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Compliance

Privacy Notice

Random Person

Effective Date: 5th of October, 2023

Table of content

Introduction

Data Protection Officer

How we collect and use (process) your personal information

Use of the Starmind website

Cookies and tracking technologies

When and how we share information with third parties

Data Subject rights

Security of your information

Data storage and retention

Questions, concerns, or complaints

 

Introduction

We understand that you are aware of and care about your own personal privacy interests, and we take that seriously. We want to be transparent about how we collect, use and process your data. This Privacy Notice therefore describes our policies and practices with that regard, and sets forth your privacy rights. The processing of personal data, such as your name, email address shall always be in line with the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as the Swiss Data Protection Law.We recognize that information privacy is an ongoing responsibility, and so we will from time to time update this Privacy Notice as we undertake new personal data practices or adopt new privacy policies. 

Data Protection Officer

Starmind is headquartered in Zurich, in Switzerlands. Starmind has appointed an internal data protection officer for you to contact if you have any questions or concerns about Starmind’s personal data policies or practices. If you would like to exercise your privacy rights, please direct your query to Starmind’s data protection officer. Starmind’s data protection officer’s name and contact information are as follows:

Joanna Matuszewska-Flierl
Starmind
Muehlebachstrasse 162-164, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland
privacy@starmind.com

How we collect and use (process) your personal information

We collect and process data about you when you provide it to us, when other sources (such as your employer) provide it to us or when you use our services.

Data you provide to us
ACCOUNT AND PROFILE DATA
You are able to provide your first name, last name, email address, job title, department, profile image and other data. We also keep track of your preferences when you select settings within Starmind. In some cases this data is directly provided to us by another source such as your employer.
Your account and profile data is visible to other users in the same network. It helps other users to know who you are and it provides more context to the question poser if you write an answer.

CONTENT YOU CREATE THROUGH OUR SERVICES
Examples of content we collect and store include: the questions, solutions and comments created on Starmind, attachments and inline images that you upload to enhance a question or a solution, personal messages that you include when sharing a question and any feedback you provide to us. This content includes any data about you that you choose to provide.

Data we receive from other sources
OTHER USERS OF OUR SERVICES
Other users of our Services may provide data about you when they submit content through our services. For example, you may be mentioned in a question or a solution created by someone else.

DATA WE COLLECT AUTOMATICALLY WHEN YOU USE OUR SERVICES
This data includes what content you are looking for, frequently used search terms, which time you are typically active, the links you click, with whom you interact, which language you typically use to publish content, which content you like.
This list isn’t conclusive as we always try to find new ways how we can derive a better image of what your interests are and in which topics you are an expert.

DEVICE AND CONNECTION INFORMATION
We may collect information about the device on which you are using our services, including what type of device it is, what operating system you are using, device settings and unique device identifiers. Whether we collect some or all of this information often depends on what type of device you are using and its settings.
When you use our services, our servers automatically record information, including information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. This information may include your IP address, the address of the web page directing you to our services, your browser type and settings, the date and time of your request, information about your browser configuration and plug-ins, language preferences, and cookie data.

Data we do not collect
We do not collect any payment or billing information of you as the user of Starmind Platform. Such information is collected only with respect to our customer whose network you might be using and with whom we have a contractual relationship regarding provision of services.

How we use Starmind Users’ data we collect
We use this information to provide prospects and customers with services.
 
TO FIND THE BEST POSSIBLE EXPERT FOR A TOPIC OR A QUESTION
Starmind is all about identifying the best possible expert that can answer your question at the given point in time. Therefore it is crucial for us to automatically process data that we collect when you use our services.

Just a few examples how we can use your data:

  • What questions and topic you usually search for can tell us more about your interests and expertise
  • Your solutions and how they get rated tell us if you are an expert in a certain topic.
  • When you are typically active determines if we choose you as a possible expert. It makes sense to prioritize an expert who is active instead of an expert that is sleeping.
  • We constantly search for new ways to improve our algorithms.

TO PERSONALIZE YOUR EXPERIENCE
We try to identify the topics you have a special interest in and which users are in your inner circle. This data allows us to provide you with a personalized experience that highlights information that you are interested in.

TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU
We use your contact data to send updates via email, mobile app (if activated) and/or within the services. We send you updates in case someone wrote a solution to your question, we think you can solve a question, someone personally mentioned you in a post, you reached a new gamification level, an administrator posted a new announcement, etc. This list goes on, but you are always in control of which notification you receive and which one you want us to suppress.
From time to time we will provide you tailored emails based on your activity and interactions with Starmind. You can always opt-out of these emails.

What we don’t do
We won’t email you to ask you for a password or any account data. If you ever receive such an email, don’t hesitate and contact us or the Starmind administrator in your company. This will help us to investigate and protect your fellow colleagues.
We do not sell personal information to anyone and only share it with third parties who are facilitating the delivery of our services.

Use of the Starmind Website

As is true of most other websites, Starmind’s website collects certain information automatically and stores it in log files. The information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, the region or general location where your computer or device is accessing the internet, browser type, operating system and other usage information about the use of Starmind’s website, including a history of the pages you view. We use this information to help us design our site to better suit our users’ needs. We may also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website, analyze trends, track visitor movements, and gather broad demographic information that assists us in identifying visitor preferences.

Starmind has a legitimate interest in understanding how members, customers and potential customers use its website. This assists Starmind with providing more relevant products and services, with communicating value to our sponsors and corporate members, and with providing appropriate staffing to meet member and customer needs.

Cookies and tracking technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies such as the local storage of your web browser to authenticate you when you return to our services. We also use cookies to remember some preferences such as your preferred language. Some third-party services that we use, such as Piwik (data analytic tool hosted by Starmind) may place their own cookies in your browser.

You may, at any time, prevent the setting of cookies through our website by means of a corresponding setting of the Internet browser used, and may thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via an Internet browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular Internet browsers. If you deactivate the setting of cookies in the Internet browser used, not all functions of our website may be entirely usable.

When and how we share information with third parties

We store your personal data in ISO 27001 certified data centers. These data centers have a very high security level and constantly reassure their technical and organizational measures by renewing their ISO 27001 certification.

These third parties do not use or have access to your personal information for any purpose other than cloud storage and retrieval. A full list of our third party sub processors can be found here: https://www.starmind.ai/subprocessors

We do not otherwise reveal your personal data to non-Starmind persons or businesses for their independent use unless: (1) you / the customer requests or authorizes it; (2) the information is provided to comply with the law (for example, compelled by law enforcement to comply with a search warrant, subpoena, or court order), enforce an agreement we have with you / the customer, or to protect our rights, property or safety, or the rights, property or safety of our employees or others;. We may also gather aggregated data about our services and website visitors and disclose the results of such aggregated (but not personally identifiable) information to our partners, service providers, advertisers, and/or other third parties for marketing or promotional purposes.

For more information or if you have any questions, please contact us at privacy@starmind.com

Data Subject rights

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other countries’ privacy laws provide certain rights for data subjects. Data Subject rights under GDPR include the following:

Right of access
You have the right to know what kind of data we process and which data we store about you. You can always request a complete export of the data we have stored. We will provide you with an export in a human readable form.
However, we cannot breach any confidentiality agreements that are in place with the owner of the network. Therefore we need you to initiate this request directly with the owner of the network. The owner will handle your request directly with the Starmind Data Privacy Team.
If you have unresolved concerns, you may have the right to complain to a data protection authority in the country where you live, where you work or where you feel your rights were infringed.

Right to rectification
Sometimes mistakes happen and if one snuck into your data you have of course the right to correct it. You always have the right to correct mistakes in your first and last name, email address, profile image, gender, job title, department, office location, the about-me text and other personal data we might store about your.
Results of the automated processing by our algorithms cannot be corrected.

Right to be forgotten and right to restrict processing
You may delete the data you published on our services. At that point we will restrict the access for all other unprivileged users and they won’t be able to see it anymore.

Nevertheless, the owner of the network might have a legitimate interest to keep this data. Therefore we choose to not delete it permanently from our systems, we allow the owner of the network to recover valuable content before deleting it permanently. The owner of the network can remove any connections between your user and the content or choose to delete it permanently.

