Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: April 15, 2024

This Privacy Policy describes how Talentsky, Inc. (“Talentsky”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) processes personal information that we collect through our digital or online properties or services that link to this Privacy Policy, including as applicable the www.talentsky.com website, any other website that we own or control and which posts or links to this Privacy Policy, and our social media pages, as well as our marketing activities, live events and other activities described in this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Service”).

We provide important information for individuals located in the European Union, European Economic Area and United Kingdom (collectively, “Europe” and “European”) at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Personal information we collect

Information you provide to us. Personal information you may provide to us through the Service or otherwise includes:

Contact data, such as your first and last name, email address, professional title, and organizational affiliation.
Account data, such as your username and password that you set to establish an account on the Service, and your account settings.
Profile data, such as your contact data, gender, work experience, education, biographical or employment narrative, locations, your custom Talentsky URL, photograph, links to your profiles on social networks and other third party sites, interests, preferences, companies and/or individuals you follow, information about your participation in workshops and other offerings through the Service, your enterprise badge that may be used when participating in workshops, and any other information that you add to your account profile.
Content that you choose to create through or upload to the Service, such as text, images, audio, chats, messages, video, and other content or information that you generate, transmit, or make available on the Service, along with the associated metadata. For example, Content may include professional mentor profiles that you create and invite others to join; tasks or job responsibilities that you associate with your mentor profiles or profile; Achievements that you create to tell stories of your achievements or experiences; your professional skills that you identify; information about workshops you create; information you provide or share with other participants during a workshop session (including group chat contents); or reviews or ratings of, or feedback from, workshop sessions.

Workshop sessions may be recorded, and such recordings may capture your voice, image, and group chats during the workshop, as well as other personal information. Such recordings may be used and shared as described herein or as otherwise disclosed to you prior to such recording.
Data about colleagues, such as name, email address and account settings, that you provide to create Talentsky user accounts for them when you are an administrator of an enterprise account.
Communications that we exchange, including when you contact us with questions, feedback, or otherwise.
Payment and transaction data such as data needed to complete your orders (including name, payment card information and billing information) and your purchase history, or to pay workshop instructors.
Marketing data, such as your preferences for receiving communications about our products, services, activities, events, and publications, and details about how you engage with our communications.
Other information that we may collect which is not specifically listed here, which we will use as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.

Data from other sources. We may combine personal information we receive from you with personal information we obtain from other sources.

Other users of the Service, who can interact with you such as by following you, rating and submitting feedback on your skills, and suggesting Achievements to you.
Your employer or organization, who can create an account for you, associate your account with the employer or organization, add you to mentor profiles, and otherwise interact with you on the Service.
Public sources, such as social media platforms, publications, and news sites.
Business partners, such as joint marketing partners.

Automatic data collection. We, our service providers, and our business partners may automatically log information about you, your computer or mobile device, and your activity over time on our Service and other sites and online services, such as:

Device data, such as your computer or mobile device operating system type and version number, manufacturer and model, browser type, screen resolution, IP address, unique identifiers, the website you visited before browsing to our website, and general location information such as city, state or geographic area.
Online activity data, such as pages or screens you viewed, how long you spent on a page or screen, navigation paths between pages or screens, information about your activity on a page or screen, access times, and duration of access.
Communication interaction data such as your interactions with our email or other communications (e.g., whether you open and/or forward emails) – we may do this through use of pixel tags (which are also known as clear GIFs), which may be embedded invisibly in our emails.

We may offer features that help users invite their friends or contacts to use the Service, and we may collect contact details about these invitees so we can deliver their invitations. Please do not refer someone to us or share their contact details with us unless you have their permission to do so.

Cookies and similar technologies. Like many online services, we use the following technologies:

Cookies, which are text files that websites store on a visitor‘s device to uniquely identify the visitor’s browser or to store information or settings in the browser for the purpose of helping you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, enabling functionality, helping us understand user activity and patterns, and facilitating online advertising.
Web beacons, also known as pixel tags or clear GIFs, which are used to demonstrate that a webpage or email was accessed or opened, or that certain content was viewed or clicked.

