Privacy Policy

Be My Eyes Privacy Policy

Effective immediately if you sign up to use our services on or after September 4, 2023.
Effective on September 18, 2023 if you signed up to use our services before September 4, 2023.

Introduction

This Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) explains how Accessibly Inc., doing business as Be My Eyes (“us,” “we,” or “Be My Eyes”) collects, uses, discloses or otherwise processes your personal information any time you use the Be My Eyes app, participate in any online forum offered by Be My Eyes, or come in contact with a Be My Eyes website or any other Be My Eyes service (each a “Service” and altogether, our “Services”). This Privacy Policy is only applicable to the Services, and not to any other websites or services that you may be able to access from our Services, each of which may have data collection and use practices and policies that are different in important ways from this Policy.

This Privacy Policy does not address our privacy practices relating to Be My Eyes job applicants, employees, and other personnel.

Personal Information

“personal information” is any data or information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular person or household.

Overview

We created this overview to give you an easy-to-read overview of some of the main points of our Privacy Policy, but it is just an overview. The full Privacy Policy applies to your use of our Services even if a specific provision is not included in this Overview.

When you register for Be My Eyes, we collect:

Your name
Your email address
Your date of birth
Your preferred language(s)
Your country of residence and time zone
Your IP (Internet protocol) address

If you register with us through a third-party account like Facebook or Google, then we will collect the information that you allow us to collect via the controls offered by your account with that provider.

We use the data described above to provide you with our Services. For example, we use the location and language information to connect blind and low-vision users with volunteers that speak their language and are in an appropriate time zone. We do not sell the data described above to third parties.

We record and store video streams and other images (i) to enforce our Terms of Service, (ii) to promote and preserve safety, and (iii) to improve our Services and create new Services. Video streams and images are encrypted for security in transit (when the video is streaming or an image is being sent to Be My Eyes) and when they are being stored.

We may provide recorded video streams or images to other organizations that are performing research or working to develop products and services that may assist blind and low-vision people or other members of the general public. If we do, our agreements will require that the third party:

Keep the video streams and images confidential;
Never provide the video streams or images to any other party;
Store the videos and images securely;
Use the videos and images only for the research and development purposes described above; and
Destroy the videos and images after they have been used for those purposes.

If you use Be My AI, the images you submit will be processed by our third party artificial intelligence provider.

If your video or image contains personal information - for example you say your name on the video or show mail with your home address - that information will be included in videos or images that we store and use as described above.

You can request deletion of your videos, images, and other data at any time by emailing legal@bemyeyes.com and providing your name, account email address, and a description of the data you want deleted.

POLICY

Things You Can Do to Protect Your Information Privacy

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use information. But please keep in mind that our Services allow our users to connect directly to each other. Using our video stream features, blind and low-vision users can send video and audio to volunteers, who send audio back. Blind and low-vision users can also submit images, and maybe someday videos, to be described by artificial intelligence.

When you create a video session using Be My Eyes, you are sharing video (as a blind or low-vision user) and audio (both users) with the person on the other end of the line. Be My Eyes does not and cannot control what information is shared between the two people on a Be My Eyes call, or what either person does with that information, except by enforcing the Restrictions in our Terms of Service and blocking an account from future use if we learn of a violation.

You therefore should always be aware of what information you are sharing on video streams or images and take care not to expose personal information. In addition, here are a few specific ways you can protect the privacy of your information:

Don’t display or discuss identifying documents like a passport, driver’s license or other government-issued ID card.
Don’t share credit card, bank/checking account, insurance, or other financial information.
Don’t share mail or other content that contains your personal address.
Don’t share your social security number or other government identification number.
Don’t share information about your medicines or health conditions.

If you are using one of our Accessible CX services (see our Accessible CX section below) to obtain support from a company other than Be My Eyes, the information you share will be governed by the privacy policy of that company.

Information We Collect

When you register for Be My Eyes through our app, we collect:

Your name
Your email address
Your date of birth
Your preferred language(s)
Your country of residence and time zone

If you register with Be My Eyes through a third-party account like Facebook or Google, then we will collect the information that you allow us to collect via the controls offered by your account with that provider.

We also collect other kinds of data on our website and while providing Services, as described below.

