Privacy Policy

Last Updated: November 1, 2022

1. Introduction

Hushed is founded on the principle of helping people keep their private communications private without compromise — as they should be.

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to outline AffinityClick Inc.’s (“AffinityClick”, “we”, “us” or “our”) commitment towards respecting your privacy and to comply with the applicable privacy laws and associated rules governing how or when any of your personal information is collected, used and disclosed while accessing our Website and Services (each as defined in our Terms of Service located at https://hushed.com/privacy-policy/. We know that you take your personal data and information very seriously; and so do we. We strongly encourage all of our users to familiarize themselves with our Privacy Policy to understand any and all circumstances where both non-identifiable or personally identifiable data may be collected or processed while using our Services.

By visiting our website, registering with or using any of our Services, you are accepting and agree to comply with this Privacy Policy.

European Residents: If you reside in the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, please also see our European Privacy Policy below for further information on your rights under applicable European privacy laws.

California Residents:  If you reside in California, please see our California Privacy Rights section below for further information on your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Your access to and use of the Services is subject to our Terms of Service (“TOS”). Any capitalized terms used but not defined in this Privacy Policy have the meanings provided in the TOS.

2. Consent

By using, registering to or otherwise accessing our Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy and give your explicit, informed consent to the collection, use and processing of your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy or the TOS, please do not visit, use, register to, or otherwise access any of our Website or Services. You acknowledge and agree that such personal information may be transferred from your current location to the offices and servers of AffinityClick and authorized third parties referred to herein located in Canada and the United States.

You may withdraw your consent at any time, unless such consent would frustrate the performance of a legal obligation. Your withdrawal may restrict our ability to provide the Services. There are limited circumstances in which we may collect, use or disclose personal information without your consent. They include: a) when the collection, use or disclosure of personal information is permitted or required by law; b) in an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health or personal security; c) when the personal information is available from a public source; d) when we require legal advice from a lawyer; e) for the purposes of collecting debt; f) to protect ourselves from fraud; or g) to investigate an anticipated breach of an agreement or a contravention of law.

3. How We Collect Information

We collect information about you from a variety of sources when you access our Website or Services, including: (a) directly from you (when you sign up for or use our Services); (b) from our business partners and service providers; (c) from third party sources; and (d) automatically from devices that you use to connect to our Website or Services.

4. Types of Information We Collect

The amount and type of information that we collect about you depends on the nature of your interaction with our Website and Services. We collect information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of your interaction with us. We collect the following information based on different scenarios of usage while accessing our Services:

a) Registration/Profile Information

i. when signing up for your account, we collect your email address and password; passwords are hashed and encrypted before being transmitted to our servers; we do not see the clear text version of your password;

b) Contact Information

i. authentication information (e.g. your account’s email address and encrypted password);

ii. communications with us (e.g. interaction with our sales or customer support teams);

iii. when buying phone numbers from certain countries, we may ask you to submit proof of identity and/or address verification information in order to comply with the requirements of local regulations in the territories from which the phone number(s) originate; we may share that information with our third party telecommunication providers in order to fulfill the transaction requirements and provide the phone number to your account; and 

iv. we allow you to add other contacts and phone numbers to your app’s address book, this information is stored until you choose to delete the contact information or your account; we do not store or download contacts from your device’s address book.

c) Usage Information

i. like most website and app operators, we collect information about your interactions with the Website and Services, such as which screens or pages you visit, what you click on, when you perform those actions, language preferences, and so on);

ii. message content contained within SMS/MMS segments as well as the source and destination numbers are stored until you delete your message history, associated phone number, or your account;

iii. CDR (Call Detail Records) are stored until you delete the call log, associated phone number, or your account (CDRs contains various attributes of the call such as time, duration, completion status, source number, and destination number); 

iv. voicemail recordings and voicemail greetings are stored until you delete voicemail recordings, voicemail greetings, the associated phone number, or your account; and

v. you are entirely and solely responsible for any information that you disclose or share with other users through our Services. We strongly recommend that you use extreme caution in sharing any personal information with other parties through our Services

