Our privacy policy

Effective date: This policy is effective August 1st, 2022. 

Laterite is excited to be your research partner! Let’s do research together safely, while respecting your privacy.

By registering and using the services on the Site, https://www.laterite.ai,  you consent to be legally bound by and comply with this Privacy Policy. Please do not use the Site unless you have reviewed and understand its terms.

Who we are

Our company: Laterite BV is a data, research and analytics firm, registered in the Netherlands, with registration number (KvK number) 69759103, VAT number NL858000118B01, and located at Unit 104, 2 Overhoeksplein, 1031KS, Amsterdam.

Our mission: We deliver full cycle research projects and evaluations to support effective decision-making in the social sectors. We developed www.laterite.ai to make our own research more effective and want to share the applications we have developed with the broader public through this platform and subscription service.

This policy: This privacy policy refers to the services offered on this website: https://www.laterite.ai. This Privacy Policy describes our practices with respect to information we collect from or about you (“Your Information”) when you register or visit www.laterite.ai (the “Site”). It also describes what you can do to enquire about or ensure we erase any data we collect from you.

We at Laterite BV (“Laterite”, “we”, “our” or “us”) respect your privacy and are strongly committed to doing our best to keep secure any information we obtain from you or about you. We are committed to the concept of consent, transparency, data minimization and respecting your data rights.

For any concerns about data privacy or our policy, please contact us (see details below).

Definitions

The Site: the https://www.laterite.ai website operated by Laterite BV

Our Services: refers to all the services or applications we offer on the https://www.laterite.ai website

Your Information: refers to all the information we collect from you when you register or visit https://www.laterite.ai, whether personal data or not

Personal Data: means data about a living individual who can be identified from those data (or from those and other information either in our possession or likely to come into our possession).

Input Data: refers to the text or other data that you upload while using the applications on https://www.laterite.ai

Usage Data: data collected automatically either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

Cookies: small pieces of data stored on your device (computer or mobile device).

Data Controller: the natural or legal person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information are, or are to be, processed. For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, we are a Data Controller of your Personal Data.

Data Processors (or Service Providers): any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Data Controller. We may use the services of various Service Providers in order to process your data more effectively.

Data Subject (or User): any individual who is using our Service and is the subject of Personal Data.

Our Services

The applications we offer on https://www.laterite.ai are part of a subscription service targeted at researchers (specifically researchers in the social sectors). Our goal is to offer researchers applications that will help them accelerate the process of developing surveys and analyzing quantitative or qualitative data. Many of our Services are based on artificial intelligence models, in particular natural language processing models. Although these models are probabilistic and can be error prone, they also offer researchers new ways to accelerate the analysis of text and data. When using our applications, users will be asked to input or upload text or other data to be processed and analyzed by our applications. We refer to this as “Input Data“.

The information we collect and how we use it

We collect four types of data from you while using our Site and Services:

1. Personal Data

While using our Site and our Services, and in particular at the point of registration / sign-up, we will ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact, identify or authenticate you when using our Site (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

• Your name
• Address
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Payment information
• Your IP or other cookies and usage data

2. Input Data

The nature of the Services we provide, requires you to upload text or other types of data, that will then be processed by the applications we provide. This might include:

• Text
• An excel or csv file
• A dataset in Python, R, Stata, Excel or csv format

It is very important that such data never include personal identifiable information. Our contract with you clearly stipulates that it is entirely your responsibility to ensure that this data does not include any personal identifiable information. Please remember that we are unable to automatically remove personal identifiable information from the Input Data you upload.

3. Usage Data

We may also collect information how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

4. Tracking & Cookies Data

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.

Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Service.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.

Examples of Cookies we use:

• Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our Service.
• Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings.
• Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes.

 

How we use Your Information

Our primary purposes for collecting Your Information are to enable us to provide you with our Services, to help ensure the quality of our Services, to improve the Services of Laterite, and ensure compliance with our Terms of Use. Laterite will only use Your Information:

1. When you register on our Site, to allow you to subscribe to our Services and to manage your account, in accordance with our Terms of Use and our contract with you;
2. To provide you with access to our Services, including applications and algorithms, which might involve the use of an API, provided by third party applications;
3. To manage the data generated and associated with your account in the use of our Services, for the security and maintenance of the account, on the basis of legitimate interest;
4. To improve the performance of our Services, uncluding applications and algorithms;
5. To ensure compliance with our Terms of Use and specifically to ensure no offensive or inappropriate content is entered in the use of our Services;
6. To allow you to communicate with us and to provide you with customer service support;
7. To inform you about changes to our services or policies that are of legimate interest, based on your consent and your communication preferences;
8. For payment purposes and to send you invoices or updates on your account.

