App Privacy Policy

ABOUT US AND THIS PRIVACY POLICY 

Your privacy is very important for us and we will always use your personal information only for the purposes as described in this Privacy Policy. As used in this Privacy Policy, "Bird Buddy", "we", "us" or "our", "ours" refers to Bird Buddy Inc. and all of its subsidiaries.

This Privacy Policy is part of and incorporated by reference into the End User License Agreement (the "EULA") governing the use of all "Bird Buddy" branded software applications (the “App” or “App”), which may operate on any type of computing device (including without limitation, a mobile device), and applies to your use of the Bird Buddy App.

This Privacy Policy covers how we collect, use, disclose, transfer and store information received about users from You. We receive and/or you may be asked to provide your information (including personal information) any time you are in contact with us or use the App. As described in greater detail below, we share your information (including personal information) with our affiliates and with third party partners (as defined below) and use it in ways consistent with this Privacy Policy. We may also use your information (including personal information) together with other information to provide and improve products, services, content, and advertising. 

INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU 

Most of the information that we collect about you comes directly from you when you use our App or interact with third parties in our App. In general, the information we collect about you relates to the type of device you are using, information that helps us identify your device, how you use our App and may include information that you submit to us when you voluntarily contact us or which you allow us to access when you connect to your social network accounts through our App. We may also collect information from app store platforms and partners and other third parties such as information about your interests and in-app purchases.

1. Technical Information

We collect technical information about your device that is necessary for you to use our App and additional technical data that enables us to maintain and analyze the functioning of the App and to personalize the content of the App. Such information includes amongst others the type of device(s) you are using to use our App, persistent identifiers, such as IP address, device identifiers unique user ID specific for our App, and the country or region that you are using the App in.

Persistent identifiers (such as IDFA, IDFV, Advertising ID, IP address) are identifiers that do not identify you personally but may uniquely identify your device. Such online identifiers provided by end user devices, applications, tools and protocols are considered as personal information according to Europe’s data protection legislation.

We automatically collect certain information about your computing device, including :

  • IP address; Country or region;
  • IDFAs, IDFVs;
  • Language; Locale (specific location where a given language is spoken);
  • Time zone, session start/stop time,
  • Network status (Wi-Fi, etc.), browser plug-in types and versions;
  • User agent string (UA), platform, SDK version, timestamp;
  • Technical device information (e.g. device model and name, operating system name and version, CPU information, storage size, screen size, firmware, software, mobile phone carrier, Internet service provider, API key identifier for application, Android ID, Android Serial No);
  • Push notifications token (in order for us to be able to determine whether you are subscribed to push notifications);
  • User identifier string (we collect user identifier string only upon your sign into Facebook, Google account, or Apple ID account.

In addition, for users of Android devices we create a unique user ID and for users of iOS devices we use IDFVs to track your use of our App. Persistent identifiers are identifiers that do not identify you personally but may uniquely identify your device. Some legislation (such as US) may treat such information that uniquely identifies your device as personal information.

2. App Usage Information

When you use our App, we collect additional information from you by using persistent identifiers that permit identification of your device. We collect information about how you use our App, how you interact with our App and how you interact with third parties in our App. Such information is used for delivering and improving our service and analytics purposes.

We collect information, including log information, that lets us know:

  • How you use our App (how often you use the App, for how long you use the App, the events that occur within the App, in-app, aggregated usage, performance data etc.);
  • Whether you use chat feature, and if you do, the content of messages sent using third party chat system, provided that this is only used for operating the service;
  • If you connect to Third Party Social Network, information we collect from you when you connect to such Third Party Social Network as described in "Third Party Social Networks" Section.

3. Classical Personal Information

We respect the privacy of individuals with regards to their personally identifiable data (“Personal Data”) and are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers & subscribers (“Users”). This Privacy Policy describes how your Personal Data is collected and used and informs your choices with respect to your Personal Data. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices.

Personal Data will be processed for the following reasons ("Purposes"):

  • Your email address: this information is needed for transactional emails (account confirmation, forgotten password, service disruption notifications), newsletters and to sign in to the App,
  • Your Username: unique in-app representation of the User,
  • Bird Buddy Feeder Approximate Location: Improving our wildlife recognition services and features related to time of day and time of year,
  • Upload Content and Stream to Bird Buddy Systems.

