Last update: April 30, 2022

Please read this privacy policy (the “Policy”) carefully to understand how we use personal information. If you do not agree with this Policy, your choice is not to use vizwal.com site and mobile applications and its related sites, applications, services and goods or any other website operated by Vizwal that links to this Policy (the “Site”). By accessing or using this Site, you agree to this Policy. This Policy may change from time to time; any changes we make to this Policy will be posted on this Site, we will also take any other steps, to the extent required by applicable law, including notifying you and/or seeking your explicit consent to material changes. Changes to this Policy are effective as of the stated "Last Updated" date. Other than where we have sought such explicit consent from you, your continued use of the Site after we make changes will constitute acceptance of, and agreement to be bound by, those changes, so please check the Policy periodically for any updates or changes.

Our privacy obligations

Vizwal (including Opticverb, Owner of vizwal.com) respects your privacy and is committed to protect the personal information of its users - buyers, sellers, collaborators and other visitors browsing the Site (“Users”) as well as affiliates, influencers and other collaborators interacting with Vizwal. We believe that you have a right to know our practices regarding the information we collect when you visit and/or use the Site. This Policy explains our privacy practices for the Site and services provided by Vizwal as well as privacy practices that apply to affiliates, influencers and other collaborators who are individuals. By accessing and/or using the Site and its related sites, applications, services, goods and/or registering for a Vizwal account and/or using it as a collaborator to share comments on a specific project and/or registering to our affiliate or influencer or similar program, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Policy, including to our collection, use, disclosure, processing and retention of personal information. You can also learn how to limit sharing of information in this Policy.

Information We Collect

When you register to the Site, use it, complete forms, or use it as collaborator, and/or register to our affiliate or influencer or similar program, we ask you to provide certain personal information, including a valid email address, Facebook or Google account login details and username. We will also ask you to provide or otherwise collect additional information that you provide us, such as, your profile details, physical address or billing information, telephone number or other contact details, financial information (such as payment method and credit card number), taxpayer information and forms, details about other social networks linked accounts, details about your listed projects, services, purchases, education, profession and expertise, and additional authentication information (such as your government issued ID, passport, or driving license, as permitted by applicable laws and as detailed in our Seller Help Center at “Verifying Your Identity”). We also collect information about your communications with Vizwal as well as communication with other users of Vizwal.

We also collect information while you access, browse, view or otherwise use the Site. In other words, when you access the Site we are aware of your usage of the Site, and gather, collect and record the information relating to such usage, including geo-location information, IP address, device and connection information, browser information and web-log information, and all communications recorded by Users through the Site. We use that information to enhance user experience, personalize your browsing experience as well as monitor the Site for preventing fraud and inappropriate content or behaviour. We also collect supplemental information obtained from third parties such as demographic and navigation data, if applicable. We combine your personal information with information we collect automatically or obtain from other companies and use it to improve and personalize our services, content and advertising and/or to prevent fraud.

Additionally, in order to improve your online experience at Vizwal, we have implemented impression reporting. While you view our ads, we gather user Global Unique Identifier, HTTP request data like, user agent, IP, host, URL, country/continent from which request made, browser info, device/operating system/operating system version.

Once you register, your username, country, and additional information regarding your activity is made public and is visible to all Users of the Site. This information includes photos you upload, your published portfolio, Service information, ratings, and additional information you may choose to add to your profile. We also offer you the opportunity to participate and post content publicly in forums, blogs and on other similar features. Please be aware that certain information, such as your user name and profile, together with the content uploaded by you, will be publicly displayed when you use such features.

How Do We Collect Information?

Information provided by you - You directly provide us with most of the information we collect. You do this by filling out the registration details on the Site, linking to your Vizwal account accounts of other social networks (please also see the External Links section below), completing application forms, skill tests and customer surveys (if any) as well as by posting and sharing additional information voluntarily. This can include information about sellers and their services, education and profession, sharing of portfolio, ratings and feedbacks by buyers and anything you choose to add to your user profile.

Information we collect when you use the Site - We collect technical information indirectly and automatically through our systems. This information includes logging your Internet Protocol (IP) address, software configuration, operating system and use of cookies (cookies are small files sent from us to your computer and sometimes back). Cookies ultimately help us improve your navigation and ease of use of our Site.

