Speaksee´s Privacy Statement

Speaksee services

Last updated: 18-05-2021

 

 This is the Privacy Statement of Speaksee related to Speaksee services. Our services consist of a speech-to-text transcription microphone kit for physical meetings and desktop transcription software (Speaksee Autocaption) for digital meetings. This Privacy Statement explains how we deal with personal information that we receive when you make use of one of our services.

We commit to your privacy and ensure that any personal information we process will be protected and treated confidentially. We appreciate that you trust us with your information, and we will do everything we can to not damage this trust. In this text we would like to explain what personal information we collect from you and for what exact purposes we use your information.

If you have any question related to your privacy or this Privacy Statement in particular, please contact us at hello@speak-see.com.

 

1. WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND FOR WHAT PURPOSES?

When you make use of (one of) our services, we may collect your information in order to deliver our services and improve these services to provide a better experience to you. We receive your information because you directly provide it to us or because our systems collect this from you. We only collect certain information if you are a Customer of our services (a Customer is the person or company that signs up for our services and has an account with Speaksee) or if a Customer uses our services for a conversation with you, for which the Customer will notify you either verbally or by handing out a microphone to you.

Below you find more details about the information we process, and for what purposes we use it:

1.1 Account information

If you are our Customer, we receive information about you to provide you our transcription services. In particular, when you sign up for our Speaksee services, we will process your contact details such as name, address and country of residence. When you create or use an account for Speaksee, we process your email address and encrypted password (which are not visible to us).

We use your account information to create a Customer account and to provide our transcription services to this account. In addition, we may use your contact details to provide important information about our services, such as changes and updates. We may also use this information to communicate with you, for example when you require support.

We process your contact details and account information on the basis of your consent. This means that when you sign up for a Speaksee account, you have to give your consent to the processing of your information. This is done by reading this Privacy Statement and checking a box to consent to our data processing when you sign up for a Speaksee account.

1.2 Spoken conversations whilst using the service

When you use our services, we process your speech for speech-to-text transcription. Spoken conversations will be captured when you use a microphone of the Speaksee microphone kit, or when you use the microphone of your device when you are using Speaksee Autocaption.

We use your voice in order to provide transcription services to our Customers. In addition, only in case you are a private Speaksee user, we may use your voice data to improve our services in the future. This may mean that your voice is processed and temporarily stored for training algorithms that will improve the quality of the audio that is captured by Speaksee and/or the speech-to-text services, including speaker recognition. All corporate and government customers  are explicitly excluded from any data storage for training algorithms. In case of corporate and government customers all transcription data is only stored for the purposes of showing the transcript to the customer, and deleted from the cloud storage within 30 minutes after the conversation. Voice data is not stored at all.

We process your voice on the basis of legitimate interest to improve the service as well as consent to provide the service. We process voice data on the basis of our legitimate interest to do so, namely our legitimate business interest to provide our services and improve our services for the benefit of our Customers

Our Customers are required to ask users of a Speaksee microphone, or persons who are transcribed to text by Speaksee AutoCaption, for their Consent that their speech is processed and in some cases may be stored temporarily. We ensure that the voice data is deleted as soon as the speech data is not useful for training our algorithm anymore and won’t use this data for any other purposes.

1.3 Technical information and metadata

If you are a Customer, we collect information about your device, network, internet connection, app usage, when you make use of our Speaksee services. Information that may be processed include: IP address, operating system details, usage time duration, (version number and hardware ID) and network metrics (routes and latency).

We use this technical information to correctly provide our speech-to-text transcription services and to optimize your experience. We may also use this information to provide helpful technical support when you encounter issues with our services.

We process technical information on the basis of our legitimate interest to do so, namely our legitimate business interest to provide our services and improve our services for the benefit of our Customers and to provide technical support to our Customers.

         2.HOW LONG WE PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION

We will retain your personal information no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which they are processed, unless we need to comply with legal obligations, in which case we might store your information for a longer period of time. 

