aved Path

Terms of Use and Privacy

Last updated October 29, 2026

Agreement to our legal terms

We are VOT Consulting Services, doing business as Paved Path ("Company", "we", "us" or "our"), a company registered in Canada at 130 River Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 0R8.

We operate the website www.pavedpath.app, including the Paved Path app (together, the "Services"), and any related products and services that refer or link to these legal terms (the "Legal Terms").

You can contact us by email at support@pavedpath.app or by mail to 130 River Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 0R8, Canada.

These Legal Terms are a legally binding agreement between you, whether personally or on behalf of an entity ("you"), and VOT Consulting Services, about your access to and use of the Services. By accessing the Services, you confirm that you have read, understood and agreed to these Legal Terms. If you do not agree with all of them, you must not use the Services.

We will give you notice of any scheduled changes to these Legal Terms by email or on the Services. The changes take effect on the date stated in that notice. If you keep using the Services after that date, you agree to the changed terms.

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Services, including to join our early-access list or create an account. We recommend that you keep a copy of these Legal Terms for your records.

1. Our Services

Paved Path helps you prepare a Canadian study permit or visitor visa application. You upload your documents, our software reads facts from them for you to check, and rules based on published Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) guidance give an Application Strength Score with a list of things to fix.

The Services are not intended for distribution to or use by any person or entity in any jurisdiction or country where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation or would subject us to any registration requirement in that jurisdiction or country. Anyone who uses the Services from other locations does so on their own initiative and is responsible for complying with local laws.

2. Not legal or immigration advice

Paved Path gives general information, not legal advice. We are not licensed immigration consultants (RCICs) or lawyers, we do not represent you before IRCC, and we are not affiliated with any government.

A score or fix list is not a prediction or a guarantee. IRCC officers decide every application, and an application we score highly can still be refused.

Facts read from your documents are produced by automated tools, including artificial intelligence, and can be wrong. You must check each fact against your documents before relying on it. Scores are calculated only from facts you have confirmed.

For advice about your situation, speak to a licensed immigration consultant or a lawyer.

3. Intellectual property rights

Our intellectual property

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our Services, including all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs and graphics in the Services (the "Content"), and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained in them (the "Marks").

Our Content and Marks are protected by copyright and trademark laws (and other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws) and treaties in Canada and around the world.

The Content and Marks are provided in or through the Services "as is" for your personal, non-commercial use only.

Your use of our Services

Subject to your compliance with these Legal Terms, including the "Prohibited activities" section below, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access the Services, and to download or print a copy of any portion of the Content to which you have properly gained access, solely for your personal, non-commercial use.

Except as set out in this section or elsewhere in our Legal Terms, no part of the Services and no Content or Marks may be copied, reproduced, aggregated, republished, uploaded, posted, publicly displayed, encoded, translated, transmitted, distributed, sold, licensed or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose without our express prior written permission.

If you wish to make any other use of the Services, Content or Marks, please address your request to support@pavedpath.app. If we grant you permission to post, reproduce or publicly display any part of our Services or Content, you must identify us as the owners or licensors of the Services, Content or Marks and ensure that any copyright or proprietary notice appears on posting, reproducing or displaying our Content.

We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you in and to the Services, Content and Marks. Any breach of these intellectual property rights is a material breach of our Legal Terms, and your right to use our Services will end immediately.

Feedback

If you send us any question, comment, suggestion, idea or feedback about the Services ("Feedback"), you agree that we may use it to improve the Services without acknowledgment or compensation to you. Feedback does not include your documents or the information in your applications.

4. Your documents and information

You keep ownership of the documents you upload and the information you enter, including what you write in drafts and in questions to Ask Paved Path ("Your Content").

You give us permission to store, read and process Your Content only to provide the Services to you: to read facts from your documents, score your applications, answer your questions and keep your account working. This permission ends when Your Content is deleted. We do not sell Your Content, we do not show it to other users, and we do not use it to advertise.

You are responsible for Your Content. You confirm that you have the right to upload it, and that it does not break any law or anyone else's rights.

We may remove Your Content, and suspend or close your account, if in our reasonable opinion it is harmful or breaks these Legal Terms.

