Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information Synapse Dental collects, why, where it is kept, and who it is shared with. It covers three separate groups of people, and the answers are different for each:

• Visitors to this website — synapsedental.ca.
• Staff who use the application at app.synapsedental.ca and emp.synapsedental.ca.
• Patients of a dental practice that uses Synapse Dental. We do not have a direct relationship with you. Your practice decides what happens to your health information; we handle it only on their instructions. See Patient information.

Synapse Dental is operated from Ontario, Canada. Throughout this policy, "we" and "us" mean Synapse Dental.

1. Information collected through this website

The only information this site collects is what you type into the Request early access form: your name, email address, practice name, the number of offices you selected, and your message. We use it to reply to you and to keep track of the request. We do not sell it, rent it, or send it to advertisers.

This site has no advertising trackers, no analytics cookies, and no third-party marketing pixels. The form includes a hidden field that automated spam bots tend to fill in; if it is filled, the submission is discarded.

2. Information collected through the application

The application is licensed to dental practices for running their own operations. When a practice's staff member uses it, we hold:

• Account information — name, work email address, role, which offices the person is assigned to, and an optional profile photo.
• Employment records the practice chooses to store — schedules, time-clock punches, time-off requests, and documents the practice uploads.
• Practice operating data — appointments, production and financial figures, inventory, purchase orders, and marketing performance.
• Technical records — server logs needed to run and secure the service, and the errors the application reports.

3. Google user data

You can sign in to the application with a Google Account. When you do, Google gives us your name, email address, and profile picture so we can create and identify your account. Signing in this way requests no access to your Google Drive, documents, or email.

Some features need more. When you first use one of them, Google shows you a separate consent screen naming exactly what is being asked for. If you decline, the rest of the application keeps working. These are the scopes we request and what each one does:

Scope	What it is used for
.../auth/drive	Creating the practice's folders and uploading the files it generates — supplier invoices, product images, and signed documents — into the practice's own Google Drive, and sharing them with the people the practice nominates.
.../auth/documents	Generating offer letters and similar documents from the practice's own Google Docs templates, filling in the details the practice entered.
.../auth/gmail.readonly	Detecting when a signed document has been returned by email, so the application can mark that offer letter complete. It reads message metadata and attachments for this purpose only.

In particular, data obtained through these Google APIs is:

• used only to provide or improve the features described above;
• never transferred to others except as needed to provide those features, for security purposes, or to comply with applicable law;
• never used for advertising, and never sold;
• never read by a human, except with your explicit consent, for security purposes, to comply with applicable law, or where the data has been aggregated and made anonymous; and
• never used to develop, improve, or train generalised artificial intelligence or machine learning models.

The access token that carries these permissions is held only in your browser, for the length of your session, and is discarded when the session ends. You can withdraw this access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

4. Patient information

Where a practice connects its Open Dental practice-management system, the application copies clinical and administrative records — including personal health information — so the practice's own staff can view them.

The practice is the health information custodian under Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act. We act only as its service provider: we hold and process that information on the practice's instructions and for no purpose of our own. We do not use patient information for marketing, do not sell it, and do not disclose it to anyone except as needed to run the service for that practice or as the law requires.

If you are a patient and want to see, correct, or ask questions about your record, contact your dental office directly. They hold the record and they decide what happens to it. If you contact us instead, we will refer you to them.

5. Who else handles this information

We do not sell information to anyone. We use a small number of service providers to run the application, and each one receives only what its job requires:

• Google Cloud and Firebase — hosting, database, file storage, authentication, and the background jobs that keep data in sync.
• Google Workspace APIs — the Drive, Docs, and Gmail features described above, which write into the practice's own Google account.
• Google Gemini — used to draft marketing suggestions from a practice's own search-performance figures. Patient information is not sent to it.
• Twilio — telephone and messaging features, for practices that enable them.
• Payworks — payroll, where a practice connects its own Payworks account. Only that practice's employment records are involved; no patient information is sent.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of users and the public.

6. Where information is stored

Information is stored on Google Cloud infrastructure in the United States, and our background processing runs there too. Information stored in the United States may be accessible to United States authorities under the laws of that country. If this matters to your practice, raise it with us before connecting a practice-management system.

7. How long it is kept

Practice data is kept for as long as the practice's account is active. When an account closes, we delete or return the practice's data within a reasonable period unless we are required to keep it longer. Early-access enquiries from this website are kept while we are in contact and then removed. A practice can ask us to delete specific records at any time.

8. Security

Access is restricted by role: what someone can see depends on their job and which offices they are assigned to, and those rules are enforced on the server rather than merely hidden in the interface. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by the underlying Google Cloud platform. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise; if a breach affects your information, we will notify the affected practice and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

9. Your choices and rights

• Staff users — you can ask for a copy of your account information, correct it, or ask that it be deleted. Where the information is your practice's employment record, we will pass the request to your practice, which decides.
• Patients — contact your dental office, as explained in section 4.
• Website enquiries — email us and we will delete your enquiry.
• Google access — revoke it at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Under Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act you may also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and under Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

10. Children

The application is a workplace tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information directly from children through this website. A patient record held on a practice's behalf may of course concern a child; that record belongs to the practice and is governed by section 4.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. Where a change materially affects how we handle information, we will tell the practices that use the application before it takes effect.

12. Contact

Email hello@synapsedental.ca with any question about this policy, or to make a request about your information.