Privacy Policy

Everyone at Photofy respects your privacy and personal data and we’ve created a clear and concise policy that helps you to understand how we use and protect your data and privacy. Any time you have a question or concern,​ please reach out to us at privacy@photofy.com and we will be happy to help.

This Policy will explain and disclose in plain language the following ways Photofy collects and uses your personal data:

1. Who is collecting your personal data?
2. What personal data is being collected?
3. What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?
4. Will your data be shared with third parties?
5. How will the information be used?
6. How long will the data be stored?
7. What rights do you have regarding your data?
8. How can you raise a complaint?
9. How to have your data deleted

Photofy’s legal name is Photofy, Inc. and we are located at 1053 E. Whitaker Mill Road, Suite 107, Raleigh, NC 27604, United States. Photofy, Inc. is the data controller responsible for this app and website and any handling of personal data carried out by or on behalf of Photofy. We will update this policy occasionally and will always update the effective date when we do.

Introduction

This Privacy Policy describes the policies and procedures of Photofy Inc. (“we“, “our” or “us“) on the collection, use and disclosure of your information on www.photofy.com (the “Site“), any mobile Applications provided by Photofy (the “Applications“), and the photo sharing and enhancement services, features, content or applications we offer (together with the Site and the Applications, the “Services“). We receive information about you from various sources, including: (i) if you register for the Site and the Services or download the Applications, through your user account on the Services (your “Account“); (ii) your use of the Services generally; and (iii) from third party websites and services. When you use the Services, you are consenting to the collection, transfer, manipulation, storage, disclosure and other uses of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

We may occasionally change parts of this Privacy Policy. We won’t retroactively make changes to the ways we share your personal information without your consent. We’ll also provide advance notice of any material changes using the Photofy Service prior to any change. Your continued use of the Photofy Service following notice of a change to this Privacy Policy means you accept them.

This Privacy Policy is available any time in the footer of our home page, via the menu button icon on our app, or as otherwise indicated depending on the Service you are using. Please print or retain a digital copy of this Privacy Policy for future reference.


What Does This Privacy Policy Cover?

This Privacy Policy covers the treatment of personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) gathered when you are using or accessing the Services. This Privacy Policy also covers our treatment of any Personal Information that our business partners share with us or that we share with our business partners.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that we do not own or control, including but not limited to any third party websites, services and applications (“Third Party Services“) that you elect to access through the Service or to individuals that we do not manage or employ. While we attempt to facilitate access only to those Third Party Services that share our respect for your privacy, we cannot take responsibility for the content or privacy policies of those Third Party Services. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policies of any Third Party Services you access.

What Personal Information Do We Collect?

  • Name
  • Email Address
  • Phone Number
  • IP Address
  • User Generated Content
  • Device Identifiers
  • Password
  • Geolocation Data

The information we gather enables us to personalize, improve and continue to operate the Services. In connection with certain aspects of the Services, we may request, collect and/or display some of your Personal Information. We collect the following types of information from our users.

Account Information:

When you create an Account, you will provide information that could be Personal Information, such as your username, password, date of birth, and email address. You acknowledge that this information may be personal to you, and by creating an account on the Services and providing Personal Information to us, you allow others, including us, to identify you and therefore may not be anonymous. We may use your contact information to send you information about our Services, but only rarely when we feel such information is important. You may unsubscribe from these messages through your Account settings, although we, regardless, reserve the right to contact you when we believe it is necessary, such as for account recovery purposes.

User Content:

Some features of the Services allow you to provide content to the Services, such as photos, designs, and art. All content submitted by you to the Services may be retained by us indefinitely, even after you terminate your account. We may continue to disclose such content to third parties in a manner that does not reveal Personal Information, as described in this Privacy Policy.

Financial Information:

We do not currently collect financial information, such as your payment method (valid credit card number, type, expiration date or other financial information); that information is collected and stored by our third-party payment processing company (the “Payment Processor“), and use and storage of that information is governed by the Payment Processor’s applicable terms of service and privacy policy.

IP Address Information and Other Information Collected Automatically:

  • We automatically receive and record information from your web browser when you interact with the Services, including your IP address and cookie information. This information is used for fighting spam/malware and also to facilitate the collection of data concerning your interaction with the Services (e.g., what links you have clicked on).
  • Generally, the Services automatically collect usage information, such as the number and frequency of visitors to the Site. We may use this data in aggregate form, that is, as a statistical measure, but not in a manner that would identify you personally. This type of aggregate data enables us and third parties authorized by us to figure out how often individuals use parts of the Services so that we can analyze and improve them.

