Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes the data collection practices of Audere, a nonprofit corporation (“Audere”, “we” or “us”) and how we collect, use, store, process, transfer and protect your personal information in accordance with the requirements of the applicable and/or relevant Data Protection Laws of the country where our services are being provided. This Privacy Policy applies to the information we collect through the      applications and chatbots (mobile or otherwise) maintained by Audere (collectively, “Apps”). This is inclusive of any messaging in connection with Apps and any other related services (collectively, the “Services”).

1.   Consent

Please carefully review this Privacy Policy. By using Websites, Apps or Services, you consent that you are 16 years of age or older and you acknowledge and accept all of the terms and provisions described in this Privacy Policy. If you are younger than 16 years of age, you will need the consent of your parent or guardian to continue using this App or the services it offers. If you do not agree with or you are not comfortable with any information contained in this Privacy Policy you should immediately discontinue use of our Services.

2.   Collection of information

Protecting your private information is our priority. We collect your information primarily to satisfy the purposes for why you decided to use Audere Services       

Information you voluntarily provide

  i.        Personally Identifiable Information. When you leverage Audere Services we may collect Personal Information, such as your address and contact information (e.g. phone number, email, name, etc.).

 ii.        Personal Health Information. Information regarding your illness conditions, other health-related information, photo captures relevant to medical conditions, and other information that you enter into a questionnaire or features while using our Services.

iii.        Participant Care. When you contact the customer support team or correspond with us about our Services, we collect information to track and respond to your inquiry; investigate any breach of this Privacy Policy or applicable laws/regulations; and analyze and improve our Services.

Log and device information

We collect log information about your use of Audere Apps, including access times, pages viewed and your IP address. We collect information about the smartphone you use to access Audere Apps, including the hardware model, operating system and version, unique device identifiers and mobile network information.

Apps use smartphone functionality in connection with providing Services. Specifically, Apps may use the following smartphone functions:

  • Camera: Needed to      capture a photo of a      test result. The photo will be de-identified and used to ensure that the test worked as expected.  Images may be stored for analysis.

  • GPS Location: If you grant access to your location, the Apps may collect location information using your device’s      GPS service     , which provides de-identified location data regarding where Apps are used.

  • Notifications: To prompt you to start or complete an action related to the purposes for why you decided to use Audere Services.     .

  • Other Types of Information

We continuously work to enhance our Services with new products, applications and features that may result in the collection of new and different types of information. We will update our Privacy Policy where applicable and as needed.

3. How we use your information

We use the information we collect only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy.  All use of the information collected is based on your consent as a user. You may withdraw your consent for Audere to use your information at any time by contacting us at privacy@auderenow.org, however, the written withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing your information based on consent provided to us before its withdrawal.

To satisfy the purpose for which you provide information

We use the information we collect to provide our Services. These activities may include, among other things, using your information to:

i.         communicate with you, and implement your requests;

ii.        enable and enhance your use of Apps, including authenticating your visits and tracking your usage of our Services;

iii.       contact you about your account, and any relevant information about our Services (e.g. policy changes, security updates or issues, etc.);

iv.        monitor, detect, investigate and prevent prohibited or illegal behaviors on our Services, to combat security risks;

v.        conduct research but where your information remains anonymous and is not shared with anyone outside of the study team;

vi.        where necessary retain for legal or research purposes; and

vii.       carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.

To analyze and improve our Services

We use the information we collect to perform research & development activities, which may include, for example, conducting data analysis and research in order to develop new or improve existing products and services, and perform quality control activities.

To provide user support

When you contact us, we may use or request Personal Information, including Personal Health Information, as necessary to answer your questions, resolve disputes, and/or investigate and troubleshoot problems or complaints.

4. Sharing of information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. In addition, you agree that we have the right to disclose personal information that we collect or you provide:

To third-party service providers

We share the information we collect with third party service providers, as necessary for them to satisfy the purposes for which you opted in to use our Services. Our service providers act on our behalf. Audere implements procedures and maintains contractual terms with each service provider to protect the confidentiality and security of your information.

