Privacy policy

Last updated: 2024-09-20

Singular Hearing Inc. ("Company", "we" or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy and safeguarding your personal information. The purpose of this privacy policy is to inform you about our privacy practices, including how we collect, use and disclose your personal information.

This privacy policy relates to all of our activities associated with our product HeardThat Plus that provides audio processing services, including noise removal and transcription.

Please review this privacy policy carefully. By submitting your personal information to us, by registering for or using any of the services we offer, by using our website, or by voluntarily interacting with us, you consent to our collecting, using and disclosing your personal information as set out in this privacy policy, as revised from time to time.

What's in this privacy policy?

Data Protection and Privacy Laws

Singular Hearing Inc. is committed to protecting the privacy rights of all individuals and complying with applicable data protection laws and regulations. We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure that our data processing activities align with these requirements.

If you have any questions or concerns about our data protection practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer at privacy@singularhearing.com.

Meaning of Personal Information

"Personal information" means information about an identifiable individual. This information may include, but is not limited to, your email address.

Personal information does not include information that has been anonymized or aggregated in such a way that there is no serious possibility it can be used to identify, directly or indirectly, an individual, whether on its own or in combination with other information.

Your Consent to Collection, Use and Disclosure

We collect, use and disclose your personal information with your consent or as permitted or required by law. We will ask for your consent to collect, use, and share your information in a way that's appropriate for the situation. Sometimes, your consent will be clear and direct (like checking a box), and other times it might be understood from your actions (like using our service). If you choose to provide personal information to us, we assume that you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as outlined in this privacy policy.

Typically, we will seek your consent at the time your personal information is collected. Where we want to use your personal information for a purpose not previously identified to you at the time of collection, we will seek your consent prior to our use of such information for this new purpose.

You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time by contacting us using the contact information in the "Contact Us" section below. However, before we implement the withdrawal of consent, we may require proof of your identity. In some cases, withdrawal of your consent may mean that we will no longer be able to provide certain products or services.

If you provide personal information about another individual to us, it is your responsibility to obtain the consent of that individual to enable us to collect, use and disclose his or her information as described in this privacy policy.

Personal Information We Collect

When you interact with us, we may collect personal information to provide our services and to operate our business. We collect personal information in the following ways:

  • Products and Services: For individuals who use our products and services, we collect information directly from you or automatically as you use our products or services.
  • Website: When you visit our website, we may collect information about you and how you use it. Like most websites, we collect certain technical and device information about your use of our website.
  • Cookies: We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website and to improve our services.
  • Payment card information: We do not directly collect or store payment card information. For payment processing, we use a third-party service provider, which may collect and store payment card information.
  • Other Interactions. For individuals who otherwise interact with us, whether in person, by phone or email, through social media or otherwise, including individuals who might be interested in acquiring our products or services, who sign up to receive newsletters or other communications, or who respond to surveys and questionnaires, we may collect information that you provide to us during these interactions.

Specifically, we collect the following information:

Usage and Analytics Information:

We collect information about how you use our service and website. This includes:

  • Log data (e.g., IP address, browser type, pages visited, time spent on pages)
  • Device information (e.g., device type, operating system)
  • Feature usage statistics (e.g., frequency of use of specific tools or functions)
  • Performance data (e.g., upload/download speeds, processing times)

Subscription, Account and Contact Information:

For users with accounts, we collect:

  • Subscription plan details
  • Email address
  • Account preferences and settings
  • Date of account creation and last login
  • Audio recordings and transcripts

Service Usage Data:

We collect aggregate data about service usage, including:

  • Number of files uploaded
  • Total processing time used
  • Types of processing requested (e.g., noise removal, transcription)

Customer Support Interactions:

If you contact our support team, we may collect:

  • Communications between you and our support team
  • Information provided in support tickets or inquiries

Website Interaction Data:

We use analytics tools to collect information about how visitors interact with our website, including:

  • Pages viewed
  • Links clicked
  • Time spent on site
  • Referral sources

This information helps us understand how our service and website are being used, allows us to improve our offerings, and helps us provide better support to our users.

