Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you about the information we may gather about you or your business, how we may use that information, whether we disclose it to anyone, and the choices you have regarding our use of the information we collect.

By using our websites, products, services, or otherwise by interacting with us, you consent to the following privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”). Please do not engage in any of these activities if you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy. The Privacy Policy applies to the processing of personal data carried out by Chatinc or any of its subsidiaries (“We”, “Our”, “Us” or “Chatinc”).

The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.

For the purposes of this Policy:

Account means a unique account created for you to access our Service, Platforms or parts of our Service.

Application means the software program provided by Chatinc, accessed by you on any electronic device, named Sweesh or C2B.

Business , for the purpose of the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), refers to the Company as the legal entity that collects Consumers' personal information and determines the purposes and means of the processing of Consumers' personal information, or on behalf of which such information is collected and that alone, or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of consumers' personal information, that does business in the State of California.

Company (referred to as either "Chatinc", ”The Company”, "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to ChatInc, Unit C3, Century Square, Century City, Cape Town, South Africa, 7441.
For the purpose of the GDPR, Chatinc is the Data Controller.

Consumer , for the purpose of the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), means a natural person who is a California resident. A resident, as defined in the law, includes (1) every individual who is in the USA for other than a temporary or transitory purpose, and (2) every individual who is domiciled in the USA who is outside the USA for a temporary or transitory purpose.

Cookies are small files that are placed on your computer, mobile device or any other device by a website, containing the details of your browsing history on that website among its many uses.

Data Controller, for the purposes of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), refers to the Company as the legal person which alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of Personal Data.

Device means any device that can access the Service such as a computer, a cell phone or a digital tablet.

Do Not Track (DNT) is a concept that has been promoted by US regulatory authorities, in particular the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for the Internet industry to develop and implement a mechanism for allowing internet users to control the tracking of their online activities across websites.

Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.
For the purposes of GDPR, Personal Data means any information relating to you such as a name, an identification number, location data, online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity. For the purposes of the CCPA, Personal Data means any information that identifies, relates to, describes or is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you.

Sale , for the purpose of the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), means selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a Consumer's personal information to another business or a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration.

Service refers to the Software Platforms, Services or Website or all. Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of Chatinc. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by Chatinc to facilitate the Services, to provide the Service on behalf of Chatinc, to perform services related to the platform or to assist Chatinc in analyzing how its Services are used. For the purpose of the GDPR, Service Providers are considered Data Processors.

Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a user can log in or create an account to use the Service.

Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

Website refers to the website, accessible from https://www.chatinc.com

You (“User”) mean the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable. Under GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), You can be referred to as the Data Subject or as the User as you are the individual using the Service.

What does Chatinc provide us as a Service?
Is Chatinc a Data controller or processor?
Does Chatinc share customer data with, or enable direct access by, any third-party?
Can Chatinc provide an overview of how its infrastructure is being secured?
Does Chatinc have a patch and vulnerability management program?
Retention of your Personal Data

HOW WE USE INFORMATION
Disclosure and sharing of information
Disclosure to our service providers
Processing of personal data outside EU
Disclosure of information to Chatinc affiliates
Data Processor
Data Controller
De-identification
Opt-out
Security
Disclaimer
Third Parties
Transfer of your Personal Data

YOUR RIGHTS
Right to access and rectification
Right to erasure
Right to object
Right to data portabilit

Chatinc offers a suite of chat communications platforms offering products that enable developers and businesses to communicate with contacts across the globe. Chatinc enables consumers to connect with businesses in the same way they connect with their friends — seamlessly, on their own timeline and with context.

For the purpose of provision of the services, Chatinc acts as a data processor. For the following purposes, Chatinc acts as a data controller:

• Processing the personal data of those creating accounts;
• Billing and other administrative and technical purposes;
• Detecting and preventing misuse of our services.
• Training and improving service quality.
  

Yes, in order to provide you with the high-quality services you expect from us as well as to fulfill our legal and contractual obligations, we share data with third parties. These parties include the telecom service suppliers as well as third-party messaging app providers whom we engage with to ensure that communications reach their final destination as well as the vendors who support our day-to-day
business, such as payment processors.

Chatinc will take the appropriate steps to ensure that our vendors have sufficient guarantees and safeguards in place to properly treat and protect your customers’ and your personal data in accordance with the applicable laws. Chatinc will remain liable for the use of all third-party processors in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.