When you voluntarily contact us directly, we may collect information about you that you provide us (such as your name and surname, email address). We will use such contact information only for the purpose for which you provided it to us. We will not share this information with third parties.If you wish to delete your contact information that we received from you when you contacted us, please send an e-mail to support@mybirdbuddy.com and your contact information will be deleted from our database.

4. Photographs taken by the user and the bird buddy feeder

Part of the User content are photographs taken by the user and photographs taken automatically by Bird Buddy feeder. When fully functioning Bird Buddy feeder automatically takes photographs without any action on the Users part. The photograph is taken if the movement sensor detects movement within 12 centimeters of the sensor on the Bird Buddy feeder. .

Photographs taken due to the movement around the feeder are uploaded to our third-party cloud service providers, where analysis is made by Artificial Intelligence. The only photographs sent to the User are those who depict birds.

Depending which option you choose in the App, you can limit who can see photographs taken by your feeder (“Private” or “Public” access).

The photographs of birds taken by the user or taken automatically by the Bird Buddy feeder will remain on our third-party cloud service providers cloud even after you delete your User’s account. After your Users account is deleted, all photographs will be anonymized by default.

The photographs to which you allowed “Public” access will still remain available to the other App users. You can write to the Customer support at support@mybirdbuddy.com to request to remove your photographs from “Public” access.

We use all photographs of birds for machine learning purposes.  

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

1. In General

We use the information we collect about you/your device to deliver services and our App to you and to operate our business. We use it also for improving our services and App, for enhancing security and for analytics and research purposes to make sure we provide you with the best experience. We use your information also for attribution and fraud prevention and for complying with our legal obligations.

We use your information for the following purposes:

  • Delivering and improving our services: We use your information for developing, delivering and improving our App and other products, services, and content, tailoring our products and services, providing App updates, technical troubleshooting, understanding and analyzing trends in connection with usage of the App, and administering the App.
  • Analytics and research: We use your information for understanding and analyzing trends in connection with the usage of the App, data about where the App was downloaded from. We may also create reports and analysis for the purposes of research or business intelligence, for example to track potential problems or trends with our App and services, or to test our new game features and content.
  • Security: We use your information for enhancing the safety and security of our App, products and services.
  • Customer Support: We use your information for providing customer support to you and to respond to your inquiries.
  • Our legal obligations: We use your information when we are required to do so by law, for example we use your country or region for tax reporting purposes.

 2. App Notifications

We have two types of notifications in our App - local and push notifications. Local notifications are contextual and sent from the device, whereas push notifications are sent from the server. We use such notifications to remind you about your activities within the App. You will receive such notifications only if you are subscribed to such notifications in the App. You can always unsubscribe from push notifications, please use the instructions provided below.

  • For iOS: You will be asked to accept or refuse push notifications when you use the App. If you do not accept, you will not receive notifications. Please note that if you accept, you can manage notifications on your mobile phone with notifications opt-out option in the App (Account setting - Notifications - Pause Notifications).
  • For Android: After an App is downloaded, you will automatically receive notifications. You can manage notifications on your mobile phone with notifications opt-out option in the App (Account setting - Notifications - Pause Notifications).

When you decide to unsubscribe from push notifications, such push notification tokens will be deleted from our database.

HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

We cannot provide all services necessary for the successful operation of the App by ourselves. We must therefore share collected information with third parties, including analytics providers, cloud service providers, and other third-party service providers that develop and support the App (collectively referred to as "Partners"). We share information that can be used to personally identify your device (e.g. persistent identifiers such as IDFA, IDFV, advertising ID and IP address) for the purposes of developing and delivering our services, conducting analysis and research and for measuring our performance. We also reserve the right to disclose your information (including personally identifiable information) when we are legally required to do so, to disclose your information in an anonymous and aggregated manner, meaning you could not be personally identified from it.