5. User representations

By using the Services, you represent and warrant that:

1. all registration information you submit will be true, accurate, current and complete, and you will keep it up to date;
2. your legal name and date of birth match your government identification;
3. you have the legal capacity to agree to, and you will comply with, these Legal Terms;
4. you are at least 18 years old;
5. you will not access the Services through automated or non-human means, whether through a bot, script or otherwise;
6. you will not use the Services for any illegal or unauthorised purpose, including preparing an application with false or fraudulent documents; and
7. your use of the Services will not violate any applicable law or regulation.

If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we may suspend or close your account and refuse any current or future use of the Services.

6. Applying for someone else

If you add another person to an application, such as a family member in a group application, you confirm that you have their permission to share their documents and information with us, and that you are allowed to act for them.

If that person is under 18, you confirm that you are their parent or legal guardian, or are otherwise legally allowed to act for them. We will ask for proof before you can continue with their application, and we review it before it can be scored or completed.

7. User registration

You need an account to use the Paved Path app. You agree to keep your sign-in details confidential, and you are responsible for all use of your account. We may remove or change a display name if we decide, in our reasonable discretion, that it is inappropriate, obscene or otherwise objectionable.

8. Prohibited activities

You may not access or use the Services for any purpose other than the one we make them available for. The Services may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavour except those we specifically endorse or approve.

As a user of the Services, you agree not to:

• Systematically retrieve data or other content from the Services to create or compile, directly or indirectly, a collection, compilation, database or directory without written permission from us.
• Trick, defraud or mislead us and other users, especially in any attempt to learn sensitive account information such as user passwords.
• Circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Services, including features that prevent or restrict the use or copying of any Content or enforce limits on the use of the Services or the Content.
• Use any information obtained from the Services to harass, abuse or harm another person.
• Make improper use of our support services or submit false reports of abuse or misconduct.
• Use the Services in a manner inconsistent with any applicable laws or regulations.
• Engage in unauthorised framing of or linking to the Services.
• Upload or transmit, or attempt to upload or transmit, viruses, Trojan horses or other material, including spamming (continuous posting of repetitive text), that interferes with any party's uninterrupted use and enjoyment of the Services or modifies, impairs, disrupts, alters or interferes with the use, features, functions, operation or maintenance of the Services.
• Engage in any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to send comments or messages, or using any data mining, robots or similar data gathering and extraction tools.
• Delete the copyright or other proprietary rights notice from any Content.
• Attempt to impersonate another user or person, or use the account of another user.
• Upload or transmit, or attempt to upload or transmit, any material that acts as a passive or active information collection or transmission mechanism, including clear graphics interchange formats ("gifs"), 1×1 pixels, web bugs, cookies or other similar devices (sometimes called "spyware", "passive collection mechanisms" or "pcms").
• Interfere with, disrupt or create an undue burden on the Services or the networks or services connected to the Services.
• Harass, annoy, intimidate or threaten any of our employees or agents engaged in providing any portion of the Services to you.
• Attempt to bypass any measures of the Services designed to prevent or restrict access to the Services, or any portion of the Services.
• Copy or adapt the Services' software, including HTML, JavaScript or other code.
• Except as permitted by applicable law, decipher, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any of the software comprising or in any way making up a part of the Services.
• Except as may be the result of standard search engine or internet browser usage, use, launch, develop or distribute any automated system, including any spider, robot, cheat utility, scraper or offline reader that accesses the Services, or use or launch any unauthorised script or other software.
• Make any unauthorised use of the Services, including collecting usernames or email addresses of users by electronic or other means to send unsolicited email, or creating user accounts by automated means or under false pretences.
• Use the Services as part of any effort to compete with us, or otherwise use the Services or the Content for any revenue-generating endeavour or commercial enterprise.
• Use the Services to advertise or offer to sell goods and services.
• Sell or otherwise transfer your account.

9. Third-party websites and content

The Services may contain links to other websites, including IRCC and other government pages ("Third-Party Websites"), and articles, text, graphics, information and other content belonging to or originating from third parties ("Third-Party Content"). We do not investigate, monitor or check Third-Party Websites or Third-Party Content for accuracy, appropriateness or completeness, and we are not responsible for them, including their content, accuracy, opinions, reliability, privacy practices or other policies.

Including, linking to or permitting the use of any Third-Party Website or Third-Party Content does not imply our approval or endorsement. If you leave the Services to visit a Third-Party Website, these Legal Terms no longer govern, and you should review that website's terms and policies, including its privacy and data gathering practices. Any purchase you make through a Third-Party Website is between you and that third party, and we are not responsible for it.