Speech and speech-to-text transcripts are processed and stored for the duration of Speaksee sessions (which means until the Speaksee microphone kit is switched off or until the Autocaption software is closed). When requested by our Customer, transcripts may be stored for their own benefit. In that case, we store speech transcripts for a longer duration indicated by the Customer.

In some cases we may also store speech audio as well as transcripts for the purposes of improving our machine learning algorithms in order to improve our Services to our Customers. When you indicate to us in writing that you or your employer does not approve this, we will refrain from doing this. When we do store speech audio or transcripts for the purposes of improving our Services to our Customers, we will not retain the data after the algorithms have been trained and in any case this data will be deleted after 18 months.

Your account information and technical information and metadata regarding your device or the Speaksee conversation is retained for a maximum period of one year after the conversation took place.                   

     3.WITH WHOM WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

We will only share your personal data with third parties if this is necessary for the provision of our services and the improvement of these services. We will explicitly never sell your personal data to third parties. Currently, we use several third-party processors for the purpose of providing our speech-to-text services as well as providing storage and communication of information

Furthermore, we may share your personal data with third parties as an exception if we have a legal obligation to do so. Currently, no such obligations are applicable to our services and thus we do not share any information with third parties based on this exception.

 

    4.INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

Speaksee and Speaksee servers are located in the European Union which means that your information will in principle be processed within the European Economic Area (European Union including Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein). When you are outside of the European Economic Area, the third parties we work with may in certain cases transfer your information to countries outside the European Union, generally to servers close to where you are located to ensure minimal latency.

• When you are outside of the European Economic Area, our third-party processors may transfer your information to the United States based on the Privacy Shield agreement, so that the privacy of your information is respected. You can find more information about the Privacy Shield
• Our third-party processors may process your information in other countries outside the European Economic Area based on where you are located. In these cases, standard contractual clauses of our third-party processors apply, which provide an adequate protection of your personal information.   

     
        5.YOUR RIGHTS

 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to our processing of your information. Under the GDPR, when we process your information, you have certain rights as a Data Subject, namely the right to:

• Access the personal information that is held about you;
• Rectify any personal information that is held about you when it is inaccurate or incomplete;
• Erasure or deletion of any personal information that is held about you;
• Object to the processing of your personal information;
• Restrict the processing of your personal information to certain situations;
• Data portability of your personal information. This means that you have the right to receive your personal information in a structured, accepted and machine-readable format. You can also request to transfer your personal information to another Controller if the occasion arises.
• Withdraw consent that you have previously given.

When Speaksee is the data Controller of your personal information, you can exercise any of these rights directly against us. In some cases, and for some purposes however, we process your personal information solely based on the instructions of our Customers who may be a business or educational institution, which means that we act as a data processor. In these situations, you can exercise your rights against our Customers. We can provide you with information about how to exercise your rights if this situation arises.

For more information on how to exercise your rights as a Data Subject, or to actually exercise one of your rights against us, please email us at hello@speak-see.com.

If you, as a Data Subject, have a complaint about the way we process your information, you have the right to file a complaint with the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch Data Protection Authority). A complaint can be filed here.

     6. SECURITY MEASURES

We take reasonable administrative, physical and electronic security measures that are designed to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure or any other form of unlawful processing of personal data. In particular, we make sure that all information on our hardware and software is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access. In addition, our Speaksee systems and databases are protected by means of employee access control. We have signed confidentiality agreements with all our employees to protect the confidentiality and integrity of your information.  

 

      7.CHANGES TO THIS STATEMENT

Speaksee has the right to update this Privacy Statement. Every change to this Privacy Statement will be announced on this page. Speaksee advices to regularly check this page if there are any updates to the Privacy Statement.

      8.CONTACT DETAILS & COMPLAINTS

Our goal is to respect your privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Statement, please contact us by email at hello@speak-see.com or contacts us at:

Speaksee B.V.

Westblaak 7G

3012 KC ROTTERDAM 

The Netherlands