Privacy Policy
Effective and last updated: October 4, 2026
Parking Steward helps you find City of Ottawa municipal parking near a destination. This page explains, in plain language, what information the website handles and which outside services are involved. Parking Steward has no user accounts, does not ask for your name, email address or phone number, does not take payments, and does not ask for your device's location.
1. Information Parking Steward processes
- Destination searches. The text you type in "Where are you going?" is used to look up matching places so we can show parking nearby.
- Parking preferences. Your chosen stay length, Quick Stop setting, vehicle height, accessible-parking and EV-charging preferences are used in your browser to filter and rank results.
- Technical information. Like any website, the servers that deliver the site and the services listed below receive normal technical information such as your IP address, browser type and the page requested.
2. Google Analytics 4
If you accept analytics, Parking Steward uses Google Analytics 4 to understand how the service is used so it can be improved. Google Analytics may receive information such as pages viewed, your interactions with Parking Steward, your approximate geographic area (estimated by Google, for example from your IP address), browser and device information, session information, and analytics identifiers stored in cookies.
Parking Steward also sends its own analytics events, such as destination searches, opening a parking result, stay-length selections, Quick Stop and preference changes, opening a destination page or the live map, and clicks on Navigate or Directions. These events can include the name of the destination you picked (including the place name returned by a search), the parking facility you opened, your stay length and a selected vehicle height.
Parking Steward's custom analytics does not intentionally send names, email addresses, telephone numbers or exact GPS coordinates. Advertising features (ad storage, ad user data and ad personalization) are kept off.
If you decline, Google Analytics is not loaded and no analytics data is sent.
3. Third-party services
To work, the site contacts these services directly from your browser:
- OpenStreetMap Nominatim (OpenStreetMap Foundation) receives your destination search text to find matching places.
- OpenStreetMap map tiles receive requests for the map images of the area you are viewing.
- City of Ottawa services (traffic.ottawa.ca and maps.ottawa.ca) receive requests for live garage availability, street parking and 15-minute parking near your destination; those requests include the destination's map position.
- Google Fonts delivers the typeface used on the site.
- Google Analytics, only if you accept analytics (see section 2).
- Google Maps opens only when you tap Navigate or Directions; the destination parking location is passed to Google Maps, and Google's own privacy policy applies there.
- Hosting. The website is hosted by Lovable and its infrastructure providers, which process normal technical request information to deliver pages.
Each of these services handles data under its own privacy policy.
4. City of Ottawa data
Municipal parking locations, live space counts, street parking and 15-minute parking come from City of Ottawa public data and services. Parking rates and some facility details are copied from the City's published information. Parking information can change at any time and may be out of date or incomplete; always check posted signs.
5. Cookies and local storage
Analytics cookies (such as _ga) are set by Google Analytics only after you accept analytics. They are optional.
Functional browser storage. Parking Steward uses your browser's local storage to remember your parking preferences (vehicle height, accessible parking, EV charging) and your analytics choice. This stays on your device, is not sent to us, and is needed for the site to remember your settings. You can clear it through your browser settings.
6. Your choices
On your first visit you can accept or decline analytics cookies. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of the page. Declining after accepting stops analytics and removes Google Analytics cookies for this site. Parking Steward works the same either way.
7. Data retention
Parking Steward does not keep its own database of visitors or searches. Analytics data is retained according to the configured Google Analytics settings and Google's policies. Other services listed above retain data under their own policies.
8. Changes to this policy
If Parking Steward's practices change, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change.