KiwiLink’s Privacy Policy

This is KiwiLink’s privacy policy. Thank you for taking the time to read this privacy policy.

We are thankful that you trust us with your information and we intend to always protect and honor this trust. With this document, we strive to make sure that you understand the types of information we collect, why we collect this information, how we use this information, and what sort of choices you can make regarding this information. In this policy, we strive to describe our views and practices regarding privacy in plain and simple language, such that you can understand everything that we are writing about. If you choose to use the KiwiLink app, then you must agree to the storage and usage of information as discussed in this privacy policy.

This privacy policy is applicable starting September 20, 2020.

EFFECTIVE DATE: September 20, 2020

1. Who are we?

KiwiLink is developed by a group of engineers and designers. This group responsible for developing KiwiLink is led by Victor Kuan, Winston Chen, and Jun Song.

You can contact us via email: kiwilinkbusiness@gmail.com

2. Where does this privacy policy apply?

This policy applies to the KiwiLink iOS, Android, and web app.

3. What sort of information do we collect?

As you may expect, we can’t link you with other users in a meaningful way without requesting some basic information about you. In other words, in order for you to completely register as a user while using our service, we may require you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information, including but not limited to your name, email, university major, university courses, bio, and profile picture. The point of this data collection is so that users can present themselves to other users, such that they can participate in our social network features for academic and social purposes. The information that we request will be retained by us and used as described in this privacy policy.

List of information you give us

- As you create a KiwiLink account, you provide us with login credentials, as well as date of birth. The reason that we collect information about your date of birth is because we want to ensure that all of our users are at least 18 years old, since we want to make sure that users are safely chatting with one another.

- As you complete your profile setup, you may (if you want to) provide us with extra information about your university major, university courses, university clubs or activities, and about your personality/bio. You may also provide us with a profile picture to depict yourself with; to do this, you can choose to allow us to access your camera roll or photo album. The reason why we collect these additional data points is because we want our users to be able to properly and effectively present themselves (as university students and academics) to other students. If users are accurately and effectively depicted, they are more likely to properly use our service, because these users would then have an easier time finding and adding friends, and they could then send messages to these friends about academics, studies, activities, and more.

- As expected, we will also process your messages/chats with other friends/users, since KiwiLink offers a chat function.

4. Which third party services may collect information about you?

The KiwiLink app may use third party services that may collect information used to identify you.

Here are the links to privacy policy of third party service providers used by the app:

- https://policies.google.com/privacy

- https://firebase.google.com/policies/analytics

- https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy/

We may employ third-party companies or individuals for to these reasons:

- To facilitate our Service;

- To provide the Service on our behalf;

- To perform KiwiLink-related services; or

- To assist us in analyzing how KiwiLink is used.

We want to inform users of this Service that these third parties have access to your Personal Information. The reason is to perform the tasks assigned to them on our behalf. However, they are obligated not to disclose or use the information for any other purpose, as they too are required to obey privacy rules.

5. Cookies

Cookies are files with a small amount of data that are commonly used as anonymous unique identifiers. These are sent to your browser from the websites that you visit and are stored on your device's internal memory.

KiwiLink may not use these “cookies” explicitly. However, the app may use third party code and libraries that use “cookies” to collect information and improve their services. You have the option to either accept or refuse these cookies and know when a cookie is being sent to your device. If you choose to refuse our cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of KiwiLink.

6. How we use your information

Mainly, we use your information so that our users can use KiwiLink as a cohesive and functional social network service. Also, we use your information in order to keep your account secure and in order to keep you safe. For example, we store information about your age (whether you are at least 18 years old), such that we know that you can safely use our chat functions.

List of some of the specific reasons for using your information:

- Creating and maintaining your account

- Show users’ profiles to other users

- Display relevant users and user information to you on your “For You Page”

- Calculate relevant users to display to you

- Prevent unauthorised people from logging into your account

- Comply with legal standards

- Perform data analysis to see which features are helpful/popular and which features should be removed or improved

7. What are your rights? Data retention and deletion

Since we want you to have full control over the distribution and management of your information, we have granted you access to these tools:

- Preferences page: you can delete the listing of your bio, majors, and courses in the preferences page if you suddenly decide that you don’t want KiwiLink developers or other users to be able to view these details

- Account deletion: you can delete your account (which deletes your account information and data from our database) by using the “delete account” feature in the KiwiLink app.

- Updating your account information: if you decide to change your account information (bio, major, courses, etc) you can edit said information in the preferences page of the KiwiLink app.

8. How do we make sure that your information is protected?

We strive to protect your information from unauthorized access or modification. We value your trust in providing us with your personal information, so we are striving to use commercially acceptable means of protecting and safeguarding it. However, try to remember that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of internet storage is 100% secure and reliable, and so we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

In the hypothetical (and unlikely) scenario of a breach of security, we may suspend your use of some of our KiwiLink services. If you have reason to suspect that your account or your information or your credentials are no longer secure, please send us a detailed notification at kiwilinkbusiness@gmail.com.

9. How long are we going to retain your information?

We only keep your information as long as you are active in using your KiwiLink account. This makes sense, because we only want to process your information during times when it would benefit you. In other words, we release our holding of your information when you delete your account; we only store your information as long as you want us to.

10. How do we address children’s privacy?

We make sure that every KiwiLink user is at least 18 years old. This means that we don’t allow people under the age of 18 to use the KiwiLink app, so we don’t knowingly collect any data or personal information from people under the age of 18. If you suspect that a user is under the age of 18, please send a report to kiwilinkbusiness@gmail.com about said user.

11. Links to other websites

While using KiwiLink, you may encounter links to other sites. If you click on a third-party link, you may be directed to that site. Do keep in mind that these external sites are not operated by us. Therefore, we strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of these external websites or services. Also note that we have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

12. Changes to KiwiLink’s privacy policy

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time. As such, we advise you to review this page periodically, and check for changes. New iterations of this privacy policy will be posted on this page.

13. Questions?

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, you can send an email to kiwilinkbusiness@gmail.com.