Ava Privacy Policy

Ava's Privacy Policy

Last Updated: January 15th, 2025

General

Transcense, Inc. (“Ava,” “we,” “us” and/or “our”) is dedicated to protecting your personal information and informing you about how we use it. This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy” or the “Policy”) is intended to provide information to our visitors (“you,” “your”) about how we collect, protect, share and use your information as part of our technology platforms, including, without limitation, our company website www.ava.me (the “Site”), mobile sites and/or applications (together with the Site, the “Services”). This Privacy Policy outlines how and when Ava collects, protects, shares, and uses information that can identify you individually (“Personal Information”). Personal Information does not include information that is anonymous, aggregated, or can no longer be used to identify you as an individual. Please be sure to read this entire Privacy Policy before using or submitting information through the Services. By using or submitting information through the Services, you are indicating that you agree to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into Ava’s Terms of Service at https://ava.me/terms. Any capitalized term that is not defined in this Policy shall have the meaning given to it in the Terms of Service. This Privacy Policy covers the privacy practices of Ava only. This Policy does not apply to the practices of third party websites, services or applications, including third parties with which we partner. These third party services are governed by each such third party’s privacy policy. Ava is not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of technology platforms other than that of Ava, and Ava is not responsible for the failure of unaffiliated third parties to honor their privacy obligations.

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

We have set ourselves a key principle that also appears in our contracts: Ava does not sell the data collected as part of the services offered for advertising purposes. We make our living by creating better communication services for you, not by advertising.

Ava is committed to:

• Treat the data solely for the sole purpose of carrying out its mission defined in the Terms of Use of its Products and Services;
• Process the data in accordance with this Privacy Policy;
• Guarantee the confidentiality of the personal data processed under this Privacy Policy;
• Ensure that persons authorized to process personal data under this Privacy Policy:
  1. undertake to respect confidentiality or are subject to an appropriate legal obligation of confidentiality;
  2. receive the necessary training in the protection of personal data;
• Take into account, with respect to its tools, products, applications or services, the principles of protection of data from the design and protection of data by default (Privacy By Design);
• Keep in writing a register of all categories of processing activities carried out as part of the performance of its duties.

Information We Collect And Why

When you interact with us through the Services, we may collect Personal Information and other information from you when you provide such information, such as when you create an account (“Account”), complete and/or use one of our online forms, tools or content items, contact us with inquiries, respond to one of our surveys, or use certain Services. If you sign up for the Services, you will be asked to provide Personal Information such as your first and last name, email address or telephone number, and other information that identifies you. With the exclusion of Enterprise accounts, we process your data in order to fulfill one or more of the following purposes:

• Manage your account, subscription and access and use of Ava Services, including information about your account status, invoicing and your compliance with our terms of use (the “Terms”);
• Provide you the Services, including Ava’s automatic sound, speech and speaker recognition technology, where your personal data might be necessary in implementation of the Terms;
• Customize your experience of Ava, its Site or Services based on your hearing profile, when you consent explicitly to it, as such data may be considered as health data;
• Train and enhance Ava’s software and technology (e.g. the automatic sound, speech and speaker recognition technology), if you consent to allow Ava to use segments of raw or partially processed audio and associated transcribed text from your recorded conversations in order to enhance our Services;
• Monitor the quality of the service, including troubleshoot or respond to customer queries, understand the origin of problems, get insights about out IT structure;
• Answer your questions, reviews or claims about Ava, its Site and Services;
• Send you newsletters, satisfaction surveys or marketing information about Ava, its Site and Services;
• Develop statistics for our Services;
• Let you easily add contacts on Ava;
• Exchange information with our affiliates, vendors and suppliers;
• Comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Marketing or promotional purposes

Email Communications. We may use your Personal Information to provide you with marketing or other promotional communications via email. If, at any time, you would like to stop receiving these promotional e-mails, you may follow the opt-out instructions contained in any such e-mail. Please note that by opting out, you may prohibit Ava from informing you of offerings that may be of interest to you. It may take up to ten business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving emails or promotions from us, we still may send you e-mails about your Account or any products or services you have requested or received from us, or for other customer service purposes.