The same is true for your user profile. If you choose to leave the network we will deactivate your account but we won’t automatically delete the data in your profile. Based on the settings of the network your name might still be visible to other users next to the content you published. Nonetheless, you always have the option to instruct us or the owner of the network to delete your personal data. We will do that by replacing your first and last name as well as the email address with randomly generated identificators. All other data is securely deleted from our servers. If we delete your data from our servers we will not delete it from all the existing backups. Unfortunately it is technically not feasible to check every daily archive and delete your personal data. We protect your data inside of these archives by encrypting the archive itself and limit the Starmind administrators who have access to the encryption key. Moreover we delete backups after six months.

Security of your information

Starmind has technical, organizational and physical safeguards in place to help protect against unauthorized access to use or disclose user data we maintain.

Under our security practices and policies, access to personally identifiable information is authorized only for those who have a business need for such access, and sensitive records are to be retained only as long as necessary for business or legal needs and destroyed before disposal.

We work hard to protect personal data that we collect and store. If you become aware of any unauthorized attempt to access, use or disclose personal data, please email us immediately. We will work relentlessly to address any problems.

This Privacy Notice is intended to provide you with information about what personal data Starmind collects about you and how it is used. If you wish to confirm that Starmind is processing your personal data, or to have access to the personal data Starmind may have about you, please contact us.

You may also request information about: the purpose of the processing; the categories of personal data concerned; who else outside Starmind might have received the data from Starmind; what the source of the information was (if you didn’t provide it directly to Starmind); and how long it will be stored. You have a right to correct (rectify) the record of your personal data maintained by Starmind if it is inaccurate. You may request that Starmind erase that data or cease processing it, subject to certain exceptions. You may also request that Starmind cease using your data for direct marketing purposes. In many countries, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the appropriate data protection authority if you have concerns about how Starmind processes your personal data. When technically feasible, Starmind will—at your request—provide your personal data to you.

Reasonable access to your personal data will be provided at no cost. If access cannot be provided within a reasonable time frame, Starmind will provide you with a date when the information will be provided. If for some reason access is denied, Starmind will provide an explanation as to why access has been denied.

For questions or complaints concerning the processing of your personal data, you can email us at privacy@starmind.com. Alternatively, if you are located in the European Union, you can also have recourse to the European Data Protection Supervisor or with your nation’s data protection authority.

Data storage and retention

The Starmind retains service data for the duration of the customer’s business relationship with the Starmind and for a period of time thereafter, to analyze the data for Starmind’s own operations, and for historical and archiving purposes associated with Starmind’s services. Starmind retains prospect data until such time as it no longer has business value and is purged from Starmind systems. All personal data that Starmind controls may be deleted upon verified request from Data Subjects or their authorized agents. For more information on where and how long your personal data is stored, and for more information on your rights of erasure and portability, please contact us at: privacy@starmind.com

Children’s data
We do not knowingly attempt to solicit or receive information from children.

Additional Information for California Residents

This Additional Information only applies to our processing of personal information that is subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended (“CCPA”). CCPA provides California residents with the right to know what categories of personal information Starmind has collected about them and whether Starmind disclosed that personal information for a business purpose in the preceding twelve (12) months. To learn about the categories of personal information Starmind has collected about you please see the above sections, “Data you provide to us” and “Data we receive from other sources”.

Additional Data Subject rights
If you are a California resident, you have the following rights:
  • Right to know. To learn about the categories of personal information Starmind has collected about you please see the above sections, “Data you provide to us” and “Data we receive from other sources”.
  • Right to access. You have the right to request a complete export of the data we have stored about you. Please see also the above section “Right to access”.
  • Right to deletion. You can always ask Starmind to delete the personal information we have collected from you. Starmind does not sell your personal information and may share such information with third parties solely for the purpose of providing services.
  • Right to correction. You can ask Starmind at any time to correct any inaccurate personal information that we have collected about you 
  • Right to opt-out. You can opt-out of sharing of your personal information for cross-contextual behavior advertising purposes, as well as from the sale of your personal information for monetary or other valuable consideration. 
  • Right to non-discrimination. All rights described in this Privacy Notice can exercised you free from any kind of discrimination. You don’t have to fear any negative consequences (eg. price increase, disruption of services) merely for exercising your rights.

To exercise your California privacy rights, please submit a request to privacy@starmind.com and provide the required information.

Questions, concerns or complaints

If you have questions, concerns, complaints, or would like to exercise your rights, please contact us at:

Starmind
Muehlebachstrasse 162-164, 
8008 Zurich,
Switzerland
privacy@starmind.com