What we do

• Personal is dedicated to protecting your privacy. We have been recognized as an Organizational Ambassador for Privacy by Design for embedding privacy in our technology and business practices.
• We only collect basic, non-personal or technical information, such as browser type, from those who visit Personal but who do not register.
• If you register at Personal to become an Owner, we collect the same non-personal information and use cookies to support your logged-in experience.
• We keep your sensitive information encrypted in a way that prevents even us from accessing it in your Data Vault.
• We use a limited number of select service providers to perform work on our behalf. They are permitted to use data only for those services or at an aggregate level.
• You should be in control of your data. At Personal, you can delete or export any data you store in your Data Vault at any time.

What we don't do

As the Owner of your data at Personal, you choose who gets access to that information, how they use it, and if they can profit from it. Here are some things Personal won’t do:

• We never sell your data.
• We will only grant access to your data to third parties with your explicit permission to do so. We won’t disclose your data without your consent, either, other than in the very limited circumstances described below.
• We won’t use your data to market things to you from our partners unless you choose to allow it.
• While we may suggest parts of Personal to you based on what you have already chosen to use and we know the Gems and fields being used across Personal at an aggregate level, we don’t create personally identifiable profiles or dossiers of Visitors or Owners.
• While we do automatically collect technical information about how Visitors and Owners interact with Personal, we don’t automatically collect personal information without your permission.
• Other than our trusted service providers, we don’t allow others to track you or put third party cookies on your computer while you’re at Personal without your permission.
• We provide easy import features to help you populate Gems in your Data Vault. But only you can choose to import your data from other sites. We will never make the decision to do it for you.
• Although we do receive and keep information about how you got to Personal, we don’t track your activity across the Internet.

Your Privacy Matters

Thank you for visiting www.personal.com (the “Site”), which is owned and operated by Personal, Inc. (“Personal”, “us” or “we”). In this Privacy Policy, we use the term “Visitors” to refer to all visitors to the Site, and “Owners” to refer to registered users of the Personal service (the “Personal Service”). We believe your data belongs to you; that is why we call you an Owner if you are a registered user of the Personal Service. Personal is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy.

This Privacy Policy applies to information collection and use while you are on our Site or our mobile version of the Site, or using Personal’s mobile applications, whether you are simply an anonymous Visitor, or have registered to use the Personal Service and become an Owner. Our Privacy Policy governs the handling of information from all Visitors and Owners. Together, our Privacy Policy and Owner Data Agreement govern the handling of all personal information from those who register for the Personal Service. Neither the Site nor the Personal Service are directed toward children under the age of 13. By providing any personal information to Personal or otherwise using the Site or Personal Service, all Visitors and Owners, including without limitation individuals in the European Union, acknowledge and hereby unambiguously consent to the collection and processing of such information in and transfer of it to the United States. You may not use the Personal Service if you do not agree to such transfer to, collection, and processing of your personal information in the United States.

If you choose to register with the Personal Service and become an Owner, you must review and agree to the Owner Data Agreement (the “ODA”), which will govern certain aspects of your interaction with Personal, including the fact that you legally own your data if you choose to provide, store and manage it with the Personal Service.

The Privacy Policy includes the contents of this web page, including the summary points above, which we provide only for your convenience, and the FAQs below. Please read the entire Privacy Policy, as well as the Terms of Use into which this Privacy Policy is incorporated. In the event of any conflict between the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, the terms and conditions of the Privacy Policy will prevail.

If you do not agree with the Privacy Policy or Terms of Use, do not use Personal.

Because of Personal’s commitment to offering our Visitors and Owners state-of-the-art privacy opportunities, we will continuously evaluate our Privacy Policy, internal privacy program, as well as any third-party programs with which we associate, and implement improvements and refinements from time to time. We encourage you to check the Site frequently to see the current Privacy Policy, ODA and Terms of Use in effect and any changes that may have been made to them. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email to the address specified in your account or by means of a prominent notice on the Site before the change becomes effective.

Personal is proud of our approach to protecting your privacy, and we hope you will review this Privacy Policy frequently together with all of our other commitments and agreements with you. We welcome any questions, comments or suggestions you may have about this Privacy Policy or any other material on Personal, and we will work to improve our policies and practices based on useful input we receive. Please send your questions, comments or suggestions to privacy@personal.com.

FAQs

1. What is ”personal information“ and ”non-personal information“?

”Personal information“ identifies a Visitor or Owner or otherwise contains personally identifiable information provided by or obtained from Personal’s Visitors or Owners. ”Non-personal information“ does not, by itself, identify the Visitor or Owner as a specific individual. Rather, non-personal information provides technical data, such as an IP address and browser information that may provide information about your computer or your interaction with Personal.

2. What information does Personal collect from Visitors to Personal?

Personal only collects non-personal information from Visitors to the Site or mobile Site. Therefore, Visitors may access both while remaining generally anonymous to Personal.