For more information on our use of cookies and web beacons, please see our Cookie Policy.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information for the following purposes or as otherwise described at the time of collection:

Service delivery. We use your personal information to:

provide, operate and improve the Service and our business;
establish and maintain your user profile on the Service;
calculate and display on the Service your “score” for certain skills and your ranking relative to other users;
provide you with suggestions, such as new skills and mentor profiles you may be interested in;
enable security features of the Service, such as by sending you security codes via email, and remembering devices from which you have previously logged in;
communicate with you about the Service, including by sending announcements, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
understand your needs and interests, and personalize your experience with the Service and our communications; and
provide support for the Service, respond to your requests, questions and feedback.

Research and development. We may use your personal information for research and development purposes, including to analyze your usage of the Service, improve the Service, improve the rest of our business, help us understand user activity on the Service, including which pages are most and least visited and how visitors move around the Service, as well as user interactions with our emails, and to develop new products and services.

For example, we use Google Analytics for this purpose. You can learn more about Google Analytics cookies and how to prevent the use of Google Analytics relating to your use of our Service here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

To create aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data. We may create aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data from your personal information and other individuals whose personal information we collect. We make personal information into de-identified and/or anonymized data by removing information that makes the data identifiable to you. We may use this data and share it with third parties for our lawful business purposes, including to analyze and improve the Service and promote our business.

Marketing and advertising. We, our service providers, and our third party partners may collect and use your personal information for marketing and advertising purposes:

Direct marketing. We may send you Talentsky-related or other direct marketing communications as permitted by law. You may opt-out of our marketing communications as described in the Opt-out of marketing section below.
Interest-based advertising. We and our third-party advertising partners may use cookies and other technologies to collect information about your interaction (including the data described in the automatic data collection section above) with the Service, our communications and other online services over time, and use that information to serve online ads that they think will interest you. This is called interest-based advertising. We may also share information about our users with these companies to facilitate interest-based advertising to those or similar users on other online platforms. You can learn more about your choices for limiting interest- based advertising, in the Your choices section below.

Compliance and protection. We may use your personal information to:

comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas or requests from government authorities;
protect our, your or others’ rights, privacy, safety or property (including by making and defending legal claims);
audit our internal processes for compliance with legal and contractual requirements and internal policies;
enforce the terms and conditions that govern the Service; and
prevent, identify, investigate and deter fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity, including cyberattacks and identity theft.

Further uses, in some cases, we may use your personal information for further uses, in which case we will ask for your consent to use of your personal information for those further purposes if they are not compatible with the initial purpose for which information was collected.

How we share your personal information

We may share your personal information with the following parties and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection:

Your employer or organization. If you are provided access to Enterprise functionality on the Service by your employer, it may control which features and information are available to you and may be able to view or access information related to your use of the Service. Your employer or organization can terminate your access to and use of the enterprise portion of your account. Additionally, if you opt in to our Profile or Workshop Promotion Program from your profile settings, we may make certain profile and content data available to your employer or other organization with which you are affiliated. You may opt-out of Profile or Workshop Promotion Program in your profile settings.

Other users and the public. Certain of your personal data may be shared with other users of the Service and the public. For example, your profile, which includes your name, career experiences, education, as well as your followers and other users or entities that you follow, are visible to other users of the Service and the public. Additionally, if you signed up through a community promotion, your affiliation will be displayed on the organization’s page under the “Member” tab. You may choose to share with other users or the public your content posts and achievement posts, which you can control in your account’s privacy settings. Any content or activity that you do not make private in your account settings may be associated with your profile information and can be collected and used by others. We cannot control who reads the information that you make viewable or what they may choose to do with it.

When you participate in a workshop session, we may record that session (including your voice, image, and group chats) and make it available to other participants (including those users who register but do not attend the workshop) in the workshop.

Service providers. Companies and individuals that provide services on our behalf or help us operate the Service or our business (such as information technology, hosting, email delivery, marketing, and website analytics).

Payment processors. Any payment card information you use to make a purchase on the Service is collected and processed directly by our payment processors and their subprocessors, such as Authorize.net. Authorize.net may use your payment and transaction data in accordance with its privacy policy, available at https://usa.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy.html?_ga=2.66741741.2127270478.1712866301-4189832440.1698173031.

Advertising partners. Third party advertising companies that collect information about your activity on the Service and other online services to help us advertise our services, and/or use hashed customer lists that we share with them to deliver ads on their platforms to those customers and similar users.

