Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect information in several ways: information you provide, information collected automatically, information provided by Hosts or other Members, and information from third parties or integrations.

A. Information You Provide

We may collect:

• name;
• email address;
• phone number;
• username;
• password or authentication information;
• profile photo;
• biography;
• location or city;
• organization, title, role, profession, interests, skills, or membership category;
• community profile fields selected by a Host;
• posts, comments, messages, files, photos, videos, livestream participation, polls, surveys, reviews, marketplace listings, event content, and other user-generated content;
• payment, billing, subscription, donation, ticket, or purchase information;
• support requests and communications with us;
• feedback, survey responses, and product requests;
• event registrations, attendance, check-ins, or participation;
• preferences, notification settings, and communication choices.

A Host may configure custom profile fields or forms. These may request additional information relevant to the community, such as professional interests, chapter, region, certification, member type, committee, or other association-related information.

Do not provide sensitive information unless the community clearly asks for it, you understand why it is needed, and you choose to provide it.

B. Information Collected Automatically

When you use the Service, we may automatically collect:

• IP address;
• browser type;
• device type;
• operating system;
• app version;
• pages viewed;
• features used;
• referring pages;
• date and time of access;
• approximate location based on IP address;
• log files;
• cookie identifiers;
• mobile device identifiers;
• session activity;
• crash reports;
• performance data;
• security and fraud signals;
• clicks, views, searches, reactions, comments, messages, group activity, event activity, and other engagement data.

We use cookies, pixels, SDKs, local storage, and similar technologies to operate the Service, remember preferences, secure accounts, measure performance, improve features, understand usage, and support marketing where permitted.

C. Location Information

We may infer your approximate location from your IP address.

If you use a mobile app or location-based feature and give permission, we may collect more precise location information from your device. You can disable location permissions in your device settings.

Depending on the community settings, Members may be able to search for or interact with other Members by location.

D. Information from Hosts, Members, and Third Parties

We may receive information about you from:

• Hosts who invite you to a community or upload membership information;
• other Members who interact with you or tag you;
• payment processors;
• identity providers;
• social login providers;
• CRM, email, analytics, video, event, calendar, or other integrations;
• app stores;
• business partners;
• public sources;
• fraud prevention, security, or compliance providers.

E. AI Feature Data

If you use AI-assisted features, we may process prompts, uploaded materials, community content, questions, outputs, feedback, usage data, and related context to provide the feature.

AI features may be used for writing assistance, search, recommendations, summaries, moderation support, engagement insights, or administrative analytics.

You should not submit confidential, sensitive, regulated, or legally privileged information into AI features unless your Host has authorized that use and you understand the applicable terms.

2. How We Use Information

We use information to:

• provide, operate, maintain, and secure the Service;
• create and manage accounts;
• authenticate users;
• enable community participation;
• display profiles, posts, comments, messages, events, groups, media, and other content;
• help Hosts operate and manage their communities;
• provide admin dashboards, reports, analytics, and engagement insights;
• process payments, subscriptions, tickets, donations, purchases, refunds, and invoices;
• send service messages, notifications, confirmations, security alerts, and support responses;
• personalize your experience;
• recommend content, groups, events, members, or features;
• power AI-assisted features;
• moderate content and enforce rules;
• detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, or policy violations;
• troubleshoot, test, and improve the Service;
• conduct research and product development;
• communicate about updates, features, offers, and services where permitted;
• comply with law, legal process, tax obligations, accounting, audits, and regulatory requirements;
• protect the rights, safety, and property of Heartlynks Inc., Hosts, Members, Visitors, and others.

3. How Information Is Shared

We share information as described below.

A. With Hosts and Community Administrators

When you join a community, the Host and its authorized administrators or moderators may access information associated with your participation, including:

• your name;
• email address;
• profile information;
• membership status;
• posts, comments, messages, files, media, and other content;
• groups, events, purchases, subscriptions, donations, or registrations;
• reports, moderation history, and support issues;
• engagement and activity data;
• analytics and insights about community participation.

Hosts may use this information to operate the community, communicate with Members, moderate content, understand engagement, provide benefits, process membership, manage events, and improve member experience.

Hosts are responsible for their own use of Member information and for complying with applicable law.