AffinityClick is not responsible for any information that you disclose to other parties through our Services.

d) Billing Information

i. payment information is collected by our third party payment providers such as Apple, Google, Stripe or Coinbase, each of which may require you to provide your billing details and financial information corresponding to your selected method of payment (e.g. a credit card number and expiration date). In most cases, we will have access to transaction reference numbers and/or your billing information pertaining to each payment; however, we do not store or otherwise process any credit card information. Please refer to each payment provider’s terms and conditions and privacy policies as applicable. For ease, here is a link to Stripe’s privacy policy: https://stripe.com/us/privacy and following is a link to Coinbase’s privacy policy: https://www.coinbase.com/legal/privacy  

e) Information from Third Parties and Integration Partners

i. we collect your information or data from third parties if you give permission to those third parties to share your information with us or where you have made that information publicly available online (e.g. if you enable service integrations with DropBox or Slack, they may send us your information which they have collected, all of which will be controlled by such third party); and

ii. other sources (to the extent permitted by applicable law we may receive additional information about you, such as demographic data or fraud detection information and warnings, or other information about you from partner networks).

f) Log Data

i. we collect log data each time a device accesses our servers, log data includes details about the nature of each access including originating IP addresses, access times, device type, operating system versions, internet service providers, pages you view before and after using the Website or Services, links to third party applications, and hardware and software information.

g) Cookies

i. Our Website  uses “cookies” which enables us to remember you and understand and save your preferences. A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on your computer, and that your browser provides to the website each time you return. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors to our sites, their usage of the Website, and their Website access preferences, to improve our Website and Services. If you do not wish to have cookies placed on your computer you should set your browsers to refuse cookies before using our websites. If you do this, the drawback is that certain features of our Website and Services may not function properly and this may also block cookies for any other website you visit; and

ii. Ads appearing on any of our Websites may be delivered by advertising partners, who may also set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement to compile information about you or others who use your computer. This information allows ad networks to, among other things, deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by us and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

5. How We Use the Information We Collect

We use your information for the purposes identified in this Privacy Policy at the time of collection or for a purpose related thereto, including to develop and provide the Website and Services. Specifically, we may use your information for the following purposes: a) verifying identity and authenticating information; b) registration; c) payment processing; d) monitor information you transmit through our Services to operate our Services properly and to protect ourselves, our users, and the public; e) to send email notifications and reminders related to the Services; f) providing the Services and operating our business; g) responding to customer requests and complaints; h) sending newsletters or other marketing information; i) establishing and maintaining relationships with our users; j) optimizing experiences by performing analytics and conducting research; k) conducting investigations, detecting fraud, abuse, security breaches and other harmful activity; l) resolving disputes and enforcing agreements and policies; and m) meeting and complying with legal and regulatory requirements. We will not rent or sell personal information to anyone.

6. How We Share the Information We Collect

We may disclose personal information to fulfill the purposes identified in this Privacy Policy, and for purposes related thereto, and to provide the Services, including as follows:

a) within our organization;

b) with our third party service providers, affiliates and trusted key partners who help us provide certain aspects of our Services, including without limitation:

i. facilitate payment processing;

ii. facilitate sending customer email surveys or marketing notifications;

iii. manage our sales and customer support services to you;

iv. deliver and help us track our marketing and advertising content;

v. help us provide core features of telecommunications services;

vi. help us track website conversions and success metrics;

c) certain information may be shared with third parties or published when you follow links to third party websites, we do not own or control these third parties and when you interact with them you may be providing information to them directly – such parties will have their own rules and policies in respect of the collection, use and disclosure of personal information and we encourage you to review these rules and policies;

d) information that you choose to share publicly or with others may be indexed through third party search engines – we do not control the practices of third party search engines so you need to be careful about the information you make public;

