Effective: June 17, 2019
Welcome to the website and/or mobile application of Soothe, Inc. (“Soothe”, “we”, “us” and/or “our”). We have prepared this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, protect and disclose information and data when you use the Soothe website (“Website”) and any Soothe software, including any Soothe mobile applications (the “App(s)”) or other services offered by Soothe from time to time (collectively, the Website(s), App(s) and services are referred to as “Services”). “You” refers to you as a user of the Services.
For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, if your country of residence is inside the EU/EEA, the Data Controller is Soothe Massage Limited (“Soothe Europe”) of 3rd Floor, 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, United Kingdom, WA14 2DT; if your country of residence is outside the EU/EEA, the Data Controller is Soothe, Inc. (“Soothe USA”) of 705 W Pico Blvd PMB 21932 Los Angeles, CA 90019.
| Terms used in this Policy are defined as followings: | |
| • | “Platform” means an online platform accessible by computer and/or smartphone app, which Customers may use to purchase Soothe-branded merchandise and/or to order massage therapy sessions, and which the Therapist may use to receive, accept, or reject proposed massage therapy session bookings |
| • | “Therapist” means an individual that performs massage therapy sessions on Customers referred by Soothe; |
| • | “Customer” means an individual or person that uses Soothe Platform to be referred to a Therapist by Soothe; and |
| • | “Personal Information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (like yourself); an identifiable 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, etc. |
| If you use our services from a country other than your original Country of Residence, the data controller may be determined by the country where you use the Services. The Data Controller that originally collected your personal data may need to transfer the data to the new applicable Data Controller, and such transfer is necessary for the performance of the contractual obligations with you. | |
| 1. | Background/Managing Your Information Preferences |
| Soothe provides the Platform that connects Therapists with Customers who want to purchase and/or receive massage therapy. | |
| You can always review, correct, or update your Personal Information by changing the relevant settings in your Soothe account. Applicable law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the “GDPR”), may also give you the right to access, update and correct inaccuracies in information about you in our custody or control. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact us at privacy@soothe.com. | |
| 2. | Information We Collect |
| 2.1. | Information you give to us |
| 2.1.1. | Information that is necessary for the use of the Soothe Platform. We ask for and collect the following personal information about you when you use the Soothe Platform. This information is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us and to allow us to comply with our legal obligations. |
| • | Personally identifiable information. When you sign up for or use the Services, we collect certain personally identifiable information about you, such as your first name, surname, email address, mailing/home/work address, location (hotel), email address, phone number, and gender (therapists). |
| • | Identify Verification and Qualification Information (Therapists). If you are a Therapist, we may require you to produce a copy of your government issued ID, passport or driver’s licence and other information needed to verify your identity. We may also require you to produce all licences, certifications and/or permits that shows that you are qualified to provide “in home” Massage Therapy. |
| • | Payment Information. To use the Services, Therapists may be required to provide bank account number, routing number or IBAN (depending on your Country of Residence). To use the Services, Customers may be required to provide a credit card number with your name, billing address, expiration date, and CVV2 code. |
| • | Communications with Soothe and other users. When you communicate with Soothe, in the case of a Therapist, when you communicate with a customer, or in the case of a Customer, when you communicate with a Therapist using our Platform, we collect information about your communication and any information you choose to provide. When you contact us, we may ask you to provide your personal information so that we can identify you. |
| 2.1.2. | Information you choose to give us. You may choose to provide additional information about yourself as you think fit. This additional information will be processed based on your consent. |
| • | Additional personal information. You may choose to provide additional information as part of your Soothe profile or when you book an appointment, such as gender, pets, home condition (stairs, parking), pregnancy information (if you choose prenatal massage), medical/health information, etc. |
| • | Other information. You may choose to provide us with information when you respond to surveys or participate in promotions. |
| 2.2. | Information we automatically collect from your use of the Services |
| When you use the Soothe Platform, we automatically collect the following information in order to meet our contractual obligations to you, to comply with our legal obligations and for the purpose of our legitimate interest. | |
| • | Log data, mobile device’s unique device ID, IP address, mobile operation system, the type of Internet browser you use and information about the way you use the App; |
| • | Location information including IP address and mobile device’s GPS data. For example, if you permit the App to access location services through the permission system used by your mobile operating system, we may also collect the precise location of your device when the App is running in the foreground or background. We may also determine your approximate location from your IP address; |
| • | Transaction details, including the service requested, date, time when and location where the service was provided, amount charged and other related transaction details. |
| • | Usage data and activity. We may collect and aggregate information or content about the use of our Website or Apps in a way that does not directly identify an individual user (“Usage Data”). Usage Data helps us understand trends in our users’ needs so that we can better consider new features or otherwise tailor or enhance our Services. |
