AppHelp Privacy Notice

Last updated on August 12, 2021

A French version is available here.

This AppHelp Privacy Notice applies to end-users of the AppHelp services (IT Helpdesk). AppDirect, Inc. (together with our affiliates, licensors, partners and contractors, including their respective successors and assigns, referred to as “AppHelp”, “AppDirect”, “we”, “us” or “our”) provide these services on behalf of third-parties. Your direct contractual relationship is and remains with your service provider that makes use of the AppHelp Services. This Privacy Notice applies in addition to the AppDirect Privacy Notice.

The AppHelp Services (the “Services”) require the exchange and processing of personal information in order to be effective. The Services are those of a “help desk” where we troubleshoot and help users with potential issues with services provided by other third parties having mandated us to do so. We may provide the AppHelp Services directly to you or to a User (as defined below). These services also require the use of third-party tools and systems as described below.

We process the personal information described in this policy because it is necessary to do so to provide IT Helpdesk services. We do so pursuant to contracts with third-parties consenting for your us to do so, your direct consent as well as our legitimate interests in providing the services.

In essence, we need to collect certain personal information about each customer (the “Customer”) in order to be able to provide such Customer and/or its employees or other authorized users acting on its behalf (each a “User”) with our Services. We promise to work hard to preserve the integrity and the security of the Customer’s (including its Users’) information. We will only use the Customer’s data in a manner consistent with these terms of service, and will not share it with anyone for any other purpose. Such data may be stored and processed anywhere in the world. For the purposes of this document, the expression “personal information” means the information that either uniquely identifies a physical person or enables us to do so, as further explained below. Such information may include the person’s name, address, contact information (such as telephone numbers or email addresses), age, gender, and so forth, but excludes a person’s job title or business contact information.

PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY. THE CUSTOMER’S (INCLUDING ITS USERS’) USE OF OUR SERVICES WILL MEAN THAT THE CUSTOMER HAS ACCEPTED THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS DESCRIBED HEREIN, AND CONSENTED TO OUR COLLECTION, STORAGE, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF ITS (INCLUDING ITS USERS’) PERSONAL INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THESE TERMS.

    1. WHY WE NEED TO COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

    Certain Customer personal information is necessary for us to be able to better understand the Customer’s needs and preferences, and to provide our Services to the Customer. Additionally, we may rely on such personal information to contact the Customer regarding its account, upcoming changes, improvements, software updates and upgrades, new offers and promotions, as well as to improve the effectiveness of our offerings, to conduct research, analysis and other business related activities. In any event, the personal information will not be used, made available or otherwise disclosed for purposes other than those specified herein, unless we obtain the Customer’s prior consent or are required by law to do so.

        2. WHAT KIND OF PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE CONCERNED

      We collect the following information and process it with third-parties as follows (see also the Analytics and Third Parties page).

      AppHelp provides various software and services, any combination of which could be made available to the Customer and its Users, depending on the type of Services it purchases. We will access and collect personal information only to the extent necessary to ensure that the Customer is able to access and use our Services. We may also collect and store personal information that the Customer (including its Users) chooses to provide to us, at its sole discretion, without us requiring it to do so. In order to be able to identify and associate the Customer with its account, we need to collect information specific to the Customer. This includes the Customer’s name, contact information, including mailing address, email addresses of certain Users entitled to access and use the Services for or on behalf of the Customer, as well as other unique identifiers attributed to the Customer (including its Users) by us or by other service provider, as the case may be.

       Also, when the Customer contacts us, whether by phone, chat, email, through our websites or otherwise, we may keep a record of such communications to help solve issues that the Customer might be facing, but also for training, quality assurance and statistical purposes, as well as to improve our products and services. 

      Please note that we may use personal information to aggregate various performance, analytical and statistical data, as well as to develop new products and services. When we do so, we try to ensure that the Customer’s (and its Users’) personal information is anonymized. 

      Chat sessions - When the Customer (including any of its Users) requests live chat assistance from our technical support agents, chat sessions will be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes, as well as to improve our products and services. As a result, all information exchanged during such chat sessions may be collected and used by us as part of our internal processes.