3. What information does Personal collect from Owners?

To register with the Personal Service to become an Owner, users must provide a username and email address. Personal only collects this personal information if a Visitor chooses to register to become an Owner. Owners explicitly choose the information they wish to store and manage in the Personal Service; it is not automatically collected by Personal. Indeed, we view your personal data that you as an Owner store with the Personal Service in your “Data Vault” as belonging to you. We may collect information related to how you logged in – whether through a mobile app or a browser – so we can alert you to new features about the Personal Service.

Personal may use your registration information to contact you to: deliver the Personal Service and improve our Site, the Personal Service, features and content, and provide customer service; administer and enable your use, enjoyment and navigation of our Site, the Personal Service, and mobile Site; better understand your needs and interests; fulfill requests you make; and personalize your experience. However, we will never use your data to have things marketed to you unless you ask us to do so.

4. How does Personal collect information from Visitors or Owners?

Personal may collect non-personal information during your visit to the Site or mobile Site through our automatic data collection tools, which may include the use of ”cookies“ and other commonly used technologies.

5. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small piece of data stored by a user’s browser. At Personal, cookies contain session information to identify you for access purposes as you navigate the Site or mobile Site.

6. Does Personal create user profiles of everyone who visits the Site?

No. Personal uses cookies to facilitate the Personal Service’s functionality and to preserve Owner preferences. When you visit the Site or mobile Site, Personal may place a cookie in order to improve your experience by recognizing you when you visit. But Personal does not use cookies to create profiles of Visitors or Owners.

Personal also does not use cookies or other information-gathering tools to automatically collect personal information from Visitors to the Site or mobile Site. We only receive personal information when you choose to provide it. And, to make sure that no one else is collecting personal information, other than our trusted service providers, we don’t allow others to track you or put third party cookies on your computer while you’re on the Site or using the Personal Service without your explicit consent.

7. What other parties can see me on Personal?

Personal uses a select number of service providers to help facilitate the Personal Service. For example, we use Twitter, Facebook and Gravatar to provide additional functionalities on our blog—such as the ability to include photos of those who post on our blog, to count the number of visitors on our blog posts, and to allow you to share blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. They may use cookies or other technologies to facilitate these features on our blog, and, of course, if you choose to share on Facebook or Twitter, your activity is governed by their privacy policies.

8. Is there an age restriction for joining Personal?

Yes. Personal is committed to protecting the privacy of young children, and, therefore, does not knowingly collect or maintain personally identifiable information on the Site or the Personal Service from persons under 13 years of age, and no part of Personal is directed to persons under 13. If you are under 13, then you may not register to use the Personal Service. In the event that Personal discovers a person under 13 has registered as an Owner, Personal will delete the person’s account in accordance with the law.

9. Are customer testimonials personally identifiable?

We post customer testimonials on our Site that may contain personally identifiable information, such as your name and/or photo. We will always obtain your consent before posting the testimonial. If you change your mind later, you may request removal of your name and/or photo from our testimonials by contacting us at privacy@personal.com.

10. Can I invite others to join the Personal Service?

Yes. If you’d like to do that, we will ask you for the individual’s email address for the sole purpose of inviting them to the Personal Service. All communications from Personal contain a link allowing you to unsubscribe from our mailing list.

11. How does Personal work?

After registering with the Personal Service as an Owner, you can enter or import as much information as you wish into your Data Vault. Your Data Vault houses bundles of structured fields into which you can import information from online sources or input manually, as further described in the ODA (“Gems”). Only you as the Owner choose the information to store in your Gems. Personal does not use this information for any purpose other than to allow you to manage your information within your Data Vault and enable you to decide and direct how to deploy the information you have stored.

12. What are examples of Gems?

Some examples include account log-in information for other websites, consumer product information, allergy information, favorite foods, clothing sizes, recipes, shopping lists, and instructions for a pet sitter, among many others.

13. Who controls the information in my Data Vault?

You do. At the Personal Service, you control your data, including who can have access to it, except in the several limited circumstances explained below. Owners always have the ability to supplement, edit, correct, export, or delete information in their Data Vault at any time. You may change or terminate your sharing permissions whenever you like. You may also request access to the Gems of others. Those Owners can then choose whether to grant you access to their information. For more background, please review our ODA.

14. Who controls third party access to my data?

You do. We will never sell your data and only grant access to it to third parties with your explicit request that we do so. And we won’t otherwise grant any third party access to your data, except for a limited number of select service providers performing work on our behalf, and under the limited exceptions described below in order to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

15. Could any third party service provider have access to my data?

We may employ independent companies or other third parties and individuals to help us provide, facilitate or improve the Personal Service (such as customer service support). Service providers will never have access to the data in your Gems, unless you voluntarily share it. They are permitted to use data only for the purpose of performing services on our behalf or at an aggregate level.

