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New proposed terms of service for CitizenMe

New proposed terms of service for CitizenMe 620 342 Greer Hahn

Not content to just talk the talk, we’ve been busy putting together a brand new version of our Terms of Service.

What’s New?

Our aim is to make our Terms of Service as user-friendly as possible for all our digital citizens. To begin with, we’ve combined our Privacy Policy and Terms into a single document.

You’ll also notice we have given our Terms of Service a unique layout. We show you upfront what we’re agreeing to, and what you’re agreeing to, so you can decide if it’s a fair deal.  You’ll see a brief summary of the terms and more detailed information below them.  In some cases we’ve also included a ‘coming soon’ section to give you advance notice of what’s ahead.

Finally, we’ve made use of some of the same headings as we show you in our app, in the Privacy section. ‘My Data & Content’, ‘My Footprint’ and ‘My Deletion’ are all there to help you understand what happens with your data when you use the CitizenMe service, and what happens if you want to stop using it at any point.

What Now?

We hope you’ll find them easy to follow and understand. The new terms are being posted here on our blog for a month (28 days) before we implement them.  Please take the opportunity to post your comments and any questions you have about them. All comments and suggestions will be reviewed by our team and taken into consideration prior to the new terms becoming effective at the end of August. Thanks for getting involved! The CitizenMe Team

Note: We’re experiencing a temporary problem with our comments section – in the meantime please send your comments to info@citizenme.com

Terms of Service & Privacy

Please read this privacy policy and terms of service carefully before usingcitizenme. This is our mutual agreement. By offering you the citizenmeservice, and you using it as a ‘citizen’, we (you and citizenme) all agree to be bound by these pledges to each other (our Terms of Service).

More detail:

  • A Citizen means an individual user of our services.
  • Citizenme means citizenme Ltd, 1st Floor Devonshire House, 1 Devonshire Street, London W1W 5DS.
  • Where we state that a party (we or you) ‘shall’ do something, this is a legally binding obligation and if we or you don’t do it, this may result in termination of this agreement and our services. Where we state that a party ‘may’ do something, there is some discretion as to whether it is done or not.

Our agreement:

My Involvement

citizenme will:

  • Do our best to make these Terms of Service easy to understand and actively seek citizen (your) feedback to help improve clarity.
  • Ask citizens for feedback before changing any of these Terms and Conditions.
  • Notify citizens at least 1 month (28 days) in advance of any planned changes.
More detail:

  • These Terms of Service have been drafted in accordance with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office ‘privacy in mobile apps’ best practice guidance. We have layered the Terms of Service so that they are concise and clear but enable Citizens to seek further information where required.
  • You will be alerted to any proposed changes to our Terms of Service through a post on the citizenme.com blog and via posts on twitter, Facebook and the citizenme newsletter to consider the changes and submit any feedback you may have. Feedback may be submitted by the feedback function on the app, by e-mail to feedback@citizenme.com or directly as a comment on the blog post.
  • If, after considering the feedback we receive, we do decide to change the Terms of service we will post the final version with any amendments clearly marked on the citizenme blog.

 

Coming soon:

  • Introduction of the citizen foundation (citizenfoundation.org) which will provide a forum for feedback and debate on proposed changes to Terms of Service.

citizens may:

  • Share feedback if you want to.

My Assurances

citizenme will:

  • Provide citizens with visibility and control of their online identity.
  • Allow citizens to control any sharing of their data held within thecitizenme service.
More detail:

  • We allow visibility and control of your online identity by providing user-friendly information on your data that is accessible across the social networks, apps and online services you link with the citizenme service, along with some links, where available to the settings pages on those services to enable you to amend your privacy settings.
  • We allow you to control how you share your citizen ‘me data’ with third parties by configuring our systems to ensure nothing is done without your consent.
  • When we say ‘personal data’ we mean data that can be used to identify you either by itself or along with other data that may be held by thecitizenme service.

 

Coming soon:

  • As the citizenme service grows and additional functionality is offered we may offer you further services, for example, the choice to transact parts of your identity, that you select to be shared, in return for reward. However our commitment to your privacy will remain as strong as ever.

citizens will:

  • Not attempt to “bot,” “hack,” “crack,” or otherwise circumvent other citizens’ access to the citizenme service.
  • Respect other citizens and not use citizenme to upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any content that is invasive of another person’s privacy, is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libellous or hateful.
  • Impersonate any other living person or legally registered entity (fake identities are just fine though and parody accounts should be marked as such).