Information we collect from other sources - We receive information from third party vendors and/or other commercially available sources, such as:

• Third party vendors who provide us data to supplement the information we collect about you, in accordance with applicable laws. For example, we receive fraud warnings from service providers for our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We also receive information from enrichment service providers to enhance and personalize your experience as well as from advertising and marketing partners in order to manage and measure our campaigns.
• If you link, connect, or login to your Vizwal Account with a third-party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn), we receive certain information, such as your registration and profile information from that service. This information varies and is controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.
• Advertising and marketing partners in order to monitor, manage and measure our campaigns.
• We also receive certain information about you, if you are invited to Vizwal by another user (for example, as part of our collaboration tools and referral program), in such case we will receive limited information, such as your email address or other contact information, and we will use it for the same purpose it was provided and in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.

 

How Do We Use The Information Collected?

Where relevant under applicable laws, all processing of your personal information will be justified by a "lawful ground" for processing. In the majority of cases, processing will be justified on the basis that:

• you have provided your consent for us to use your personal information for a specific purpose;
• our use of your personal information is necessary to perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract with you (e.g. to provide you with services which you have purchased);
• the processing is necessary to comply with a relevant legal obligation or regulatory obligation that we have (e.g. fraud prevention); or
• the processing is necessary to support our legitimate interests as a business (e.g. to improve our services to you), subject to your interests and fundamental rights and provided it is conducted at all times in a way that is proportionate.

We will use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide you with quality service and security, to operate the Site, to perform our obligations to you and to develop and improve our service. For example, we use the information collected from you to verify your identity. We also use this information to establish and set up your account, verify or re-issue a password, log your activity, enable your communications with other members, provide customer support and contact you from time to time. The information helps us to develop and improve our services to you, to understand and analyse your preferences and performance and to customize and personalize your experience (including by making service suggestions, ranking search results, etc.).
• to ensure marketplace integrity, prevent fraud and maintain a safe and secure marketplace. For example, we use your information to track and prevent fraudulent activities and other inappropriate activities, monitor content integrity, conduct security investigations and risk assessments, verify or authenticate information provided by you, enforce our Terms of Service and comply with applicable laws. We conduct certain behavioural analytics to achieve the above objectives and in limited cases, if we detect activity that we think poses a risk to the Vizwal marketplace, other users, our community, or third parties, automated processes may restrict or limit your ability to use Vizwal. If you would like to challenge any such decision, please contact us at [email protected].
• to contact you, as requested by you or as otherwise approved by you or permitted according to this Policy.
• to promote and advertise the Site and the Vizwal marketplace. For example, we use the information collected from you for the purpose of sending direct marketing messages (as detailed below), to show you information that may be of interest to you, to organize and facilitate referral programs, contests or other promotional activities or events.
• to maintain appropriate business records, to comply with lawful requests by public authorities and to comply with applicable laws and regulations or as otherwise required by law.

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those set out in this Policy.

Direct marketing:

• We use your personal information to send you direct marketing communications about our products, services or promotions from Vizwal that may be of interest to you or our related services. This may be via email, post, SMS, telephone or targeted online advertisements.
• Our processing of your personal information for marketing purposes is based on our legitimate interest, or on your consent, or as otherwise permitted according to applicable laws. You have a right to prevent direct marketing of any form at any time - this can be exercised by following the opt-out link attached to each communication or by sending an email to [email protected].
• We take steps to limit direct marketing to a reasonable and proportionate level, and to send you communications which we believe may be of interest or relevance to you, based on the information we have about you.

 

How Long Do We Keep Personal Information?

We apply a general rule of keeping personal information only for as long as is required to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. However, in some circumstances, we will retain your personal information for longer periods of time. We will retain personal information for the following purposes:

• as long as it is necessary and relevant for our operations, e.g. so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenge; and
• in relation to personal information from closed accounts to comply with applicable laws, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigation, enforce our Site terms and take other actions as permitted by law.

 

Children Under the Age of 15

Our Site is not intended for children under 15 years of age. No one under age 15 should provide any personal information to or on the Site. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 15. Parents and guardians should at all times supervise their children's activities. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 15, we will delete that personal information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 15, please contact us at [email protected].

Disclosure of personal information

Our third party service providers:

The personal information of users may be held, transmitted to or processed on our behalf outside Ghana, including 'in the cloud', by our third party service providers. Our third party service providers are bound by contract to only use your personal information on our behalf, under our instructions.