Email Communications:

We may receive confirmation when you open an email from us. We use this confirmation to improve our customer service.

Information Collected Using Cookies:

  • Cookies are pieces of text that may be provided to your computer through your web browser when you access a website. Your browser stores cookies in a manner associated with each website you visit. We use cookies to enable our servers to recognize your web browser and tell us how and when you visit the Site and otherwise use the Services through the Internet.
  • Our cookies do not, by themselves, contain Personal Information, and we do not combine the general information collected through cookies with other Personal Information to tell us who you are. As noted, however, we do use cookies to identify that your web browser has accessed aspects of the Services and may associate that information with your Account if you have one.
  • Most browsers have an option for turning off the cookie feature, which will prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, as well as (depending on the sophistication of your browser software) allowing you to decide on acceptance of each new cookie in a variety of ways. We strongly recommend that you leave cookies active because they enable you to take advantage of the most attractive features of the Services.
  • This Privacy Policy covers our use of cookies only and does not cover the use of cookies by third parties. We do not control when or how third parties place cookies on your computer. For example, third party websites to which a link points may set cookies on your computer.


Information Related to Advertising:

Note: Photofy does not currently serve advertisements via our platform other than for our services. No third party ads are allowed in our system. Additionally, we do not share or sell any user information with third-parties. We have previously served ads and the following information pertaining to advertising pertains to that previous state.

To support and enhance the Services, we may serve advertisements and also allow third parties advertisements, through the Services. These advertisements are sometimes targeted and served to particular users and may come from third party companies called “ad networks.” Ad networks include third-party ad servers, ad agencies, ad technology vendors and research firms.

Advertisements served through the Services may be targeted to users who fit a certain general profile category may be based on anonymized information inferred from information provided to us by a user, including Personal Information (e.g., gender or age), may be based on the Services usage patterns of particular users, or may be based on your activity on Third Party Services. Except as described in this privacy policy, we do not provide Personal Information to any ad networks for use outside of the Services.

We also collect certain information from your mobile device, including but not limited to the following:

Device and Usage Information that may include (i) information specific to your mobile device (e.g., make, model, operating system, device identifier and similar information); (ii) information about your use of features, functions, or notifications on the device; and (iii) signal strength relating to WiFi or Bluetooth functionality, temperature, battery level, and similar technical data.

Aggregate Information:

We collect statistical information about how both unregistered and registered users, collectively, use the Services (“Aggregate Information“). Some of this information is derived from Personal Information. This statistical information is not Personal Information and cannot be tied back to you, your Account or your web browser.

Marketing and Communications Data:

We collect and record your preferences in receiving direct marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

California Customers Notice of Privacy Rights

Consumer Privacy. The California Consumer Privacy Act, Cal. Civ. Code §1798.100 et. seq. (“CCPA”), grants residents of California certain rights with respect to their Personal Information and requires us to provide such individuals with certain information, described in this Section.

California residents may exercise the following rights up to twice in a 12-month period by contacting our Privacy Policy Coordinator by email at privacy@photofy.com or via phone at +1.919.504.6484.  We will need to collect information from you so that we can verify your identity. Once verified, we will respond within 45 days of receiving a personal information request.

  • Know the ways in which we acquire, use, share, disclose and otherwise process your Personal Information;
  • Know the specific pieces of your Personal Information that we hold;
  • Request the deletion of your Personal Information, subject to several exceptions; and
  • Not to be denied goods or services for exercising these rights

California residents also have the right to opt-out of the sale of their Personal Information and other information is shared with Third-Party Businesses to further their own commercial purposes such as generating profiles about individuals. California residents can exercise this right here: Do Not Sell My Personal Information. If we have actual knowledge that a California resident is younger than 16, we will request opt-in consent before selling their Personal Information. Note that we can still share Personal Information with third parties if those transfers aren’t “sales,” such as with our Service Providers or Enterprise Partners.

Depending on the circumstances and which Service you use, we have disclosed the following categories of your Personal Information for a “business purpose” (as defined in the CCPA) in the preceding twelve (12) months:

  • Identifiers (such as contact information, government IDs, cookies, etc.)
  • Protected characteristics classification information (like race, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
  • Commercial information
  • Geolocation data
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information
  • Financial, medical, or health insurance information
  • Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information
  • Professional information
  • Education information
  • Inferences drawn from any of the above information categories.