My Rights

citizenme will:

  • Treat all citizens equally.
  • Hold any data you share with us securely.
  • Do all we can to inform you if there is a legal request to access your data.
More detail:

  • We protect your personal data with encryption (for which the encryption key will be held and used on your devices only).
  • If we receive a legal request to access your data (i.e. a court order or warrant or a request from a government department) then we will inform you unless we have a reasonable belief that it would be unlawful for us to do so.
  • If we can tell you about a request, then we will also make clear to you what standards and rules law enforcement must follow if they seek access to your data.

citizens will:

  • Ensure that your device is secure.
  • Acknowledge that your citizenme data is held on your mobile device(s).
More detail:

  • We would suggest that you ensure that your device is protected with a passcode or fingerprint lock. Also, we suggest that, where possible, you turn on device encryption to protect all data on your devices. Please be responsible regarding the security of your personal mobile devices.

My Data & Content

citizenme will

  • Not have access to any personal data held on your device without your explicit consent to share it.
  • Provide you with a copy of your personal data held by citizenme in machine-readable format if requested.
More detail:

  • The only data on your device that we will access is meta data (that tells us the services selected and anonymised usage stats for support purposes).
  • When signed in with Facebook, 10-20 of your ‘likes’ are anonymously shared with Cambridge University Psychometric Centre to provide you with your personality trait analysis.
Coming soon:

  • citizen’s may gain the ability, as citizenme functionality grows, to optionally transact explicitly selected elements of your data for reward – but only if *you* choose to do so. You will have visibility of any personally identifiable data that you share with citizenme and may request that it be deleted (remember though that we have specifically designed citizenmeto ensure that you only share data that you want to – even with us).
  • Additional personality trait analysis will be offered for other sites Social Media sites.

My Footprint

citizenme will:

  • Not use 3rd party cookies on citizenme webpages
  • Never track your behaviour across different websites unless you have opted to do so for your own benefit. We may use statistical tracking in aggregate to identify service issues and enhance service performance.
  • Offer you the ability to opt-out of statistical tracking via a simple off switch within the service.
More detail:

  • Where we conduct statistical tracking in aggregate, this will not involve the collection of any personal data.

 

Coming soon:

  • citizenme is developing a facility that will enable citizens to synchronise their citizenme settings across apps on multiple devices and browsers. To use this facility citizens will need to set up an account. Full details will be provided when this facility is launched.

My Deletion

citizenme will:

  • Not delete your profile unless you breach these Terms of service.
  • Have the right to discontinue the citizenme service to all citizens for financial or legal reasons.
More detail:

  • If you breach this agreement, we reserve the right to terminate our services. We consider a breach of or a failure to respect another citizen’s rights to be a serious breach and will lead to the immediate termination of our services.
  • At account closure we will delete all your user data held with our service. We will have no further obligations to you. A copy of data held by the citizenmeservice will only be available before an account is deleted.

citizens may:

  • Delete the service and any data held on the service at any time you choose.
More detail:

  • As data is stored on your device, deletion of the app will lead to deletion of all personal details held within the service. Any meta data held on citizenme servers will also be deleted within 90 days of deletion of the app.

Our Liability

citizenme will:

  • Aim to provide the best service to help all citizens take control of their data online. However, the service has not been developed to meet your individual needs and we cannot be held liable for various things. We set these out in more the More Detail section below and suggest you read them.
More detail:

  • To the maximum extent permitted by law, we shall not be liable for any loss or damage, whether direct or indirect and whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with (a) use of, or inability to use, the service; or (b) use of or reliance on any content displayed on the service.
  • Will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial-of-service attack, or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of the app or to your downloading of any content on it, or on any website linked to it.
  • Has no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
  • Do not guarantee that the app will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
  • Our maximum aggregate liability under or in connection with these Terms of Service (including your use of any services) whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, shall in all circumstances be limited to [£100]. This does not apply to the types of loss set out.
  • Nothing in this EULA shall limit or exclude our liability for: (a) death or personal injury resulting from our negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; and (c) any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by English law.

citizens will:

  • Acknowledge that any advice we provide as part of our services is indicative only and is not a substitute for professional advice.
More detail:

  • Whilst the citizenme team go to great lengths to ensure the information provided about other services is accurate, it can only ever be viewed as indicative. For example, if we tell you on your mirror that a social network’s rights over the content you upload are too broad for our liking, this should not considered legal advice and we cannot be held liable if you were to then decide to, for example, delete your content or to delete your account.

