Personal data vault Canada/Guide
Self-hosted AI in Canada vs third-party LLM vaults
When a vault adds AI search or document Q&A, the crucial question is where the AI runs. Many products store your files in Canada but send their content to third-party LLM APIs — typically US providers like OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic — the moment you search or extract. my-id.ca runs all AI that touches your data (vault search, PDF fill, web-form fill, transcription) on servers it operates in Canada, so the sovereignty promise survives the AI features.
The quiet exception in many "Canadian-hosted" vaults
Storage location and AI processing location are separate facts, and marketing pages usually emphasize only the first. A vault can truthfully say "your documents are stored in Canada" while its AI features transmit document text to a US API for embedding, summarization, or Q&A. At that moment your content is processed under another company’s terms, in another jurisdiction, sometimes retained for abuse monitoring.
This is not hypothetical — third-party LLM APIs are the fastest way to ship AI features, so it is the default architecture unless a provider explicitly says otherwise. The test is a direct question: "Does any of my content ever reach a third-party AI provider? Name them."
What my-id.ca runs, and where
my-id.ca answers that question on its Trust page: all AI extraction, form mapping, search, and speech-to-text that touches user data runs on infrastructure my-id.ca operates. We do not send your data to OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, or any other third-party AI provider.
Concretely, that covers AI search over your vault, AI-powered PDF filling, the Chrome extension’s web-form filling, photo-of-a-paper-form extraction, and voice transcription. Every AI output is a draft you review — self-hosting keeps the data in Canada, and review keeps you in control of what gets saved.
Trade-offs, honestly
Self-hosted models are typically smaller than frontier US models, so a vault using GPT-class APIs may produce more fluent answers. my-id.ca accepts that trade because the product’s core promise is that your identity documents and family details stay on our servers in Canada. For structured tasks — matching profile fields to form fields, finding a document, transcribing a note — self-hosted models do the job without exporting your life to a third party.
Frequently asked questions
Does my-id.ca use OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic?
No. All AI that touches user data — search, PDF and web-form filling, extraction, transcription — runs on my-id.ca’s own infrastructure in Canada. This is stated on the Trust page, which is our source of truth.
If a vault stores files in Canada, is its AI Canadian too?
Not necessarily — storage and AI processing are separate. Ask the provider directly whether content ever reaches a third-party AI API, which providers, and what their retention terms are.
Is self-hosted AI worse than GPT-class AI?
Self-hosted models can be less fluent on open-ended tasks, but for a vault’s real jobs — field mapping, search, extraction — they perform well. my-id.ca also treats every AI output as a draft you review before it is saved or shared.
Does the Chrome extension send pages to AI providers?
No. The extension is opt-in per site, reads field labels on enabled sites to suggest values from your vault, and talks only to my-id.ca. It does not send page content to third-party services.
Verify everything on the Trust page
Every claim about my-id.ca in this guide — hosting, encryption, sub-processors, deletion, breach commitments — is documented on the Trust page, which is the source of truth. Related reading: personal data vault Canada.
Store it once. In Canada. For free.
Create a free my-id.ca account — no credit card — and build the vault that powers your family's forms, PDFs, and document sharing.