Your personal data belongs to you!
And that’s why you should know and control who you’re sharing it with and what’s being done with it.
We take privacy and your personal data seriously and want to make sure you feel comfortable and in control when visiting our website at https://hoggo.io/ (the “Site”) or when using our platform (the “Platform” and together with the Site, our “Services”). We see it a bit like sharing something important to you with a friend – you trust them to keep it safe but somehow also want some kind of reassurance that they won’t do anything weird with it.
So take a moment to read through our privacy policy and get to know us a bit more and how we handle your personal data. And remember, it’s totally up to you whether you want to share your personal data with us or not. But just keep in mind that as a digital service, we might not be able to provide you with certain parts of our Services if you don’t.
About this Privacy Policy
We like to keep things simple (but still safe) when it comes to privacy, and this policy is no different.
We want to let you know what kind of personal data we collect, how we use it, how long we keep it, and where we store it.
If you have any questions after reading this policy, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].
What is personal data?
There are a number of different definitions out there, but we chose to adopt the stricter one, which considers personal data to be any data that directly or indirectly identifies an individual.
What does “indirectly identifiable” mean?
Think of it this way, say you want to cook a fancy dish.
Now, you’ll need a bunch of different ingredients to make the dish. If you look at the ingredients separately, you might not be able to identify the dish you’re planning on making.
But, once you start mixing them together, it becomes more and more recognizable (if you know how to cook). At one point no one will have to ask “what are you cooking” but instead will say “Yum, you’re cooking (fill in your favorite dish name).
Same thing with personal data. Even if certain types of information don’t identify you on their own, the more bits of information that are added, the more you become identifiable until you become directly identifiable.
hoggo does not have access to its customers’ personal data!
We built hoggo specifically in a way that prioritizes privacy and made sure that we don’t have access to any (including personal data) we don’t need to provide our Services. We’re calling it a “privacy-first” solution.
What does this mean?
A privacy-first approach is a way of thinking about privacy that prioritizes protecting individuals’ personal data and privacy rights. And the best way to do that is to not have access to the data in the first place. What does this mean in practice? We don’t access your databases and generally don’t require any of your data to provide our Services. We know, that’s crazy right?
Personal data we do we collect
Having said that, even with our “privacy-first” approach, we still need to collect some personal data so that we can provide you with our Services and conduct our business.
Depending on how you interact with hoggo, the types of personal data we collect and the way we use it may differ. The types of personal data we collect can be divided into two main categories: User Data and Other Data.
User Data: This is data relating to people using the hoggo platform (usually employees of our customers).
User Data usually includes:
- Full name and business email
- Title and company name
- Contact and billing information
- Technical data on how the platform is used such as IP addresses, device type, activity logs, and cookies
- Free-form text or documentation you may choose to provide us with when interacting with hoggo
- Specific needs and preferences of a user (if any)
Other Data: This is data relating to our customers, potential customers, and visitors to our website.
How do we use your personal data?
Simply put. We only use your personal data when we need to in order to provide you with our Services or to stay in touch.
We don’t share your personal data with anyone other than trusted third-parties that help us provide our services (see more about data sharing here) and we definitely don’t sell your data to any third party.
The left column below describes the purpose we may use User Data for and the right column describes the legal base we rely on when doing so.
To provide our Services | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers |
To personalize our Services | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers |
To develop and improve the Services | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers and pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests |
To communicate with you | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers, pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or your consent |
To support and enhance our data security measures | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers, pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or complying with our legal obligations |
To comply with our legal obligations, enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests | Pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or complying with our legal obligations |
The left column below describes the purpose we may use Other Data for and the right column describes the legal base we rely on when doing so.
