AskNicely Privacy Policy

Effective September 1, 2023, Ask Nicely Holdings, Inc, and our affiliates, Ask Nicely LLC, Ask Nicely, and Ask Nicely B.V., (collectively “AskNicely”, “we”, “us” and “our”) have updated our Privacy Policy. AskNicely is committed to safeguarding personal data and operating its business with high standards of practice in data privacy and security. Our Privacy Policy explains how the AskNicely software platform works, details what data is collected, how we use it, and how it is stored. 

Who We Are
AskNicely operates a proprietary Customer Experience Platform that provides our customers the ability to measure every customer experience, recognize and coach their frontline teams, maintain their service standard across multiple locations, and visualize the impact of customer experience on key business metrics. Thousands of businesses around the globe use AskNicely to improve their customer experience and drive customer retention, revenue expansion and referrals. AskNicely is recognized among the world's best customer experience management providers.

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, in the United States, AskNicely operates globally through its affiliates. We operate the AskNicely platform offered as both a web-based service and mobile app, the website located at https://www.asknicely.com/, and associated services (collectively referred to as “Services”). 

‍Please send inquiries about this Privacy Policy or requests related to your personal data to privacy@asknicely.com. We respect your privacy and take safeguarding your data seriously. Please read this Privacy Policy to understand what Personal Data (defined below) we collect from you, how we use it, and your choices related to our use of your Personal Data. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Services. 

What is Personal Data?
‍"Personal Data" means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that natural person. Under specific laws, Personal Data may include any information relating to a household.

How AskNicely Works
‍AskNicely is a Service Provider, performing a service and processing Personal Data on behalf of its business clients. Our clients provide us with information relating to their customers for the purpose of communicating directly with the customers on their behalf through our proprietary platform and methodology to obtain direct feedback, collate and analyze the data, and provide the client with data results and recommendations based upon our proprietary software tool. AskNicely is under contract with each of its clients and only acts on the instructions of its clients. All Personal Data collected and analyzed for the client is strictly limited to a client instance and is never shared or sold to a third party for another purpose outside of the client’s instructions. Any software performance and platform-wide analytics ancillary to our core processing for clients is only performed on aggregate, de-identified data, without access to personal data. 

AskNicely hosts its software platform on Amazon Web Services and offers its clients the option on where to geographically store its customer data. Use of third-party service providers is strictly limited and transparent to our clients to ensure they are in the driver’s seat. From a legal perspective, AskNicely is not the data controller of the customer data of our clients; we are only the data processor. Our clients are solely responsible for ensuring that their provision of customer data and authorization to obtain additional customer information and feedback directly complies with all applicable data protection laws. 

If you wish to exercise any privacy rights in respect of your personal data and are a customer of one of our clients, you may contact us at privacy@asknicely.com and we will happily pass on the request to our client. Alternatively, you may simply contact that business directly with your request.

Personal Data We Process
We process Personal Data from customers of our clients, client representatives, business representatives, and other users. Personal Data can be actively submitted or automatically collected through your use of our Services or from third-party sources. We may process your Personal Data, including collection, recording, organization, structuring, analysis, storage, alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure, dissemination, or erasure. We do not sell your Personal Data.

Personal Data provided by our clients. We process Personal Data on behalf of our clients. When we establish a client relationship, our software is customized for how we will interact with the customers of our clients. We then receive customer contact information from our client for the purpose of obtaining customer feedback. The contact information is Personal Data and may include customers’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and relevant business identifiers such as account numbers. Clients provide Customer Information to AskNicely directly or by connecting us with their customer resource management or customer email database(s) via an app or API. 
‍Personal Data that you actively submit to us. When we reach out directly to you and seek your feedback through a survey or other feedback platform, you actively submit Personal Data to us. You also actively submit Personal Data to us when you interact directly with us through our website or mobile applications, social media, complete online forms, make inquiries, or seek customer support, among other things. We use the information you provide us to obtain customer sentiment ratings and other customer feedback for our client.  Any data use for AskNicely’s own analysis and research purposes relevant to the Services is only performed on de-identified and aggregate data.
‍Personal Data we automatically collect through your use of the Services. We receive some Personal Data automatically when you use our Services. This includes information about the device, browser, and operating system you use when accessing our Services, your IP address, the website that referred you, which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request you make.
‍Personal Data of minors. The Services are not intended for users younger than 16. We do not actively collect or otherwise process Personal Data from users under the age of 16. If we become aware that an individual under the age of 16 has submitted Personal Data without verifiable parental consent, we will remove his or her information from our files.
‍Special Categories of information. We do not actively collect or otherwise process special categories of Personal Data as identified in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) including data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade-union membership, or genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. We do not actively collect or otherwise process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences.
‍Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies. We (and the third-party service providers working on our behalf) use various technologies to collect Personal Data. This may include saving cookies to your device. For information on what cookies are, which ones we use, why we use them, and how you can manage their use, please see our Cookie Policy. https://www.asknicely.com/cookies