| • | Cookies and web beacons. We use cookies (a small text file placed on your computer to identify your computer and browser) and web beacons (a file placed on a website that monitors usage). We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to provide you with a more personal and interactive experience on our Site. We use cookies and web beacons to improve the experience of the Website and Services, such as pre-populating your username for easier login. Most web browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. At this time, Soothe does not recognize automated browser signals regarding tracking, including “do-not-track” signals. However, you can opt-out of interest-based advertisements by following the instructions under “Interest-Based Advertising” below. You can remove persistent cookies and change your privacy preferences by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” directory. However, certain features of the Services may not work if you delete or disable cookies. Some of our Service Providers may use their own cookies and Web beacons in connection with the services they perform on our behalf, as further explained below. |
| 2.3 | Information we collect from third parties. |
| • | Third party services. If you link, connect or login to your Soothe account through a third party service (e.g. Facebook), the third party service may share with us information about you. This information varies based on your privacy settings at that service. This information is controlled by that service. |
| • | Social media sites. If you visit or interact with our Social Media sites (such as Facebook Fan Page or Twitter) with these third party services, the third party service may also share with us any information about you (i.e. a unique user code) collected by cookies on their sites or by any other technologies had you agreed to use cookies and/or other technologies on their sites and to their Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy. |
| • | Your ratings or reviews. If someone has written a review about you or given you a rating using our rating system, we may collect and use this information in order to improve our services. |
| • | Background checks. For therapists located in Europe, we may obtain local version of police, background, right to work, identity or relevant criminal conviction checks to the extent permitted by local laws and with your consent where applicable. We may do so in order to protect the legitimate interest of Soothe Europe and of our Customers and to comply with certain legal obligations. We may use your personal information, such as your name and date of birth, to obtain the check reports. |
| 3. | How We Use Information |
| We may use your Personal Information for the purpose for which it was provided, including without limitation for the purposes described further below: | |
| 3.1 | Provision and Monitoring of the Services. |
| We will use your Personal Information to provide you with access to and to support your use of the Services, to administer your account, to respond to your queries via email or otherwise, process payments and to better understand your use of the Services. For example, if you are a Customer, we may provide your Personal Information to a Therapist to facilitate the Therapist’s provision of Services to you and if you are a Therapist, we may provide your Personal Information to a Customer to facilitate the Customer’s receipt of Services. We also may send or facilitate communications between Customers and Therapists. We will also give you the opportunity to store, review and edit Personal Information and other information in your account. | |
| 3.2 | Contacting you about other products, services and events |
| If you opt-in, Soothe and/or third parties may use your Personal Information to contact you in the future to tell you about products, services and events that may be of interest to you and to request you to complete surveys. We may send you marketing emails and SMS text messages, such as newsletters, offers and promotions. You can unsubscribe at any time. To unsubscribe from SMS text messages, reply “Stop”. To unsubscribe from emails, follow the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email. You may also contact us at privacy@soothe.com for help with unsubscribing. | |
| 3.3 | Research, data analysis and service improvement. |
| In an ongoing effort to better understand and serve the users of the Services, Soothe may conduct research on its users’ demographics, interests and behaviour based on Usage Data and other information. This data may be compiled and analysed on an aggregate basis, and Soothe may share this data with advertisers, researchers, business partners, publications, and other third parties. This information will not identify you personally. | |
| We may use your Personal Information, aggregated Personal Information and other information collected through the Services to help us improve the content and functionality of the Website or Apps, to better understand our users and to improve the Services. | |
| 3.4 | Maintain a trusted and safe environment. |
| We may use your personal data to detect and prevent fraud, chargebacks, spam, false accounts and scams. We may carry out security assessments to maintain a safe environment. | |
| 4. | Sharing and disclosure |
| 4.1. | With your consent |
| We may share information about you with other companies if you give us permission or direct us to share the information. | |
| 4.2 | Information You Make Available to Others |
| By using the Services, including creation of a profile on Soothe or submission of public queries, you may make certain of your Personal Information available to others, such as your name, your username, and your picture. This information may be accessed by users who use the Services and may be accessed by commercial search engines. You should exercise caution before posting any Personal Information on a public area of the Services | |
| 4.3 | Service providers |