To facilitate and optimize our marketing efforts | Your consent and in some cases hoggo’s legitimate interest |
To better understand and improve interactions with our Services | hoggo’s legitimate interest |
To communicate with you | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers, pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or your consent |
To support and enhance our data security measures | Performing the contract between hoggo and its customers, pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or complying with our legal obligations |
To create aggregated statistical data to provide and improve our Services | hoggo’s legitimate interest |
To comply with our legal obligations, enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests | Pursuing hoggo’s legitimate interests, or complying with our legal obligations |
Where, how, and for how long do we keep your personal data?
Where?
We are based in Berlin, Germany, and store your personal data on AWS servers that are located in Germany. However, when we engage with selected third-parties to perform services complementary to our own, your personal data may be accessed from, or transferred to, other countries.
If we transfer personal data to a third party, it will only be to the extent necessary to provide our services and only to selected third-parties, or if we are legally required to.
If your personal data needs to be transferred to countries that are not part of the EEA, UK or Switzerland and that country has lower data protection standards than the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, then we make sure that appropriate transfer mechanisms and safeguards are in place (such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses) to ensures that your personal data is still protected with adequate standards.
How?
It can be a dangerous world out there, so we made sure we’ve implemented sufficient measures to keep your personal data secure. Having said that, due to the nature of the online world, we can’t guarantee full immunity against harm, but we can guarantee that we will do our best to get as close as possible.
Depending on the types of personal data we are processing (whether User Data or Other Data), the specifics of the security measures may be slightly different depending on if, and which, third party is involved. Having said that, we made sure that any third party we engage with, has guaranteed a sufficient level of security measures are in place. You can find out more about our security practices here.
For how long?
We have no interest in keeping your personal data longer than we need to and assure you that we will delete it as soon as possible. Depending on the data type, the purpose we collected it for, and our legal obligations, the time we keep it may differ but as a rule of thumb we aim to delete your personal data no later than 90 days from your last engagement with us But please keep in mind that sometimes this period may be longer due to backup storage or where we are legally obligated to keep some types of personal data for longer (such as financial data). In that case, we will make sure to keep it safe for as long as we have it, not use it for any other purposes than necessary, and delete it the moment we can.
We retain personal data in accordance with our internal retention policy which states that we keep User Data for:
- no longer than necessary to maintain and provide our Services
- no longer than required in order to comply with our legal and contractual obligations
- no longer than required to protect ourselves from any potential disputes
and other data for:
- no longer than necessary in order to maintain and expand our relationship
- no longer than necessary achieve the purpose for which we collected/received it
- no longer than necessary to maintain and provide our Services
- no longer than required in order to comply with our legal and contractual obligations
- no longer than required to protect ourselves from any potential disputes
With whom do we share your personal data?
Simply put, we don’t share your personal data with anyone other than with trusted third-parties that help us provide our services. In extreme cases, we may be legally obligated to share some data with government and law enforcement officials. However, we will only do so if we believe it’s legally required of us to do so or appropriate and even then, only share the minimum required.
When we work with other companies or individuals to provide services that complement our own (like for hosting, security, billing, and marketing services), we make sure we have agreements with each of them that specify what they can and can't do with your personal data. Depending on the services they provide, they may have access to your data, but they can only use it for the specific purposes outlined in our agreements. Below is a list of the third-parties we are currently using and for what purposes.
Name of Vendor | Scope of Use |
Auth0 | Security, User Authentication and Management |
AWS | Cloud hosting |
Brevo | Customer and Prospect Management |
Piwik pro | Website analytics and Platform analytics |
Posthog | Platform analytics |
Trello | Project management |
Zoom | Communications |
If you click a link on our website that leads you to another website or service please be aware that these are not controlled by us, and that they have their own privacy policies and terms of use. We recommend that you read their policies carefully to understand how they handle your information.
Cookies anyone?
We take privacy seriously. Seriously!
But we are also an online business and therefore we also use cookies on our website. Not the third-party marketing cookies though, just the ones that are essential and the ones for analytics and statistics.
We use cookies and similar technologies to improve our services, track your activities, personalize your experience, and analyze user behavior.
What are cookies?
Think of it this way, say you are a cookie monster, and every time you visit a website, that website gives you a cookie to snack on.