How We Use Your Personal Data
‍We use your Personal Data to fulfill our contractual obligations in our service contracts with our clients, to review and enforce adherence to our Terms of Use, to analyze the use of the Services in order to understand how we can improve our content and service offerings and products, and for administrative and other business purposes. We process Personal Data for our business purposes to obtain customer sentiment ratings and other customer feedback for our clients. The legal basis for our processing of your Personal Data is either the necessity to perform contractual and other obligations, our legitimate business interest as a provider of security services, or regulatory requirements. In addition, our clients may, through AskNicely, follow up or reply to a customer sentiment rating or other customer feedback that you provide. The client may also wish to publish some or all of the customer feedback that you provide (for example, in the form of a customer testimonial), but the client will contact you through AskNicely prior to doing so and obtain your consent. The legal basis for processing in this context will be your explicit consent.

Sharing of Personal Data
‍We do not sell Personal Data. 
We may share your Personal Data in the following circumstances: 

Clients. We share information we collect about you with our clients with a key focus on providing relevant feedback and recommendations to clients based upon data analysis. Your contribution in providing feedback and sharing your experiences and sentiments is highly valuable to our clients and plays a vital role in their ability to identify and improve customer interactions and experience and achieve other business performance goals. 
Third-party Service Providers. We may share information we collect about you with third-party service providers to perform tasks either on our behalf or on behalf of our clients in supporting the Services. The types of service providers, or sub-processors, to whom we entrust Personal Data include: (I) providers of hosting services; (ii) providers of analytic data services; (iii) system support; (iv) other third-party software providers with service contracts limiting Personal Data processing to specific services.
Social Media. We share information with social media platforms when you click on the social media links on our website or interact with us through those social media platforms. We encourage you to read the privacy policies applicable to these other websites and platforms prior to selecting links or providing your data. 
Regulatory Bodies, Agencies, and Law Enforcement. We may access and disclose your Personal Data to regulatory bodies if we have a good-faith belief that doing so is required under applicable law or regulation. This may include submitting Personal Data required by tax authorities. We may disclose your Personal Data in response to lawful requests by public authorities or law enforcement, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. If we are going to release your Personal Data in this instance, our policy is to provide you with notice unless we are prohibited from doing so by law or court order.
Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing due diligence, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of company assets, or transition of service to another provider, then your Personal Data may be transferred as part of such a transaction as permitted by law and/or contract. Should such an event occur, AskNicely will endeavor to direct the transferee to use Personal Data in a manner that is consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such Personal Information was collected.
Other Disclosures. We may also disclose your Personal Data to exercise or defend legal rights; to take precautions against liability; to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Services, of any individuals, or of the general public; to maintain and protect the security and integrity of our services or infrastructure; to protect ourselves and our services from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; or to investigate and defend ourselves against third-party claims or allegations. Disclosures may be made to courts of law, attorneys and law enforcement, or other relevant third parties in order to meet these purposes.

If we transfer Personal Data of individuals located in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), United Kingdom ("UK"), or Switzerland that we have received under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework to a third party, AskNicely remains liable for such Personal Data and the actions of such third party.

Retention of Personal Data AskNicely retains Personal Data for a reasonable time period to fulfill the processing purposes mentioned above and to comply with client instructions. Personal Data is then archived for time periods required or necessitated by law or legal considerations. When archival is no longer required, Personal Data is deleted from our records. Please note, where applicable, Personal Data is also de-identified.

We retain your account information, including Personal Data in your profile, while our Client’s account is active. After termination or deactivation of our Client’s account, we delete your account as part of our standard delete function. 

Please note we may retain information within our internal systems for backup, archival, audit, or other purposes. We retain Personal Data that we are required to retain to meet our regulatory obligations including tax records and transaction history. We regularly review our retention policy to ensure compliance with our obligations under data protection laws and other regulatory requirements. We regularly audit our databases and archived information to ensure that Personal Data is only stored and archived in alignment with our retention policies.

Protection of Personal Data
‍AskNicely uses technical and organizational measures to protect the Personal Data that we store, transmit, or otherwise process, against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure, or access. We regularly consider appropriate new security technology and methods as we maintain and develop our software and systems.

Please be aware that despite our best efforts to ensure the security of your data, we cannot guarantee that your information will be 100% secure. The AskNicely platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services, which is renowned for its high security. We encourage you to read the AskNicely Security Policy which can be accessed at https://www.asknicely.com/security.

International Data Transfer
‍If you are a customer of one of our clients, your Personal Data may be transferred to, and maintained on, computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction, depending upon the contractual agreement entered with our client.  If you are a client representative or business representative or other user on our website, we will transfer your Personal Data to the United States and process it there as part of our business operations. Where we transfer your Personal Data, the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction, however, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Data and your privacy rights continue to be protected.

In the case of transfers of data out of the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, we have committed to comply with the Data Privacy Framework and implement Standard Contractual Clauses as set forth by the European Commission and International Data Transfer Agreements as set forth by the Information Commissioner.

