Privacy Policy

1.Who we are

Marc-Antoine Doyon, doing business as MD Automation (sole proprietorship, NEQ 2282467283), Rouyn-Noranda, Québec (“MD Automation”, “we”), publishes plugins for AutoCAD (the “MD Plugins”) and offers custom-development and training services.

Person in charge of the protection of personal information: Marc-Antoine Doyon, owner.

• Email: confidentialite@mdautomation.ca
• Form: mdautomation.ca/contact/

2.Scope

This policy applies to:

• the mdautomation.ca website and its forms;
• the MD Plugins and their License Manager (the MDLICENSEMANAGER command);
• custom-development and training enquiries.

It does not apply to AutoCAD, a product of Autodesk, Inc., or to third-party sites we may link to.

3.What we collect and why

We collect only what each purpose below requires.

3.1Enquiries (contact and services forms)

• Information: name, email address, company (optional), enquiry type, AutoCAD version and team size (optional), your message, the language and page the form was sent from, and your IP address.
• Why: to answer your enquiry and, where relevant, prepare a quote or engagement. The IP address is used only at the moment you submit, for the anti-robot check and to limit abusive submissions. It is not kept with your enquiry.

3.2Purchases

• Information: at checkout you give your billing details (name, email, the country and postal code needed to calculate tax, card details) directly to Stripe, our payment processor. We never receive or store your card number. We receive confirmation of the payment, the product bought, your email and a confirmation code, along with your acceptance of the terms of sale and the license agreement, as recorded by Stripe.
• Why: to process the payment, calculate tax, send you the confirmation and the license-request link, and keep our books.

3.3License requests

• Information: name, email address, the product, your computer’s fingerprint, the payment confirmation code, any optional notes, and your IP address (used at submission only).
• The fingerprint is an irreversible SHA-256 hash of the identifier Windows assigns to your installation (MachineGuid). It reveals neither your name nor anything on your computer, but it does point to one specific workstation. We treat it as personal information.
• Why: to check the payment and issue a license key bound to your computer.

3.4License ledger

When we issue a perpetual key, we keep your email address, the product, the computer’s fingerprint, the key issued, the number of seats, the dates, the payment reference, the license status, any moves of the license to another computer and, if needed, an internal note. No card data.

Why: to reissue the same key if you lose it, to handle a change of computer, and to confirm a purchase. We do not use this information for marketing.

3.5Free trials

To start a 15-day trial, the plugin sends only the computer’s fingerprint and the product identifier. We keep those two items and the trial’s start and end dates. A trial carries no name or email. Because the fingerprint can be matched to a purchase made for the same computer, we treat this data as personal information too.

Why: to issue the trial key and to make sure a trial cannot be restarted on the same computer.

3.6Usage statistics (optional)

Usage statistics are off by default. Nothing is sent unless you consent.

To turn them on: type MDLICENSEMANAGER in AutoCAD, open the Privacy section and tick “Allow the collection of pseudonymous usage statistics”. To turn them off, untick the same box.

If you consent, the plugins send:

• an installation identifier and a session identifier, randomly generated, not linked to your name, email, license or your computer’s fingerprint;
• the plugin, MD.Core and AutoCAD versions, and the interface language;
• the license status of each installed plugin (including whether it is a trial and its expiry date);
• the name of each command run and how many times it ran (one total per session, not each use);
• actions taken in the License Manager (trial activation; license activation, release or removal; license requests; sign-in and sign-out; visits to the downloads page).

Because the installation identifier stays the same from one session to the next, this data is pseudonymous rather than anonymized in the legal sense. It does not tell us who you are, and we do not try to find out.

Why: to understand which plugins and commands are used and to guide development. No feature depends on your answer.

An administrator can turn the statistics off for a whole computer (registry value HKLM\SOFTWARE\MDAutomation\Plugins\TelemetryEnabled = 0, or environment variable MD_TELEMETRY=0).

3.7Subscription with an online account (when offered)

When we offer the all-access subscription, it will require an online account managed by our provider Keygen:

• Information: email address, name (if given), your company’s name for a team license, password (which you set through a link Keygen emails you, and which we never see or store), the licenses and seats assigned to you, and the fingerprint of each computer on which you use a seat.
• The plugin periodically validates your license with Keygen while AutoCAD is open. After sign-in, a session token (never your password) is stored on your computer, encrypted with Windows data protection (DPAPI), and readable only by your Windows account on that computer.
• Why: to authenticate you, manage seats and apply the subscription’s terms.