       Live call sessions - Similarly, when the Customer requests live assistance from our technical support agents by telephone, conversations may be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes, as well as to improve our products and services. As a result, all information exchanged during such recorded calls may be collected and used by us as part of our internal processes.

       Remote control - If the Customer requests live support from our technical support agents, the agent may need to take remote control of the Customer’s device in order to resolve the issues that the Customer is experiencing. However, the agents will not access the device without the Customer’s express authorisation. Additionally, if an agent takes remote control over the Customer’s device, the agent may have access to any information stored on such device. However, our technical support agents are trained not to access more information than absolutely necessary to resolve the issues for which the Customer is requesting the agents’ support. While support agents do not access unnecessary information, it is the Customer’s responsibility to remain in front of its device screen to observe the actions of the agent while the latter performs the services. The Customer will have the opportunity to end the live support session at any time by clicking on the appropriate button. In any case, it is the Customer’s responsibility to ensure that all of its files, especially those containing the Customer’s (including any of its Users’) personal information, are secure to prevent any type of data loss or corruption. 

      Assistance with Third Party Solutions -  When the Customer requests assistance with regards to its accounts held with third party solution providers (such as, without limitation, Microsoft Office 365), the Customer may be required to provide its login credentials and other relevant information for such third party solution, as may be requested by the technical support agent during service delivery in order to enable the latter to deliver the requested services. The foregoing may enable our support agents to access personal information stored by such third party solution providers as part of the Customer’s account with them. We will treat such login credentials and other provided information as the Customer’s personal information. However, the Customer is fully responsible for managing and updating, as needed, its (including its Users’) login credentials and other information with any and all third party service providers as the Customer sees fit.

          3. WHO MAY HAVE ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFORMATION

        At AppHelp, we recognise and respect the importance of protecting the Customer’s (and its Users’) personal information. Keeping its personal information in strict confidence is an integral part of our commitment to service excellence. We do not sell or rent any personal information to any third party. However, in order to provide the Customer with our Services, we may share its personal information with our affiliated companies, parent entities and subsidiaries, for internal business purposes, as well as with our partners acting on our behalf. As many other service providers, we use third party partners’ assistance in some aspects of our business operations, which, in some cases, involves processing or handling of the Customer’s personal information. However, before we do so, we take appropriate measures to ensure that such personal information remains safe and secure, and is used only in a way that is consistent with our privacy policy. We protect the Customer’s personal information even within our organisation. It may be accessible only by those employees, agents, representatives and contractors of AppHelp who need to know such information as part of their duties. We also ensure that our employees, agents, representatives and contractors perform their duties in a way compatible with the terms and conditions described in this document.

            4. HOW WE PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

          We work diligently to maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with industry best practices to guard the Customer’s personal information against unauthorized access or use. All personal information is stored in secure data centers, access to which is restricted to authorised personnel only. We employ industry-leading technologies to store sensitive information and protect it while in transit over the internet. Additionally, our websites use industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to protect the Customer’s information using both server authentication and data encryption.

              5. WHERE PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE PROCESSED

            We may store, or process the Customer’s personal information in many places around the world, including outside the United States of America, Canada, India and Argentina.

                6. KEEPING PERSONAL INFORMATION ACCURATE AND UP-TO-DATE

              In the provision of our services, we want to ensure that we provide the Customer with the best experience possible. To do so, we rely heavily on the personal information that the Customer submits to us. If the Customer notices that the information that we have on in our files is inaccurate, or the Customer’s information changes, we strongly encourage the Customer to reach out to us and provide us with its most current information. Not doing so may, in some cases, affect our capacity to deliver to our Services. Note that before updating the Customer’s personal information, we may ask the Customer to verify its identity before we can act on the request.

                  7. RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

                The Customer’s personal information will be stored in accordance with our retention policies and processes. We will keep the Customer’s information only for as long as it is necessary for us to fulfill our obligations, including towards the third-party that contracts our services (where applicable).

                    8. THIRD PARTY SERVICES

                  If the Customer avails itself of the specific cybersecurity programs that make cybersecurity software available on an ongoing basis to the Customer (as opposed to during a support session), then the Customer personal information is processed by Bitdefender. For more information, please see: https://www.bitdefender.com/site/view/legal-privacy-policy-for-home-users-solutions.html

                  See also the Analytics and Third Parties page.