Software as a service platform development
in Vancouver

An online service sold across Canada will sooner or later reach customers in Quebec, and the province has its own rules for language and personal information. Both shape the product itself, from the first screen to the contract, so it helps to plan for them early.

Language comes from the Charter of the French Language, which Bill 96 strengthened. In broad terms, a business serving Quebec customers should be able to serve them in French. For an online service that means a French version of the interface, the help pages, the emails the system sends and the texts customers read before they pay. Standard contracts that customers accept without negotiation, such as terms of service, generally need to be offered in French first. French should not be the weaker version. It should be as complete and as easy to reach as the other language, including on the pricing page and at checkout.

This is product work as much as translation. It touches design, code and support. Screens need room for longer strings. Templates for invoices, receipts and notifications need a French variant that stays in sync as the product changes. The language choice should be remembered per account. A customer who picks French should never be greeted in another language after the next update. Support replies count too. A help desk that answers only in English undoes the work done on the screens.

Release routines need adjusting as well. New features should ship with their French texts on the same day, not a week later. That means translation becomes a step in the release checklist, with someone who owns it.

Personal information falls under Law 25, the Quebec act that modernised privacy rules for businesses. Three points touch the design of a service directly. Each one has a screen.

The first is default settings. When a technology product offered to the public has privacy settings, they should be set to the highest level of confidentiality by default. Tracking, profiling and sharing stay off. The person turns them on by choice. The settings screen must make that choice easy to find and easy to reverse.

The second is a named person responsible for personal information. The business has to designate someone for this role and publish their title and contact details, usually on the website. The product should link to that contact from the privacy notice and from account settings. Requests to see, correct or delete data will arrive through it, so the admin side needs a simple way to find everything held about one person and act on it within the time the law allows.

The third is consent. It has to be clear, informed and given for specific purposes, requested separately for each one and in simple language. A single box that bundles marketing, analytics and data sharing will not do. Neither will a pre-ticked one. Separate choices, each with a short explanation, will. Keep a record of what each person agreed to and when, because that record is what shows the consent was real.

None of this requires a separate product for one province. Plan it once. It works best as one well built version with French as a full language, careful defaults and a clean consent flow. Details vary by business, so a legal review of the final texts is still worth scheduling before launch.