Effective: September 17, 2019
Walkie knows that you take your privacy seriously. Your data and privacy is important to us here at 9 Count Inc. and our affiliated companies (collectively, “Walkie”, “us”, or “we”). This policy was created to make sure you understand the data we collect about you when you use the Walkie App (“app”) or visit our website at www.walkie.cool (the “Services”), what we do with it, and how it is protected. We intend to be transparent with you about our data practices and to give you control over information we collect about you (your “Data”), some of which may identify you or from which you may be identified (“PII”).
This policy may be updated from time to time. Whenever we make updates, we will include the date of the most recent modification near the top of this page and may provide you with additional notice of material changes by, for example, providing you with in-app notification.
INFORMATION WE COLLECT
We collect from you directly, when you use our Services, and from third parties.
Information you give us directly.
In connection with providing Services to you, we collect certain information from you directly, such as:
● Registration information: when you sign up to use the app, you provide us with basic information like your name, username, Snapchat Bitmoji and display name, and phone number.
● Profile information: such as your individual profile pictures, your name (first and/or last), and any other information you choose to provide on your profile (you may edit and control your profile information displayed to other users within the app through user settings and preferences).
● Walkie communications: when you reach out to us (through, for example, in-app reports made by you, emails sent by you to us, or voluntary polls, surveys, or questionnaires initiated by us that you respond to), we collect and store the content and details of that communication, including things like date, time, content and method of communication, identity verification information (if applicable) and resolution (if applicable). When you voluntarily respond to polls, surveys, and questionnaires, the content of personal information you provide may include your address and basic demographic information.
Information we get when you use our Services.
We collect certain information when you use our Services to, for example, send a message, set friends to channels, etc. Such information includes things like:
● Log and data usage information: we collect and process a record of your activity on our servers. This information may include details such as the date and time a message was sent, who you chatted with, your internet protocol ("IP") address, and how you use third-party websites or services accessed through the app (like Bitmoji that you use in app).
● Device information. We collect information from and about the device you use to access our Services, which may include information like your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information.
● Device contacts/address book: when you give us permission to access your device's contacts or address book to use certain Services (such as "find a friend"), we may collect information from your device's contacts/address book such as email addresses and phone numbers.
● Cookie information: we may collect information stored or recognized on your computer or mobile phone about things like your website activity and/or browser or device information through the use of cookies and similar technologies like web beacons.
● Local storage information: we may collect and/or store information such as voice messages with an option to download locally on your device through things like browser web storage (including HTML5) and application data caches.
Information we get from Third Parties.
We may collect information about you from other users, our partners, and third parties as more fully detailed below:
● User reports: when another user flags a conversation or message and reports it to us for investigation (alleging violations of our Community Standards, for example), we may collect information provided to us from the user regarding their complaint, which may include the offending chat and any associated messages.
● Third party information: we may collect and process information about you from third parties, including enterprise customers (e.g. customers of our media products) and/or third parties with services that interact with the Services or that provide services to us, such as unaffiliated apps and websites, e.g., websites and applications offered by third party developers that integrate with our API, advertising exchanges, ad platforms, ad networks or from our partners. This Data may include Data about your activity when using the Services or on unaffiliated websites and apps, or Data received from web browsers or operating systems such as browser types and settings, the operating systems, device models, carriers, mobile device and advertising identifiers (e.g. Apple IDFA or Google Advertising ID), as well as cookie information, pixel or other similar technology. To the extent that you use any of these third-party services through the app, the third party's terms and privacy policies govern the use of those services.
HOW WE USE INFORMATION
We mostly use the information we collect about you to carry out the Services you have requested from us and to continuously improve your in-app experience, but we use the information in other ways too. Here is more detailed explanation of how we use your information:
● Provide, maintain, and protect your in-app experience and use of Services. We use information we collect about you to provide the Services you request from us and to provide the functionality of the app and the features you choose to use. For example, we use the information to deliver your messages, and to display your intended themes and profile images.
● Personalize content. We use the information you provide to us to personalize content and make suggestions that are relevant to you such as to help you connect with friends.
● Analyze usage to maintain features that are working well and improve and/or develop new features to enhance your in-app experience. We aim to continuously improve our offerings to bring you the best way to make meaningful connections. Accordingly, we are continuously analyzing how users access and use the app and its features in order to improve existing Services and develop new ones. Our analysis of how you use the app can help us do things like evaluate the popularity and functionality of certain features, identify and fix potential bugs, and understand what our users want.
