Privacy Policy – SwiftKey (TouchType Ltd.)
Introduction
This is the main privacy policy for SwiftKey (TouchType Ltd.), our applications including SwiftKey on Android (Apps) and our various cloud-based services and websites.
It serves to give you confidence about our privacy protection measures and to let you know that we take your personal privacy very seriously. Specifically, this policy exists to inform you about what information we may collect from our users, what we do not and never will collect, the measures we take to safeguard the information we collect, the reasons we collect such information, and the legal rights you have in relation to this information, such as opting out of collection.
Overview
At SwiftKey, we may collect three types of information from our users, in the following contexts:
- 1. Anonymous crash and usage statistics from our client Apps (such as SwiftKey for Android), to help us debug and improve our products and services.
- 2. Language data voluntarily provided by our users to facilitate cloud-based personalization, prediction synchronization, backup and other such server-based services.
- 3. Personal contact information and correspondence via our web sites and communications channels, which allows us to offer user support, beta testing communities, surveys, competitions and similar services.
In order to protect your privacy and security, we ensure that:
- 1. We never store or collect data entered into password fields while using our client Apps (such as SwiftKey for Android).
- 2. We never store or collect logs of key presses entered while using our client Apps (no such logs exist).
- 3. We never collect language model data generated by our Apps that contain insights into the words and phrases you tend to use, unless you specifically elect to use our cloud services.
- 4. We never store or collect the login credentials for your online profiles accessed when offering cloud personalization; instead we use API authorization keys, which gives you ultimate control over what access rights are granted.
Our Apps & language technology
By using the basic text entry functions of our Apps and language technology, SwiftKey collects no personal information about you, nor do we log any of your typed messages, passwords or credit card details. Use of optional services, such as cloud-based personalization, may include the collection of additional data as set out below.
Google’s third party keyboard warning
This is despite an alarmist warning displayed to Google Android users, which occurs whenever they enable a third-party input method and which states that keyboards “may” collect or log sensitive data (passwords, credit card information, etc.). This statement serves to protect Google legally and is completely inapplicable to any of SwiftKey’s Apps, which have been featured by Google and downloaded by millions of users worldwide. Google have also declared us ‘Top Developer’ partners, an accolade of which we are proud.
Client-side language learning
Our client-side language technology, which powers SwiftKey’s prediction engine, models the way you use language and phrases, and stores these insights in data files on your local device, usually on your SD card. This data is not and will never be transferred to SwiftKey’s servers without your explicit and informed consent.
Optional additional services
You may, however, opt to give SwiftKey access to this learned language data in order to take advantage of various services, such as the ability to back up your learned data and sync it with your other devices. This access will always be communicated clearly and will be subject to this privacy policy. The language data accessed may include personal data.
Measurement data
Our Apps do collect certain anonymous statistics about usage and sends these back to SwiftKey. These statistics do not include any personal information or sensitive data, but may include crash reports, statistics about typing efficiency and other useful data that helps us improve our products and services.
Server-side personalization services
By opting to personalize SwiftKey or other TouchType Apps/services using our server-based personalization technology, you grant TouchType permission to handle your data on our servers.
This grant means that we have your permission to access message and other language data stored on your profiles on the various third party services that you specifically elect for us to access (e.g. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter).
The online profiles and data we have access to are strictly controlled using API authorization requests that are managed entirely by you, and which can be revoked by you at any time. At no time does use of TouchType server-side personalization services give us any access whatsoever to your login credentials for the online profiles you elect to personalize from.
Granting TouchType permission to handle your data for personalization services means our servers may store data that you consider to be personal or private data. We will guard and protect such data very carefully to ensure that your privacy is not compromised. In particular, we will not disclose your personal information to any third party unless you have consented to such disclosure or where we are required to do so by law.
Your use of TouchType’s server-side personalization services means we may use data provided by you, which may or may not include personal data, to process your service requests, personalize your use of our Apps, and review, develop and improve our products and services. Such data will only be processed by TouchType employees or agents securely, so as to safeguard your privacy.
Withdrawing consent
You may withdraw your consent for use of data collected during server-side personalization at any time by submitting a support ticket via the ‘Contact us’ option within SwiftKey’s settings menu. This is accessible either via pressing the SwiftKey launcher icon on the keyboard or by entering your Android device’s main settings menu, choosing ‘Language and keyboard’ and then choosing SwiftKey settings. From there, choose ‘Support’ > ‘Contact us’ > ‘OK’. To ensure your request is processed as quickly as possible, please clearly explain that you wish to withdraw consent for use of data collected during server-side personalization, and indicate the online profile data you would like your request to extend to.
Alternatively, you can email us at info@swiftkey.net with details of your request, although this may take longer for us to process. We will return or destroy your personal information within five (5) days of receipt of your withdrawal of consent.
Should you breach our terms and conditions or terms of use, or if we are under a duty to disclose any information to comply with a legal obligation, we may be forced to disclose your information to a relevant authority. This may include exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction. Any disclosure of personal information will be strictly controlled and made fully in accordance with European law and United Kingdom legislation, in particular the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act). For the purpose of the Act, the data controller is TouchType Ltd.
The aforementioned Act gives you the right to access information held by TouchType about you. You can obtain access to your personal information held by us by sending a check for £10 Sterling (to cover administration costs for collating this information), made payable to TouchType Ltd.
Security
In relation to our web sites, online services and support channels, all account information held by TouchType is password protected. Where deemed appropriate we use industry standard SSL-encryption to protect data transmission. We also undertake security steps, including extensive use of SSL technology, on our back end systems that store customer account information.
Policy changes
From time to time we may make changes to this privacy policy, which will be posted on our web sites and relevant communications channels. You are advised to check our web sites regularly to view our most recent privacy policy.