Cookie Policy

We use "cookies" and enlist third party services which use cookies to track your preferences and activities on our website and within our services. Cookies are small data files transferred to your computer's hard-drive by a website. They keep a record of your preferences and login information, making your subsequent visits to the Website and Services more efficient and secure. Cookies may store a variety of information, including the number of times that you access a website, your login information, your device information, IP address, and the number of times that you view a particular page or other item on the Website or Services. The use of cookies is a common practice adopted by most major websites to better serve their users. You have a variety of tools to control the information collected by cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies when you use our Website. For example, you can use controls in your internet browser to limit how the websites you visit are able to use cookies and to withdraw your consent by clearing or blocking cookies. You should note, however, that without cookies some of our website's functions may not be available.

How We Use Your Personal Information

We may use your personal information and other information that we collect to provide our services, to comply with our contractual obligations, and to support our legitimate interests in maintaining, improving and advertising our services. Below are the specific purposes for which we use the information we collect about you.

  • To provide you with our audio processing services, including noise removal and transcription;
  • To contact you relating to our products and services;
  • To monitor and improve our products and services, and to develop new products and services;
  • To provide technical support regarding the services;
  • To respond to inquiries and other requests;
  • To provide you with information that we think may interest you, including in regards to our products and services; and
  • To investigate legal claims.

We may use your personal information for purposes for which we have obtained your consent, and for such other purposes as may be permitted or required by applicable law.

Service Improvement and Optimization:

We use aggregated and anonymized data to improve and optimize our services. This includes:

  • Analyzing processing times and system performance to enhance efficiency
  • Identifying trends in usage patterns to guide feature development
  • Monitoring error rates to improve reliability
  • We analyze metadata (such as file types, lengths, and processing options selected) to optimize our service offerings
  • We use performance metrics to allocate resources more effectively and improve processing speeds

Quality Assurance:

We may review a sample of processed files to ensure our services are functioning correctly and meeting quality standards. This review is conducted on anonymized data whenever possible.

We process your personal information based on the following legal grounds: (a) Your consent, for example, to receive marketing communications; (b) Performance of a contract, to provide you with the services you have requested; (c) Legitimate interests, such as improving our services and ensuring their security.

How We Share Your Personal Information

We rely on third party services providers to perform a variety of services on our behalf, such as e-commerce providers, payment card processors, telephone and technical support providers, hosting, data storage and processing service providers, and research and analytics providers. We share your information with these third party service providers to provide our services.

If we provide your information to service providers, then we require that the service providers maintain the confidentiality of your personal information and keep your personal information secure. We also require that they only use your personal information for the limited purposes for which it is provided. When our service providers no longer need your personal information for those limited purposes, we require that they dispose of the personal information. In some circumstances, we may permit our service providers to retain aggregated, anonymized or statistical information that does not identify you. We do not authorize the service providers to disclose your personal information to unauthorized parties or to use your personal information for their direct marketing purposes. If you would like more information about our service providers, please contact us using the contact information in the "Contact Us" section below.

Additionally, we may use and disclose your information when we believe such use or disclosure is permitted, necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce the terms of the agreements for our products and services; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates or subsidiaries; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or those of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. In addition, we may transfer your personal information and other information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, brands, affiliates, subsidiaries or other assets.

If we otherwise intend to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will identify that third party and the purpose for the disclosure, and obtain your consent.

Opting Out of Communications

If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails from us, you may opt-out of receiving marketing-related emails by clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any email you receive from us. You may also opt-out by contacting us directly using the contact information in the "Contact Us" section below.

We will endeavor to respond to your opt-out request promptly, but we ask that you please allow us a reasonable time to process your request. Please note that if you opt-out from receiving marketing-related emails, we may still need to send you communications about your use of our products or services, or other matters.

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information. These may include:

  1. Right to Access: You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
  2. Right to Correct Your Information: If you believe any information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you can request that we correct it.
  3. Right to Delete Your Information: You can request that we delete your personal information in certain circumstances.
  4. Right to Limit How We Use Your Information: You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain situations.
  5. Right to Move Your Information: You can request a copy of your data in a machine-readable format to transfer to another service.
  6. Right to Object: You can object to our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@singularhearing.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

Specifically, you can:

  • Access your account information and update or correct it at any time by logging into your account.
  • Request deletion of your audio files and transcripts by contacting us.
  • Opt-out of marketing communications by using the 'unsubscribe' link in our emails or contacting us directly.