Device and Traffic Data. Our servers automatically recognize and store your Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses (the number assigned to your device when it accesses the Internet), device identifiers (small data files or similar data structures stored on or associated with your mobile device or wearable, which uniquely identify your device), and your device’s name, model, operating system, and locale. The Services may also gather anonymous traffic data -- for example, the amount of data passing through our Services at any point in time, the duration of calls, whether you are making or receiving a call using wifi or mobile networks -- that does not personally identify you but may be helpful for improving our business and how we serve you.
Video Streams and Images. Our Services allow blind and low-vision users to communicate with volunteers to get their assistance by using our video chat feature. We also offer services that allow blind and low-vision users to submit images, and someday video, to be described for them by artificial intelligence.

We collect and store the video streams, images, audio that pass through our Service as part of the normal functioning of the Services.

Our policies for collecting video streams, images, and audio differ for our Accessible CX services as described below under the heading Accessible CX.

Other Feedback and Content. Be My Eyes may also host online forums, chat rooms, workspaces, messaging groups, or other sites or Services to allow you to provide feedback about our Services and/or to post data, graphics, video files, audio files or written messages.
Cookies and Similar Technologies. From time to time, we may use the standard cookies feature of major browser applications, mobile devices, or wearable devices you use to access our Services. We may also use similar technologies when you use our app.

These technologies help us learn which areas of our Services are useful and which areas need improvement. You can choose whether to accept cookies and other web technologies by changing the settings on your browser. However, if you choose to disable these functions, your experience using our Services may be diminished and some features may not work as they were intended.

Log Files. When you access our Services, we may automatically record certain log file information, including your request, browser type (when you access our website), referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks and how you interact with links on our website and the Service, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed, and other such information. We may also collect similar information from emails we send you to help us track which emails are opened and which links are clicked. The information we collect helps us achieve a better, more accurate understanding of how our Services are used, and how we can improve them.
Metadata. Metadata is usually technical data that is associated with the content you create on our site or using our Services. For example, Metadata can describe how, when and by whom a video stream was created, how it is formatted, and where in the world it was created.
Analytics Data. We may use third-party analytics tools to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Services. Those tools may employ pixels or web beacons that store a small piece of data on your device. These tools collect information sent by your device or our Services to help us improve the Service.

How We Use and Share Information

Our goal in using and sharing information is to create better services for blind and low-vision individuals. That includes our Services, of course, but it can also mean, for example, helping other companies develop better image recognition technologies so that blind, low-vision, and sighted users can have more access to information and the world around them. It could also mean sharing information with educational, non-profit, or other organizations to give them a better window into providing services and tools for blind and low-vision individuals.

Here is how we use and share, or not share, the different kinds of information we collect.

Overview. We collect and store data to provide the Services to you, to review safety and security issues, to maintain Service quality, and to improve our Services.

We may use your personal information to verify your identity, to check your qualifications, or to follow up with activities initiated on the Services. For example, we use location and language data to make appropriate connections between blind users and volunteers. We also use your contact information to stay in touch, send newsletters, inform you of any changes to the Services, and to send you additional information about Be My Eyes.

Like most companies, we use third parties to help us provide our Services. When we do, our first choice is to not provide that third party with access to any personal information. But if that third party has to have access to your personal information to help us provide our Services, then, with the one exception described below, we will share the information with them under an agreement that does not allow them to use it for any other purpose. The one exception is that if you use Be My AI or another Service powered by third-party artificial intelligence technology, and the images or video you submit contain personal information, that information could be processed by our third-party provider to train and improve the artificial intelligence technology.

We may share your contact information with non-profit organizations that advocate for blind and low-vision people so they may use the information to contact you or make you aware of the services they offer.

We also work with third-party ad networks and advertising partners to deliver advertising and personalized content on other websites and services, across other devices, and possibly on our Services. These parties may collect information directly from a browser or device when an individual visits our Services through cookies or other data collection technologies. This information is used to provide and inform targeted advertising, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research. For more details, please see the Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising section.

Finally, we share personal information slightly differently when you use one of our Accessible CX services at one of the growing number of companies that use our services to provide better support to people who are blind or have low-vision. Please see the Accessible CX section of this Privacy Policy, below, for a description of that service.
Video Streams and Images. Be My Eyes will never release the video streams or images we store to the general public without your additional, express permission. However, we may use and share video streams and images as follows:

Be My Eyes: We may analyze stored video streams and images to improve our Services, enforce our Terms of Service, promote safety, and develop new products and services to support our users.

