Sollective Privacy Policy
This document describes our commitment to your privacy. Our goal is to be transparent and clear about how we protect your data. Please read this document carefully as it explains how you can expect your personal information to be handled.
For the purposes of relevant data protection regulations, Sollective K.K. (referred to hereinafter as Sollective) is the “data controller” of your information.
What is personal information?
Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you. This can include your name, email address, telephone number, street address, and so on. Information that would be able to indirectly identify or infer your identity is also considered personal information. This includes your IP address, credit card number, license plate number, as well as any other information, coupled with another data source, that can be used to figure out your identity.
What type of information do we collect?
Sollective collects information that is crucial in operating our platform for Freelancers, and company employees that hire freelancers. This will include information such as name, email address, work history, company name, company information, payment information, IP address, user language preferences, amongst any other information you consensually provide via the use of various web forms and/or membership on the Sollective platform.
How do we collect this information?
You provide this information with your consent
By contacting us via support email, or by consensually signing up to a newsletter or promotional materials via a web form, you may be transmitting information such as, but not limited to your email address, name, and IP address.
Registering for membership & completing a profile
Sollective is strictly a membership-based service. As a freelancer signing up for a membership and completing a profile, you will be providing us with detailed information about yourself such as your professional skills, background, history, education, as well as work habits and preferences. For company recruiters, you will be providing us with information about yourself and your company such as your name, title, the name and profile of your company, the search criterias of freelancer candidates you’re seeking, as well as descriptions of any open roles within your company. If you do not consent to the collection of data through the following means, you should not and are not eligible to sign up for a Sollective membership.
Information made publicly available through a freelancer profile
A critical service that Sollective provides is a freelancer profile that makes it possible for companies to find you. Any information you provide in your freelancer profile such as username, location, work history, your work preference and availability, uploaded contents (portfolio, work sample, profile photos and photos), and any external links you post will be made public and searchable by any site visitor on Sollective. By using privacy settings, you have the ability to not publicly display some information on your profile. However, by completing and submitting a profile, you can reasonably assume that the information you provide on your profile will be accessible by others.
Information made publicly available through a company or recruiter profile
Because recruiters and companies make their names and company details available on their Sollective profiles, you can reasonably assume that your name, title, company of employment, and any current and past open roles and their descriptions will be displayed and shared publicly. You are responsible for making sure that you have the right to disclose and share any information about your company on Sollective.
Potential for identification
For their privacy, Freelancers on Sollective are asked to choose a unique username that will be displayed in place of their name on their profiles. However, depending on the information entered on your profile, it may be possible for another person to discern your identity or other information about you. For example, if you choose the same username as your existing SNS account, you should assume that someone may be able to find that SNS account via web search.
As another example, visitors to your profile may be able to identify you based on a personal website or other such links you decided to post publicly on your profile.
Sollective cannot take responsibility for the ability of others to identify you on the information you choose to make public via your profile.
Messaging and community forum
As part of Sollective’s messaging and community forum features, your messages are encrypted and securely stored on our servers. Information contained in these messages will never be shared outside of Sollective. However, Sollective can’t take responsibility for the details you do decide to share with other Sollective members via our messages and community features. It is entirely your responsibility to not share your personal information with people you don’t trust.
Via Third Party sources
Sollective is able to collect usage information and non-identifiable information about you through the use of anonymized Analytics tools (for example Google Analytics or Google Adwords). We do not begin to track your usage data until you accept the use of Cookies on our site.
Cookies
Cookies are necessary for Sollective to function properly. Learn more about cookies and how we use cookies on Sollective in our Cookie Policy page.
What do we do with your information?
Sollective uses your information to:
Verify the identity of members that claim to represent a company as a recruiter
Provide, operate, manage, and improve our platform for you, our users
Make recommendations based on your preferences or other Sollective members you have connected with
Prepare and deliver our newsletters or promotional materials you have consented to receive
Deliver critical service-related information to you
Notify you of changes in our privacy and cookies policy, or other terms of service
Directly respond to requests or inquiries you may have
Provide exclusive surveys, campaigns, or benefits to our members
Plan, organize, and invite you to participate in any of our events
Use anonymized data to conduct and publish demographic research about Sollective and the freelance market
Any other reason you consent to
Your Data Rights
You can exercise the following rights at any time:
Request Information on your data that we store or process
Edit any inaccurate personal data on Sollective
Request the deletion of all your personal data stored by us
Request that we do not process your data
Request a copy of your personal data
Withdraw your consent at any time, which will remain in effect in the future.
You can contact a supervisory authority with a complaint at any time, e.g. the supervisory authority of the state of your residence or the authority that oversees us as the responsible party.
Exemptions to your Rights
Sollective, under the The Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) in Japan, may be unable to provide you with your data in the following circumstances:
It may cause injury to the life, safety, property, or other rights of yourself or another third party
It may drastically affect Sollective’s business operation
It may violate other Japanese laws prohibiting disclosure
It may lead to or encourage illegal or unethical actions
It may threaten national security or diplomatic relations
Where your data is stored
Sollective and its database(s) is hosted on APPI and GDPR- compliant distributed servers within Japan and the United States.
Third Party Processing
Sollective may collect and process your data using Third Party services for the following purposes:
Advertising
These services allow user data to be utilized for advertising purposes displayed in the form of banners and other advertisements on Sollective, possibly based on your interests:
Analytics
The following services enable Sollective to monitor and analyze web traffic and how you use data:
Google Analytics with anonymized IP (Google LLC)
Google AdWords conversion tracking (Google LLC)
Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.)
Displaying content from external platforms
This type of service allows you to view content hosted on other websites. This type of service might collect web traffic data for the pages where the service is installed.
YouTube video widget (Google LLC)
Payment processing
We use an external partner to process payments by credit card. To ensure greater security, Sollective shares only the information necessary to execute the transaction.
Some of these services may also enable the sending of timed messages to you, such as emails containing invoices or notifications concerning the payment.
Stripe (Stripe Inc.)
User database management
We use a service which allows Sollective to build user profiles using your personal data. This profile may also be matched with publicly available information about you (such as social networks’ profiles) and is used for sending you timely messages based on your activity. You can opt out of these messages at any time.
Userlist (Userlist Inc.)
Contacting Users
This service allows Sollective to contact you via email.
Sendgrid (Twilio Inc)
Website hosting
These services have the purpose of hosting our platform, including databases which exist on geographically distributed servers.
Heroku (Salesforce.com, Inc.)
Amazon AWS (Amazon.com, Inc.)
Our commitment to safeguarding your privacy
Sollective is committed to complying with laws and regulations set forth in APPI (Act on the Protection of Personal Information) in Japan and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU in regards to how we handle your personal information.
Our security measures
We design and take appropriate administrative, logical, physical, and managerial security measures in handling your personal information against loss, theft and unauthorized access, use and modification.
Contacting us regarding your privacy
For any questions or concerns around your privacy, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO), Allen Wong. He can be contacted at privacy@sollective.jp.
Last Updated: December 23, 2021