Privacy Policy
Last Update: May 2019
Welcome to AVA BYTE! AVA Byte (“AVA”, “we”, or “us”) is a smart garden that uses seed pods and software to grow plants indoors, automatically adjusting watering and lighting for optimal growth.
AVA values and respects your privacy. This privacy policy describes our personal information practices when you visit our website at www.avagrows.com (the “Website”), download and use our app (the “App”), or otherwise contact or interact with us.
COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We collect and use your personal information for the purposes identified below.
Registration for the AVA App: AVA offers an App that allows you to optimize plant growth, monitor water and light levels, and plan meals. You are required to register or sign in to use the App. When you register, we collect your name, email address, and password. We use this information to create and administer your account. We strongly recommend that you do not disclose your password to anyone. We will never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication (such as letters, phone calls, or email messages).
Third Party Systems: If you integrate the App with third party systems (e.g. Google Home or Amazon Alexa), we may collect certain information from you in order to connect and integrate the App with such systems, such as login credentials associated with your Google or Amazon account. Connecting the App to such third party systems allows you to receive App notifications (as described further, below) audibly through the third party system.
Purchases and Returns: If you use a credit or debit card to purchase AVA products, we (or our service providers) collect your debit or credit card-related information and your signature to process and administer your payment. When returning merchandise, you may be asked to provide personal information such as your name and contact information in order to verify your identity and authorize the return transaction.
Surveys and Customer Research: From time to time, we may offer you an opportunity to participate in one of our surveys or other customer research. The information obtained is used in an aggregated, non-personally identifiable form. We use this information to help us understand our customers and to enhance our product and service offerings (e.g. optimal growth conditions for certain plants we provide, harvest time, etc.).
Subscribe to our Mailing List or Newsletter: If you subscribe to our email mailing list or newsletter, we collect your name and email address as well as other information on an optional basis to help us tailor our communications to you (such as your postal code and day/month of birth). If you no longer wish to receive these communications, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link included at the bottom of the newsletter. Alternatively, you can opt-out of receiving our newsletter by contacting us at the contact information under “Contact Us” below. Please note that you may continue to receive certain transactional or account-related communications from us.
Contests and Promotions: When you enter a contest or participate in a promotion, we may collect your name, address, email address, phone number, and any additional information or content that you provide. We use this information to administer your participation in the contest or promotion, including prize fulfilment.
Careers: If you apply for a job with AVA, you may provide us with certain personal information about yourself, such as information contained in a resume, cover letter, or similar employment-related materials. We use this information for the purpose of processing and responding to your application for current and future career opportunities.
Contact Us: If you contact us with a comment, question or complaint or to schedule a meeting, you may be asked for information that identifies you, such as your name, address and a telephone number, along with additional information we need to help us promptly answer your question or respond to your comment. We may retain this information to assist you in the future and to improve our product and service offerings.
In addition, when you install or use our App, we may collect and use the following additional information:
Location Information: With your consent, we may also collect your location information by accessing your device’s GPS coordinates so that we can alter certain conditions based on your location to foster your plant’s growth, such as light levels. You can opt-out at any time by turning off your location services for the App either within the App or in the settings of your mobile device.
Push Notifications: If you provide your consent to receive push notifications, we may send push notifications to your mobile device to provide you with App updates and other relevant information such as when to harvest your plant(s). If you have integrated the App with a third party system such as Google Home or Amazon Alexa, you may receive audio notifications. If you wish to stop receiving push notifications from us, you can turn off push notifications for the App either within the App or in the settings of your mobile device.
App Usage Information & Analytics: As with many applications, certain limited data is required for the App to function on your device. This data includes the type of device hardware and operating system, unique device identifier, IP address, language settings, and the date and time the App accesses our servers. We use this information to help us understand the activity on our App, to monitor and improve our App, and to tailor your in-App experience. In addition, we may use third party service providers to collect analytical information about your use of the App, such as the App features used and time spent on the App, to help us tailor your in-app experience, improve our products and the quality of our App, and to manage and analyze data in order to better understand our users.
SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We do not sell, rent or disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as described below or as required or permitted by applicable law.
Service Providers: Your personal information may be transferred (or otherwise made available) to third parties that provide services on our behalf. We use service providers to provide services such as selling and delivering the AVA smart garden, administering our pre- and post-harvest surveys, hosting the Website, providing advertising services, and sending our marketing communications. Our service providers are only provided with the information they need to perform their designated functions and are not authorized to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes. Our service providers may be located in the U.S., Canada or other foreign jurisdictions.
Legal and Compliance: We and our Canadian, US and other foreign service providers may disclose your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or to another organization for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud, or as otherwise may be required or permitted by applicable Canadian, U.S. or other law or legal process, which may include lawful access by US or foreign courts, law enforcement or other government authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.
Sale of Business: We may transfer any information we have about you as an asset in connection with a proposed or completed merger, acquisition or sale (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings) involving all or part of AVA or as part of a corporate reorganization or other change in corporate control.
DATA DELETION
INFORMATION ABOUT OUR WEBSITE
Visiting our Website: In general, you can visit our Website without telling us who you are or submitting any personal information. However, we collect the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of all visitors to our Website and other related information such as page requests, browser type, operating system and average time spent on our Website. We use this information to help us understand our Website activity and to monitor and improve our Website.
Cookies: Our Website uses a technology called “cookies”. A cookie is a tiny element of data that our Website sends to a user’s browser, which may then be stored on the user’s hard drive so that we can recognize the user’s computer or device when they return. Cookies may provide us and our service providers with information that we will use to personalize our Website in accordance with a user’s preferences. You may set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to not accept certain cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from our Website, you may not be able to take advantage of all of the Website features.
Analytics: We may use a third party such as Google Analytics to help us gather and analyze information about the areas visited on the Website (such as the pages most read, time spent, search terms and other engagement data) in order to evaluate and improve the user experience and the Website. For more information or to opt-out using the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, see “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” and “Google Analytics and Privacy”.
Third Party Links: Our Website may contain links to other websites that AVA does not own or operate. We provide links to third party websites as a convenience to the user. These links are not intended as an endorsement of or referral to the linked websites. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, notices and terms of use. We do not have any control over such websites, and therefore we have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose, secure and otherwise treat personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.
SAFEGUARDS AND RETENTION
We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures in an effort to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss and unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure. We restrict access to personal information on a need-to-know basis to employees and authorized service providers who require access to fulfil their job requirements.
We have record retention processes designed to retain personal information for no longer than necessary for the purposes set out herein or as otherwise required to meet legal or business requirements.
YOUR CHOICES
As indicated above, if you have signed-up to receive our email marketing communications, you can unsubscribe any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link included at the bottom of our emails. Alternatively, you can opt-out of receiving our marketing communications by contacting us at the contact information under “Contact Us” below. Please note that you may continue to receive certain transactional or account-related messages from us.
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Subject to limited exceptions under applicable law, you have the right to access, update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information in our custody and control. You may request access, updating and corrections of inaccuracies in your personal information in our custody or control by emailing or writing to us at the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information for the purpose of verifying the identity of the individual seeking access to his or her personal information records.
UPDATES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY
We may update this privacy policy periodically to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page to ensure you are familiar with those changes. We will indicate at the top of this privacy policy when it was most recently updated.
CONTACT US
If you have any questions or comments about this privacy policy or the manner in which we or our service providers treat your personal information, or to request access to your personal information in our records, please contact our Privacy Officer at support@avagrows.com.