| From time to time, we may establish a business relationship with other businesses that we believe to be trustworthy and have privacy practices consistent with ours, including our affiliates (“Service Providers”). For example, we may contract with Service Providers to provide certain services, such as hosting and maintenance, payment processing, data storage and management, marketing and promotions and customer research/analytics. We only provide our Service Providers with the information necessary for them to perform these services on our behalf. Service Providers are contractually bound to protect your Personal Information consistent with this Policy and to implement appropriate level of security procedures and practices. These Providers are prohibited from using or disclosing Personal Information other than as specified by Soothe and consistent with this Policy. | |
| 4.4 | Interest-Based Advertising |
| We may use third party advertising companies to serve advertisements on our behalf on our and other websites across the Internet, and to track and report on the performance of those advertisements. These entities may use cookies, web beacons and other technologies to identify your device when you use the Services and to report certain information about your visits to our Services and other websites (such as web pages you visit and your response to ads) in order to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and to deliver ads that are more relevant to you, both on and off our Services. We do not share your Personal Information with third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes unless you provide us with consent to do so. | |
| For Canadian users, to learn more and to opt-out of having your information used by these companies for online behavioural advertising purposes, please visit the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada at http://youradchoices.ca/choices | |
| 4.5 | Other Transfers |
| We may share Personal Information and Usage Data with businesses controlling, controlled by, or under common control with Soothe. If Soothe is merged, acquired, or sold, or in the event of a transfer of some or all of our assets or equity, we may disclose or transfer Personal Information and Usage Data in connection with such prospective or completed transaction. | |
| 4.6 | Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement |
| Soothe and its Service Providers may disclose Personal Information to applicable US, UK, Canadian or other regulatory, government or law enforcement officials, courts or private parties if, in our discretion, we believe it is necessary or appropriate in order to respond to legal requests (including court orders and subpoenas), to protect the safety, property or rights of Soothe or of any third party, to prevent or stop any illegal, fraudulent, unethical, or legally actionable activity, or where required or permitted under applicable US, UK, Canadian or other foreign law. | |
| 4.7 | Aggregated Data |
| This Privacy Policy in no way restricts or limits our collection and use of Usage Data in aggregated format, and we may share Usage Data about our users with our third party service providers for regulatory compliance, market analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes. For example, each time you use the Website or Apps, we may automatically collect the type of Web browser you use, the pages you view, how you interact with links on the Services and the time and duration of your use of the Website or Apps. We may use such information and pool it with other information to track, for example, the total number of visitors to our Website or users of the Apps, the number of visitors to each page of our Website, number of App downloads, aggregated details related to use of the Services etc. | |
| 4.8 | Soothe Subsidiaries and Affiliates |
| We may share your information with our subsidiaries and corporate affiliates which are under common ownership or control. | |
| 5. | Other Important Information |
| 5.1. | Be Careful When You Share Information with Others |
| Please be aware that whenever you share information on a publicly available page or any other public forum, others may access that information. In addition, please remember that when you share information in any other communications with third parties, that information may be passed along or made public by others. This means that anyone with access to such information can potentially use it for any purpose, including sending unsolicited communications. You should exercise caution before posting any Personal Information on a public available page. | |
| 5.2 | Exclusions |
| This Privacy Policy shall not apply to any unsolicited information you provide to Soothe through the Services or through any other means. This includes, but is not limited to, information posted to any public areas of the Website, such as bulletin boards, any ideas for new products or modifications to existing products, and other unsolicited submissions (collectively, “Unsolicited Information”). All Unsolicited Information shall be deemed to be non-confidential and Soothe shall be free, and you hereby grant Soothe the right to reproduce, use, disclose, and distribute such Unsolicited Information to others without limitation or attribution. | |
| 5.3 | Links to other sites and social media |
| Our Website and Apps may contain links or integrate with other websites and online services. Soothe is not responsible or liable for any damage or loss related to your use of any third-party website or online service or for the privacy practices of such third parties. You should always read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of a third-party website or online service before using it, whether directly or in connection with your use of the Services. | |
| Our Website and Apps may also have “plugins” (such as the Facebook “share” or “like” button) to third-party sites or offer login (such as log in with Facebook) through a third-party account. Third-party plugins and login features, including their loading, operation and use, are governed by the privacy policy and terms of the third party providing them. | |
| 5.4 | Children’s privacy |
| We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 16. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received Personal Information from a child under the age of 16, we will delete such information from our records. | |
| 5.5 | International data transfer |
| Please be aware that your Personal Information and communications may be transferred to, stored at, processed and maintained on servers or databases located outside your jurisdiction of residence (such as outside of the EEA), including, but not limited to the United States, where data protection and privacy regulations may not offer the same level of protection as in other parts of the world. | |