And, just like real cookies, they come in different flavors and sizes.
Some of them are little snack-sized cookies that disappear once you close your browser (also called session cookies), and some of them are a bit larger and stick around for a while (also known as persistent cookies).
What are they good for, you may ask.
Well, they make our browsing experience much easier and more enjoyable.
Persistent cookies, for example, help remember things like your log-in details or your language settings, and session cookies help you use the website by keeping track of what you’re doing, like a little helper that follows you around.
There is also a third type of cookie called third-party cookies.
These you can think of as cookies offered to you by an unknown cookie monster.
Now there could be nothing wrong with that cookie, but you can’t know for sure. So we’re pretty sure you’d be extra careful before accepting one of those. The same goes for third-party cookies, so we’re happy to inform you that we don’t offer third-party cookies (in other words, we don’t use them).
We do, however, use persistent and session cookies to make sure your user experience is as smooth and enjoyable as possible.
Can I control my cookies?
You can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings, but please note that there are essential cookies that cannot be disabled, and disabling other cookies may impact your ability to use our services.
Also, if you clear your browser’s cookie file or use a new computer or browser, you may need to opt out of cookies again.
If you’d like to change the type of consent you gave us, check our Cookie Policy.
We like staying in touch
Communication is key for any relationship, as well as a business one.
We might need to contact you because of an update to our services or because we might want to tell you about a new service we’re rolling out and excited about. We classify these types of communications as “Service Communications” and due to their content and purpose, these cannot be opted-out from.
We also may send other types of communication from time to time relating to hoggo and our Services. These may have more of a promotional nature to them. But no worries, we won’t bombard your inbox with irrelevant stuff and you can always unsubscribe/opt-out from them anytime you’d like. For this please just follow the instructions at the bottom of the communications or just just let us know and we’ll respect that.
As mentioned, if we need to notify you on important information regarding our services (such as changes or updates, billing issues, log-in attempts, or password reset notices) we’ll use the contact details you provided us with to contact you. As these notices are service related and integral to your use of hoggo, we can’t offer an opt-out option on receiving them.
We may want to notify you about new features, additional offerings, events, special opportunities, or other information we think you will find valuable. If you wish not to receive these types of notices, please let us know or just hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email.
Yes, you have rights!
You have rights regarding your personal data, and we’ll respect those rights should you want to exercise them.
Just send us an email and let us know if you do.
Please note, however, that we may need to verify that you are actually the person relating to the data in your request.
- Request access to your personal data: you can confirm if we process your personal data and get a copy of it.
- Request rectification or erasure of your personal data: you can ask us to correct any inaccurate data or delete it.
- Request restriction or object to processing of your personal data: you can ask us to limit or stop processing your personal data.
- Request portability of your personal data: you can obtain a copy or ask to transfer your personal data.
If you contact us to make a request, please be aware that we may provide instructions on how to fulfill the request yourself through your User Profile settings. Should we need to verify your identity or request, we may require additional information and personal data from you to authenticate and process your request, which we will retain for legal purposes.
And finally…
Updates and Changes
Things change sometimes, and if they do, we may need to update or change this policy.
If we make any material changes, we’ll notify you via one of the contact details you provided us with or other communication methods (such as posting a notice on our platform). Once we post the updated version and you continue using our services, we’ll assume that you agree with the updated version.
What is our role in all this?
Some privacy laws (such as the GDPR) differentiate between two main roles for parties processing personal data, a “data processor” and a “data controller”. Where applicable, hoggo is a data controller and assumes the responsibilities as such.
Age limit
Our services are not meant for individuals under the age of 18, and we do not wish to collect or otherwise process any personal data of anyone under 18. So, if you’re under 18, please don’t provide us with any of your personal data. If you think we may have any personal data of individuals under 18, please let us know.
For anything else
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this privacy policy, please reach out to [email protected], and we’ll do our best to get back to you as quickly as possible. Really, we mean it.