Privacy Rights
‍Under certain data protection laws and AskNicely’s compliance commitments, individuals may have the right to access Personal Data and to correct, amend, restrict, or delete that information where it is inaccurate, or has been processed in violation of applicable law or compliance requirements, except where the burden or expense of providing access is disproportionate to the risks to the individual's privacy in the case in question, or where the rights of persons other than the individual will be violated.

The AskNicely platform has certain features to enable individuals to exercise rights directly through the platform. For example, if you are a customer of one of our clients and receive an email survey or SMS text survey, you may opt-out at any time by selecting the “Unsubscribe” link at the end of the email or text communication. Similarly, if you are a client representative or business representative that receive marketing communication, we provide you the ability to unsubscribe directly from the email or text message. 

Please note where we rely upon your explicit consent to process your Personal Data (including as a legal basis for processing under the GDPR), you may withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before withdrawal.

Client representatives that are account holders in our platform have access to update profile information through their account settings, including to correct, amend, restrict, or delete certain data fields with Personal Data. Our clients are the data controllers and determine how we process the Personal Data of customers, including whether Personal Data processed on the AskNicely platform is retained within a geographical region.

Individuals in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland have certain rights that may be subject to limitations and/or restrictions. These rights include the right to: (i) request access to and rectification or erasure of their Personal Data; (ii) obtain restriction of processing or to object to processing of their Personal Data; and (iii) ask for a copy of their Personal Data to be provided to them, or a third party, in a digital format. If you wish to exercise one of the above-mentioned rights, please send us your request to the contact details set out below. Individuals also have the right to lodge a complaint about the processing of their Personal Data with their local data protection authority.

We respect the privacy of all individuals and invite you to submit your requests, irrespective of where you reside. Our contact details are provided at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Our Commitment to the Data Privacy Framework
AskNicely complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework program (“EU-U.S. DPF”), the the UK extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework program (“Swiss-U.S. DPF”) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. AskNicely has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, and Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, as applicable to the individual, with regard to the collection, use, and retention of Personal Data transferred from the EEA, UK (and Gibralter), and Switzerland, to the United States in reliance on the respective Data Privacy Framework Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, and/or Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall apply. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/.
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As part of its participation in the Data Privacy Framework, AskNicely is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission. Organizations participating in the Frameworks must respond within 45 days of receiving a complaint. 

In certain situations, we may be required to disclose Personal Data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, AskNicely commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your Personal Data transferred to the United States pursuant to EU-U.S. DPF Principles.
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EU, UK, and Swiss individuals with DPF inquiries or complaints should first contact AskNicely. (See Contact Information below for details.) If you have not received a timely or satisfactory response to your question or complaint, please contact one of the independent recourse mechanisms listed below:

HR Data:
EU Data Protection Authorities (“DPAs”)
‍http://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm. 
UK Information Commissioner’s Officehttps://ico.org.uk
Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (“FDPIC”)
‍https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/the-fdpic/task.html 

Please note the independent dispute resolution bodies are designated to address complaints and provide appropriate recourse free of charge to the individual.
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Under certain circumstances, individuals located in the EEA and Switzerland may invoke binding arbitration to resolve a Data Privacy Framework related dispute. In order to invoke arbitration, you must take the following steps prior to initiating an arbitration claim: (1) raise your complaint directly with AskNicely and provide us the opportunity to resolve the issue; (2) make use of the independent recourse mechanism listed above; and (3) raise the issue through your relevant Data Protection Authority to the U.S. Department of Commerce and afford the U.S. Department of Commerce an opportunity to use best efforts to resolve the issue at no cost to you. For more information on arbitration procedures, see the Data Privacy Framework site reference at: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/G-Arbitration-Procedures-dpf?tabset-35584=2 .

Effective Date and Amendments
‍We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time, with the current version indicated by the effective date at the top of this document. The current version of the Privacy Policy will govern our use of your Personal Data and will always be published at https://www.asknicely.com/privacy. If we make changes that we believe will substantially alter the rights of individuals, it is our practice to provide notice to our clients, who use our Services and post a notice on our website. In certain cases, we will notify individuals directly via the email address we have on file, prior to the change becoming effective, or as otherwise required by law, and may also seek consent for further use of Personal Data where this is required.
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In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, AskNicely commits to cooperate and comply respectively with the advice of the panel established by the EU data protection authorities (DPAs) and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) with regard to unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF.

Contact Information
‍If you would like to contact us with questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, our privacy practices, or would like to exercise your privacy rights, you may contact us via any of the following methods:

Email: privacy@asknicely.com
‍Phone (USA): +1 (503) 755-1090

Mailing Address:
Attn: Privacy Team
Ask Nicely Holdings Inc.
2175 NW Raleigh St,
Portland, Oregon 97210
United States of America

‍Our EU representative:
Attn: Privacy Dept.
Ask Nicely B.V.
Weesperstraat 61-105
Office #415
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1018VN, Netherlands