Third Parties: We may also provide copies of video streams and images to educational institutions, non-profit organizations, or other companies, including for-profit companies, that are performing research or working to develop products and services that may support blind and low-vision people or other members of the general public. For example, we may share video streams and/or images with companies working on image recognition technology that could make it easier for people to better navigate the real world and the Internet. We may also share them with organizations researching artificial intelligence or developing artificial intelligence applications that can recognize images.

Anonymization and its Limits: If we provide video streams to third parties as described above, we will anonymize them as much as possible. That means we will strip the file of any file data or metadata that could be used by the third party to personally identify you. We cannot, however, strip or edit the content of an image or video stream. So if you film yourself, film or take a picture of your location (for example, if the Eiffel Tower is behind you), or verbally give your name or your location on the video stream, that information may be shared.

Limitations on Third Parties: If we share video streams with a third party as described above, we will share the video streams only under an agreement that requires the third party (i) to keep the video streams confidential, (ii) to never provide the video streams to any other party, (iii) to store the videos securely; (iv) to use the videos only for one or more of the purposes described above; and (v) to destroy the videos after they have been used for that purpose.
Other Feedback and Content. Be My Eyes may use feedback, data, graphics, video files, audio files or written messages that you submit, upload, or post on/in any online forum, chat room, workspace, messaging group, or other Be My Eyes sites or Services to improve our Services or for any other legal purpose without any obligation of compensation or attribution. Be My Eyes is not responsible for the ways in which other users or third parties may share, disclose, or handle information that you make available to them on or through such channels.
Anonymous Information. We sometimes collect and use anonymous information to analyze our Services traffic. In addition, we may use anonymous information to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our Services, or to display content according to your preferences. We may also strip your personal information from data about your use of the Services to create anonymized data that we aggregate with anonymized data of other users (for example, to determine the number of sighted users we have in a particular region). We may use anonymous and anonymized information for any legal purpose.
Use of Cookies and Similar Technologies. We may use cookies or other similar technologies to deliver content specific to your interests, to save your username so you don’t have to re-enter it each time you use our Services, or for other purposes.
Required Disclosure of Content and Personal Information. We may disclose video streams, images, other content you post to any forum or Service, and/or personal information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (1) conform to the law or comply with legal process served on Be My Eyes or any parent company, subsidiaries or affiliates, (2) protect and defend the rights or property of Be My Eyes or the users of the Services, or (3) act under exigent circumstances to protect the safety of the public or users of the Services.
Third Party Log-Ins. If you log into our Services using a third-party account like Facebook or Google, any information you provide that third party is subject to their terms of use and privacy policies. Be My Eyes is not responsible for how your information is collected or used by any third parties.
Sale of Be My Eyes. As businesses grow and evolve, another company can buy them (or some part of them). If Be My Eyes or substantially all of its assets were ever acquired, user information, including personal information, would be one of the assets transferred to the acquirer. If a company that acquires Be My Eyes gets access to your information that was provided under this Privacy Policy, that company will be bound by this Privacy Policy in its treatment of all such information.

Artificial Intelligence

Be My Eyes offers blind and low-vision users the ability to access third-party artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools to analyze and describe images and videos that they submit. A third party provides the AI engine powering our AI Service. If you use our AI Service, the images and videos you submit, including any personal information they contain, will be transferred to, processed by, and may be stored by that third party. We will use the information you submit through our AI Service to provide visual assistance Services, including descriptions of the images or videos. For example, if you submit a picture of the inside of your refrigerator, our AI Service can help identify what’s in it. We may also use the information you submit as described under the heading Video Streams and Images, above. Please note the third-party AI provider may also use the images and videos, including any personal information they contain, to help train its AI engine (for example, to recognize more images).

Accessible CX

Be My Eyes provides Accessible CX Services that allow blind and low-vision users to connect to customer or employee support for a company that has committed to providing better product, service, or employee support to them. Be My Eyes does not provide any personal information about you to the company receiving your call.

When you are using an Accessible CX service, you can think of Be My Eyes like you do your phone company. We connect you to the company you are calling and maintain the connection, but those are our only roles. Once you have connected to a company via Accessible CX, this Privacy Policy does not cover the data you share with that company. You are free to share, or not share, any information you want with the company you call. All the information that you provide the company you call will be subject to their policies, including their privacy policies. In some cases, before we connect your Accessible CX call, you will be able to review a privacy policy from the company you are calling.

Unless an Accessible CX customer asks us to, Be My Eyes does not record or store video streams for Accessible CX calls. If we are asked to record video streams, we will not treat them as described above under the heading How We Use and Share Information. Instead, the recorded video stream will only be available to the company you called, and the use and treatment of those video streams will be governed by that company’s privacy policy.

Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising

We may participate in interest-based advertising and use third party advertising companies to serve you targeted advertisements based on your Internet browsing history. We permit third party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other third-party services to collect information about your use of our online services over time so that they may play or display ads on our Services, on other websites or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising is collected through tracking technologies, such as cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and similar technology, which recognize the device you are using and collect information, including clickstream information, browser type, time and date you visited the Sites, AdID, precise geolocation and other information. We may share a common account identifier (such as a hashed email address or user ID) with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party partners use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research. We may also use services provided by third parties (such as social media platforms) to serve targeted ads to you and others on such platforms. We may do this by providing a hashed version of your email address or other information to the platform provider.

Please see Online Ads in the Control Over Your Information section below, to learn how you can opt out of interest-based advertising.

We may engage in the following:

Social Media Platforms. We may display targeted advertising to you through social media platforms, such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media forums. These companies have interest-based advertising programs that allow us to direct advertisements to users who have shown interest in our services while those users are on the social media platform, or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely commercial interests and demographics. We may share a unique identifier, such as a user ID or hashed email address, with these platform providers or they may collect information from our website visitors through a first-party pixel, in order to direct targeted advertising to you or to a custom audience on the social media platform. These advertisements are governed by the privacy policies of those social media companies that provide them. If you do not want to receive targeted ads on your social networks, you may be able to adjust your advertising preferences through your settings on those networks.
Third Party Partners. We work with a variety of third-party partners to provide advertising services. For example, we use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s website, “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On by clicking the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics. These features enable us to use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Services. You may control your advertising preferences or opt-out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at https://google.com/ads/preferences, or by visiting NAI’s online resources at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

Control Over Your Information

You may control your information in the following ways:

Email Communications Preferences. You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link provided in such communications. You may not opt-out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, introductory sign-up messages, Be My Eyes usage tips, changes/updates to features of the Services, technical and security notices).
Modification and Deletion of Your Information: If you would like to review or request changes to or deletion of the information that we collect about you, please contact us at legal@bemyeyes.com.
Cookies: If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies; however, doing so may negatively impact your experience using the services, as some features and services may not work properly. You may also set your e-mail options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our e-mail and performed certain functions with it.
Online Ads: To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt-out of some of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (“DAA”) resources and/or the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) online resources, at www.aboutads.info/choices or http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings menu on your mobile device by selecting “limit ad tracking” (iOS) or “opt-out of interest-based ads” (Android). You may also be able to opt-out of some—but not all—interest-based advertising served by mobile ad networks by visiting http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.

Please note that when you opt out of receiving interest-based advertisements, this does not mean you will no longer see advertisements from us or on our online services. It means that the online ads that you do see from DAA program participants should not be based on your interests. We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third parties’ opt-out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs. In addition, third parties may still use cookies to collect information about your use of our online services, including for analytics and fraud prevention as well as any other purpose permitted under the DAA’s Principles.

Areas We Do Not or Can Not Control

There are some parts of our Services where we either cannot or do not control the flow of information.

Third Party Services. The Services may contain links to other websites and services, and you may use other services to register for or log into Be My Eyes. If you choose to visit or use other websites or services, we are not responsible for their privacy practices or content. It is your responsibility to review the applicable privacy policies to confirm that you understand and agree with them.
Accessible CX. As noted above, Be My Eyes is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of companies you may connect to through our Accessible CX services. It is your responsibility to review the applicable privacy policies to confirm that you understand and agree with them.
User Interactions. Be My Eyes does not actively monitor and has no control over the content of video streams, images, or other Services. We cannot control and are not responsible for the ways in which other users may share, disclose, or handle information that you make available to them on or through such channels. For more information on prohibited content and applicable content restrictions, please see our Terms of Use, and please do not use video streams or submit images for purposes that are not permitted. Please also exercise caution in choosing what you share, what you say, and what information you disclose while chatting with another user on a video stream.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Policy, our practices related to this Services, or if you would like to have us remove your information from our database please feel free to contact us at legal@bemyeyes.com.

Updates to this Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may add to, change, update, or modify this Privacy Policy. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email to your registered email address, by prominent posting on our Services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided. We ask that you review this Policy from time to time to ensure that you continue to agree with its terms, and your continued use of the Services will constitute your agreement to its terms.