Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible for your information

Monsieur Budget is operated by Ascencia Solutions, a sole proprietorship of Jeremie Duplessis-Savard, based in Montréal, Québec. In this policy, “we” means Ascencia Solutions.

The person in charge of the protection of personal information is Jeremie Duplessis-Savard. To reach him: j.duplessis-savard@ascencia-solutions.ca.

This policy applies to the monsieurbudget.ai website, its waitlist and the Monsieur Budget app.

2. Monsieur Budget in brief

• A household-budget web app in private beta, by invitation, free during the beta.
• You sign in with a 6-digit code sent to your email. There is no password.
• You import your bank’s statements yourself (OFX, QFX or CSV), type in your transactions or, optionally, connect your bank through Plaid. With Plaid, you sign in to your bank in Plaid’s window: the app never sees your bank password.
• Optionally, if you are self-employed or a landlord: your business invoices and expenses, your rental buildings, and the figures for forms T2125, TP-80, T776 and TP-128 to help you fill in your own tax software. The app does not file anything.
• An AI assistant answers your questions about your figures (section 5).

3. The information we collect, and why

We collect only what the service needs to work. You provide it yourself, except technical logs, which are created automatically when you use the website or the app.

• Waitlist

  What

  Your email, your first name (optional) and your language.

  Why

  To invite you to the beta, and nothing else.

  How long

  Until you are invited, at most 12 months. The entry is also erased if you delete your account.

• Your account

  What

  Your email, your first name, your language and your household’s name.

  Why

  To send you your sign-in codes, recognize you and show the app in your language.

  How long

  As long as your account exists.

• Bank connection (optional)

  What

  The accounts, balances and transactions your bank sends us through Plaid, and Plaid’s access token, encrypted by the app.

  Why

  To import your transactions without you downloading statements.

  How long

  As long as the bank is connected. When you disconnect it or delete your account, the token is erased and the connection is removed at Plaid; transactions already imported follow the rest of your financial data.

• Email alerts

  What

  An email, at most once a day, when your budget’s money watch notices something new: the kind of alert, the date, the merchant and the amount.

  Why

  To warn you of a double charge, an unusual amount or something else worth checking.

  How long

  We keep no copy of these emails. You can turn them off at any time in My account.

• Your financial data

  What

  The statements you import, the transactions you type in, your budgets and your categories. If you use these features: your business invoices and expenses, your rental buildings, the files you upload (receipts, statements) and your tax-form figures.

  Why

  To show you your budget, sort your spending and prepare your figures.

  How long

  As long as your account exists.

  This data may include information about other people, such as your clients or your tenants. Enter only what is necessary.

• Your conversations with the assistant

  What

  The questions you ask the assistant and its answers.

  Why

  To answer you and keep track of the conversation.

  How long

  In your conversation history, the 60 most recent exchanges only. You can erase it at any time (“New conversation”). The history is erased with your account.

• Your feedback

  What

  The text you send us and the screen of the app you were on.

  Why

  To fix problems and improve the service.

  How long

  24 months. It is erased with your account.

• Technical logs

  What

  The requests our servers receive, with your IP address.

  Why

  Security: detecting and blocking abuse, such as repeated sign-in attempts.

  How long

  30 days.

What we do not collect

• No bank password, ever.
• No password at all: you sign in with a code.
• No audience-measurement or advertising data (section 9).

4. Your consent

• When you create your account, we ask you to read this policy and consent to it. We keep the version you accepted and the date.
• When the policy changes, it gets a new version number and we ask for your consent again before you continue.
• Connecting a bank through Plaid and using the AI assistant each require your separate consent, before the first time. You can withdraw them in My account.
• We use your information only for the purposes described here. For any other purpose, we will ask for your consent first, unless the law allows otherwise.
• You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting your account (section 12) or by writing to us. Because this information is necessary for the service, you will no longer be able to use it afterwards. To leave the waitlist, write to us.

5. The AI assistant

What is sent, and when

When you ask the assistant a question, we send your question, with the parts of your data needed to answer it, to Cohere’s Command A model, run by Microsoft Azure (the Microsoft Foundry service, formerly Azure AI Foundry, in a “Global Standard” deployment). Nothing is sent until you ask a question.

Where your questions are processed

With this type of deployment, Microsoft may process questions and answers in any region where it offers the model, including outside Québec and outside Canada (for example in the United States).

What Microsoft commits to

Microsoft describes how it handles requests sent to the models it runs:

“Your prompts (inputs) and completions (outputs) […] are NOT available to other customers. are NOT available to OpenAI or other providers of Models sold by Azure. are NOT used by providers of Models sold by Azure to improve their models or services. are NOT used to train any generative AI foundation models without your permission or instruction.”

“The models are stateless: no prompts or completions are stored in the model. Additionally, prompts and completions are not used to train, retrain, or improve the base models.”

