PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated February 20, 2024

FluentaAI Inc. (“FluentaAI”, "Company", "we", "our", or "us") develops and provides speech technology and a software application that improve the intelligibility of whispered speech and affected speech. FluentaAI accomplishes this, among other things, with the assistance of artificial intelligence (“AI”) based technology, which is used to convert voice recordings of users.

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") explains how FluentaAI processes Personal Data of individuals who use our services, including our platform, websites (e.g., fluenta.ai), desktop application (or “app”), and other online services (jointly, the "Services"). This Policy also explains your rights and choices about how we use your Personal Data, including how you can access or update certain information about you.

In this Policy, "Personal Data" means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual, such as an individual's name, address, telephone number, or email address. This Policy does not apply when we offer our Services and process Personal Data on behalf of enterprise/business customers. Our use of that data is governed by our customer agreements. The data we collect depends on the context of your interaction with FluentaAI, the choices you make, and the products and features you utilize.

FluentaAI offers an application that assists individuals with voice-related issues through smart speech technology. When using the app, you can modify your own voice to improve your clarity in communications. The data we collect depends on the context of your interaction with FluentaAI, the choices you make, and the products and features you utilize. For clarity, a User’s voice recordings are used only to personalize a voice for that particular User; they are not captured or used for AI training.

FluentaAI is not a “covered entity” or a “business associate” under the United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Public Law 104-191, and its related regulations and amendments from time to time (collectively, “HIPAA”). It is important to note that HIPAA does not necessarily apply to an entity or person simply because there is health information involved, and HIPAA does not apply to your transactions or communications with FluentaAI. However, notwithstanding the foregoing, FluentaAI is committed to safeguarding all of your personal data.

Questions or concerns? Reading this privacy notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at info@fluenta.ai.

1. Categories of Personal Data We Collect:

(a) Personal Data You Provide to Us.

Contact Details. When you set up an account to use our Services, we ask you to provide your contact details such as your name, email address, phone number, address, contact preferences, and date of birth.
Audio Recordings. We collect any audio recordings of your voice that you choose to share with us, which may include Personal Data, to be able to create a voice model that can be used to generate synthetic audio sounding like your voice. You are able to use your voice model to generate synthetic audio sounding like your voice.
Communications. If you contact us directly or express interest in using our services, we collect Personal Data including your name, email address, the contents of a message or attachments that you may send to us, and other information you choose to provide. If you subscribe to our newsletter, then we will collect Personal Data from you, such as your name and email address. When we send you emails, we may track whether you open them to learn how to deliver a better customer experience and improve our Services.
Payment Details. When you register to use any of our paid Services our third-party payment processor Stripe collects and processes your payment-related information, such as your name, email, billing address, credit/debit card or banking information or other financial information. Please consult Stripe's privacy policy here.

(b) Personal Data We Collect Automatically From You and/or Your Device.

Location Information. When you use our Services, we infer your general location information, for example by using your internet protocol (IP) address.
Device Information. We receive Personal Data about the device and software you use to access our Services, including IP address, web browser type, operating system version, device identifiers, mobile advertising identifiers, and push notification tokens.
Application Data. If you use our app, we may request access or permission to certain features from your device, including your device's microphone, keyring service and other features. If you wish to change our access or permissions, you may do so in your device's settings.
Usage Information. We receive Personal Data about your interactions with our Services, such as the content you view, the actions you take or the features with which you interact when you are using the Services, and the dates and times of your visits.
Information from Cookies and Similar Technologies. We and our third-party partners collect information using cookies, pixel tags, or similar technologies. Our third-party partners, such as analytics and advertising partners, may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across different services. Cookies are small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters. Where the term "Cookies" is used in this Policy, this includes both cookies and similar technologies. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to our Services. The information collected via Cookies may include information such as unique identifiers, system information, your IP address, web browser, device type, and the web pages that you visit just before or just after you use the Services, as well as information about your interactions with the Services, such as the date and time of your visit, and where you have clicked.
Strictly Necessary Cookies. Some Cookies are strictly necessary to make our Services available to you, for example, to provide login functionality or to identify bots who try to access our website. We cannot provide you with the Services without this type of Cookie.
Analytics Cookies. We also use Cookies for website and app analytics purposes in order to operate, maintain, and improve our Services. We may use our own analytics Cookies or use third-party analytics providers to collect and process certain analytics data on our behalf. In particular, we use Google Analytics to collect and process certain analytics data on our behalf. Google Analytics helps us understand how you engage with our Services. You can learn about Google's practices by going to https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/
Marketing Cookies. We and our third-party partners use Cookies to help us and our advertisers show you relevant advertising, as well as to present ads to you on sites that are not owned or operated by us to promote our services, articles or events. The cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They also perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously re-appearing.