Short Message Service (“SMS”) Communications. We may use your Personal Information to provide you with marketing or other promotional communications via SMS. If, at any time, you would like to stop receiving promotional text messages, you may opt-out by texting the word "STOP" to +14158677230. You may also reply "STOP" to any message you receive from us. Upon receipt of your "STOP" message, we will send you a SMS message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed. At that point, you will no longer receive any further SMS messages from Ava. If you need any assistance, you can always text the word "HELP" to +14158677230 or reply "HELP" to any message you receive from us. Upon receipt of your "HELP" message, we will respond with "STOP" instructions and a link to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Please note that by opting out, you may prohibit Ava from informing you of offerings that may be of interest to you.

Information from Third Parties

We may receive information about you from third parties. For example, the Services may include features from social media platforms such as Facebook, and we may enable you to register or log-in to the Services through a social media platform. These features use Session Trackers to collect information about your IP address, and your use of the Services. Your interactions with those features are governed by the terms of use and privacy policies of the companies that provide them.

When do we disclose the Personal Information we collect?

Ava only grants access to your Personal Information on a need-to-know basis, and such access will be limited to the personal data that is necessary to perform the purpose for which such access is granted. To the extent needed to provide our services, Ava may grant access to the part of your personal data that is strictly necessary to authorized personnel, affiliates, vendors or suppliers. To the extent needed to meet our legal obligations, your data can also be sent to public institutions, court officers, departmental officers and agencies responsible for collecting debts. Ava may use a sub-contractor to conduct specific processing activities on behalf of Ava and as per Ava’s instructions. In this case, Ava ensures that the subcontractor is required to respect the obligations of this Agreement. Ava also ensures that the subcontractor provides sufficient safeguards for the implementation of appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure that the treatment meets the requirements of the GDPR. When using subcontractors located outside of the EU, Ava ensures that they are GDPR compliant. Except as provided herein, Ava will not sell, rent or otherwise disclose Personal Information about you to third parties.

Third party providers.

We may share your Personal Information with unaffiliated third parties that provide certain services to us, including, but not limited to data analysis, payment processing. These third parties may have access to Personal Information or non-Personal Information in order to perform their functions on our behalf. However, these third parties are only permitted to use your Personal Information for the purpose for which it has been provided or to administer, service or process transactions that you have authorized, and may not disclose it to any other third party except at our express direction and in accordance with this Policy. We do not share your Personal Information with: (1) affiliated companies for their everyday business purposes; or (2) any third parties so that they can market to you.

Employer partners.

If your employer is subsidizing your subscription to Ava Pro, we may share limited Personal Information with that employer, including your name, employee email, place of employment, along with non-Personal Information, such as your accessibility needs, to facilitate processing of the employer’s subsidy, for joint marketing purposes, or to enhance your use of Ava’s service. Your employer may not disclose this information to any other third party except at our express direction, and in accordance with this Policy and all applicable law. We will not disclose to your employer Personal Information concerning your use of Ava’s services.

Business transfers.

As we continue to develop our business, we may sell or purchase assets. If another entity acquires us or our assets, or assets related to the Services, Personal Information, information about how the Services are accessed and used, and any other information that we have collected about the users of the Services may be disclosed to such entity as one of the transferred assets. Also if any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding is brought by or against us, all such information may be considered an asset of ours and as such may be sold or transferred to third parties.

Your Data Protection Rights

Ava is the Data Controller, and we’ve appointed a EU Digital Privacy Officer, the person in charge of the protection of your Personal Information, and have declared them to the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) in accordance with applicable law. If you’re a EU citizen, you are granted rights under the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR). Due to the organization of the Services, you send your Personal Information directly to Ava, which is located in the USA, for the purpose of using the Services to which you have subscribed. Ava also protects your data in accordance with the GDPR requirements. If you wish to view, edit, delete, transfer, or otherwise restrict our use of your Personal Information, you may edit your Account information or contact us at support@ava.me. Please note that you may update your personal data and activate or deactivate the recording of conversations directly from your Account. If you are facing any problems while managing your Personal Information through your user Account or if you wish to exercise any rights mentioned above, please contact us using the information provided under Contacting Ava section below. In accordance with our routine record keeping, we may delete certain records that contain Personal Information you have submitted through the Services. We are under no obligation to store such Personal Information indefinitely and disclaim any liability arising out of, or related to, the destruction of such Personal Information. In addition, you should be aware that it is not always possible to completely remove or delete all of your information from our databases without some residual data because of backups and other reasons.