B. With Other Members and Visitors

Depending on community settings and your activity, other Members may see:

• your name;
• profile photo;
• bio;
• location or chapter;
• role, interests, or profile fields;
• posts, comments, reactions, replies, group participation, event activity, marketplace listings, or other content you make available;
• whether you are online or active, if that feature is enabled;
• messages you send to them.

In public areas, Visitors and search engines may be able to see public content. In private or invite-only areas, visibility is intended to be limited to authorized users, but you should not post anything you are not comfortable sharing with the intended community.

C. With Service Providers

We share information with vendors and service providers that help us operate the Service, such as:

• cloud hosting providers;
• database and infrastructure providers;
• payment processors;
• analytics providers;
• email and notification providers;
• customer support tools;
• security, fraud prevention, and monitoring providers;
• AI service providers;
• video, livestream, storage, and file processing providers;
• app store providers;
• professional advisors.

These providers may use information only as needed to provide services to us, comply with law, or protect their systems.

D. With Integrated Services Authorized by You or Your Host

If you or your Host enables an integration, information may be shared with the integrated service. Examples include payment processors, email tools, CRM systems, social login providers, video providers, calendars, analytics tools, AI tools, and other third-party applications.

Heartlynks Inc. does not control how third-party services use information after it is shared with them. Their own terms and privacy policies apply.

E. For Legal, Safety, and Compliance Reasons

We may disclose information when we believe it is necessary to:

• comply with law, subpoena, court order, regulation, or legal process;
• respond to lawful government requests;
• enforce our Terms, policies, or agreements;
• protect the rights, property, security, or safety of Heartlynks Inc., Hosts, Members, Visitors, or the public;
• detect, prevent, or address fraud, abuse, spam, security, or technical issues;
• defend legal claims;
• complete audits, accounting, tax, or compliance obligations.

F. Business Transfers

If Heartlynks Inc. is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, sale of assets, or similar transaction, information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

G. Aggregated or De-Identified Information

We may use and share aggregated, de-identified, or statistical information that does not reasonably identify you, such as overall usage trends, engagement rates, feature adoption, or community performance benchmarks.

4. Host Responsibilities

Hosts may receive Member information through the Service. Hosts are responsible for using that information lawfully and consistently with their own privacy promises.

Hosts should not sell Member lists, use Member data for unrelated commercial purposes, or disclose Member data to unauthorized third parties.

If you have questions about how a Host uses your information, contact the Host directly. You may also contact us at aus@heartlynks.org if you believe a Host is misusing the Service.

5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

• keep you logged in;
• remember preferences;
• operate and secure the Service;
• measure performance;
• understand usage;
• improve features;
• personalize content;
• support analytics and marketing where permitted.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. If you disable cookies, some features may not work properly.

Some browsers or extensions support Global Privacy Control or similar opt-out signals. Where required by applicable law and technically feasible, we will honor legally recognized opt-out signals.

We do not currently respond to “Do Not Track” browser signals because there is no consistent industry standard for interpreting them.

6. Communications and Notifications

We may send you:

• account messages;
• security alerts;
• service announcements;
• community invitations;
• notifications about posts, messages, events, groups, or activity;
• payment confirmations;
• support responses;
• administrative notices;
• marketing communications where permitted.

You can manage many notifications in your account settings. You can unsubscribe from marketing emails using the link in those emails. Even if you opt out of marketing, we may still send transactional or service-related messages.

Hosts may also send communications to Members. Contact the Host directly regarding Host communications.

7. Payments

Payment information may be collected and processed by third-party payment processors. Heartlynks Inc. may receive limited payment-related information, such as transaction status, amount, billing details, invoice information, subscription status, and fraud or risk signals.

We do not store full payment card numbers unless expressly stated and handled through compliant payment infrastructure.

Payment processors have their own privacy policies and terms.

8. Data Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to:

• provide the Service;
• maintain your account;
• support Hosts and communities;
• comply with legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations;
• resolve disputes;
• enforce agreements;
• prevent fraud, abuse, or security incidents;
• maintain backups and audit records;
• improve and secure the Service.

Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information, the community, the Host’s settings, legal requirements, and operational needs.

If you leave a community or close your account, some information may remain visible or retained where necessary, such as content you posted, messages sent to others, transaction records, legal records, backups, security logs, or information retained by the Host.