B. Shine the Light. California’s “Shine the Light” law, Civil Code Section 1798.83, gives California customers the right to prevent our disclosure of their Personal Information to third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes, and requires certain businesses to respond to requests from California customers asking about the business’ practices related to disclosing Personal Information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Alternately, such businesses may have in place a policy not to disclose Personal Information of customers to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes if the customer has exercised an option to opt-out of such information-sharing. We have such a policy in place. As discussed above in Section X(A)(2), California residents can exercise their right to opt-out here: Do Not Sell My Personal Information.

C. Online Erasure. California’s “Online Erasure” law, Business and Professions Code Sections 22580-22582, requires operators of certain websites and online services to allow registered users who are under the age of 18 and residents of California to request removal of Content they post. If you fit that description and posted Content on a section of our Service that is directed to minors, you may request removal of the Content by contacting our Privacy Policy Coordinator by email at privacy@photofy.com or as described at the end of this document. In response to your request, we may elect to make the Content invisible to other users and the public (rather than deleting it entirely), in which case the Content may remain on servers we control and/or may be publicly available elsewhere if a third party copied and reposted the Content.

How, and With Whom, Is My Information Shared?

The Services are designed to help you share information with others. As a result, some of the information generated through the Services is shared publicly or with third parties.

Public Information about Your Activity on the Services:

Some of your activity on and through the Services is public by default. This may include, but is not limited to, content you have posted publicly on the Site, through any Applications, or otherwise through the Services.

Registered users may have some of this information associated with their Accounts. Unregistered users will not have this association, but information concerning their use of the Services (such as what pages they have visited) may be tracked anonymously through the use of cookies and stored by us.

Please also remember that if you choose to provide Personal Information using certain public features of the Services, then that information is governed by the privacy settings of those particular features and may be publicly available. Individuals reading such information may use or disclose it to other individuals or entities without our control and without your knowledge, and search engines may index that information. We therefore urge you to think carefully about including any specific information you may deem private in content that you create or information that you submit through the Services.

IP Address Information:

While we collect and store IP address information, that information is not made public. We do at times, however, share this information with our partners, service providers and other persons with whom we conduct business, and as otherwise specified in this Privacy Policy.

Information You Elect to Share:

You may access other Third Party Services through the Services, for example by clicking on links to those Third Party Services from within the Site or Applications. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and/or practices of these Third-Party Services, and you are responsible for reading and understanding those Third Party Services’ privacy policies. This Privacy Policy only governs information collected on the Services.

Aggregate Information:

We share Aggregate Information with our partners, service providers and other persons with whom we conduct business. We share this type of statistical data so that our partners can understand how and how often people use our Services and their services or websites, which facilitates improving both their services and how our Services interface with them. In addition, these third parties may share with us non-private, aggregated or otherwise non personal Information about you that they have independently developed or acquired.

Email Communications with Us:

As part of the Services, you may occasionally receive email and other communications from us, such as communications relating to your Account. Communications relating to your Account will only be sent for purposes important to the Services, such as password recovery.

User Profile Information:

User profile information including your username and other information you enter may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within the Services. We will not directly reveal user email addresses to other users.

Financial Information:

As stated above, we do not currently collect financial information, as that information is collected and stored by our Payment Processor. However, we may from time to time request and receive some of your financial information from our Payment Processor for the purposes of completing transactions you have initiated through the Services, enrolling you in discount, rebate, and other programs in which you elect to participate, protecting against or identify possible fraudulent transactions, and otherwise as needed to manage our business.

Information Shared with Our Agents:

We employ and contract with people and other entities that perform certain tasks on our behalf and who are under our control (our “Agents“). We may need to share Personal Information with our Agents in order to provide products or services to you. Unless we tell you differently, our Agents do not have any right to use Personal Information or other information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. You hereby consent to our sharing of Personal Information with our Agents.

Information Disclosed Pursuant to Business Transfers:

In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, user information is typically one of the transferred business assets. Moreover, if we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, or if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of us or our assets may continue to use your Personal Information as set forth in this policy.