16. What APIs does Personal provide or use?

Personal provides an API that allows third parties to request your data from you. To ensure your data is delivered only to parties whom you have chosen to share it with, Personal maintains permissions for your data in the platform.

Personal also uses third party APIs to help you transfer your data from other sites into your Data Vault. This action is always initiated by you. At the point you initiate, you are authenticating against the third party service so they know where you are and you know they’re exporting the data you requested.

17. When might Personal have to disclose my data?

Other than sharing with our select service providers as explained above, we will only be in a position to disclose information in your Data Vault in the following limited circumstances relating to abuse or misuse of the Personal Service or legal process.

(1) If Personal believes in good faith that you have misused or abused the Personal Service or the data of any Owner or Visitor, or attempted to interfere with or harm the Personal Service, we will investigate and cooperate with appropriate law enforcement, including, if necessary or appropriate, by disclosing your name, registration data or IP address and any other relevant information, to protect our rights or property, or those of our Visitors, Owners, corporate partners, and others. We will cooperate fully with any legal process or criminal investigation into the misuse or abuse of the Personal Service. As noted above, the servers used in the operation of the Site and the Personal Service automatically identify a computer by its IP address.

(2) We may share your personal information as required by law to comply with a subpoena or similar legal process or government request, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is legally required or otherwise necessary to protect our rights and property, or the rights, property or safety of our Visitors, Owners or others.

Where your personal information has been requested by any governmental entity or other third party pursuant to subpoena or similar legal process, we will notify you as quickly as practicable before providing any such information, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so or we believe in good faith that disclosure is or may be necessary to protect life, avoid serious physical injury or property loss or damage, or to prevent or investigate an ongoing crime.

Where Personal shares information under the above circumstances, Personal would only be able to produce limited information. Sensitive data in your Data Vault is encrypted, and we do not store Owner passwords for sensitive information. Therefore, we could only produce data that is still encrypted and thus unreadable without being decrypted. Non-sensitive data is not encrypted, and we would be able to produce it.

18. What if Personal undergoes a change in corporate control?

Like any business, Personal may experience a change in control, receipt of new investments, management changes, and any other changes in its corporate and management structures. If you don’t like these changes, you can always choose to remove your data from the Personal Service.

19. How does Personal actually delete my data when I choose to delete my account?

Personal applies filters to our entire platform to ensure your personal information is never recorded in our logs. This means that, after you’ve decided to delete your data, it will truly be gone following the first backup rotation.

20. What does Personal do to secure my information?

The security of your personal information is important to us. We strive to follow industry best practices—and constantly work to review and improve them—to protect our Owners’ personal information, both during transmission and once we receive it. For example, you may store many types of information in your Data Vault, such as recipes or shopping lists, and some categories of sensitive data that deserve extra protection, such as log-in information for other websites, credit card information, or health information. We encrypt all sensitive data with an Owner-chosen password that Personal does not store and therefore cannot access. Only you know the password that will unlock this information.

We also work hard to keep up to date on the latest threats and best industry practices to ensure our security practices are current so we can protect your data and privacy. Nevertheless, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If we discover a security incident that compromises your sensitive personal information, we will let you know about it, in accordance with applicable law.

Click here for more information about our security practices.

21. What about the practices of other websites linked to the Site or the Personal Service?

Personal may contain links to other websites, but please be aware that Personal is not responsible for their privacy practices. Personal encourages users to be aware when they leave the Site and to read the privacy policies of each website they visit that collects personal information. While Personal carefully chooses the websites we link to, this Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected on this Site or the Personal Service.

22. How does Personal ensure that outside parties are not eavesdropping on me?

Personal uses default 256-bit SSL encryption and secure cookies to prevent others from eavesdropping on you when you transfer personal information. All pages and APIs involving the exchange of passwords or personal information are safeguarded this way. Please note that Personal cannot guarantee that your ISP is not tracking your visits to Personal and other sites, whether you are on our Site, the mobile Site, or our mobile applications.

23. What happens if I forget my password?

If you forget your password and need to reset it, your sensitive data will be deleted and you will need to re-enter it. This is done for your protection. (Non-sensitive data, such as Gems for recipes or clothing sizes, would not be affected).

24. What about my privacy rights in California?

Glad you asked. We support the principle behind the California “Shine the Light” law, CA Civil Code § 1798.83, which gives consumers the right to know about certain personal information shared with third parties. Indeed, we will never do that without your express permission. At Personal, you always choose the personal information, if any, you share with a third party, so our platform actually gives you more protection and control for your information than the law requires. However, if you have any questions about how the California law applies to you or your data at Personal, don't hesitate to ask us.

25. Where can I send questions, comments or suggestions about Personal’s privacy practices?

Please contact us at privacy@personal.com or via mail at:

Personal, Inc.
Attn: Legal Department
1010 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.
Suite 150
Washington, DC 20007

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO US VIA UNENCRYPTED EMAIL. Also, please note that we will need to verify and authenticate any emailed requests for access or changes to your personal or account information.