More specifically:

• Personal Data collected during registration or sign-up — For individual customers who register to use the services on the Site, the information you give us when you create an account includes your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and any required payment information. If you are a business customer, we will also ask you to provide additional information on your business, including: the official registration name, address and VAT number (or equivalent). We will share this personal information with our third party service providers and partners, but only to assist us with managing your account, to provide our Site to you and other users. We use commercially reasonable efforts to only engage or interact with third party service providers and partners that post a robust privacy policy governing their processing of Personal Data. As part of the registration process, you will need to create a password for authentication purposes, which is stored not with us but with the service provider we use to store user passwords securely and to authenticate them when you seek to use the service (XYZ). Payment information is also not stored with us, but with the service provider we use to manage online payments (Stripe). We use the information you provide to establish and maintain your account, to deliver to you the services you request, to provide related customer service, to ensure quality, to send you email updates and otherwise communicate with you, to facilitate your use of the applications on www.laterite.ai and to improve products and services of Laterite and its affiliates.
• Input Data submitted while using our Services — While using our Services on the Site, you will be asked to either enter some text or upload a file. This information will be processed in two ways: (i) using scripts running on a dedicated server to transform the data into the intended output; (ii) through third parties using an API. We store and process any data you chose to submit through our apps in order to provide you with our Services. We may also use your Input Data to ensure quality, secure and improve the applications (and any related software, models, and algorithms), and to detect and prevent misuse. The third parties we work with, that provide foundational artificial intelligence services (currently OpenAI L.L.C), may also use this data to improve their own services.  Note that API calls to these providers will only include the text or data you share while using the applications, but will not include any of your Personal Data. Some additional details:
  • How we or the service providers we use may use your inputs: In addition to processing submitted data to generate output for you, other ways we or the service providers we use may use such data include:
    • Spot checks and analysis to detect bias or offensive content and improve ways to reduce such occurrences;
    • Large scale analysis of anonymized submissions and completions to generally improve underlying models;
    • Train and refine semantic search models to improve our or their search capabilities;
    • Train and refine classifier models to identify such things as bias, sentiment, and the like;
    • Train and refine aligned models to generally improve future versions of the models; and
    • Analysis to troubleshoot technical issues.
  • Who can see it: Your data is only visible to a limited set of employees of Laterite and its affiliates (or by extension to a limited set of employees working for the service providers we use), working on improving our services and providing support to customers, as well as to a small team of such employees monitoring for potential misuse.
  • How long we store it: We store your data only as long as is needed to provide you with our services and to monitor misuse.
• Google analytics. The Site may use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about use of the Site. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this Site. We use the information we get from Google Analytics to maintain and improve the Site and our products. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this Site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Service, available at http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html, and the Google Privacy Policy, available at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. You may learn more about how Google collects and processes data specifically in connection with Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You may prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

How we share your data

It is our strict policy not to sell or rent personal information, and we do not share personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes. We do not share the content you submit through the Services other than as described below.

We may share Your Information with certain third parties, as follows:

• Our Affiliates. We may share Your Information with our affiliates to enable us to provide you with our Services, to help ensure the quality of our Services, to improve the producs and services of Laterite and its affiliates, and to ensure compliance with our Terms of Use.
• Service Providers. We may share Your Information with third parties who provide us with services, such as the designer of the Site and others who assist us with payment systems, user management, technology, data analysis, or similar services.
• Acquirers or Assignees. In the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of Laterite or its assets, we may transfer any and all information that we collect from Site or Services to the acquiring party or assignee.
• Entities Entitled Under Law. We may disclose Your Information as we believe to be appropriate in the following circumstances: (i) when required by applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (ii) to comply with legal process (iii) to respond to requests from public and government authorities; (iv) to enforce the terms and conditions for use of the Site or Services, including this Policy; (v) to protect and defend our rights and property; (vi) to protect the interests of Laterite or others; and (vii) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. We have no obligation to notify you of such disclosures, except as required by applicable law.