| Where Soothe Europe is the Data Controller and we transfer your personal information outside of the EEA, we implement appropriate safeguards to ensure an adequate level of data protection. We use standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission as a legal mechanism for data transfers from the EU to other third countries, such as the US. | |
| We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features in an effort to prevent loss, theft and unauthorized access, use and disclosure. | |
| 5.6 | Retention Period |
| We retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. | |
| 6. | Your Rights |
| You may exercise your rights in this section by contacting us via email at privacy@soothe.com. Please note that these rights may only be exercised with the applicable data controller. We may ask you to produce proof of identity before taking further action on your request. | |
| 6.1 | Managing your information and communication preferences |
| You may access and update some of your information through your Account settings. You can also update your preference for marketing communications by changing notification settings on the Website or in our Apps. You can also opt out of receiving marketing and promotional emails by clicking the unsubscribe mechanism provided in an email or other electronic communication. If you opt out, we may still send you non-marketing emails, SMS text messages or other communications, which include transactional information about your accounts and our business dealings with you. | |
| 6.2 | Right of access |
| You have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning you is being processed. If we do process your personal data, we will give you a description of the data, the purposes for which it is kept, who the data has been disclosed to, and retention period. | |
| Where it is the case that your personal data is being processed by us, you have the right to request a copy of personal data held by us. We will respond to your request within a month or a longer period if the request involves a large amount of data. We will not charge a fee for such requests. However, a reasonable fee may be charged to cover administrative cost where the personal data requested is excessive. | |
| 6.3 | Right to rectification |
| You have the right to obtain without undue delay rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data. You can do so by updating your account profile information or settings or send us a request for information that you cannot update yourself. | |
| 6.4 | Right to erasure |
| We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us and to comply with our legal obligations. If you no longer want us to process your personal data in order to provide you with our Services, you can ask us to erase your personal data and to close your Soothe account. | |
| If you request the erasure of your personal information, we may still retain some of your personal information as necessary for our legitimate business interests and to comply with our legal obligations. In addition, information you have published on our Platform, such as reviews, may continue to be visible to other users of the Platform. | |
| As we maintain the Platform to protect from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, residual copies of your personal data may not be removed from our backup system for a limited period of time. | |
| 6.5 | Objection to processing |
| You have the right to object to processing which is likely to cause unwarranted damage or distress. You also can require us not to process your personal information for certain purposes, including profiling, where such processing is based on legitimate interest. If you object to such processing, we will not process your personal information for these purposes unless we have compelling legitimate grounds for such processing or such processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. | |
| 6.6 | Complaint to the relevant data protection authorities |
| You have a right of complaint to the relevant data protection authorities in relation to the treatment of your personal data by us. If you Data Controller is Soothe Europe, you have the right to file a complaint to the Office of Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland. | |
| 7. | Privacy Policy Changes |
| From time to time, we may change this Privacy Policy. If we change this Privacy Policy, we will give you notice by posting the revised Privacy Policy on the Website and Apps and sending an email notice to you using the contact information provided by you. Those changes will go into effect on the effective date shown in the revised Privacy Policy. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you may cancel your Soothe account and stop using the Services. If you do not cancel your account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued use of the Services will be subject to the revised Policy. | |
| 8. | Security |
| We maintain reasonable physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in an effort to protect the confidentiality and security of Personal Information in our custody and control. However, no data transmission over the Internet or other network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect information transmitted on or through the Services, we cannot and do not guarantee the security of any information you transmit on or through the Services, and you do so at your own risk. | |
| We also frequently review and update our administrative, technical, and physical security measures to ensure the security of your personal information. If you know or have reason to believe that your Account credentials have been lost, stolen, or misappropriated, please contact us immediately. | |
| 9. | Contact Us |
| If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, you can contact us via email at privacy@soothe.com or write to us at: | |
| For persons whose Country of Residence is outside the EU/EEA: Soothe, Inc., 705 W Pico Blvd PMB 21932 Los Angeles, CA 90019. | |
| For persons whose Country of Residence is within the EU/EEA: Soothe Massage Limited, 3rd Floor, 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, United Kingdom, WA14 2DT. | |
| PLEASE PRINT A COPY OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY FOR YOU RECORDS AND PLEASE CHECK THE WEBSITE FREQUENTLY FOR ANY CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY. |