● Communicate with you. The information we collect lets us keep you posted on Walkie’s latest product announcements, software updates, upcoming events and any messages or comments you have waiting on Walkie if you haven’t been active for a while. If you indicated that you wished to receive special offers, and information about services that might be of interest to you, Walkie may occasionally send you messages regarding such offers. If you do not wish to continue to receive these offers, you can block, unsubscribe, or email us at justin@walkie.cool. Changes may require up to ten business days to take effect.
● Social functionality. We use information to support the social functionality of the Platform, including to permit you and other users to connect with each other through the Platform and for you and other users to share, download, and otherwise interact with User Content posted through the Platform
● Show and measure services. We may use information to improve our offerings and measurement systems so that we can show you relevant services that may be of interest to you and measure the effectiveness and reach of the services.
● Promote Safety and Security. We may use your information to verify identity, determine eligibility to use the Services, and recommend appropriate Services. We also use information for loss prevention, anti-fraud, and to enforce our Terms of Service.
● Ads and other sponsored content. We use the information we have about you-including information about your interests, actions and connections-to select and personalize ads, offers and other sponsored content that we show you.
HOW IS INFORMATION SHARED
We may share your information if you ask us to. For example, we send the message you asked us to send to another user or within a group chat, we display your public profile. You should note, however, that the information you choose to share on social networking sites is governed by the privacy policy of that social networking site and is not covered by this privacy policy; and you (not us) will be solely responsible for your use of those sites.
Other than information you’ve asked us to share, we do not share, sell or transfer your personal information without your consent, except as described below:
● Walkie Users. When you use the Services, other Walkie users may see some of your PII, such as your name, profile photo and Snapchat accounts (if you have connected those accounts to your Walkie account), and a list of your friends. Publicly available Data such as the Data available in your user public profile may be searchable by search engines and be shared with or disclosed to third parties, including through our Services to our partners and customers.
● Third Party products and services on Walkie. Certain features you use through Walkie are offered by third-parties and are marked as such, such as linking to Snapchat for Bitmoji to use as your profile picture. Those features may include things such as GIFs, emojis, smileys, web pages optimized for Walkie, etc. When you choose to use these third-party features, or other services that use, or are integrated with, our Services, those third-parties (and other users of those third party services) may be able to see things like your user profile and receive information about what you post or share. These third-parties may use this information as described in their privacy policies, which can include advertising. Information collected by these third-party services is subject to their own terms and policies, not this one. You agree that we are not responsible for how these third parties collect or use your information. We may, from time to time, share non-personal aggregated information with third parties.
● Our service providers. We use third-party service providers to help operate our business. Examples include suppliers who host our data or provide customer service. We require all service providers to maintain confidentiality. Use of your personal information by our service providers is further limited to the information they need to provide services on our behalf. For more information about how these service providers treat your personal information, contact us at the address below.
● Our related companies. We may share some or all of your information with our affiliated companies, subsidiaries, or joint ventures, provided that they are subject to and conditioned upon strict adherence to this Privacy Policy.
● To protect Walkie and its users, or for legal purposes. We may disclose your information: (a) if we think it’s needed to detect, prevent or address illegal activity, or identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who appears to be causing injury to or interfering with the rights or property of Walkie or Walkie users; (b) as part of a legal matter or investigation, including an investigation related to a suspected breach of our Terms of Service; (c) when we believe that disclosure is required or permitted by law, including when responding to subpoenas, warrants, production orders, or similar instruments; or (d) if we believe that disclosure is needed to protect your safety or the safety of others, including when there is an emergency involving potential harm, loss of security or serious injury to people or threats of such emergencies.
● Merger, financing or sale. We may share your information in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, dissolution transaction, bankruptcy or proceeding involving sale, transfer, divestiture of all or a portion of our business or assets. If another company acquires our business or assets, that company will have your information collected by us and will assume the rights and obligations regarding your information as allowed by this privacy policy.
In addition, we, our partners, and advertising service providers may receive Data from unaffiliated apps and websites, advertising exchanges, ad platforms, ad networks or from our partners, which we, our partners and advertising service providers may use to send interest-based advertising. The Data collected for this purpose may include Data such as activity when using the Services or on unaffiliated websites and apps, or Data received from web browsers or operating systems such as browser types and settings, the operating systems, device models, carriers, mobile device and advertising identifiers (e.g. Apple IDFA), as well as cookie information, pixel or other similar technology.
We may combine the Data described above with demographic and other interest-based segment Data from third parties to provide the Services.
When we partner with a business, PII is not shared with them. We will only share Data in aggregate or in some cases, pseudonymized form. When we share Data in a pseudonymized form, a unique identifier, such as an advertising ID, is shared so that our partner can measure conversion as to whether an individual has seen its ad, visited its website, or visited their brick and mortar location.
HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION
We keep your personal information for different periods of time depending on why we collected it and how we use it, but we keep it only as long as necessary and relevant for us to provide the Services, maintain our legitimate business operations, and/or meet our legal obligations.
If you decide you no longer want an account with us, you can delete your account by submitting a request for deactivation by emailing justin@walkie.cool. Deactivating your account will permanently delete your account. This means, for example, that you won’t get messages or emails from us anymore and will not be searchable anywhere on the app. Once your information has been deleted, you will not be able to restore that information later. You should be aware that certain information about you may still be available on other users’ apps and will not be deleted by us.
USER CONTROLS
You can request access, update or correct any inaccuracies by clicking here. We may ask you for certain information in order to verify your identity.
You can control access to your device’s microphone and data through your device’s settings.
You can also control information you share with others through in-app safety controls which allow you to do things like:
● block users;
● report users who are making you uncomfortable or sending spam; and
HOW DO I ACCESS OR DELETE MY DATA?
TO access and delete your data, please contact justin@walkie.cool.
If you delete your Data, your profile, including your profile photo, will be removed from the Services, and you will no longer be able to access such Data. We will not be able to restore your account once it has been deleted. Deletion of your account may not be immediate. Residual copies of your PII or posts may remain on backup media for a short period of time thereafter. Additionally, we may store certain Data that is not PII, i.e. does not directly identify you, in our internal systems, which we may use in our Services. We may also retain Data as required by applicable law and we will not delete any Data that is not PII, i.e., has already been anonymized.
If you have questions about accessing, updating, or deleting your Data, please email justin@walkie.cool.
Can I Opt Out?
How to Opt Out of Marketing and Promotional Emails and Text Messages
● By Email: You may unsubscribe from emails in the footer of any marketing or promotional email. Please note that you cannot opt out of service or legal notices.
● By SMS: If you have opted in to receive SMS messages, you can always unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP in response to a message or by following the instructions in the SMS.
How to Opt-Out of Interest-Based Advertising
We adhere to the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. At this time, however, we do not honor web browser Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals or other similar mechanisms.
You may opt out of interest-based advertising as follows:
● You may opt out of seeing interest-based ads from us or our third party advertising partners on your desktop browser and/or mobile web browser by visiting the DAA at http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.
● You may opt out of seeing interest-based ads in the App by downloading the DAA’s AppChoices application, which is available at http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices.
● Certain versions of your device’s operating system permit you to opt out of interest based advertising. Please visit your device settings to limit such tracking.
Please note that when you opt out of interest-based ads, you will still see ads, but they will no longer be based on your interests or behavior. After you have opted out, we will no longer use any PII collected from you on that particular browser or device for advertising purposes. We will also be unable to connect that device or browser to a different device or browser.
SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION
We store, use, and maintain your personal information using reasonable security measures designed to protect the security of your personal information. Such measures vary depending on the nature of your information. For example, your account is protected by the password you use to access your Walkie account. It is important that you protect and maintain your account’s security and immediately tell us of any unauthorized access or use of your account (you can do so by clicking here). When you sign into your account, we also encrypt the transmission of your login information between the app and our servers.
Despite these efforts, you should know that we cannot fully eliminate security risks associated with online transmissions. We cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur, and we cannot guarantee the security of your information. You are responsible for helping to protect the security of your information by having a strong password unique to Walkie that you keep confidential and protecting your device.
INTERNATIONAL USERS
Our App and all of our data, including your Data, are hosted on servers in the United States. If you are using or accessing the Services from outside of the United States, your Data will be transferred to, processed and stored in the United States. As a result, United States federal and state governments, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain your Data through laws applicable in the United States. United States laws may not offer the same privacy protections as the law of your jurisdiction.
For citizens of the European Union, you should know that Walkie is a controller and a processor of your personal information. The legal bases for which we collect and use the information described above depends on what the information is and why we collected it. The four bases upon which we rely include:
● Contract. This means we need the information to perform our contract with you. For example, when you want to send a message, we use information to carry out your request to transmit that message to its intended recipient.
● Legitimate Interests. This means we have a legitimate interest that does not outweigh your privacy rights. When we collect and process information based on our legitimate interests, we consider how we can accomplish what we need to in a way that is the least obtrusive on your privacy. For example, it is in our interest to protect your safety and security in the app, so we collect and use information that has been flagged by users or requested by law enforcement; to make sure you are satisfied with how the Services work, troubleshoot technical problems or develop new features, we collect and use information about how you and others use the Services; and to respond to your service inquiries, we collect and use information in that request and, if relevant to the inquiry, information about how you access and use the Services.
● Legal Obligations. We may need to use your personal information to comply with a law enforcement preservation request, subpoena, or other legal process or to protect the rights of other users.