(c) Personal Data We Collect from Third Parties

Information from Third-Party Sites. We collect publicly-available information from third-party sites to enable the training of our models and systems.
Third-Party Logins. If you choose to register or log in to our Services using your account with third parties, we receive Personal Data about you from such third parties, such as your name, email address, username, and profile picture.

In some cases, we need to collect your Personal Data to provide you with our Services. In these cases, if you choose not to provide the requested Personal Data, you may not be able to use our Services. We will tell you if providing the Personal Data is required by law or under a contract and what are the consequences of failing to provide it.

2. Purposes and Legal Basis for Processing:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR require us to explain the valid legal bases we rely on in order to process your personal information. As such, we may rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information:
  • Performance of a Contract: FluentaAI may process data when the processing is necessary for providing our application and services, such as facilitating interactions between (third-party) users or conducting pre-contractual actions at the user’s request;
  • Legal Obligation: We may process your information where we believe it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations, such as to cooperate with a law enforcement body or regulatory agency, exercise or defend our legal rights, or disclose your information as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
  • Legitimate Interests: FluentaAI may process data when it is necessary for the legitimate interests pursued by FluentaAI or a third party, provided that these interests outweigh the interests or fundamental rights of the data subject. This includes using contact information for sending unsolicited commercial messages, maintaining business relationships, and improving our application and services;
  • Consent: When a data subject has given consent for the processing of certain data, FluentaAI may rely on this consent as a legal basis. Data subjects have the right to withdraw their consent at any time, and FluentaAI will stop processing their personal data from that moment, unless there is another legal basis for processing.
  • Explicit Consent: For special categories of personal data as defined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), such as data related to voice data, FluentaAI only processes them when the data subject has given explicit consent. There is a distinction between “regular” consent and “explicit” consent when the collecting of aforementioned data occurs within the jurisdiction of the GDPR. Because FluentaAI may need to use special sensitive categories of personal data to operate its service, it may request explicit consent for processing this type of data. When doing so, this will be clearly stated in the request.
These legal bases ensure that FluentaAI’s data processing activities are carried out in accordance with the principles of data protection and privacy under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Depending on the country in which you are located, we will only process your Personal Data based on a valid legal ground. The list below describes the purposes for which we process your Personal Data and the legal grounds (where required under applicable law):
  • Providing the services. We may process your Personal Data to provide the services described in the applicable Terms of Service. Legal ground: the processing is necessary for entering into, or performance of a contract to which you are a party.
  • Generating your voice model. We may process the audio recordings of your voice that you provide to us, which include your Personal Data, for the purpose of creating a voice model that will generate synthetic audio sounding like your voice. Legal ground: you have provided your consent.
  • Communicating with you. We may process your Personal Data to communicate with you, provide you with updates and other information relating to our Services, provide information that you request, respond to your comments and questions, and otherwise provide customer support. Legal ground: the processing is necessary for entering into, or performance of a contract to which you are a party.
  • Billing and accounting. We may process your Personal Data to handle any payments from you or to you as described in the applicable Terms of Service, including keeping records of payments. Legal ground: the processing is necessary for entering into, or performance of a contract to which you are a party.
  • Preventing fraud. We may process your Personal Data to protect against and prevent fraud, and protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, including to prosecute those responsible for such activity. Legal ground: we, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data for the purpose of protecting against and preventing fraud.
  • Safety. We may process your Personal Data to safeguard our platform and services, and to ensure security and safety. Legal ground: we, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data for the purpose of ensuring security and safety.
  • Providing technical support. We use Personal Data to provide technical support, including diagnosing and resolving any issues you report. Legal ground: the processing is necessary for entering into, or performance of a contract to which you are a party.
  • Understanding usage. We may process your Personal Data to understand the usage of our Services, to understand trends and preferences, to improve and repair errors in the services, and to develop new products, services, features, and functionalities. Legal ground: We, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data for the purpose of understanding usage.
  • Aggregated Data Generation. We may process your Personal Data to generate anonymized or aggregate data that we may use for any lawful purposes such as to publish reports. Legal ground: we, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data for the purpose of generating anonymized or aggregate data.
  • Administrative and legal. We may use your Personal Data to address any administrative or legal issues pertaining to FluentaAI, including but not limited to intellectual property infringement, defamation, rights of privacy issues, to enforce our Terms of Service, or as necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights. Legal ground: We, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data for the purpose of addressing administrative and legal issues.
  • Compliance. We may process your Personal Data for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject, for instance to comply with accounting and tax rules, or as mandated by a court order, judicial process or governmental agency. Legal ground: We need it to comply with a legal obligation, for instance to comply with a court order.
  • Other purposes. If we intend to use your Personal Data for other purposes, we will provide specific notice at the time the Personal Data is collected. Legal ground: please consult the relevant specific notice.
We only rely on our or a third party's legitimate interests to process your Personal Data when these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. When we are using your information because we or a third party have a legitimate interest to do so, you may have the right to object to that use.