We allow third parties such as Google Analytics to use cookies or other technologies to collect information about Site and Services users in order to provide analytics services based on a user’s visits to sites across the Internet and across other mobile applications.

Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are from the European Economic Area (EEA), Laterite BV’s legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the Personal Data we collect and the specific context in which we collect it.

Laterite BV may process your Personal Data because:

• We need to perform a contract with you
• You have given us permission to do so
• The processing is in our legitimate interests and it’s not overridden by your rights
• To comply with the law

Data hosting

Please note that we do not ourselves host any of the services or data we collect – all hosting is done by third party service providers that we engage. This means that data you provide us or that we collect from you (including any personal identifiable information) – as further described in this Privacy Policy – is hosted with such third party service providers on servers that they own or control. Specifically:

• Personal identifiable information (such as your IP, name, email address or payment information) will only be stored on servers owned by Third Party providers inside the EU. By using the Site and the Services, you are deemed to understand and unambiguously consent to the processing of your Personal Data in the the European Union, with the awareness that the laws of those jurisdictions may provide different levels of protection for personal information than the laws of the jurisdiction where you are located.
• Text or data that you may input into our applications, for processing purposes, may be shared with third party service providers, whose servers may be located anywhere in the world (including the US). This type of data may even be replicated across multiple servers located in multiple countries. So please be aware that you are consenting to your data being transferred to various third party service providers around the world (including the US). Please also make sure that any text or data you input into the applications on the Site are completely anonymous and do not include any personal identifiable information. By using the Site and the Services, you are deemed to understand and unambiguously consent to the processing of Input Data in the United States, the European Union, and Taiwan, with the awareness that the laws of those jurisdictions may provide different levels of protection for personal information than the laws of the jurisdiction where you are located.

Data security

Protecting your information is important to us and we take commercially reasonable steps to protect it from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Please understand, however, that no security system is impenetrable and any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases or those of third party providers, nor can we guarantee that the information that you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. In particular, any email you exchange with us may not be secure, and you should, therefore, take special care in deciding what information you send to us via email. We will not be responsible or liable for, and will be held harmless from, any damages, losses or causes of action arising out of or in connection with the disclosure of your personally identifiable information.

You acknowledge to have been sufficiently informed about the risks of using the Internet and the required technical conditions for accessing this Site.

Retention of Data

Laterite BV will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and for the provision of Our Services. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

Laterite BV will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Your Data Protection Rights Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. Laterite BV aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data.

If you wish to be informed what Personal Data we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights:

• The right to access, update or to delete the information we have on you. Whenever made possible, you can access, update or request deletion of your Personal Data directly within your account settings section. If you are unable to perform these actions yourself, please contact us to assist you.
• The right of rectification. You have the right to have your information rectified if that information is inaccurate or incomplete.
• The right to object. You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data.
• The right of restriction. You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information.
• The right to data portability. You have the right to be provided with a copy of the information we have on you in a structured, machine-readable and commonly used format.
• The right to withdraw consent. You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time where Laterite BV relied on your consent to process your personal information.

Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests.

You have the right to complain to a Data Protection Authority about our collection and use of your Personal Data. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority in the European Economic Area (EEA).

If you are not a resident of the European Economic Area, but you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How to access and correct your information

You can send us an email to request access to, correct, or delete personally identifiable information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law, regulation, legal requirement, or applicable policy or cause the information to be incorrect.

Other Websites

The Site may contain links to websites operated by parties not affiliated with Laterite. These linked sites are not under our control and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the contents of any such unaffiliated parties or their websites. If you provide personal information through any such third-party website, the information will be collected by, and controlled by the privacy policy of, that third party. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the privacy policies and practices of any such third parties.

Modifications and updates to this privacy policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of the Privacy Policy will govern our use of information about you and will be located at https://laterite.ai/resources/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy-2/. If we make any material change to our Privacy Policy, we will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service. Your continued use of the Site after changes are made to it is deemed to be acceptance of those changes.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our information practices, please contact us via email with PRIVACY POLICY in the subject line.

You can contact us by email at: support@laterite.com

Our intent is to promptly reply to every message we receive. We may also retain inquiries or comments you send to us in order to improve our services in the future.