Professional advisors. Professional advisors, such as lawyers, auditors, bankers and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.

Authorities and others. Law enforcement, government authorities, and private parties, as we believe in good faith to be necessary or appropriate for the purposes described in the Compliance and protection section above.

Business transferees. Relevant participants in business transactions (or potential transactions) involving a corporate divestiture, merger, consolidation, acquisition, reorganization, sale or other disposition of all or any portion of the business or assets of, or equity interests in, Talentsky (including, in connection with a bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

Your choices

You have the following choices with respect to your personal information.

Privacy settings. Your name, job title and place of work are visible to other users of the Service and the public. You may choose to make visible to other users or the public your other profile information as well as your Achievements, posts, users you follow, your followers, comments and other content that you create on the Service, which you can control in your account’s privacy settings.

If you follow a Premium Mentor Profile, your skill matching analysis will be visible to that Skill Mentor and the organization where their email is verified, if that organization has paid for enterprise analytics. Unfollowing a Mentor Profile removes your data from the Skill Mentor’s view and, if applicable, the organization’s view.

You can block other users, and report other accounts or specific messages if you think they involve improper or illegal behavior.

Deactivate or delete your account. You can choose to deactivate your account in your settings page. If your account remains deactivated for more than 30 days, we will delete your account and we will inform our service providers with whom we shared your information of the deletion, unless this proves impossible or involves disproportionate effort. We may retain some information associated with your account for compliance, audit and recordkeeping purposes where permitted by law. We will also maintain access to recordings of any prior workshop sessions you may have participated in for the other registered attendees (including those users who register but do not attend the workshop), for one year from completion of the relevant workshop session, or as otherwise required by applicable legal obligation. For further information regarding the deletion of your information please contact us at legal@talentsky.com.

Opt-out of marketing communications. You may opt out of marketing-related emails by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of the email, or by contacting us. You may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing emails.

Cookies. Most browsers let you remove and/or stop accepting cookies from the websites you visit. To do this, follow the instructions in your browser’s settings. Many browsers accept cookies by default until you change your settings. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all functionality of the Service and our Service may not work properly. For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your browser and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Do Not Track. Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. We currently do not respond to “Do Not Track." To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

Declining to provide information. We need to collect personal information to provide certain services. If you do not provide the information requested, we may not be able to provide those services.

Other sites and services

The Service may contain links to websites, mobile applications, and other online services operated by third parties. These links are not an endorsement of, or representation that we are affiliated with, any third party. In addition, our content may be included on web pages or in mobile applications or other online services that are not associated with us. We do not control websites, mobile applications or online services operated by third parties, and we are not responsible for their actions.

Security

We employ technical, organizational and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information we collect. However, security risk is inherent in all internet and information technologies and we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.

International data transfer

We are headquartered in the United States and may use service providers that operate in other countries. Your personal information may be transferred to the United States or other locations where privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your state, province, or country.

Children

The Service is not intended for use by children under 16 years of age. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 16 without the consent of the child’s parent or guardian as required by law, we will delete it.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by updating the date of this Privacy Policy and posting it on the Service. Any modifications to this Privacy Policy will be effective upon our posting the modified version (or as otherwise indicated at the time of posting). In all cases, your use of the Service after the effective date of any modified Privacy Policy indicates your acknowledging that the modified Privacy Policy applies to your interactions with the Service and our business.

How to contact us

You can reach us in the following ways:

Email: privacy@talentsky.com
Mail:
Talentsky Inc.
Attention: Privacy Department
4546 El Camino Real, Suite B10-316
Los Altos, CA 94022

EUROPEAN USERS

The information provided in this section applies only to individuals in Europe.

Personal information. References to “personal information” in this Privacy Policy are equivalent to “personal data” in European data protection legislation.

