Version 5.0 - 14 April 2015
Voxilate, Inc. (Voxilate) takes your privacy and the security of your data seriously. This Privacy Policy describes the types of personal information we collect when you use applications and services provided by Voxilate (collectively "Services"), including, but not limited to the HeyTell Voice Messaging application ("HeyTell") and other software applications (collectively "Applications") and the Voxilate.com and HeyTell.com sites (collectively the "Sites"). By using Voxilate Applications and Sites you agree to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, which is incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy.
You agree that you are solely responsible for the information you share with Voxilate and with other users of Voxilate Services, Applications, and Sites and understand that you do not have to share phone numbers or e-mail addresses with others or with Voxilate to use Voxilate Services, Applications, and Sites.
All data that you share while using Voxilate Services is processed in the United States. If you do not reside in the United States, information you share will be transferred to the United States and processed and stored using United States privacy standards. By using Voxilate Services, Applications, and Sites, you consent to the processing of your data in the United States.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service, please contact us at privacy@voxilate.com.
The Voxilate web site and HeyTell service, like many Web sites and client-server mobile applications, track basic information about their visitors which includes, but is not limited to, IP addresses, browser and operating system type, timestamps, and referring pages. In addition, Voxilate may collect information about which application functions you access and other application behaviors to improve the application and assist in troubleshooting application issues. Voxilate does not use any of this information to personally identify specific users, but rather for administration, maintenance, service improvement, and aggregate analytics purposes. Voxilate does not itself currently use cookies to store user information (although third party services that Voxilate employs may - see Third Party Sites, below). In the event that there are changes to what and how we collect web site and mobile application data, we will update our privacy policy accordingly and post it here.
To identify you to the HeyTell service and connect you with other users, HeyTell collects some personally identifying data about you.
Voxilate, Inc. will never share your name, email addresses, phone numbers, geolocation data, or voice recordings with third-parties, other than those required to facilitate the service (and as covered in this Privacy Policy) and other users of the service with which you communicate, without your express permission unless you give your consent or as required by law. In addition, data is encrypted with SSL when transmitted over the Internet to avoid interception by malicious users. By using the service, you agree that you are solely responsible for the information you share with other users of the system and understand that you do not have to share phone numbers or email addresses to use the service.
Voxilate collects the following information about you based on the information included in the Contact that you select as your HeyTell Identity:
- Your name
- Your phone numbers, if any
- Your email addresses, if any
- Your Facebook account ID, if any
- Your Twitter account ID, if any
Your email address may be used to:
- Allow other users to search for your HeyTell acount.
- Send you an email message asking you to verify your email account(s) in order to verify your HeyTell account (this prevents another user from impersonating you on the service). Note that this feature is not currently implemented, but may be used in the future.
- Solicit your feedback on our product and features
- Respond to customer service matters, including but not limited to downtime or account maintenance
At any time, you can opt-out of these messages by sending an email to opt-out@voxilate.com from the email account you'd like to remove from our messaging services. You are also free to use a contact with a non-primary, "throwaway" email account - but definitely use one that you yourself own to avoid user collisions. Your contacts may also be unable to find you (unless you provide them with this email address to add to their address book when attempting to contact you or you contact them first).
If you'd like to continue using your contact information in your HeyTell profile but would like to block HeyTell/Voxilate from contacting you for feedback on services, email us at opt-out@voxilate.com and we'll add you to our do-not-email list. Note that we do recommend removing your contact information from your profile completely instead of adding it to the opt-out list - this way, we don't store your email address with your HeyTell account at all, which we believe is a more private option.
You may receive invitation emails from other users of HeyTell; these emails are sent by the user personally and do not travel through Voxilate servers. Voxilate is not responsible for the transmission of such emails or the content of such emails. This also applies to SMS message invites, if sent directly from the sender's phone.
Your phone number may be used to:
- Allow other users to search for your HeyTell acount.
- Send you an text message asking you to verify your phone number in order to verify your HeyTell account (this prevents another user from impersonating you on the service). Note that this feature is not currently implemented, but may be used in the future.
Voxilate will never use your phone number to contact you without your express consent. However, other users may use the phone number they have on record for you to invite you to the service via text message (SMS). The application will allow you to invite other users via text message and others to invite you via SMS using your phone number. Voxilate is not responsible for any carrier charges incurred by receipt or transmission of SMS invitations.