3.8Update check

The plugins periodically download a public list of versions (files.mdautomation.ca/versions.json). This request sends nothing that identifies you, and the version comparison happens on your computer. As with any web request, our host technically receives your IP address. We do not use it.

3.9Files on your computer

The plugins keep your license keys, your preferences, your choice about usage statistics and, where applicable, the encrypted session token on your computer, under %APPDATA%\MDAutomation\. These files stay on your computer and are not sent to us.

4.What we do not collect

• No content from your drawings: no file names or paths, layer or block names, coordinates or text. Your drawings and data belong to you, and we have no access to them.
• No payment card numbers.
• No marketing list. We do not sell or rent any information.
• No advertising tracking and no tracking cookies on the website.

5.Service providers and communication outside Québec

We use the providers below for some processing. All of them are located outside Québec, so your information may be communicated outside Québec, mainly to the United States, where it may be accessible to authorities under that country’s laws. Before this communication, we assessed whether the information would be adequately protected there, and we have a written agreement with each provider governing the protection of the information.

6.Retention

At the end of each period, the information is destroyed or anonymized.

7.Security

• The website and our services use encrypted connections (HTTPS) only.
• License keys are digitally signed and then verified on your computer. Once activated, the plugins work offline.
• Access to the license ledger is limited to the person in charge and protected by separate credentials. Our secrets are kept in a password manager.
• The forms are protected against robots and repeated submissions.
• An online account’s session token is encrypted on your computer.

No measure is perfect. We review these measures as needed.

8.Consent and withdrawal

• When you write to us or request a license, you consent to the use of your information for the purposes described in section 3 for that request.
• Usage statistics have a separate, optional consent given in the License Manager (section 3.6). You can withdraw it at any time by unticking the box. The Delete my data button in the same place erases the data already collected for your installation. If we change what is collected, we will ask for your consent again.
• You can withdraw any other consent by writing to us. Withdrawing consent may prevent us from providing the service concerned. For example, without the ledger we cannot reissue a lost key.

9.Your rights

You may:

• access the information we hold about you;
• have it corrected if it is inaccurate, incomplete or equivocal;
• ask for it to be deleted, or for a link leading to it to be de-indexed;
• receive the information you gave us in a structured, commonly used technological format;
• withdraw your consent (section 8).

To exercise a right, write to the person in charge at confidentialite@mdautomation.ca or through the contact form. We may verify your identity, for example from the email used for the purchase. We respond within 30 days of receiving the request. Access is free; a reasonable fee may, however, be charged for transcribing, reproducing or transmitting the information, and we will tell you in advance.

Please note: deleting your license record does not disable your license, since the key is verified on your computer. However, we will never be able to reissue that key or move it to another computer afterwards, so keep a copy.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may file a complaint with the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca).

10.Governance

• Roles. The person in charge of the protection of personal information (section 1) approves this policy, authorizes access to information, and handles requests and complaints.
• Retention and destruction. The periods in section 6 are applied on a schedule kept by the person in charge; destruction means permanent deletion from our systems and from our providers’.
• Complaints. A complaint about how your information is handled can be sent to the person in charge by the means in section 1. We acknowledge it and answer within 30 days.
• New projects. Before acquiring, developing or overhauling a system that processes personal information, we assess its privacy factors.

11.Confidentiality incidents

We keep a register of confidentiality incidents. If an incident presents a risk of serious injury, we promptly notify the Commission d’accès à l’information and the people concerned, and take reasonable steps to reduce the risk.

12.Cookies and browser storage

The website uses no tracking, advertising or audience-measurement cookies. It uses only:

• the browser’s local storage, to remember the display theme on the documentation pages;
• the browser’s session storage, to keep the confirmation code shown on the thank-you page after a payment.

The anti-robot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) and Stripe’s payment page, which is hosted on Stripe’s own domain, may use their own mechanisms to prevent fraud, under their own policies.

13.Minors

Our products and website are intended for professionals. They are not directed at people under 14, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

14.People outside Québec

When personal information is collected from people outside Québec, or communicated outside Québec in the course of our commercial activities, we also handle it in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

15.Changes

We may amend this policy. The version and its effective date appear at the top of the document. If we want to use your information for a new purpose, we will ask for your consent first.

16.Language

This policy is drafted in French and translated into English. In case of discrepancy, the French version prevails.

17.Contact

Marc-Antoine Doyon, person in charge of the protection of personal information, MD Automation — confidentialite@mdautomation.ca or the contact form at mdautomation.ca/contact/.