Controller, Representative, and Data Protection Officer. Talentsky, Inc. is the controller of your personal information covered by this Privacy Policy for purposes of European data protection legislation.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer, whose contact information is: Rizwan Ahmed, rizwan@talentsky.com.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – European Representative
Pursuant to Article 27 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Talentsky has appointed European Data Protection Office (EDPO) as its GDPR Representative in the EU. You can contact EDPO regarding matters pertaining to the GDPR:

by using EDPO’s online request form: https://edpo.com/gdpr-data-request/
by writing to EDPO at Avenue Huart Hamoir 71, 1030 Brussels, Belgium

UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - UK Representative
Pursuant to Article 27 of the UK GDPR, Talentsky has appointed EDPO UK Ltd as its UK GDPR representative in the UK. You can contact EDPO UK regarding matters pertaining to the UK GDPR:

by using EDPO’s online request form: https://edpo.com/uk-gdpr-data-request/
by writing to EDPO UK at 8 Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5BY, United Kingdom

Legal bases for processing. We use your personal information only as permitted by law. Our legal bases for processing the personal information described in this Privacy Policy are described in the table below.

Personal Information	Processing purpose	Legal basis
Account data	Service delivery	Performance of our contract with you
Profile data	Service delivery	Your consent
Content (including any workshop session recordings, where applicable)	Service delivery	Your consent
Data about colleagues	Service delivery	Performance of our contract with you
Communications data	Service delivery / Marketing and advertising	Performance of our contract with you / Our legitimate interests
Payment data	Service delivery	Performance of our contract with you
Marketing data	Marketing and advertising	Our legitimate interests
Device data	Research and development	Our legitimate interests
Online activity data	Research and development / Compliance and protection	Our legitimate interests / Compliance with our legal obligations
Other information	All of the purposes listed above	Our legitimate interests

Use for new purposes. We may use your personal information for reasons not described in this Privacy Policy where permitted by law and the reason is compatible with the purpose for which we collected it. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the applicable legal basis.

Sensitive personal information. We ask that you not provide us with any sensitive personal information (e.g., information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, criminal background or trade union membership) on or through the Service (including when you participate in a workshop session, whether orally or in writing, via the group chat), or otherwise to us.

If you provide us with any sensitive personal information to us when you use the Service, you must consent to our processing and use of such sensitive personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent to our processing and use of such sensitive personal information, you must not submit such sensitive personal information through our Service.

Automated Decision-Making and Profiling. We may use automated decision-making in regard to your personal information for some services, for example creating your skill matching analysis. You can request a manual review of the accuracy of an automated decision that you are unhappy with or limit or object to such automated decision-making and/or profiling by contacting us at legal@talentsky.com.

Retention
We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, to establish or defend legal claims, or for fraud prevention purposes.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

When we no longer require the personal information we have collected about you, we will either delete or anonymize it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible. If we anonymize your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you), we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

With regards to any workshop session recordings, we will store them and make them available to the other registered attendees (including those users who register but do not attend the workshop) for one year from completion of the relevant workshop session, or as otherwise required by applicable legal obligation.

Your rights
European data protection laws give you certain rights regarding your personal information. If you are located within Europe, you may ask us to take the following actions in relation to your personal information that we hold:

Access. Provide you with information about our processing of your personal information and give you access to your personal information.
Correct. Update or correct inaccuracies in your personal information.
Delete. Delete your personal information.
Transfer. Transfer a machine-readable copy of your personal information to you or a third party of your choice.
Restrict. Restrict the processing of your personal information.
Object. Object to our reliance on our legitimate interests as the basis of our processing of your personal information that impacts your rights.
Withdraw consent. This right only exists where we are relying on consent to process your personal information. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with access to the certain specific functionalities of our Service. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

You may submit these requests by email to legal@talentsky.com or our postal address provided above. We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and process your request. Applicable law may require or permit us to decline your request. If we decline your request, we will tell you why, subject to legal restrictions. If you would like to submit a complaint about our use of your personal information or our response to your requests regarding your personal information, you may contact us or submit a complaint to the data protection regulator in your jurisdiction.

You can find the contact details for European Economic Area (EEA) data protection authorities here: https://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm. The UK data protection authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office and the contact details are available here: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/. If you are a resident in Switzerland, the contact details for the data protection authority are available here: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home.html.

Cross-Border Data Transfer
We are based in the United States and we store and retain your personal information in the United States and elsewhere outside Europe in countries not deemed by the European Commission to provide an adequate level of personal information protection. As you are providing us directly with your personal information this is not considered to be a transfer of personal information out of Europe and so we do not need to put in place a specific mechanism to transfer your personal information out of Europe.