All of our applications, services and tools are hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Each engineering team has a fully isolated development, staging and production environments. Customers data is logically segmented.

Other controls are:

• Vulnerability Management
  
• Annual third-party penetration test on our customer facing systems.
  
• Multi factor authentication
  
• Monitoring of Admin Activity, Data Access, and System Event logs
  
• Data Encryption
  
• Perimeter Security
  

Chatinc takes a unified approach to patch and vulnerability management to ensure that our standard SLA timelines are maintained whether vulnerabilities exist in our underlying infrastructure, operating platforms or source code.

Chatinc will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

While using Our Service, We may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

• Email address
  
• First name and last name
  
• Phone number
  
• Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City
  
• Bank account information in order to pay for products and/or services within the
  Service
  
• Usage Data
  

When you pay for a product and/or a service via bank transfer, We may ask you to provide information to facilitate this transaction and to verify your identity. Such information may include, without limitation:

• Date of birth
  
• Passport or National ID card
  
• Bank card statement
  
• Other information linking You to an address
  

Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.

Usage Data may include information such as your Device's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic or interaction data.

When you access the Services by or through a mobile device, we may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device you use, your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser you use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

We may also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Service or when you access the Service by or through a mobile device.

Chatinc will process both customer data as well as end-users' data. End-users are the recipients of electronic communication. Chatinc processes personal data contained in communications sent or received by a customer through Chatinc’s platforms or via its APIs. More specifically, we refer to this personal data as content data and traffic data. Traffic data includes phone numbers, location and time/date
related data of the sent electronic communication, whereas content data is the information transmitted via Chatinc’s platforms which may include personal data.

The latter is necessarily determined and controlled solely by the customer, acting as
the data controller.

Chatinc also collects account data and other customer company data (Customer data) in order to allow access to our services and platforms via the dashboard, as well as to our developers pages. In addition, in line with the industry practices, we use the data we collect for billing, service quality improvement and training, and other related administrative purposes, as well as to detect and prevent misuse of our products and services. In general, Chatinc will collect personal data from you based upon our business relationship, your use of the site, our services and our products, as follows:

In order for us to communicate and provide our services to you or discuss the services you may provide us with, you will need to provide us with your contact information and possibly other information about you. Further, in order to access and view some services on the site or our platforms, you are required to register with Chatinc before the content is made available to you. During the registration process, you are required to provide us with certain contact information, including your name, address, phone number and email address. We use this information only for the purposes for which it was provided.

When you contact Chatinc customer support (“Customer Support”) using any Chatinc client support portal or communication medium (the “Client Support Portal”), We may ask you for certain information regarding your enquiry, such as your name, email address or telephone number.

Our customer support portals may use session cookies containing encrypted information to allow the system to uniquely identify you while you are logged in. This information allows us to process your online data and requests. Session cookies help us make sure you are who you say you are after you have logged in. We use persistent cookies, which only we can read and use, to identify the fact that you are a Chatinc client or prior site visitor. We also may from time to time engage third parties to track and analyze non-personally identifiable usage and volume statistical information from visitors to our websites to help us administer the websites and improve its quality. Such third parties may use cookies to help track visitor behavior. Such cookies will not be used to associate individual website visitors to any Personal Data. All data collected by such third parties on our behalf is used only to provide us with information on site or platform usage and is not shared with any other third parties.

If you participate in any blog or other forum offered by our website or services, your user ID may be displayed on any content that you post and will therefore be available to the public. Therefore, if you associate your name with your user ID, your name and any related content or posts may be available to the public. You are solely responsible for all liability related to your use of any such blog or forum.

If you send us correspondence, such as emails or letters, We may collect such information into a file specific to you.

We collect information about you when you submit a job application, resume, survey responses or similar information.

If you wish to subscribe to our newsletters, we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you. Out of respect for your privacy, you have the option to unsubscribe from receiving some, or all of the newsletters. Please see the “Opt-out” section below.

The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

(a) To manage your Account: to manage your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data you provide can give you access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to you as a registered user.

(b) For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services you have purchased or of any other contract with us through the Service.

(c) To contact you: To contact you by email, telephone, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application's push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security
updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation.

(d) To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information.

(e) To manage your requests: To attend and manage your requests to us.