NOTE THAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SMS COSTS FOR SMS INVITES YOU SEND TO OTHERS AND RECIPIENTS MAY ALSO BE CHARGED FOR SMS MESSAGES RECEIVED. WHEN IN DOUBT, USE FREE METHODS TO CONNECT TO FRIENDS: USE EMAIL, FACEBOOK, OR TWITTER INVITES, OR CONNECT WITH FRIENDS WHO USE LOW PRIVACY AND HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH THEIR HEYTELL CONTACT INFORMATION (email address, phone number, Facebook ID, or Twitter ID). In addition, if you send SMS invitations to landlines, note that some telecom providers will translate SMSes you send to speech, which can be more expensive to the recipient and can be obtrusive, so please be careful when sending invites--if in doubt, use email, Twitter, or Facebook invites or connect to friends with Low privacy, which doesn't require any invitation acceptance.
You can avoid sharing your phone number with Voxilate by creating a contact in your Address Book that represents you and includes an email address but does not include a phone number. However, please be advised that users will still be able to invite you to the service using SMS if they have your phone number on their phone.
Your Facebook and Twitter account IDs may be used to:
- Allow other users to search for your HeyTell acount.
In addition, if you export messages using Twitter or Facebook, HeyTell may also have access to your Twitter and Facebook account information and have permission to post as you in order to post HeyTell messages you have selected for export. HeyTell will never post without your explicit authorization. To de-authorize HeyTell's access at any time, log into Twitter or Facebook and de-authorize the HeyTell application.
TO REMOVE OR MODIFY ANY CONTACT INFORMATION FROM THE HEYTELL SYSTEM: Modify the contact you use as yourself and remove or modify the entries you would like to change. Then, select this user as your User Identity. This will update Voxilate systems immediately, provided you have Internet access. Note that setting your privacy to "High" on the Privacy page will remove all email addresses and phone numbers from your user record, and will leave only your name.
TO DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT AND EXPUNGE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION:
1. On the Profile page, clear all fields associated with your "This is me!" contact. On iOS, tap Change to access this contact. On other platforms, clear the Name, Email, and Phone Number fields.
2. Block each friend (select your friend from the Conversations page, then tap the check mark button and select Block). This ensures that friends will not be able to send additional messages to you (which would be stored on the server; while incoming messages are expunged after a certain number of days if you don't download them, blocking friends ensures that no messages will be stored on the server).
3. Return to the Profile page and set your Privacy to High.
4. Wait a few seconds to ensure that HeyTell communicates with the server, then delete the app.
After performing either of these options, you can contact Voxilate at opt-out@voxilate.com from the email address originally associated with the account and we will verify and provide you with confirmation that your contact information was successfully cleared. If you encounter any issues or have any questions about deleting your account, contact us at privacy@voxilate.com.
The HeyTell service allows you to receive and transmit voice recordings from person to person. As such, recordings of your voice are transmitted between your mobile device and Voxilate servers. By using HeyTell, you agree to the recording of your voice and that you have the consent of others that you record and are complying with any jurisdictional local laws regarding the recording of others. You and your contacts' voice recordings are stored in memory on the server until you and any other recipients successfully download the messages to your mobile device, at which time they are scheduled to be purged from the HeyTell servers. Note that messages exported to Facebook or Twitter will remain on HeyTell servers and may be accessible from Facebook, Twitter, or to anyone who has a link to the posted content. Any message exported to email will transit through public Internet infrastructure and can also be extracted by malicious users. While you should never transmit confidential information via HeyTell, you should be especially cognizant of these risks when exporting messages to external sources.
Please note that you transmit voice recordings to others at your own risk. You should consider the privacy risks associated with transmitting voice recordings. For example, we cannot control the behavior of the recipients of your voice recordings, nor the treatment of your messages that have been exported to Facebook, Twitter, email, or other users' devices. We are not responsible for any further dissemination of your voice recordings by such recipients.
When you search for a friend who has HeyTell, the email address, phone number, Twitter ID, or Facebook ID you search for is transmitted to HeyTell systems, where it is used to locate a matching contact. This information is used solely to find the individual contact you're trying to locate and is not stored permanently on HeyTell systems.
If you use the HeyTell geolocation feature to share your location information with contacts, your GPS coordinates at the time of use may also be sent to HeyTell and any third party provider/service that is required to facilitate the service (Google, Apple, your cell phone or wireless provider, or advertisers in ad-supported versions of the application). All personally-identifying information transmitted to these third party sites is subject to the privacy and retention policies of the respective provider. Voxilate is not responsible for their use of this data. Some advertisers allow you to opt out of targeted advertisements. To opt-out of interest-based iAds, visit http://oo.apple.com from your mobile browser. To opt-out of targeted AdMob ads, visit http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/html/mobile-about.html from your mobile browser and click the Opt-Out links available. In addition, purchasing any HeyTell extra will remove in-app advertisements for as long as the extra continues to be installed (if you uninstall, you should be able to restore any purchased extras free of charge as long as you are using the same application store purchasing account that you originally used to purchase the item).