Data Retention

We will retain your Personal Information for a period of time that does not exceed the time necessary for the purposes for which the data were collected: If you use our Site, Ava retains your Personal Information:

• for the duration required to process your request;
• as long as you have not withdrawn your consent to receive newsletters and information about Ava and its Services.

If you or your interlocutors are using our Services, Ava retains your Personal Information:

• as long as your Account has not been deactivated, in a maximum limit of 5 years, or as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements. An Account will be considered “deactivated” if you affirmatively request that we deactivate your account by emailing us at support@ava.me. We will deactivate a user Account by erasing it from our database within 30 days of receiving your written request.
• for a 1-year period for statistics and monitoring about your use of our Services;
• as long as you have not withdrawn your consent to receive newsletters and information about Services different to those for which you have subscribed;

Security of your Personal Information

Ava takes all necessary precautions, organizational and technical measures to preserve the security, the integrity and the confidentiality of your Personal Information and in particular, to prevent that they are deformed, damaged or that unauthorized third parties have access to it. We may or may not use secure payment systems that comply with the state of the art and applicable regulations. However, no electronic data transmission or storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Please note that we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information that you transmit to us. You use the Services and provide us with your Personal Information at your own risk. Your Account is authenticated, among other means, using SMS Device verification for your privacy and security. You need to prevent unauthorized access to your Account and Personal Information by implementing and protecting your Device password appropriately and limiting access to your Device. We also recommend that you change your Device password periodically. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Account username and password. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of your Account has been compromised), you must immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us and change your password immediately via the Services. Ava will notify any violation of Personal Information within a maximum of five (5) days after becoming aware of it. This notification shall be accompanied by all relevant documentation in order to allow you, if necessary, to notify that breach to the competent local privacy authority.

Cookies

Ava uses “cookies” to help personalize your use of our site, including for storing user preferences, such as your language preference. Information About Cookies. A cookie is a text file stored on your computer. Cookies store bits of information that we use to help make our site work. They can’t run any code and don’t contain viruses. No one can read our cookies except us.

How We Use Cookies.

Ava uses cookies to improve your experience on this site; some are essential to the proper function of this site.

Types of Cookies We Use

• Security Cookies: These cookies allow us to secure access to your account
• Preference Cookies: These cookies are used to store your preferences like language choice.
• Analytics: Ava may use a variety of technologies that passively or automatically collect information about how the Services are accessed and used, including your browser type, device type, operating system, application version, the pages served to you, the time you browse, preceding page views, and your use of particular features of the Services. This statistical data helps us understand potential site problems and what is interesting and relevant to users of the Services so that we can best tailor our content to you.
• Advertising Cookies: We use non-identifiable information about you to show you advertising on our site
• Widgets: to help you to share information on third party social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Youtube.
• Device Identifiers: Ava also automatically collects an IP address or other unique identifier for the computer, mobile device, technology or other device (collectively “Device”) you use to access the Services. A “Device Identifier” is a number that is automatically assigned to your Device when you access a web site or its servers, and our computers identify your Device by its Device Identifier. We may use a Device Identifier to, among other things, administer the Services, help diagnose problems with our servers, analyze trends, track users’ web page movements, monitor against theft and fraud, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. If you access the Services on a mobile Device, we may request access to settings and location information for similar purposes and to personalize your experience with the Services. Most mobile devices allow you to turn off location services or push notifications. Please note that if you choose not to provide us with your location information, you may not be able to use all of the features of the Services.
• Session Trackers: In operating the Services, we may use session tracking technologies (“Session Trackers”). Session trackers help provide additional functionality to the Services, customize users’ experiences with the Services and help us analyze Services usage more accurately for research and product development purposes. We (including third parties that we work with) may place session trackers on your Device for security purposes, to facilitate navigation of the Services, and to personalize your experience while using our Services. If you would prefer not to accept Session Trackers when using the Services, follow the instructions provided by your website or mobile browser (usually located within the “Help”, “Tools” or “Edit” facility) to modify your Session Tracker settings. Please note that if you disable Session Trackers, you may not be able to access certain parts of our Services and other parts of our Services may not work properly. As a result, we recommend that you leave Session Trackers turned on when accessing the Services because they allow you to take advantage of some of the Services’ features.
• Web Beacons: In addition to Session Trackers, we may use web beacons (also known as “clear GIFs”), which are transparent graphic images placed on a web page or in an email and indicate that a page or email has been viewed or tell your browser to get content from another server. We use web beacons to measure traffic to or from, or use of, our online forms, tools or content items and related browsing behavior and to improve your experience when using the Services. We may also use customized links or other similar technologies to track hyperlinks that you click and associate that information with your Personal Information in order to provide you with more focused communications.
• Non-Personal Information: Additionally, we may modify and combine Personal Information in a manner that does not personally identify you or any other individual and thus, no longer constitutes “Personal Information”. We may use this non-Personal Information, such as aggregate user statistics, demographic information, and usage information, for any lawful purpose.