(f) Provision Services: Providing the platforms, website and services to you,

(g) Provide Support: raising queries with you, and responding to issues you may raise, whether relating to our services or otherwise,

(h) Customer Experience: communications relating to surveys and other customer satisfaction-related activities,

(i) Processing job applications, to perform credit checks and,

(j) Payment: verification of personal or business data and payment details and other checks before offering our services to clients.

(k) For business transfers: We may use your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.

(l) For other purposes: We may use your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience.

We may share your personal information in the following situations:

• With Service Providers: We may share your personal information with Service
  Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, for payment processing,
  to contact you.
• With Affiliates: We may share your information with our affiliates, in which case
  we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our
  parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other
  companies that we control or that are under common control with us.
• With other users: when you share personal information or otherwise interact in
  the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users
  and may be publicly distributed outside. If you interact with other users or
  register through a Third-Party Social Media Service, your contacts on the
  Third-Party Social Media Service may see your name, profile, pictures and
  description of your activity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions
  of your activity, communicate with you and view your profile.
• With your consent : We may disclose your personal information for any other
  purpose with your consent.
  

In order to provide you with an excellent service experience we may at certain time send you or a designated technical contact service-related announcements as and when needed. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we may send you an email or provide an announcement on our status page. You may opt-out of these communications but this is certainly not recommended and may result in a less than optimum experience.

If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before Your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency). We reserve the right to disclose information as required by law or regulation and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process. Notwithstanding any provisions herein, We may disclose Personal Data to governmental authorities when required or reasonably requested to do so by such governmental authorities. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the extent that it is in conflict with any law that may be applicable to the Personal Data of a Data Subject.

The Company may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such
action is necessary to:

• Comply with a legal obligation
• Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
  
• Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
  
• Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
  
• Protect against legal liability
  

We will also communicate with you in response to your customer service enquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account.

As a matter of policy, we do not sell or rent any of your, or your customer information to third parties for any advertising or marketing purposes. However, the following describes some of the ways that we may disclose your information in the normal course of providing our services.

Your personal data may be transferred to and processed by third party providers and suppliers which perform services for us (data processors), to enable these companies to perform the services requested by Chatinc. Only personal data that is necessary to fulfill the purposes will be provided to these companies. All third party providers and suppliers must follow our instructions and applicable written data processor agreements and any other agreements that are in place between us and our third party providers/suppliers, and must implement appropriate technical and organizational measures for the protection of the personal data.

Chatinc processes Personal Data on behalf of its clients (“Customers”), that has been collected by or on behalf of those Customers including Personal Data received from the European Union. With the objective to validate transfers of Personal Data under European data protection laws to countries outside EU and Switzerland we are making available the European Commission’s controller-to-processor standard
contractual clauses, commonly referred to as “model clauses” (in the form adopted by decision 2010/87/EU of 5 February 2010 and with Appendices 1 & 2. Any Customer of Chatinc who undertakes processing activities on the Chatinc platform (in respect of Personal Data which is governed by the European data protection laws), should contact dpo@chatinc.com for more details.

Because Chatinc’s operations stretch globally, we may share your information with other Chatinc affiliates and business units in other parts of the world in order to deliver our services. Your Personal Data may be transferred by us from your home country to Chatinc employees in Chatinc offices around the world, who may communicate with you regarding your enquiry. Please understand that we limit access to your Personal Data to only those Chatinc employees who we believe need access in order to provide services to you or to otherwise perform their duties.

As a Data Processor, Chatinc will only process Personal Data pursuant to the instructions of the applicable Customer (for example where we act as a Data Processor in relation to the processing activities of Customers on our platform). Chatinc may use the services of third party Data Processors to process Personal Data in accordance with purposes identified for such Personal Data by the applicable Customer (including but not limited to the provision of services). Chatinc will not be responsible for determining the authenticity of any purported Data Subject’s request to access his or her Personal Data. In the absence of express instructions to do so from the applicable Customer, Chatinc will not provide a purported Data Subject with access to his or her Personal Data unless it is demonstrated to Chatinc’s satisfaction that the applicable Data Controller has refused such access.

As Data Controller, Chatinc receives Personal Data about our business relationships. Chatinc owns and controls such Personal Data as stated in this Privacy Policy. In parallel and in accordance with Recital 47 of the European Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (as amended from time to time or replaced by other EU regulation), We shall act as an independent Data Controller with respect to the processing of Personal Data which is necessary for the operation of our service which shall include any information processed for the purpose of the conveyance of a communication on an electronic communications network or for the billing thereof.