You can control whether you choose to share your location information by changing the settings on your mobile device. On iPhone, iPod, or iPad, the first time you attempt to use the HeyTell geolocation feature, you will be prompted to approve or deny HeyTell access to your device's GPS functionality. On other platforms, you grant HeyTell permission to access your location information when you install the HeyTell application installation, but HeyTell will not enable geolocation unless and until you open the Maps page. Make sure that you have verified and fully trust the party with whom you share your location information (it's a good idea to exchange voice messages to verify them first!) before using the Maps page to send a message. Voxilate is not responsible for any inappropriate sharing of location or any damages that may be caused by such disclosure.
TO AVOID SHARING LOCATION DATA, DO NOT OPEN THE MAPS PAGE IN THE APPLICATION AND DO NOT SEND MESSAGES WHILE THE MAPS PAGE IS ACTIVE. If your device's operating system supports it, you can also block HeyTell from accessing your location. On iOS, you can do this by opening the Settings app, tapping Location Services > Heytell and setting Location for HeyTell to "OFF."
Voxilate does not permanently store your location on its servers; like your voice messages, they are temporarily stored on Voxilate systems only until you and your recipient(s) have successfully exchanged messages. However, GPS locations may be stored on the mobile device, so that if you transmit a message on the Maps page with location enabled, and then disable it (or send a message from Recent Conversations), your contact may still see your old location data, but will not see your updated location.
The HeyTell service has implemented several privacy controls and options to allow you to control your privacy when using the application.
Low Privacy: If you have configured Low privacy for yourself on the Profile page, anyone who knows the contact information you set for yourself in the email address or phone number fields can contact you without an invitation. If connected to Facebook or Twitter, anyone who knows your Facebook or Twitter IDs can contact you without an invitation.
Medium Privacy: If you have configured Medium privacy for yourself on the Profile page (or have accepted the application defaults, Medium is the default HeyTell setting), mutual HeyTell friends who know the contact information you set for yourself can contact you without an invitation. If connected to Facebook or Twitter, mutual Twitter friends and Facebook friends can contact you without an invitation. Otherwise, users must send you an invitation by email or SMS and you must accept it before they are allowed to speak with you.
High Privacy: If you have configured High privacy for yourself on the Profile page, users who you have talked to before will be able to speak with you. Otherwise, users must send you an invitation by email, SMS, Twitter, or Facebook and you must accept it before they are allowed to speak with you.
When using HeyTell, you have the ability to stop any HeyTell user who has contacted you from continuing to send you messages. To block a user, select the conversation, tap the check mark button, then tap Block. This will block the user from being able to contact you. After blocking, you can optionally delete the conversation to clear it from view and remove all messages.
Voxilate, Inc. is dedicated to securing customer data and, to that end, employs security best practices to keep your data protected. As part of the effort to keep your data protected, all contact information and voice data transmitted through the HeyTell application is encrypted with an SSL connection using AES-256 bit encryption between your mobile device and the Voxilate data center.
That said, there are a number of risks in transmitting any kind of data over the public Internet and allowing voice recordings to reside on a physical device, so UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU USE THE HEYTELL SERVICE TO TRANSMIT CONFIDENTIAL OR PRIVILEGED INFORMATION OF ANY SORT.
Voxilate uses Google Analytics to track usage patterns of the Voxilate and HeyTell Web sites and applications. Google Analytics collects Web page access information, including but not limited to cookies, referring links, and your IP address. Google also receives this information and their use of it is governed by their own Privacy Policy.
Voxilate uses certain trusted third parties to provide information technology services to us, including web hosting, maintenance, software features such as off-site transcription, and database storage and management. Your data may be shared with these third parties by virtue of being hosted remotely, but is only shared to the extent necessary for system operation and only pursuant to contractual obligations requiring these third party service providers to maintain the privacy and security of this data. In the case of off-site transcription, you are given a choice to use the feature and can disable it at any time after you have enabled it to stop this data sharing (visit http://heytell.com/labs to enable or disable this feature).
Voxilate Services, Applications, and Sites are not targeted to users under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from users under the age of 13. In accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, if we discover that a child under the age of 13 has provided us with personally-identifying information, we will remove it from our systems immediately. If you are a parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13 and discover or believe that your child has provided us with personally-identifying information, please contact us at privacy@voxilate.com with information related to the account and we will remove the data from our systems.
From time to time and as products are updated and new product offerings are available, Voxilate, Inc. may find it necessary to update this privacy policy. We will publish any changes here when the privacy policy is updated.
We take your privacy rights seriously and encourage you to exercise them if you find it necessary as it relates to Voxilate and Voxilate's software products. If you require clarification or encounter issues, contact us by email at privacy@voxilate.com with any questions you have or write to us at:
Privacy Issues
c/o Voxilate, Inc.
2810 N Church St #87905
Wilmington, Delaware 19802
USA