Your Choices Regarding Cookies.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being set, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you clear your cookies, you will need to opt out again. If you use a different computer or browser, your choices will not be carried over. Ava adheres to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising from the Digital Advertising Alliance. You can opt out of targeted advertising by third parties by setting your browser to decline third party cookies. You can also delete the advertiser’s cookie each time. Many of the third parties are members of the Network Advertising Initiative. You can opt-out of targeted advertising by all NAI members by visiting the NAI site. The cookies and other information stored in your terminal will not be kept beyond 13 months after your last expression of consent. Personal Information collected through the cookies will not be kept beyond 13 months as from their collection.

Children Under 18 and Under 13

Ava is COPPA compliant. If you are under 18 or otherwise would be required to have parent or guardian consent to share information with Ava, you should not send any information about yourself to us. The Services are not directed to children under 13 years of age and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will make reasonable efforts to delete such information from our files. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at support@ava.me.

FERPA Compliance & Student Privacy

Ava is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of student data in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974, a federal law that governs the privacy of student education records.

How We Handle Student Data:

• We do not share or disclose personally identifiable student data without appropriate authorization, unless disclosure is permitted by exception in FERPA.
• We collect and process only the information necessary for communication access for educational purposes and services, in accordance with FERPA guidelines.
• We implement reasonable security measures to protect student data from unauthorized access or disclosure.

Your California Privacy Rights

California law provides California residents the right to request from Ava: (i) a list of the categories of Personal Information that we have disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes; and (ii) the names and addresses of all such third parties. If you would like to request this information, please email your request to support@ava.me. In your request, please specify that you want a “Your Ava California Privacy Rights Notice”. Please allow 30 days for a response.

California Do Not Track Disclosures

Ava does not track you across third party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. Nor do we knowingly authorize third parties to conduct online tracking through Ava’s Services.

Changes to this Policy

This Policy is the sole authorized statement of Ava’s practices with respect to the collection of Personal Information and the subsequent use and disclosure of such information. Any summaries of this Policy generated by third party software or otherwise shall have no legal effect, are in no way binding upon Ava, shall not be relied upon in substitute for this Policy, and neither supersede nor modify this Policy. Ava may revise this Policy from time to time without prior notice to you, and any changes will be effective immediately upon the posing of the revised Privacy Policy within the Services. You should bookmark and periodically review this page to ensure that you are familiar with the most current version of this Policy. You can determine when this Policy was last revised by checking the “Last Revised” legend at the top of the Policy.

Contacting Ava?

Our goal is to respect your privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy, please contact us by email at support@ava.me Attn: Data Privacy Officer or by mail to:

Ava

Attn: Data Privacy Officer

1844 Golden Gate Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94115

USA

Updated: October 2023