We may share such information to: 

  • Our analytics providers: We use third party analytics such as Mixpanel, for the purposes of delivering our services, conducting analysis and research. To get more information about how your data is being processed you can visit their Terms of Service at: https://mixpanel.com/legal/terms-of-use/ 
  • Our cloud service providers: We store information we collect from you on servers provided by our third-party cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services. To get more information check their Terms of Service at: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/ 
  • Built-in customer support tool: In our App we offer an in-app customer support tool, which allows users to get answers faster and easier. The tool provides answers to the FAQ, and also enables users to contact us within the App. The in-app customer support tool is provided by Zendesk, for the data processing by them, please see their Terms of Service at: https://www.zendesk.com/company/agreements-and-terms/terms-of-use/. 
  • Other third-party service providers: In our Mobile App and backend services we are using Sentry, Lightstep, Grafana Cloud, Firebase and V7 services:
    • Sentry: The App uses Sentry software for tracking errors. To get more information check their Terms of Service at https://sentry.io/terms/.  
    • Firebase Services: The App uses Firebase software for notifications and loading remote configurations. To get more information check their Terms of Service at https://firebase.google.com/terms/
    • Lightstep: The App uses Lighstep software for backend observability (debugging, tracking server events and requests). To get more information check their Terms of Service at https://lightstep.com/terms-of-service/ 
    • Grafana Cloud: The App uses Grafana Cloud software for on-call operations, application logs, application metrics and infrastructure monitoring. To get more information check their Terms of Service at https://grafana.com/legal/terms/ 
    • V7: The App uses V7 data platform for computer vision to assist AI recognition of birds. To get more information check their Terms of Service at https://www.v7labs.com/terms 
  • Third party sign-in providers: We offer our Users to sign in to the App with one of the third party providers such as Apple ID, Google Account and Facebook. To get more information check their Terms of Service at:

We may contract with additional Partners or change existing Partners in the future to perform any services in connection with the App. These changes shall be updated once a year or promptly in case of material changes in our data processing practices.

We reserve the right to disclose your information (including personally identifiable information) in response to law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or to protect our operations, users or user experience. Additionally, in the event of a reorganization, merger or sale we may transfer any and all information (including personally identifiable information) we collect to the relevant third party.

For any additional questions about third party information collection please refer to support@mybirdbuddy.com. 

THIRD PARTY SOCIAL NETWORKS

Our App enables you also to share the content you created within the App on third party social networks. By using the App to share content on social networks, we will receive some of the information you have on such a social network account (please see more below).

1. Connecting to Third Party Social Networks

Our App uses third-party services such as Facebook, Google Account and Apple ID ("Third Party Social Network/s"). App enables you to log in to your Third-Party Social Network account to connect to our App by using the "Sign up" or "Sign in" feature in our App. You may also share the content you created within the App on Third Party Social Networks. Please note, Third Party Social Networks are governed by their own privacy policies, terms and end user agreements and we are not responsible for, and have no control over, the sharing practices or policies of the third parties that operate those sites. For additional questions you can contact us at support@mybirdbuddy.com.

2. Information We May Receive When You Connect to Third Party Social Networks

The information you allow us to access varies and it is affected by the privacy settings you and your friends establish on those Third Party Social Networks. You can control and find out more about these settings at the Third Party Social Network in question. When you use the "Sign up" or "Sign in" feature we may access and store some or all of the following information, as allowed by you, Third Party Social Networks and your preferences: email address, login ID and/or user identifier string.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have certain rights in connection with your personal information and how we handle it, i.e. you have a right to obtain information about whether we hold personal information about you, to access personal information we hold about you, to obtain the correction, update, amendment or deletion of your personal information and to turn to supervisory authority. Some of these rights may be subject to some exceptions or limitations. You can exercise these rights at any time by sending your requests regarding your personal information to support@mybirdbuddy.com.

Your rights include:

  • Right to object. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information that is processed on the grounds of legitimate interests (see Legal Bases below). You are always free to opt out from the future collection of your personal information by us and our Partners by uninstalling all the App from each of your computing devices.
  • Right of access. You have a right to know what information we hold about you and in some cases to have the information communicated to you. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact us by letting us know that you wish to exercise your right of access and what information in particular you would like to receive. We reserve the right to ask for reasonable evidence to verify your identity before we provide you with any information. Please note that we may not be able to provide all the information you ask for, for instance if the information includes personal information about another person. Where we are not able to provide you with information that you have asked for, we will explain to you why. We will try to respond to any request for a right of access as soon as possible, but we will always do so within 1 month of receipt of your request and verification of your identity.
  • Right to correct personal information. We try to keep the information that we hold about you accurate and up to date. Should you realize that any of the information that we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us via support@mybirdbuddy.com and we will correct it as soon as we can.
  • Data deletion. You have a right to request deletion of the personal information that we hold about you. Account and data deletion is integrated into the App. You can delete your account by clicking “Account settings” then “Delete account”. Please note that we may still retain some or all of that information, for example for complying with our legal obligations and protecting or enforcing legal rights. 
  • Data portability. In some circumstances, you have the right to request that we provide you with the personal information which you have provided to us, so you can transfer this information to another data controller. Should you wish to do that, please contact us via support@mybirdbuddy.com.
  • Restriction of processing. In some cases, you may have the right to request a restriction of the processing of your personal information.
  • Right to file a complaint. You have the right to file a complaint against us. To do so, contact the supervisory authority in your country of residence.