e) at your request or with your consent;

f) as required by applicable laws and related rules and regulations, including as requested by law enforcement, pursuant to a subpoena or other governmental or regulatory authorities;

g) with a buyer, investor, new affiliate, or other successor in the event we or any affiliate undergoes a business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, consolidation, reorganization, divestiture, liquidation or dissolution (including bankruptcy), or a sale or other transfer of all or a portion of our assets or any affiliates or during steps in contemplation of such activities (e.g., negotiations and due diligence);

h) with our financial, insurance, legal, accounting or other advisors that provide professional services to us;

i) we may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to our Website. We may display this information, in aggregated form, publicly or provide it to others. 

7. Retention of and Access and Change to Personal Information

We will only retain personal information that we collect for as long as is necessary and in accordance with applicable laws. 

You may request access to your personal information or request to know how we use it or to whom it has been disclosed, subject to limited exceptions prescribed by law. Requests must be made in writing via e-mail to support@hushed.com. We will respond to requests within 45 days or provide notice if we require longer. To the extent permitted by applicable law, fees may be charged to access information, but you will be notified of such in advance so you can choose whether or not to proceed.

A government agency may ask us to set aside a copy of specific information while the agency applies for legal process to compel the disclosure of that information. Preservation requests only apply to information that AffinityClick and its affiliates have at the time of the request, not information that may be generated in the future.

8. Security of Personal Information

We are committed to the security of your personal information and we take steps to protect it from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal and other risks. We store personal information in a secure location, accessible by designated staff and we only use it for the purposes for which you provide it (as set out in this Privacy Policy).

We use appropriate security measures when we destroy personal information.

We routinely review and update our security policies and controls to ensure ongoing personal information security, though the Internet is not a 100% secure environment so we cannot guarantee the complete security and protection of the transmission and storage of your information.

9. Accuracy of Personal Information

We make reasonable efforts to ensure your personal information is accurate and complete. You may make a request to update, correct, or delete your personal information at any time by submitting a request in writing to support@hushed.com. It is your responsibility to provide updates to your personal information and to maintain its accuracy.

10. Safety of Minors

We encourage parents and guardians to be aware of their children’s online activities. We do not knowingly collect the personal information of minors (persons under the age of 13 or under a higher age if permitted by the laws of their residence). If you are aware that a minor has provided us with personal information, please contact us at support@hushed.com. If it comes to our attention that we have collected personal information from a minor, we may delete this information without notice.

11. Tracking

We will not respond to Web browser “do not track” signals. If you would like additional information about online tracking and various opt-out mechanisms, please see https://youradchoices.com/   

Because we link to social media sites, and from time to time may include third-party advertisements, other parties may collect your personally identifiable information about your online activities over time and across different web sites when you visit our Website.

In addition, we may use Google AdWords, an online advertising service provided by Google, to serve ads on our behalf across the Internet and sometimes on the Website. Google uses your Internet searches, cookies, and similar identifiers (e.g., pixel tags) to collect information about your visits to the Website and your interaction with our Services to generate targeted advertisements to you on other websites that you visit across the Internet. To opt out of remarketing advertising provided through Google, to customize your ad preferences, or to limit Google’s collection or use this information, visit Google’s Safety Center and Google’s Ad Settings and follow Google’s personalized ad opt-out instructions. Opting out will not affect your use of the Website.  Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page. http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/

Please note that not all tracking will stop even if you delete cookies.

12. Limitation of Liability  

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL WE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT OR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT MAY ARISE FROM A CLAIM OF BREACH OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY.  Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages. In such jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law, or $5, whichever is less.

13. Questions and Complaints

You may direct complaints, concerns or questions regarding our compliance with applicable privacy laws and/or this Privacy Policy to support@hushed.com. If you remain unable to resolve the concern after speaking with a representative of AffinityClick, you may also write to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

14. Changes to the Privacy Policy

Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, and in our sole discretion. We encourage visitors and users to frequently check this page for any changes to the Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

15. Additional Rights

Applicable laws may give you additional rights that are not described in the Privacy Policy.