10. Services management

We reserve the right, but not the obligation, to:

1. monitor the Services for violations of these Legal Terms;
2. take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in our reasonable discretion, violates the law or these Legal Terms, including reporting that user to law enforcement authorities;
3. in our reasonable discretion, refuse, restrict access to, limit the availability of or disable any of Your Content or any portion of it;
4. remove or disable files and content that are excessive in size or are in any way burdensome to our systems; and
5. otherwise manage the Services to protect our rights and property and to make sure they work properly.

11. Privacy

Your documents show who you are and what you have, so we collect as little as we can, use it only to help with your application, and protect it closely. This section explains what we collect, why, who helps us process it, where, how long we keep it and the rights you have. It applies to the website, the early-access list and the Paved Path app.

11.1 Who is responsible

VOT Consulting Services, doing business as Paved Path, is responsible for your personal information. Our Privacy Officer makes sure we follow this section and answers privacy questions and requests. You can reach the Privacy Officer at privacy@pavedpath.app or by mail to Privacy Officer, VOT Consulting Services, 130 River Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 0R8, Canada.

11.2 What we collect

If you join the early-access list: your email address, and, if you choose to give them, your first name and the country you live in.

If you create an account:

• Your email address, your display name, and your legal first name, last name and date of birth.
• Your email preferences, the date and time you gave consent, and how many times you have signed in.
• The documents you upload for an application, such as a passport or a bank letter, and the facts read from them.
• The facts you confirm or correct, your scores and fix lists, your drafts, and the questions you ask Ask Paved Path with their answers.
• If you apply with or for someone else, the same kinds of information about that person.
• Records of what happens in your account, such as an upload, a confirmed fact or a sign-in. These records hold reference numbers and times only, never names, document content or facts.

We do not collect payment details. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, analytics trackers or screen recording. The app uses only the cookies needed to keep you signed in, and the website uses none.

11.3 Why we use it

• To provide the Services: to read facts from your documents, score your applications, write drafts, answer your questions and run your account. We do this because you asked us to, under our agreement with you.
• To confirm your identity and age: your legal name and date of birth must match your documents, and you must be 18 or older. Your legal name can only be changed with an ID check.
• To email you: early-access invitations if you joined the list, and account emails such as sign-in links. We send Paved Path news only if you turn it on, and you can turn it off at any time on the Account page or through the link in each email.
• To keep the Services secure and working: to prevent fraud and misuse, find and fix errors, and limit how much automated reading one account can use. We do this in our legitimate interest in running a safe service.
• To meet our legal obligations: and to keep the records described in 11.7.

We do not sell your personal information, share it for advertising, or use your documents to train artificial intelligence models. Our AI provider does not use them to train its models either.

Your documents are sensitive, so we ask for your express consent before your first upload. You can withdraw it at any time by deleting the documents, the application or your account. Without it, we cannot read your documents or score your application.

11.4 How scores are made

An AI model reads your documents and suggests facts, each with the quote and page it came from. Nothing counts until you confirm it. Your score is then calculated by fixed rules, written from published IRCC guidance, using only the facts you confirmed. The AI cannot set, change or veto a score. The score is a guide for you: it does not decide anything about you, and we do not share it with IRCC or anyone else. You can ask us to explain how a score was reached, and correct any fact it used.

11.5 Who helps us, and where your information is processed

The early-access list and your account, documents and applications are stored in Canada. A small number of providers process information for us, only to provide their service, under contracts that require them to protect it:

• Supabase stores the early-access list and your account, documents and applications in its Canada (Central) region, and sends account emails.
• Anthropic (United States) reads your documents and answers your questions. It sees the document or question being processed, not your whole account.
• Fly.io (Canada and the United States) runs the service that sends each document to Anthropic and saves the facts. It does not store documents.
• Vercel (United States and other regions) hosts the website and the app.
• Sentry (United States) receives error reports. We remove names, document content, facts and other personal details from them before they are sent.

When information is processed outside Canada, the laws of that country apply to it, and authorities there may be able to access it under those laws. We will update this list before we add a provider.

