Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

GLEICH Aluminum Canada Inc. (“GLEICH Canada”, “we”, “us”, “our”) operates the website gleichaluminum.com and is headquartered at 2555 North Talbot Road, Oldcastle, ON N0R 1L0, Canada.

We are committed to protecting the privacy of individuals who interact with us. This Privacy Policy describes what personal information we collect, how we use it, and your rights under applicable Canadian privacy laws, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

2. Information We Collect

We collect personal information only when you voluntarily provide it, including:

• Name, company name, job title
• Email address and phone number
• Messages and inquiries submitted through our contact form
• When you place an order: your shipping or pickup details, billing address, the products ordered, and any order notes you provide
• Technical information collected automatically (see Section 4)

Card payments are processed by our payment provider, Stripe, on their own secure checkout pages. We do not receive or store your full card number, and we do not collect health information or government identification numbers through this website.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use collected information to:

• Respond to your inquiries and provide requested information
• Prepare and deliver quotes for aluminum plate products
• Communicate with you about your orders and business relationship
• Improve our website and services
• Comply with legal obligations

We will only contact you for marketing or promotional purposes if you have provided explicit consent in accordance with Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

4. Cookies and Analytics

(a) Essential

We store your cookie-consent choice so we do not have to ask on every page. It is kept in your browser’s local storage under the key gleich-cookie-consent — technically not a cookie, though it serves the same purpose. It contains only your choice, nothing that identifies you, and it never leaves your device. Clearing your browser storage removes it and the banner will ask again.

(b) Analytics — Vercel Web Analytics

To understand how visitors use our website, we use Vercel Web Analytics, which measures aggregate page views and traffic. It is cookieless, does not track you across other websites, and is not used to personally identify you. We only load it after you accept in the cookie banner.

You can change your preference at any time through our cookie consent banner, which appears on your first visit, or through your browser settings. For the full list, see our Cookie Policy.

5. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties. We may share information with:

• GLEICH Group entities - for business purposes within the corporate group (GLEICH Aluminum Canada, GLEICH Aluminum USA, GLEICH GmbH & Co. KG)
• Service providers that process data on our behalf under confidentiality agreements, to operate this website and fulfil your requests:
  • Vercel - website hosting, content delivery, and cookieless traffic analytics
  • Stripe - card payment processing
  • Resend - email delivery (quotes, order updates)
  • Upstash - rate limiting and the short-lived locks that stop two customers being sold the same plate. It does not store your order or personal details.
  • Neon - the managed PostgreSQL database that holds orders, order documents and staff accounts
  • Cloudflare - bot protection on our forms (Turnstile)
  • Google - optional address autocomplete during checkout
• Legal authorities - when required by law or to protect our rights

Some of these providers are located outside Canada (including in the United States), so your information may be stored or processed outside Canada and be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions. We only use providers that offer a commercially reasonable standard of protection.

6. Data Retention

We keep different records for different periods. Where a record supports a completed sale, Canadian business and tax record-keeping obligations mean we generally cannot delete it on request before the period below has passed.

• Contact form submissions and related correspondence - up to 7 years for business record-keeping, or as required by law.
• Orders and order documents (what you ordered, your shipping or pickup details, quotes, confirmations, invoices and any files attached to the order) - retained as business and tax records, generally 7 years from the end of the relevant tax year.
• Payment records - we retain the amount, currency, status and our payment provider’s reference. We never hold your full card number. Stripe retains its own records under its own policy.
• Staff accounts (for our own employees, not customers) - kept while the account is active and removed after it is closed.
• Technical and security logs - short-lived operational records (for example rate-limiting counters and error logs) kept only as long as needed to run and secure the site.

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information at any time (see Section 8). Where we must retain a record to meet a legal obligation, we will tell you and explain why.

7. Data Security

We use commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. Our website uses HTTPS encryption for all data transmission.

8. Your Rights

Under PIPEDA and applicable provincial privacy laws, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate information
• Withdraw consent for processing (where processing is consent-based)
• Request deletion of your personal information
• File a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

To exercise your rights, contact us at: sales@gleichaluminum.com

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page indicates when it was last revised. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

10. Contact Us