to This Policy
We can update this policy from time to time — for example, if we add a new service, tool, or verification partner. The version posted on the Website at the time is the one that applies. We’ll update the “Last updated” date above whenever we do.