GENERAL

Your privacy and security of your information is important to us and we always pay special attention to ensure that we process your information lawfully in accordance with one of the legal bases set out under data protection laws that apply to App users. You can always determine your country of residence in the app settings by clicking a "Country" button and selecting your country. We have appointed a data protection officer to help us ensure compliance with data protection laws. We store your information for as long as needed to provide you with our services. We may store information longer, but only in a way that it cannot be tracked back to you. We operate globally and we share your information with our Partners as for the purposes described above in "How We Share Your Information" Section, which may include a transfer of your personal information outside of you country of residence. 

LEGAL BASES

In each case where we process your information, we do so lawfully in accordance with one of the legal bases set out under data protection law.

The legal bases that we rely upon are the following:

  • Contractual Necessity. This covers information that is processed by us in order to provide you with service that you have requested - and that we have agreed - to provide to you, that is to deliver and improve our services, to provide customer support, to deliver special features in our App.
  • Legitimate Interests. This covers information that is processed by us for the purposes that can be reasonably expected within the context of your use of our services to pursue our legitimate interests in order to ensure you have the best experience when using our App, to make sure your information is secure and to provide to you our App free of charge or at a low cost. We pay special attention to your data protection rights making sure that your data protection rights are not overridden by our legitimate interests. We rely on our legitimate interests for data processing for analytics, attribution and fraud prevention and push-notifications.
  • Consent. Where we ask for your consent to use your data for a particular purpose, we will make this clear at the point of collection and we will also make clear how you can withdraw your consent.
  • Legal Obligation. This covers information that is processed by us to comply with a legal obligation, for instance is to maintain records for tax purposes.

SECURITY

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of the collected information, and to prevent unauthorized access and the use of information contrary to this Privacy Policy. Although we use commercially reasonable efforts to assure that your information remains secure when maintained by us, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. 

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER

We operate globally, so we need to transfer your personal information to our affiliated entities and/or to other third-party service providers across borders and from your country to other countries around the world. Please note that not all these countries have the same data protection laws as your own country, but we will always take appropriate steps to safeguard the privacy of your personal information.

For EU/EEA residents: We will transfer your personal information only when the transfer is based on one of the following safeguards:

  • To a country with adequate data protection. We will transfer your personal information outside your own country to a country that ensures an adequate level of protection in accordance with data protection legislation.
  • Based on standard contractual clauses. We will transfer your personal information to our Partner outside your own country, if we have entered into standard contractual clauses with such Partner, that are adopted by Commission of European Union in accordance with Europe data protection legislation and are deemed to offer sufficient safeguards with respect to the protection of the privacy and fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.
  • Based on an approved certification mechanism. We will transfer your personal information to our Partner outside your country if our Partner is certified by an approved certification mechanism pursuant to Europe data protection legislation. 

RETENTION 

We store your information for as long as needed to provide you with our services. We may store information longer, but only in a way that it cannot be tracked back to you. We delete the information as soon as we do not need it for the purposes as described in this Privacy Policy and in any event no later than five (5) years after your interaction with our App has ceased.

When required by law, we will retain your information for as long as we are legally obligated to do so. If you request us to delete your data will delete your data as described above in "Your Rights" Section.

CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY 

We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy as necessary to protect our users, furnish current information, and respond to legal and technical changes. The most current version of the Privacy Policy will govern our use of your information and will be available at https://mybirdbuddy.com/pages/app-privacy-policy. 

For previous versions of this Privacy Policy please contact us via support@mybirdbuddy.com. 

CONTACT US

If you have questions or concerns about Bird Buddy's Privacy Policy, please contact us via support@mybirdbuddy.com.

For information collected under this Privacy Policy, the data controller is Bird Buddy Inc. | 229 E. Michigan Ave., Ste. 330 Kalamazoo, Michigan 49007.