Chatinc may de-identify or depersonalize data into anonymized and aggregate data that it derives from Customers (“Anonymous Data”). Anonymous Data means data that includes no Personal Data or unique identifiers that could later be used to refer to the Personal Data to which the data was once associated. Chatinc uses only Anonymous Data in performing analyses, and may disclose Anonymous Data to its
Customers who have requested such analyses and to third parties where We are contractually entitled to do so.

We provide you the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having your Personal Data used for certain purposes, when we ask for this information. For example, if you register with us but no longer wish to receive our newsletters and/or related communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication.

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures to guard against unauthorized or unlawful processing of your Personal Data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, your Personal Data. Chatinc uses industry-standard security measures to protect the integrity and confidentiality of any Personal Data it owns or processes on behalf of Customers, including, in
appropriate circumstances, the use of firewalls, restricted access, and encrypted transmissions. Chatinc limits access to Personal Data to those persons in its organization who have a business need to process such Personal Data. However, no company, including Chatinc, can fully eliminate the security risks associated with such Personal Data. Due to factors beyond our control, Chatinc cannot ensure that
Personal Data will not be disclosed to third parties. For example, Chatinc may become legally obligated to disclose such data, or, despite precautions, third parties may circumvent security measures to intercept or access such data.

We cannot ensure that all of your private communications and other Personal Data will never be disclosed in ways not otherwise described in this Privacy Policy. By way of example (without limiting the foregoing), We may be forced to disclose Personal Data to the government or third parties under certain circumstances, third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications,
or users may abuse or misuse your Personal Data that they collect from the site. Chatinc does not review, comment upon, or monitor its Customers’ compliance with their respective privacy policies, nor does Chatinc review Customer instructions to determine whether they are in compliance or conflict with the terms of a Customer’s published privacy policy.

Please be advised this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that Chatinc does not own or control, or to people that Chatinc does not employ or manage. This includes links to other websites on the site/platforms as well as any companies from whom you may have ordered services or products that are transmitted over Chatinc’s network, and any companies from whom you may be purchasing telecommunications services. Chatinc recommends that you be aware when you leave the Site and platforms and read the terms of use and privacy policies of any site, product or service that collects Personal Data. Some examples include but are not limited to, Facebook (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger,
Instagram), Twilio (SMS), and other Social Messaging providers.

Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Company's operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction. Your consent to this Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer. The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please review it regularly. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post the revised Privacy Policy on the website and other places we deem appropriate. All such changes shall be binding on you 30 days after they are initially posted on the website unless you are a new user, in which case they are binding on you immediately.

You have the right to request access to the personal data relating to you or your company. This includes the right to be informed whether or not personal data about you or your company is being processed, what personal data is being processed, and the purpose of the processing. You also have the right to rectify or add personal data if the personal data is inaccurate or incomplete.

You may also request that your personal data be erased if e.g. the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, the processing is unlawful, or the personal data has to be erased to enable us to comply with a legal requirement. There are other circumstances where your personal data can be erased; please contact us if you would like to find out whether your personal data
can be erased. Please note that we may reject your request if the processing is permitted or required according to law or any other relevant legal ground.

You are also entitled to object to certain processing or request that the processing of the personal data be restricted if you believe the personal data may not be correct, if you believe the processing is unlawful, or if you believe that Chatinc no longer needs the personal data for the purposes stated in this policy.

If you request access to personal data about you that you yourself have provided and if the personal data is being processed automatically with your consent or in accordance with a contract between you and Chatinc, you may request that the data is provided in a structured, commonly-used and machine readable format and you may also request that the personal data is transmitted to another controller, if this is technically feasible.

If you would like to contact us with enquiries or complaints or regarding your rights, limit or opt-out of certain communications, or if you have suggestions for improving this privacy policy, please send an e-mail to DPO@chatinc.com. Once we have confirmed your identity we will use reasonable commercial efforts to address any  concerns that you may have in accordance with applicable law. Please note that
even if you object to certain processing of personal data, We may still continue this processing if permitted or required to do so by law, for example to enable us to fulfill legal requirements, or fulfill obligations under a contract with you.