Under some privacy laws, you may be entitled to additional rights, including: (i) the right to withdraw consent; (ii) the right to object to unlawful data processing, under certain conditions; (iii) the right to erasure of personal information about you or to ask us to stop dissemination of your personal information, under certain conditions; (iv) the right to data portability of personal information concerning you that you provided us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, under certain conditions; (v) the right object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you, under certain conditions.

Please note that such rights are not absolute. There are instances where applicable law or regulatory requirements allow or require us to refuse to provide some or all of the personal data that we hold about you. In the event that we cannot accommodate your request, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection or privacy authority, such as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada.

Please note that even if you request deletion of your data, we may retain certain information as required by law or for legitimate business purposes. We will respond to requests for access, modification, or deletion of personal information within a reasonable timeframe.

We may ask for verification of your identity when you request to exercise your rights to ensure the security of your data.

Retention of Personal Information

  • We retain your audio recordings, transcripts, and associated metadata for a reasonable time after your last interaction with our service, unless you request earlier deletion.
  • After a reasonable period of inactivity, we will automatically delete your audio files, transcripts, and any personally identifiable information associated with them.
  • Following deletion, we retain only anonymized, aggregated data for statistical and service improvement purposes.
  • You can request deletion of your data at any time by contacting us at privacy@singularhearing.com.
  • Please note that some information may be retained for longer periods as required by law, to resolve disputes, or to enforce our agreements.

This retention policy allows us to maintain high-quality standards for our services while respecting your privacy rights. We regularly review and update our retention practices to ensure they align with legal requirements and our business needs.

Information Security

We prioritize the security of user data and employ a range of measures to protect it. We use industry-standard security practices to safeguard user information, including secure data transmission using HTTPS encryption, access controls to limit who can access user data, and protecting data stored on our servers with appropriate physical and technical safeguards. We currently encrypt user data during transmission (HTTPS) but do not encrypt it at rest. We are continually evaluating our security practices and may implement additional encryption measures in the future.

While we strive to maintain the highest level of security, no method of data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. In the event of a data breach that compromises the security or confidentiality of user information, we will take prompt action to investigate the incident, mitigate the impact, and notify affected users and relevant authorities as required by applicable laws and regulations.

If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately.

International Transfer and Storage of Information

As a global service, we may transfer, store, and process your personal information in countries other than your own. Our primary data storage and processing occurs in the United States and Canada.

We use industry-standard security measures, such as encryption during data transfer (HTTPS), to protect your information. We also work with reputable service providers who maintain high standards of data protection.

When we transfer personal information across borders, we take steps to ensure that your information receives an adequate level of protection in the jurisdictions in which we process it. This may include using standard contractual clauses or other appropriate legal mechanisms.

By using our services, you acknowledge that your personal information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your country of residence. These countries may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country.

If you have questions about our data transfer practices, please contact us at privacy@singularhearing.com.

Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal information without the consent of their parent or legal guardian, we will take steps to delete such information. If you become aware that a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at privacy@singularhearing.com.

If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we will be able to take necessary actions.

We encourage parents and guardians to monitor their children's Internet usage and to help enforce our Privacy Policy by instructing their children never to provide personal information through our services without their permission.

Privacy Policy Updates

This privacy policy is current as of the "updated" date which appears at the top of this page. We may modify this privacy policy from time to time. When changes are made to this privacy policy they will become immediately effective when published in a revised privacy policy posted on our website unless otherwise noted. We may also communicate the changes through our services or by other means such as email. By submitting your personal information to us, by registering for or using any of the services we offer, by using our website, or by voluntarily interacting with us after we publish or communicate a notice about the changes to this privacy policy, you consent to our collecting, using and disclosing your personal information as set out in the revised privacy policy.

Contact Us

All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your personal information or our privacy practices should be sent to our Privacy Officer as follows:

Address:
Attention: Privacy Officer
Singular Hearing Inc.
16479 92A Ave
Surrey BC V4N 5N1
CANADA

By email:
privacy@singularhearing.com