Source: Microsoft, “Data, privacy, and security for Models sold by Azure in Microsoft Foundry” (accessed October 30, 2026): learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/responsible-ai/openai/data-privacy

In other words, Cohere does not receive your questions, and they are not used to train models. We give no such permission.

Abuse monitoring

According to the same page, Microsoft’s system may select a sample of prompts and responses that appear to breach its usage rules. These samples are stored in the Azure geography of our resource and may be reviewed by authorized Microsoft employees. Our Microsoft Foundry resource is in the Canada East region (Canada geography), with Microsoft’s standard abuse monitoring.

What the assistant does not do

• It never moves money and makes no transfers.
• It gives no investment, tax or legal advice.
• It makes no decisions for you: it can suggest a change (a category, a rule, a budget), which you apply with a tap, or ignore.

Each household has a monthly usage cap for the assistant. Its answers may contain mistakes: check important figures before acting on them.

6. Where your data is hosted

With Microsoft Azure, in Canada:

• in Québec City (Canada East region): the app, the files you upload (receipts, statements) and the application logs;
• in Toronto (Canada Central region): the database (PostgreSQL) and its backups, locally redundant, with no copy in another region. During the beta, Microsoft doesn’t yet let us create this database in Québec City; we will move it there as soon as we can.

The emails with your sign-in codes are sent through Azure Communication Services, whose data at rest is kept in Canada.

For questions asked to the assistant, see section 5.

7. Who we share your information with

• Your data is never sold and never used for advertising.
• Our provider is Microsoft, which hosts the service (Azure), sends the sign-in codes (Azure Communication Services) and runs the assistant (Microsoft Foundry). Microsoft processes this data on our behalf, under the Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum. Apart from Plaid (below), we use no other provider that receives your information.
• If you connect a bank: Plaid Inc. (United States) connects to your bank to send us your accounts and transactions, and keeps your access and these data under Plaid’s privacy policy.
• We may disclose information when the law requires or allows it, for example to comply with a court order.

8. Communication outside Québec

These communications of your information take place outside Québec:

• the database is hosted in Ontario (Toronto, section 6), in Canada, with Microsoft;
• questions asked to the assistant are processed by Microsoft, possibly outside Canada (section 5);
• if you connect a bank, Plaid keeps your bank access and your transactions in the United States;
• sign-in emails (Azure Communication Services) and, where applicable, the samples Microsoft keeps for abuse monitoring are stored in Canada, possibly outside Québec.

Before setting it up, we carried out the privacy impact assessment required by law. Assessment carried out on October 31, 2026; it will be reviewed when the database returns to Québec and whenever the model changes.

9. Cookies

• One cookie only, strictly necessary: the session cookie that keeps you signed in to the app. It expires 30 days after your last visit. Without it, you could not stay signed in.
• No audience-measurement cookies, no advertising cookies and no third-party scripts, in the app or on the website.

10. Security

• You sign in with a temporary 6-digit code sent to your email, so there is no password to steal.
• Our technical logs are used to detect and block abuse.
• Your data is hosted with Microsoft Azure, in Canada.
• Your data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest (Microsoft Azure).
• Only Jeremie Duplessis-Savard can access your data, and only to help you when you ask or to handle a security incident.

No measure is perfect. If an incident occurs, we follow the process in section 13.

11. How long we keep it

• As long as your account exists, unless section 3 says otherwise.
• If you delete your account, everything is erased 7 days after your request, unless you cancel before then.
• Backups: Database backups are kept 7 days: erased data may remain in them until they expire.
• Technical logs: 30 days

12. Your rights

• Access: know what information we hold about you and receive a copy.
• Rectification: have inaccurate, incomplete or ambiguous information corrected. You can correct your data in the app or write to us.
• Deletion: in the app, “Delete my account”. Everything is erased 7 days later, unless you cancel.
• Portability: in the app, “Download my data” gives you a JSON file, a structured and commonly used format.
• Withdrawal of consent: see section 4.
• Complaint: to us first, then, if our answer does not satisfy you, to the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

To exercise a right that the app does not offer, or to make a complaint, write to the person in charge (section 17). We may need to verify your identity. We answer within 30 days of receiving your request.

13. Confidentiality incidents

We record every confidentiality incident in a register. When an incident presents a risk of serious injury, we notify the Commission d’accès à l’information and the people concerned.

14. Minimum age

Monsieur Budget is for people 18 or older.

15. Changes to this policy

Each version has a number and a date, shown at the top of this page. When we change it, we publish the new version here and ask you to accept it before you continue using the app.

16. Language

This English version is a translation provided for convenience. The French version is the reference version and prevails in case of any difference.

17. Contact us

Jeremie Duplessis-Savard, person in charge of the protection of personal information
Ascencia Solutions, Montréal, Québec
Email: j.duplessis-savard@ascencia-solutions.ca

See also our beta terms of use.