To aggregate information

We may share with third party service providers aggregate or de-identified information which cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

As required by law

Under certain circumstances your Personal Information may be subject to processing pursuant to laws, regulations, judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, or orders. We will preserve and disclose any and all information to law enforcement agencies or others if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with a legal or regulatory process (such as a judicial proceeding, court order, or government inquiry) or obligations that we may owe pursuant to ethical and other professional rules, laws, and regulations; (b) enforce our rights under the Terms of Use and other policies; (c) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Audere, its respective employees, users, clients, and the public.

To help with public health issues

In order to respond to and report to public health authorities in connection with a reportable condition, Audere may be required to collect and share certain personal information about you with public health authorities. This information is shared with public health authorities to prevent the spread of disease and/or to prevent/reduce a serious threat to anyone’s health or safety.

In support of business transactions

In the event that Audere goes through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your Personal Information will likely be among the assets transferred. In such a case, your information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Statement.

5. Security measures

Audere takes reasonable physical, technical, and administrative measures to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of your information, to maintain data accuracy, to ensure the appropriate use of information, and otherwise safeguard the information we collect. THIS NOTWITHSTANDING, NO DATA TRANSMISSION OVER THE INTERNET OR ANY WIRELESS NETWORK CAN BE GUARANTEED TO BE PERFECTLY SECURED. AS A RESULT, WHILE WE WILL TAKE REASONABLE STEPS TO PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION USING COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE AND INDUSTRY STANDARD TECHNOLOGY, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE SECURITY OF ANY INFORMATION YOU TRANSMIT TO US, AND YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  • We produce secure applications by design. We incorporate explicit security reviews in the software development lifecycle, quality assurance testing and operational deployment.

  • De-identification/Pseudonymization. If data is shared with partners, Personally Identifiable Information is stripped from Personal Health Information and is shared as de-identified information. All de-identified information is referenced using a randomly generated ID.

  • Encryption. We use industry standard security measures to encrypt all Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information both at rest and in transit.

  • Separation of Environments. We ensure test, production, and research environments (as needed to satisfy the purpose for which you provide information) are separated and access to each environment is restricted.

  • Limiting access to essential personnel. We limit access to Personal Information to authorized personnel, based on job function and role. Our access controls include multi-factor authentication.

  • Detecting threats and managing vulnerabilities. We have a vulnerability disclosure program (https://auderenow.org/security), and also have vulnerability scanning incorporated in our codebase using automated tools that detect new vulnerabilities that we then patch.

  • Managing third party service providers.  We require service providers in whatever jurisdiction to implement and maintain accepted industry standard administrative, physical and technical safeguards to protect Personal Information.

  • Retention of information.   We will not retain Personal Information any longer than is necessary for achieving the purpose for which the information was collected or subsequently processed but we may retain the Information for historical, statistical or research purposes provided that we have established appropriate safeguards against the Information being used for any other purposes.

Your Responsibility. Audere cannot secure Personal Information that you release on your own or that you request us to release.

6. Minor’s privacy

 We recognise the importance of protecting minor’s privacy in the interactive online world and we are committed to protecting the privacy of minors as well as adults. Audere Services are NOT designed for, intended to attract, or directed toward minors under the age of 16 who do not have the prior consent of a parent or legal guardian to use our Solution.  We will not knowingly collect information from any minor under the age of 16 who has not obtained the prior consent of a parent or legal guardian to use our Solution. We ask that minors (in this instance, under the age of 16) not use Audere Services if such consent from a parent or legal guardian has, for whatever reason, not been obtained. If a minor under the age of 16 has provided us with information, a parent or legal guardian of that minor child may contact us and request that such information be deleted from our records. Unless we are notified in writing to the contrary, we will be entitled to assume that all information provided to us is from persons who are 16 years or older, or, if the person providing information is under the age of 16, that such person has obtained the consent to do so from his or her parent or legal guardian. If you intend to undergo medical treatment and are under the age of 18, the law requires that you should be sufficiently mature and have the mental capacity to understand the benefits, risks and social implications of the treatment. If you are uncertain about any benefits, risks, or social implications of any medical treatment which you are contemplating, you should request the input and consent of your parent or guardian or caregiver on your behalf.