  Entire Agreement

These Terms of Service constitute the entire agreement between you andcitizenme, which is standard industry practice.

More detail:

  • Nothing provided by citizenme should be considered as legal advice. We express our opinion with no guarantee and citizenme ratings and reviews are in no way a replacement for reading the full terms to which you are bound. Please refer to a qualified attorney or legal counsel for legal advice.
  • As always, if you have any comments or suggestions regarding these Terms of Service, or wish to report a violation, please email us at info@citizenme.com.

  Privacy Policy

citizenme takes the protection of all of our personal data very seriously – it’s what we do.

More detail:

  • We do not rent, sell or share any of your information with third parties. However, in the future we’ll help you do so for your personal gain, but only *if you want to*. We do use some carefully selected third party services to help run the citizenme website and applications. Details of these follow below:

  Cookies and Tracking

We do not use 3rd party cookies.

More detail:

  • We do not automatically keep logs of any personally identifiable information about your visit to the website or use of the citizenme apps unless you explicitly choose to provide us with your e-mail address.
  • Our website and app statistics program (Piwik) does retain your IP address to provide us with an approximate idea of the country that you have visited from, your time of visit and if you are visiting the site for the first time (in which case, welcome!) or are a returning visitor (welcome back!).

  3rd Party Services

We only use the following types of 3rd party services: email, support, website hosting, app hosting and statistics.

More detail:

  • Email: If you share your e-mail address with us in order to receive updates or to provide feedback, your e-mail address will be stored securely. We use mailchimp to manage e-mail distribution (TRUSTe verified). If you unsubscribe from our e-mail list we will permanently delete all of your information from our e-mail database.
  • Support: Zoho Support for feedback and communication with our citizens across email and social media (TRUSTe verified)
  • Website Hosting: We use WordPress as our content management solution, securely installed on our own server provided by GreenNet Hosting, the UK’s largest ethical hosting company.
  • App Hosting: The iOS application is subject to Apple App Store Terms & Conditions. The Android application is subject to the Google Play Terms of Service. Server-side functionality is currently hosted on Amazon AWS servers in Ireland and under European Data Protection Laws. However, the architecture has been designed to be easily migrated to another service provider should Amazon’s terms of use regarding personal data protection not meet citizen requirements.
  • Statistics: We use Piwik as it’s hosted on our servers, thereby reducing the amount of your info that goes ‘off-site’. Because it’s hosted by us, Piwik also allows us to switch off IP address logging if citizens would like us to do so in future
  • Internal IT systems: We use Google Apps and Skype for collaboration across our internationally distributed team. We also use Zoho Support to manage and prioritise bug reports and other feedback via e-mail and social media channels.

  Sites Through Which We Connect

If you follow, friend or connect with citizenme on any social site (e.g. Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, G+) we promise not to share information that you have shared ‘privately’ on those sites with any other party.

More detail:

  • Of course, you’ll also need to check the individual Terms Of Service for each of those sites. (Hint: the easiest way to check their Terms of Service is via the citizenme app.)
  • The Facebook Personality profile is provided by our partners, Cambridge University Psychometric Labs via their ‘ApplyMagicSauce’ API. They will receive 10-20 ‘likes’ from your Facebook profile to provide your citizenme app with personality profile information. This is processed by – and stored on – your device only.

  UK Data Protection Act

We aim to adhere to the UK regulator’s best practice for compliance with the UK Data Protection Act 1998.

More detail:

  • If for any reason you feel concerned about the personal data you have provided to us or about our handling of this data, please contact us. You may also lodge complaints with the UK Information Commissioners Office quoting our Registration Reference: ZA065600
  • Finally, if you would like more general information or have any queries, questions or comments, please do contact us: info@citizenme.com. This service is for digital citizens, like you. We’ll be very happy to hear from you.

Note: We’re experiencing a temporary problem with our comments section – in the meantime please send your comments to info@citizenme.com

Photo credit: HonestReporting – Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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