Our third party service providers include:

• Cloud hosting, storage, networking and related providers
• SMS providers
• Payment and banking providers
• Marketing and analytics providers
• Security providers

 

Third party applications:

Through the Vizwal API it is possible for users to grant third party applications access to their Vizwal account. Depending on the permissions that are granted, these applications may be able to access some personal information or do actions on the users' behalf. These third party applications are not controlled by us and will be governed by their own privacy policy. Users are able to remove third party applications from access their data through their settings.

Other disclosures and transfers:

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties for the following purposes:

• if necessary to provide the service or product you have requested;
• we receive court orders, subpoenas or other requests for information by law enforcement;
• if otherwise permitted or required by law; or
• for other purposes with your consent.

 

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels, tags, and scripts) to improve and personalize your experience, provide our services, analyze website performance and for marketing purposes. To learn more about how we and out third party service providers use cookies and your control over these Cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.

External Links

Please note that the Site contains links to third party sites and if you link to a third party site from the Site, any data you provide to that site and any use of that data by the third party are not under the control of Vizwal and are not subject to this Policy. You should consult the privacy policies of each site you visit. This Policy applies solely to personal information collected by our Site. If you upload content, including personal information, to a social network and then tag the Site, your submission will be subject to that social network's terms of use and privacy policy, even where you post on an official Vizwal page on the social network. We do not have control over these terms of use and privacy policies and have not reviewed their adequacy. You should therefore review these before submitting any personal information.

Updating Personal Information

We take steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate and up to date, and we provide you with the opportunity to update your information through your account profile settings. In the event that you believe your information is in any way incorrect or inaccurate, please let us know immediately. We will make sure we investigate the matter and correct any inaccuracies as quickly as possible where necessary or give you ways to update it quickly or to delete it - unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes. When updating your personal information, we will ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request. If for any reason you have a problem with deleting your personal information, please contact Vizwal's Customer Support and we will make reasonable efforts to delete any such information pursuant to any applicable privacy laws.

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Site and visiting your account profile page.

If you delete your user generated content as defined in the Vizwal Terms of Service, from the Site, copies of your content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other Site users. Proper access and use of information provided on the Site, including user generated content, is governed by our Terms of Service.

Accessing, correcting, or downloading your personal information

You have the right to request access to the personal information Freelancer holds about you. Unless an exception applies, we must allow you to see the personal information we hold about you, within a reasonable time period, and without unreasonable expense for no charge. Most personal information can be accessed by logging into your account. If you wish to access information that is not accessible through the platform, or wish to download all personal information we hold on you in a portable data format, please contact our Privacy Officer.

You also have the right to request the correction of the personal information we hold about you. All your personal information can be updated through the user settings pages. If you require assistance please contact our customer support.

Exercising your other rights

You have a number of other rights in relation to the personal data Freelancer holds about you, however, there may be restrictions on how you may exercise the rights. This is largely due to the nature of the products and services we provide. Much of the data we collect is in order to facilitate contracts between users, facilitate payments, and provide protection for the legitimate users of our marketplace - these data uses are protected against the below rights.

You have the right to:

• seek human review of automated decision-making or profiling
• opt-out of direct marketing, and profiling for marketing
• erasure
• temporary restriction of processing.

 

Human review of automated decision making / profiling - In the case of our ranking algorithms, it is not possible to exercise this right as this ranking is a fundamental part of the marketplace that users participate in, opting out would mean not being able to participate in the marketplace. Decisions affecting marketplace security are already reviewed by humans.

Direct marketing and profiling - users can control what emails they receive through their settings page.

Erasure - Most personal information and user generated content cannot be deleted as they are used to support contracts between users, document financial transactions, and are used in providing protecting other legitimate users of the marketplace. In the case of non-personal data that can be linked with personal data, it will either be erased or otherwise anonymised from the personal data.

Temporary restriction to processing - under certain circumstances you may exercise this right, in particular if you believe that the personal data we have is not accurate, or you believe that we do not have legitimate grounds for processing your information. In either case you may exercise this right by contacting our privacy officer.

Unless stated above, users may exercise any of the above rights by contacting our Privacy Officer.

Contact Us

To exercise any of your rights in connection with your personal information, we kindly ask that you send us an email to [email protected]. Please include all the relevant details, so your issue can be handled appropriately. We will process any requests in line with any local laws and our policies and procedures.

If you do not have an active Vizwal account or have any questions (or comments) concerning this Policy, please email our team at [email protected], and we will make an effort to reply within a reasonable timeframe.