9. Your Choices

Depending on your location and the features available, you may be able to:

• access and update your profile;
• change notification settings;
• leave a community;
• delete or edit certain content;
• close your account;
• disable cookies;
• opt out of marketing emails;
• control mobile permissions such as location, camera, microphone, and notifications;
• request access, correction, deletion, portability, or restriction of certain personal information;
• opt out of certain targeted advertising, sale, or sharing where applicable.

To make a request, contact us at aus@heartlynks.org.

If your request relates to information controlled by a Host, we may direct you to that Host or work with the Host to respond.

10. U.S. State Privacy Rights

Residents of certain U.S. states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and others, may have privacy rights under applicable law.

Depending on your state and our legal obligations, these rights may include the right to:

• know or confirm whether we process personal information about you;
• access personal information;
• correct inaccurate personal information;
• delete personal information;
• obtain a portable copy of personal information;
• opt out of targeted advertising;
• opt out of sale or sharing of personal information;
• limit certain uses of sensitive personal information;
• appeal a denied request;
• not be discriminated against for exercising privacy rights.

We do not knowingly sell personal information for money. Some analytics, advertising, or tracking activities may be considered “sharing” or “targeted advertising” under certain laws. Where required, we will provide opt-out mechanisms.

To exercise rights, contact us at aus@heartlynks.org.

We may verify your request before responding. You may designate an authorized agent where permitted by law.

11. California Notice at Collection

The categories of personal information we may collect include:

• identifiers, such as name, email, username, IP address, and device identifiers;
• customer records information, such as billing and payment-related details;
• commercial information, such as subscriptions, purchases, donations, tickets, and transaction history;
• internet or electronic network activity, such as usage logs, interactions, and engagement data;
• geolocation information, such as approximate location from IP address or device location if enabled;
• audio, visual, or electronic information, such as photos, videos, livestreams, voice, and messages;
• professional or employment-related information, if provided in a profile or community field;
• education information, if provided;
• inferences, such as preferences, interests, engagement patterns, or recommendations;
• sensitive personal information, only where provided, required for security, or configured by a Host.

We collect and use these categories for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

We retain these categories as described in the Data Retention section.

We may disclose these categories to Hosts, service providers, integrated services, legal authorities, professional advisors, and business transaction parties as described above.

12. EU, EEA, UK, and International Users

If you are located in the EU, EEA, UK, or another jurisdiction with similar laws, you may have additional rights.

Depending on the context, Heartlynks Inc. may act as a controller, processor, business, service provider, or similar role under applicable law.

Where Heartlynks Inc. acts as a controller, our legal bases may include:

• performance of a contract;
• consent;
• legitimate interests;
• compliance with legal obligations;
• protection of vital interests;
• establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

Our legitimate interests may include operating the Service, securing accounts, preventing abuse, improving features, supporting Hosts, communicating with users, analyzing usage, and developing products.

You may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object, withdraw consent, request portability, or lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

If your information is transferred to the United States or other countries, we will use appropriate safeguards where required by law.

13. Children

The Service is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to us, contact us at aus@heartlynks.org, and we will take appropriate steps to delete the information.

Hosts may set higher age requirements for their communities.

14. Security

We use reasonable technical, administrative, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, and disclosure.

These safeguards may include encryption, access controls, monitoring, logging, backups, pseudonymization, secure infrastructure, and vendor controls.

No online service is completely secure. You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and for being careful about what you share.

15. Account Deletion and Community Leaving

You may be able to leave a community or close your account through account settings.

When you leave a community, we may stop collecting new activity for that community, but existing information may remain where necessary or lawful, including:

• content already shared with others;
• messages sent to others;
• transaction records;
• Host records;
• backups;
• logs;
• legal, tax, security, or compliance records.

A Host may also retain information it previously exported or received, subject to the Host’s own legal obligations.

16. Public Content and Search Engines

Some communities or areas of the Service may be public. Public content may be viewed, copied, indexed, or stored by others, including search engines.

If you post content publicly, we cannot control how others use it.

17. Links to Other Sites

The Service may contain links to third-party websites, apps, videos, services, or content. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of third-party sites or services.

18. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice by email, in-product notice, website posting, or another reasonable method.

The updated Privacy Policy will be effective as of the date stated at the top unless otherwise noted.

19. Contact Us

For privacy questions or requests, contact:

Heartlynks Inc.Email: aus@heartlynks.org