3. Data Recipients:

Your personal data may be shared with:

Affiliates. We may share any Personal Data we receive with our current or future affiliates for any of the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
Vendors and Service Providers. We may share your Personal Data with third-party vendors and service providers who provide services such as website hosting, data analysis, advertising, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service, email delivery, auditing, and payments processing.
As Required By Law and Similar Disclosures. We may access, preserve, and disclose your Personal Data with law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies, public authorities or pursuant to the exercise of legal proceedings if we believe doing so is required or appropriate to: (a) comply with law enforcement requests and legal process, such as a court order or subpoena; or (b) protect your, our, or others' rights, property, or safety. For the avoidance of doubt, the disclosure of your Personal Data may occur if you use our Services to create any objectionable content.
Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. We may disclose your Personal Data to service providers, advisors, potential transactional partners, or other third parties in connection with the consideration, negotiation, or completion of a corporate transaction in which we are acquired by or merged with another company or we sell, liquidate, or transfer all or a portion of our assets.
Consent. We may also disclose your information with your permission.

4. Data Transfers:

Our Services are hosted in the United States. If you choose to use our Services from a different jurisdiction, you are transferring your Personal Data outside of your jurisdiction and into the U.S. for storage and processing. Please note that the data protection laws in your jurisdiction may be different from the laws applicable in the U.S.

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland ("Europe"), we transfer your Personal Data outside of Europe to other countries, including to the U.S. We apply appropriate protections when we transfer your Personal Data to such countries, including by transferring Personal Data to countries which have been found to provide adequate protection by the competent authorities as appropriate (e.g., see the list of countries subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission here), using contractual protections for the transfer of Personal Data, or transferring to recipients who have certified to participate in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, or adopted binding corporate rules. For more information about how we transfer outside Europe, or to obtain a copy of the contractual safeguards we use for such transfers, you may contact us using email info@fluenta.ai.

5. Data Retention:

We take measures to delete your Personal Data or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying you when this information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we process it, unless we are required or permitted by law to keep this information for a longer period. When determining the specific retention period, we consider various factors, such as the type of service provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, and mandatory retention periods provided by law and any relevant statute of limitations.

6. Voice Processing Notice:

This Voice Processing Notice explains how we collect, use, share, retain, and destroy (collectively, "process") the audio recordings that you elect to provide to us, which includes your Personal Data, for the purpose of creating a voice model that can be used to generate synthetic audio sounding like your voice (collectively, "Voice Data"). Residents of Illinois and individuals located in Illinois may not use FluentaAI's voice modeling services.

