PRIVACY POLICY

1. OUR APPROACH

1.         This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) sets out how we the Emerald Co Ltd at 130 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BD (further referred to as “Emerald”, “our” or “we”) process the personal data of our website visitors and users (“User”).  
2. If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact help@emeraldchat.com.

2. what is personally identifiable information (pii) / personal data?

1. Personal data or PII means any information relating to a person who can be identified either directly or indirectly; it may include name, username, email address, IP address, date of birth, location data, photo, preferences, likes and dislikes (“Personal Data”).  

3. PURPOSES FOR WHICH we process PERSONAL data

1. Emerald will only process your Personal Data, in accordance with applicable law, for the following purposes:

1. creating and maintaining your User account, in particular to enable you to connect with others and engage with our site;
2. providing our services to you in a personalised way, for example, we may provide friend suggestions based on your previous activity on the site or from what information you have provided about yourself (e.g. relationship status, MBTI type, interests). This may also include, where legally permitted, processing data related to your location
3. enabling our suppliers and service providers to carry out certain functions on our behalf, including verification, technical, logistical or other functions,
4. sending you notifications of friend requests, posts, messages and other relevant up-dates
5. serving personalised advertising to your devices; delivering ads based on your interests ascertained from your past searches, visits of subpages and other data obtained through the use of "cookies" placed on your devices. Please see our Cookie Statement below.
6. [ensuring the security of your account and our business, preventing or detecting fraud or abuses of our website, for example, by requesting verification information in order to reset your account password;
7. [developing and improving our products and services, for example, by reviewing visits to our website and its various subpages, demand for specific services and User comments;]
8. [to comply with applicable law, for example, in response to a request from a court or regulatory body, where such request is made in accordance with the law;]

2. The legal basis for us processing your Personal Data for the purposes described above will typically be because you have provided us with your consent.  However, we may also rely on other legal grounds, for example, where the processing is necessary:  

1. to fulfil a contract that we have in place with you;
2. for our legitimate business interests; or
3. for compliance with a legal obligation to which Emerald is subject.

4. DISCLOSURE OF CUSTOMER INFORMATION

1. There are circumstances where we wish to disclose or are compelled to disclose your Personal Data to third parties. This will only take place in accordance with the relevant applicable law and for the purposes listed above. These scenarios may include disclosure:

1. to our subsidiaries, branches or associated offices;
2. to our outsourced service providers or suppliers to facilitate the provision of our services or goods;
3. to our advertising partners who enable us to deliver personalised ads to your devices or similar advertising;
4. to third party service providers and consultants in order to protect the security or integrity of our business, including our databases and systems and for business continuity reasons;
5. to another legal entity, on a temporary or permanent basis, for the purposes of a joint venture, collaboration, financing, sale, merger, reorganisation, change of legal form, dissolution or similar event. In the case of a merger or sale, your Personal Data will be permanently transferred to a successor company;
6. to public authorities where we are required by law to do so; and
7. to any other third party where you have provided your consent.

5. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER OF PERSONAL DATA

1. We may transfer your Personal Data to a third party in countries outside the country in which it was originally collected for further processing in accordance with the purposes set out in paragraph 3 above. In particular, your Personal Data may be transferred to our outsourced service providers located abroad. In these circumstances we will, where required by applicable law, ensure that your privacy rights are adequately protected by appropriate technical, organisation, contractual or other lawful means.  Please contact the DPO for a copy of the safeguards which we have put in place to protect your Personal Data and privacy rights in these circumstances.

6. RETENTION OF PERSONAL DATA

Your Personal Data will be retained until as long is reasonably necessary for the purposes listed above or as required by applicable local law.  Please contact the DPO for further details of applicable retention periods.

7. data privacy RIGHTS

1. Data privacy law provides individuals in certain countries with numerous rights, including the right to: access, rectify, erase, restrict, transport, and object to the processing of, their Personal Data.

3. You can prevent people accessing your personalised page on the website by removing them from your ‘friends’ list. If you choose to delete a friend, all contact will be severed. In order to delete a friend, you should access the ‘Settings’ feature for that particular friend and then click the ‘Delete’ button from the drop down menu.
4. Every post or picture that you upload to the site can be deleted by accessing the ‘Settings’ feature for that particular post or picture and then clicking the ‘Delete’ button from the drop down menu.
5. Individuals may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data privacy authority if they believe that their Personal Data is not being processed in accordance with applicable data privacy law. If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact our DPO whose contact details are set out in paragraph 1.2 above.

8. Children

Please note that this website is not intended for children under the age of 16.

COOKIE STATEMENT

What exactly are cookies?

In order to collect the information as described in our privacy policy, we may use cookie and similar technology on our website.

A cookie is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer's hard drive, mobile phone or other device.

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie.  This enables you to decide if you want to accept it or not.  However, some of the services and features offered through websites may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

Cookies can be first party or third party cookies.

• First party cookies - cookies that the website you are visiting places on your computer; or
• Third party cookies - cookies placed on your computer through the website but by third parties

The cookies placed on our site

We use the following first and third party cookies on our website:

1. Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, services you have asked for cannot be provided.  They are deleted when you close the browser.  These are first party cookies.

2. Performance cookies

These cookies collect information in an anonymous form about how visitors use our website. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they are using it and the approximate regions that they are visiting from. These are first party cookies.

3. Functionality cookies

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features.

These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.  These are first party cookies.

4. Targeting Cookies

These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually third party cookies, placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

Cookie consent and opting out

To comply with current legislation, we need to ask for your consent to set cookies on our website.

When you arrive on our website a pop-up message will appear informing you that we would like to place cookies on your device. If you, or another user of your computer, wish to withdraw your consent at any time, you can do so by altering your browser settings otherwise we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies from our website. For more information please visit www.allaboutcookies.org and http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/.