EUROPEAN PRIVACY POLICY

The following European Privacy Policy applies to you if you reside in the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland.

Personal Data and Processing. For the purposes of this European Privacy Policy:

Purposes and Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data. AffinityClick processes data for the purposes as set forth in our Privacy Policy, including to provide the Services and as explained in the sections of the Privacy Policy titled ‘How We Use the Information We Collect’ and ‘How We Share Information We Collect’. To fulfill these purposes, AffinityClick may access data, including Personal Data, to provide the Services, to correct and address technical, service or security problems, or in response to contractual requirements. Please see the our Privacy Policy for additional details on how we collect, use, disclose and share data, make automated decisions, and retain data, including Personal Data, about individual users.

Our legal basis for the processing of Personal Data are: (i) consent or (ii) any other applicable legal basis, such as our legitimate interest in engaging in commerce, offering products and services of value to the customers of the Services, preventing fraud, ensuring information and network security, direct marketing and advertising, and complying with industry practices.

Additional Rights for European Residents. As a resident of the European Union or a country following substantially similar legislation regarding the protection of Personal Data, individuals may have one or more of the following additional rights:

To exercise any of the above listed rights, please contact us as set forth below and provide sufficient details so that we can respond appropriately. We will process any requests in accordance with applicable law and within a reasonable period of time. We may need to verify the identity of the individual submitting a request before we can address such request. 

Compelled Disclosures. AffinityClick may be required to disclose Personal Data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

Data Protection Contact. Unless otherwise specified, AffinityClick is the data controller with respect to the data provided through the Services and the Website. Our Data Protection Contact for the Personal Data collected in connection with the Services is:

Attn: Privacy Team
support@hushed.com 

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS | FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY

Sale of Information: We have not disclosed and/or sold personal information to third parties for a business or commercial purpose in the preceding 12 months. We do not sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age without affirmative authorization.

If you wish to change personally identifiable information that you have provided us, please Contact Us.

Your Rights: You have the right to request that we disclose to you what information we collect, use, disclose, and sell.  You also have the right to request that a business delete any personal information about you which the business has collected about you.  To submit either of the above requests, you may call us at 1-877-278-3625 or contact us via email at support@hushed.com. Please note for your protection, any request sent to us to delete your personal information will be subject to the following verification procedure: you are required to provide the last four digits of your credit card used to make a purchase. Also, please note that we only delete accounts with a valid “from” email address (i.e. you must request your data deletion from the same email used for your account). You have the right to direct us to not sell your information.  

If you opt to exercise your privacy rights, we are required to verify your identity in order to prevent unauthorized access of your data. This may require us to ask you certain questions to confirm your identity or require you to provide state-issued identification. Requests to exercise these rights may be granted in whole, in part, or not at all, depending on the scope and nature of the request and applicable law. Where required by applicable law, we will notify you if we reject your request and notify you of the reasons we are  unable to honor your request.

Right to Know and Access Information: You may access information we maintain about you using the methods provided below. If we grant your request, we will provide you with a copy of the personal information we maintain about you in the ordinary course of business. This may include what personal information we collect, use, or disclose about you. We may not fulfill some or all of your request to access as permitted by applicable law.

Deletion of Information: You may request that we delete your personal information. Depending on the scope of your request, we may refrain from granting your request, as permitted by applicable law. For example, we may be legally required to retain your information in our business records. You may submit a deletion request using the methods described on our website or email support@hushed.com.

We shall not discriminate against you for exercising any of your above rights.

You may designate an authorized agent to make a request to exercise your rights on your behalf. For your protection, we reserve the right to deny any request from an agent who does not submit proof that they have been authorized to act on your behalf.