How do FluentaAI's voice modeling services work?
FluentaAI intends to analyze your audio recordings using our proprietary voice modeling technology to generate a voice model capable of generating synthetic audio sounding like your voice. Specifically, when you provide us with recordings of your voice, we utilize our proprietary, AI-based technologies that analyze your speech characteristics to formulate a distinct voice model of your vocal traits. This voice model can be used to generate sound resembling your voice. Depending on where you reside, applicable law may define your voice model, and any synthetic audio generated from the voice model, as a biometric identifier or biometric information.

How do we use and disclose your Voice Data?
FluentaAI will process your audio recordings to develop a voice model of your voice that can be used to generate synthetic audio sounding like your voice at your request. FluentaAI will also disclose your Voice Data to: vendors who process the data on our behalf in order to provide our services to you; to our subsidiaries or affiliates; to any acquirer, successor or assignee; or where required by applicable law.

How long is the Voice Data retained and what happens to it at the end of the retention period?
We retain your Voice Data as long as we need it to fulfill the purposes described above, unless there are legal requirements to delete it earlier or to keep it for a longer period (such as warrant or subpoena). When the retention period ends, your Voice Data is permanently deleted.

7. Your Rights:

Depending on where you are located or reside, you may have certain rights regarding the Personal Data we maintain about you and certain choices about what Personal Data we collect from you, how we use it, and how we communicate with you.
  • You may access and update many categories of Personal Data that are collected as part of the Services offering by logging in to your account and accessing your account settings, or by contacting us using the contact details included at the end of this Policy.
  • You may request to close your account, and delete your Personal Data associated with that account, by submitting your request using your account settings.
  • If you receive a commercial email from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions contained within the email.
Please be aware that if you opt out of receiving commercial emails from us or otherwise modify the nature or frequency of promotional communications you receive from us, it may take some time for us to process your request and you may receive promotional communications from us that you have opted out from during that period, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Additionally, even after you opt out from receiving commercial messages from us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding our Services.

FluentaAI will handle requests related to the exercise of these rights in accordance with the regulations. These rights are not absolute; they do not apply under all circumstances, and applicable regulations provide for necessary exceptions. If we do not fulfill your request, we will explain why. If you have any questions about our use of your personal information or this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at info@fluenta.ai.

Your Cookie Choices. Depending on the country in which you are located, you may be asked to provide your consent for our use of Cookies (except for Cookies which are strictly necessary). In addition, you have the following choices with regard to the use of Cookies.
Browser Settings. Many web browsers allow you to manage your preferences relating to Cookies. You can set your browser to refuse Cookies or delete certain Cookies. You may be able to manage other technologies in the same way that you manage Cookies using your browser's preferences. Please note that if you choose to block all Cookies, doing so may impair the use of our Services.
Google Analytics Opt-out. To opt out from Google Analytics' use of information collected on the Services through Cookies, you can download the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Third Party Advertising Companies' Opt-Out. We work with third party advertising partners to show you ads that we think may interest you. Some of our advertising partners are members of the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance. If you do not wish to receive personalized ads, please visit their opt-out pages to learn about how you may opt out of receiving web-based personalized ads from member companies. You can access any settings offered by your mobile operating system to limit ad tracking, or you can install the AppChoices mobile app to learn more about how you may opt out of personalized ads in mobile apps.

8. Third Parties:

Our Services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that we do not own or operate. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to your activities on these third-party services or any information you disclose to these third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any information to them.

9. Security:

FluentaAI has integrated various technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data from destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure, or unauthorized access. These measures encompass reasonable administrative, physical, and technological safeguards. No Internet or e-mail transmission is ever fully secure or error free, however. We therefore cannot guarantee absolute security of your data, and we are not responsible for processes and networks that we do not control.

10. Children's Privacy:

We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children under 18 years of age. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent’s use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at info@fluenta.ai.

11. Updates to this Policy:

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification.

12. Contact Us:

If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at info@fluenta.ai or contact us by post at:

FluentaAI, Inc.
900 Foulk Road
Suite 201
Wilmington, DE 19803
United States