● Consent. If we have no other legal basis for collecting or using your information, we will ask you for consent for a specific purpose. If we do, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not apply to any processing conducted in reliance on lawful processing bases other than consent.
EU Users' Rights
In addition to other rights detailed in the policy (such as requesting deletion, correction or updating of your personal information), EU citizens have certain rights regarding your personal information, including:
● Right to Object and Restrict Processing. You have the right to object to or restrict our use of your personal information for direct marketing purposes or under certain circumstances when the legal bases for using your information is based upon our legitimate interest. If you wish to object to our use of your information, you can send us a request to delete your account by clicking here.
● Right to Erasure. You have the right to have your personal data erased and no longer processed. You can send us a request to delete your account by clicking here. Upon receiving the request, we will make a reasonable effort to delete your personal information from the app and from our internal network within a reasonable period of time as long as we are not obligated to preserve your information due to things like law enforcement preservation requests, subpoenas, investigations, litigation, or otherwise meet any of our other legal obligations. We may also retain depersonalized information after deletion.
● Data Portability. You can exercise your right to export your personal data by emailing justin@walkie.cool.
● File a complaint. You have the right to complain to the data protection authority located in your Member State. To find contact details, click here.
CALIFORNIA PRIVACY NOTICE
We do not respond to Do Not Track signals. More information on California Privacy Rights is here.
NOTICE TO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS – YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS (AS PROVIDED BY CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE SECTION 1798.83)
A CALIFORNIA RESIDENT WHO HAS PROVIDED PERSONAL DATA TO A BUSINESS WITH WHOM HE/SHE HAS ESTABLISHED A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY, OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES (A “CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER”) MAY REQUEST INFORMATION ABOUT WHETHER THE BUSINESS HAS DISCLOSED PERSONAL INFORMATION TO ANY THIRD PARTIES FOR THE THIRD PARTIES’ DIRECT MARKETING PURPOSES. IN GENERAL, IF THE BUSINESS HAS MADE SUCH A DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL DATA, UPON RECEIPT OF A REQUEST BY A CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER, THE BUSINESS IS REQUIRED TO PROVIDE A LIST OF ALL THIRD PARTIES TO WHOM PERSONAL DATA WAS DISCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING CALENDAR YEAR, AS WELL AS A LIST OF THE CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA THAT WERE DISCLOSED. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMERS MAY REQUEST FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT OUR COMPLIANCE WITH THIS LAW BY E-MAILING TEAM@walkie.cool. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE REQUIRED TO RESPOND TO ONE REQUEST PER CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER EACH YEAR AND WE ARE NOT REQUIRED TO RESPOND TO REQUESTS MADE BY MEANS OTHER THAN THROUGH THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS.
CHILDREN
Children under the age of 13 are not permitted to create a Walkie account or use our Services. We understand the importance of taking extra precautions to protect the privacy and safety of children, so we don’t knowingly collect, use, store, or disclose personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected the personal information of a child under 13, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible. If you notice or suspect that a user is under 13, please contact us immediately at justin@walkie.cool
DATA TRANSFERS
We share information globally with our partners and with those you connect and share with around the world in accordance with this policy. We also store information on servers located in the United States, and may also transfer and store information on servers and equipment in other countries. Accordingly, when you use our Services, your personal information may be sent to the United States and possibly other countries. These data transfers are necessary to provide the services set forth in the Terms and Conditions and to globally operate and provide our Services to you.
Because of this, your personal information may be available to legal authorities under a lawful order made in that country; and the laws of those countries may be less strict regarding your personal information than the laws where you live.
Personal information collected in the EU may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of the EU and processed by employees operating outside of the EU who work for us, one of our business partners, or service providers. We utilize standard contract clauses (see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010D0087), rely on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries, as applicable, and obtain your consent for these data transfers to the United States and other countries. When we transfer personal information across country borders, we will make sure there is a transfer mechanism in place to transfer the data in a manner consistent with that described this Privacy Policy.
WHEN THIS POLICY APPLIES
Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the Services offered by 9 Count Inc. and its affiliates. It does not apply to services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or services that may be displayed to you in search results and Walkie optimized web pages.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
Walkie may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourage you to regularly check this page to review any changes we might make in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If we make material changes in the way we use your data, we will notify you by posting an announcement on our Site or App, or by sending you an email (if we have your email). If permitted by law, users are bound by any changes to this Privacy Policy when they use the Services after such changes have been first posted.
PRIVACY CONTACT
If you have any questions, comments, complaints or suggestions, please contact us at:
9 Count, Inc.
Attention: Privacy Office
5482 Wilshire Blvd. #120
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Email: justin@walkie.cool