11.6 How we protect it

• All information is encrypted in transit and at rest.
• Database rules, not just our app, decide who can see what. Only you can see your applications, apart from a small number of authorised Paved Path personnel who need access to support you, review identity and guardianship checks, or check quality.
• Documents are kept in private storage. Viewing one uses a link that expires after 5 minutes, and our reading service can fetch only the document it is reading.
• Our records and error reports hold reference numbers and error codes only, never names, document content or facts.
• No method of storage or transfer is completely secure, but we work to protect your information and review these measures as the Services grow.

11.7 How long we keep it

• Documents and applications: until you delete them, or delete your account.
• Your account: until you delete it. Your documents are deleted at once, and everything else within 24 hours.
• After you delete your account: we keep your legal name, date of birth, consent record and the time you asked for deletion for 3 years, then delete them. We keep them to prove your consent, answer legal claims and prevent fraud or repeated misuse. Only authorised Paved Path personnel can see them.
• Account activity records: 3 years. Service records: 1 year. Both hold reference numbers only.
• Error reports: up to 90 days.
• Identity documents uploaded on the Account page for a name change: stored with your account and deleted once we decide the request. We keep only a record that a check took place.
• The early-access list: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you, and no later than 12 months after the Paved Path app opens to the public. If you unsubscribe, we keep only your email address on a do-not-contact list, so you are not added again.
• Backups: encrypted, and kept no longer than the periods above.

11.8 Your rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you what personal information we hold about you, how we use it and who we have shared it with, and give you a copy, including in a commonly used format;
• correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete your information, or stop using it for a purpose, subject to the records we must keep (see 11.7); and
• withdraw your consent, as described in 11.3.

You can change your display name and email preferences, and delete documents, applications or your whole account, yourself in the app. For anything else, contact the Privacy Officer. We will check your identity and answer within 30 days. We will tell you if we need more time, or if the law lets us refuse, and why.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec if you live in Quebec, or to the data protection authority where you live, including in the European Union or the United Kingdom.

11.9 Information about other people

If you give us information about someone else, such as a family member in a group application or a child you are applying for, you must have their permission, or be legally allowed to act for them. We use their information only for that application, and they have the same rights over it as you have over yours.

11.10 Age

The Services are for people 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information directly from anyone younger. A child's information reaches us only through a parent or legal guardian applying for them. If we learn that someone under 18 has joined the early-access list or created an account, we delete their information.

11.11 If something goes wrong

If a breach of security affects your personal information and creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will tell you and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as soon as we can, along with any other authority the law requires, and explain what happened and what you can do. We keep a record of every breach.

11.12 Changes to this section

If we change how we handle your personal information, we will update this section and the date at the top of this page. If the change is significant, we will email you before it takes effect.

12. Copyright infringements

We respect the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that any material available on or through the Services infringes any copyright you own or control, please notify us immediately using the contact details below (a "Notification"). Under applicable law you may be held liable for damages if you make material misrepresentations in a Notification, so if you are not sure that material infringes your copyright, consider contacting a lawyer first.

13. Term, termination and account deletion

These Legal Terms remain in full force and effect while you use the Services. Without limiting any other provision of these Legal Terms, we may, in our reasonable discretion, deny access to and use of the Services (including by blocking certain IP addresses) to any person who breaches any representation, warranty or covenant in these Legal Terms or any applicable law or regulation. We may suspend or close your account and delete Your Content in those cases.

If we close or suspend your account, you must not register a new account under your name, a fake or borrowed name, or the name of any third party. In addition to closing or suspending your account, we may take appropriate legal action, including civil, criminal and injunctive redress.

You can delete your account at any time from the Account page. Your documents are deleted straight away, you are signed out everywhere and cannot sign in again, and the rest of your account and applications are deleted within 24 hours. We keep your legal name, date of birth, consent record and the time you asked for deletion for 3 years, for legal and security reasons, as section 11 (Privacy) explains.

14. Modifications and interruptions

We may change, modify or remove the contents of the Services at any time. We have no obligation to update any information on our Services. We will not be liable to you or any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Services.

We cannot guarantee the Services will be available at all times. We may experience hardware, software or other problems, or need to perform maintenance, resulting in interruptions, delays or errors. We may change, revise, update, suspend, discontinue or otherwise modify the Services at any time. To the extent permitted by law, we have no liability for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused by your inability to access or use the Services during any downtime or discontinuance. Nothing in these Legal Terms obliges us to maintain and support the Services or to supply any corrections, updates or releases.