Information Disclosed for Our Protection and the Protection of Others:

We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as it reasonably believes is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce these Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations hereof, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, (iv) respond to user support requests, or (v) protect our rights, property or safety, our users and the public. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and spam/malware prevention.

Ways We Disclose and Share the Information We Collect:

We share the information we collect with third-party business partners who commit to comply with applicable laws concerning their usage of the information. Our third-party business partners may use the information either for themselves or on behalf of their own business partners to:

  • Operate and improve their services;
  • Provide you with advertisements and information within the Services or outside the Services for products and services or send you other notifications based on variables such as your location, and assess your level of engagement with them; and
  • Carry out other purposes that are disclosed to you and to which you consent.


Information We Share With Your Consent:

Except as set forth above, you will be notified when your Personal Information may be shared with third parties, and will be able to prevent the sharing of this information.

Is Information About Me Secure?

Your Account information will be protected by a password for your privacy and security. You need to prevent unauthorized access to your Account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your Account.

We seek to protect Account information to ensure that it is kept private; however, we cannot guarantee the security of any Account information. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time. In the unlikely event of a breach of our security, we will notify you via our Services and/or email within 72 hours of our knowledge of such an event.

We otherwise store all of our information, including your IP address information, using industry-standard techniques. We do not guarantee or warrant that such techniques will prevent unauthorized access to information about you that we store, Personal Information or otherwise.

What Information of Mine Can I Access?

If you are a registered user, you can access information associated with your Account by logging into the Services. Registered and unregistered users can access and delete cookies through their web browser settings.

California Privacy Rights: Under California Civil Code sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of personal customer information which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to the following address: 1053 E. Whitaker Mill Road, Suite 107, Raleigh, NC 27604.

How Can I Delete My Account?

Should you ever decide to delete your Account, you may do so by emailing support@photofy.com. If you terminate your Account, any association between your Account and information we store will no longer be accessible through your Account. However, given the nature of sharing on the Services, any public activity on your Account and shared prior to deletion will remain stored on our servers and will remain accessible to the public.

What Choices Do I Have Regarding My Information?

  • Most of the features of the Services require you to register and thus require you to provide certain information with respect to those features. Should you prefer to not provide any information, you do not have to register for these Services.
  • You can always opt not to disclose certain information to us, even though it may be needed to take advantage of some of our features.
  • You can delete your Account. Please note that we will need to verify that you have the authority to delete the Account, and activity generated prior to deletion will remain stored by us and may be publicly accessible unless your request that we delete it. Please remember that any content shared outside our app will remain.

What Happens When There Are Changes to this Privacy Policy?

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time however, we will never do so retroactively and without prior notification. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes in the way we collect or use information, we will notify you by posting an announcement on the Services or sending you an email. A user is bound by any changes to the Privacy Policy when he or she uses the Services after such changes have been first posted. Historical versions of our Privacy Policy can be requested by sending us a written request.

How Long Will Photofy Keep My Data? – Data Retention

Photofy will only keep your data only as long as necessary to provide the services you have requested from us or to meet legal requirements. You can ask us to delete your data in some circumstances; see Your legal rights below for further information.

In some cases your personal data may be anonymized for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your Legal Rights

If the General Data Protection Regulation applies to you because you are in the European Union, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data:

  • The right of access – You have the ability to make a ‘data subject access request’ for information we have about you.
  • The right to be informed – Our responsibility to inform you how we use your personal data.
  • The right to get copies of your data – You can get a copy of any data that we have about you.
  • The right to get your data corrected. – If we have incomplete or incorrect data about you, let us know and we will fix it.
  • The right to be deleted. – You can ask us to delete the personal data we have about you.
  • The right to limit data use – You can limit the way we use your data.
  • The right to data portability – You can ask us for a copy of your personal data in a common format.
  • The right to object – You can object to us processing your personal data.
  • Rights relating to decisions being made about you without human involvement – You can control when decisions are made about you without people being involved, called ‘automated processing’.

What If I Have Questions or Concerns or Wish to Exercise My Rights?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding privacy using the Services, please send us a detailed message to support@photofy.com. We will make every effort to resolve your concerns. We have a data privacy manager that can be contacted directly at privacy@photofy.com. Please refer and specific data privacy questions or concerns to that address for fastest response and resolution. We try to respond to all requests within 7 days although sometimes it may take longer for very complex questions. We will always respond and let you know the status.

Effective Date: 8/1/2021, updated 20 August 2021