7. Linked websites

We may provide links to third party websites operated by organizations not affiliated with us. We do not disclose your information to organizations operating such linked third-party websites. We do not review or endorse, and are not responsible for the privacy practices of these organizations. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that you visit. This Privacy Statement applies solely to information collected by us and our service providers on our behalf.

8. Prohibited uses

You are prohibited from using the services or its content: (a) for any unlawful purpose; (b) to solicit others to perform or participate in any unlawful acts; (c) to violate any international, national, provincial or local regulations, rules, laws, or local ordinances; (d) to infringe upon or violate our intellectual property rights or the intellectual property rights of others; (e) to harass, abuse, insult, harm, defame, slander, disparage, intimidate, or discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, national origin, or disability; (f) to submit false or misleading information; (g) to upload or transmit viruses or any other type of malicious code that will or may be used in any way that will affect the functionality or operation of the service; (h) to collect or track the personal information of others; (i) to spam, phish, pharm, pretext, spider, crawl, or scrape; (j) for any obscene or immoral purpose; (k) any use or action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load of traffic on the Site, (l) in a manner that otherwise interferes with its proper and timely functioning or interferes with or circumvents the security features of our services. We reserve the right to terminate your use of our services for violating any of the prohibited uses.

9.Your Rights

You have the following rights:

To have your information processed lawfully: We will only process your Personal Information for a lawful purpose and in a reasonable manner that does not infringe your privacy.

Access to information: You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. To do this, simply contact us at privacy@auderenow.org and specify what information you require.  We will need a copy of your ID document to confirm your identity before providing details of your personal information.

Please note that any such access request may be subject to a payment of a legally allowable fee.   

Correction of your information: You have the right to ask us to update, correct or delete your personal information. We will require a copy of your ID document to confirm your identity before making changes to personal information we may hold about you. We would appreciate it if you would keep your personal information accurate.

Deletion of your information: You have the right of erasure of Personal Information ("right to be forgotten") if such information is no longer needed for the original processing purpose, alternatively if a user withdraws their consent and there is no other reason or justification to retain such Personal Information, or, if a user has objected to such Personal Information being processed and there is no justified reason for the processing of such Personal Information;

Restriction of your information: You have the right to restrict/suspend processing of Personal Information to only that which is strictly necessary for us to perform our services to you;

Complaint: You have the right if we breach any of the terms of this Privacy Policy, to complain to the requisite data protection authority in your territory;

Withdrawal of consent: You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, if processing of Personal Information is based on consent. The lawfulness of us Processing your Personal Information before such withdrawal of consent will not be affected;

Objection: You have the right to object to processing of Personal Information, if such processing is based on legitimate interests; and

Direct marketing: You have the right to object to the processing of Personal Information for direct marketing purposes.

The rights described above may be limited by local laws. Further, your right of access and deletion is not absolute and may not be available if fulfillment of such right would, among other things:

  • cause interference with execution and enforcement of the law and legal private rights (such as in the case of the investigation or detection of legal claims or the right to a fair trial);

  • breach or prejudice the rights of confidentiality and security of others;

  • prejudice security or grievance investigations, corporate reorganizations, future and ongoing negotiations with third parties, the compliance with regulatory requirements relating to economic and financial management; or

  • otherwise violate the interests of others or where the burden or cost of providing access would be disproportionate.

Complaints. If you believe that we have infringed your rights, we encourage you to contact us so that we can try to address your concerns or dispute informally.

10. Direct marketing

Audere does not disclose any personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Audere and our subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, officers, directors, agents, contractors, licensor’s, service providers, subcontractors, suppliers, interns and employees, from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third-party due to or arising out of your breach of this privacy policy, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third-party.

12.Changes to this Privacy Policy

Audere may amend this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in the law, our organizations, our Services, our data collection use and practices, or advances in technology. Our use of the information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is collected. Depending on the type of change, we may notify you of the change by posting on this page or by email. Please carefully review any changes made to this Privacy Policy.

13. General

When translated into other languages, the English version of the Privacy Policy will hold precedent.

14. Contact us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, or wish to submit a complaint, please email us at privacy@auderenow.org.

Effective date: November 2024