15. Governing law

These Legal Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. You and VOT Consulting Services agree that the courts of Ontario have jurisdiction to resolve any dispute arising in connection with these Legal Terms. If you are a consumer living elsewhere, you keep any protection the law where you live gives you.

16. Dispute resolution

To resolve any dispute, controversy or claim related to these Legal Terms (a "Dispute") quickly and at low cost, you and we agree to first try to settle it informally for at least thirty (30) days before starting court proceedings. Informal negotiation starts when one party gives the other written notice of the Dispute.

This does not apply to Disputes about enforcing or protecting intellectual property rights, about theft, piracy, invasion of privacy or unauthorised use, or to any claim for urgent injunctive relief.

17. Corrections

There may be information on the Services that contains typographical errors, inaccuracies or omissions. We may correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions and change or update the information on the Services at any time, without prior notice.

18. Disclaimer

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN AS-IS AND AS-AVAILABLE BASIS. YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICES AND YOUR USE OF THEM, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE SERVICES' CONTENT, OF ANY SCORE OR FIX LIST, OR OF THE CONTENT OF ANY WEBSITE LINKED TO THE SERVICES, AND TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW WE ASSUME NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY (1) ERRORS, MISTAKES OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT AND MATERIALS, (2) PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SERVICES, (3) INTERRUPTION OR CESSATION OF TRANSMISSION TO OR FROM THE SERVICES, (4) BUGS, VIRUSES, TROJAN HORSES OR THE LIKE THAT MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO OR THROUGH THE SERVICES BY ANY THIRD PARTY, (5) ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY CONTENT AND MATERIALS OR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF THE USE OF ANY CONTENT POSTED, TRANSMITTED OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE VIA THE SERVICES, OR (6) ANY DECISION MADE ON AN APPLICATION.

19. Limitations of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL WE OR OUR DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES OR AGENTS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFIT, LOST REVENUE, LOSS OF DATA, REFUSED APPLICATIONS OR OTHER DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

20. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us harmless, including our subsidiaries, affiliates and all of our respective officers, agents, partners and employees, from and against any loss, damage, liability, claim or demand, including reasonable lawyers' fees and expenses, made by any third party due to or arising out of: (1) Your Content; (2) your use of the Services; (3) your breach of these Legal Terms; (4) any breach of your representations and warranties in these Legal Terms; or (5) your violation of the rights of a third party, including intellectual property and privacy rights. We may, at your expense, assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter for which you are required to indemnify us, and you agree to cooperate, at your expense, with our defence of such claims. We will use reasonable efforts to notify you of any such claim, action or proceeding when we become aware of it.

21. User data

We keep the data you send to the Services, and data about your use of them, to run and improve the Services, as described in section 11 (Privacy). We protect it and back it up, but you should keep your original documents. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable to you for any loss or corruption of that data.

22. Electronic communications, transactions and signatures

Visiting the Services, sending us emails and completing online forms are electronic communications. You consent to receive electronic communications, and you agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures and other communications we provide to you electronically, by email and on the Services, satisfy any legal requirement that such communication be in writing. YOU AGREE TO THE USE OF ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES, CONTRACTS AND OTHER RECORDS, AND TO ELECTRONIC DELIVERY OF NOTICES, POLICIES AND RECORDS OF TRANSACTIONS STARTED OR COMPLETED BY US OR VIA THE SERVICES. To the extent permitted by law, you waive any rights or requirements under any statutes, regulations, rules, ordinances or other laws in any jurisdiction that require an original signature or delivery or retention of non-electronic records.

23. Miscellaneous

These Legal Terms and any policies or operating rules we post on or about the Services are the entire agreement and understanding between you and us. Our failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Legal Terms does not waive that right or provision. These Legal Terms operate to the fullest extent permissible by law. We may assign any or all of our rights and obligations to others at any time. We are not responsible or liable for any loss, damage, delay or failure to act caused by any cause beyond our reasonable control. If any provision or part of a provision of these Legal Terms is found to be unlawful, void or unenforceable, it is severable from these Legal Terms and does not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions. No joint venture, partnership, employment or agency relationship is created between you and us by these Legal Terms or your use of the Services. You agree that these Legal Terms will not be construed against us because we drafted them. You waive any defences you may have based on the electronic form of these Legal Terms and the lack of signing by the parties.

24. Contact us

To resolve a complaint about the Services or to get more information about using them, contact us at: