Your privacy is critically important to us. At Bocoup, we believe in consentful technology. For all websites and applications we maintain, we follow the FRIES framework, which defines consent as:

  • Freely given
  • Reversible
  • Informed
  • Enthusiastic
  • Specific

We are thoughtful and intentional about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services. We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it, and aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control your data. We also aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is our Privacy Policy in full, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:

  • Our website, bocoup.com
  • Our email newsletter

This Privacy Policy also applies to information we collect when you apply for a job at Bocoup. Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our websites, projects and other products and services collectively as “Services.”

Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so — for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

We collect this information from two sources: if and when you voluntarily provide information to us, and automatically through operating our Services. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us directly. Here are some examples:

  • Communications with us: You may provide us with information when you respond to attend Bocoup run events, comments on blog posts, email us, apply to job openings, or by subscribing to our blog. When you communicate with us via web form, email, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications.
  • Job applicant information: You may provide us with information like your name, contact information, resume or CV, professional or personal references, similar professional and employment-related data, and work authorization verification as part of the application process.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

  • Server log information: Bocoup uses rsyslog at a server level to collect and rotate logs. Our system does not save IP addresses and deletes logs after two weeks. We may on occasion log and retain technical information for longer than two weeks for website testing or the diagnosis of a technical problem.
  • Usage information: We collect information about your usage of our Services with Plausible which is a privacy-aware alternative to Google Analytics that doesn’t use invasive tracking or cookies.
  • Information from cookies & other technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Bocoup will not use cookies unless our users freely give reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific consent.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

Bocoup will strive to use third party service providers with privacy policies we have reviewed and found satisfactory. We will not use a third party service that sells or collects your data without your consent.

The third party service providers we use are listed below along with links to their respective privacy policies:

  • Plausible
  • Vercel: Vercel collects and sells data it collects about Bocoup as part of its privacy policy and terms of service, our understanding is that this does not include our users’ data.

How and Why We Use Information

Purposes for Using Information

We use information about you for the purposes listed below:

  • To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can see what’s popular on our blog and know what kind of content interests our visitors.
  • To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of Bocoup and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a transaction or terminating Services.
  • To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
  • To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to verify your identity or ask for your feedback, or keep you up to date on Bocoup; texting you to verify your identity;. If you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt out of these communications at any time by emailing consent@bocoup.com.
  • To recruit and hire new employees. For example, by evaluating job applicants (including verifying identity, experience, and other information submitted) and communicating with them by phone or email. If the application progresses, we may also collect interview information and background check information. This may also include verifying information required to initiate employment, for purposes such as confirming ability to legally work in a specific location, setting up payroll, and complying with statutory reporting requirements.

Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information

Our use of your information is based on the grounds that:

  1. The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you; or
  2. The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
  3. The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
  4. We have a legitimate interest in using your information — for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; and to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; or
  5. You have given us your consent.

Sharing Information

How We Share Information

We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy.

  • Independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to our independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our Services or process the information on our behalf. We require our independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for any personal information that we share with them.
  • Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you or your site. This includes vendors that that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g. Mailchimp); those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers); those that make tools to help us run our operations (like programs that help us with task management, scheduling, word processing, email and other communications, and collaboration among our teams); other third-party tools that help us manage operations.
  • Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Bocoup goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
  • With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties when you authorize us to do so.
  • Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is — you guessed it — disclosed publicly. This will be the case for comments on our blog posts.

How Long We Keep Information

We generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it — described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we’re not legally required to keep it.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

  • Limit the information that you provide: Only provide as much information about yourself as necessary to use our Services. If you are a job applicant, and you choose not to provide certain data elements to us, we may not be able to proceed with the recruitment process.
  • Request data deletion: You may request that we delete all data we hold of you by emailing consent@bocoup.com.

Your Rights

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including some US states and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

  • Request access to your personal data;
  • Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
  • Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
  • Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
  • Request portability of your personal data.

You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

US Privacy Laws

Laws in some US states require us to provide residents with additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it. You’ll find that information in this section (if you are a California resident, please note that this is the Notice at Collection we are required to provide you under California law).

In the last 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information, depending on the Services used:

  • Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
  • Characteristics protected by law (for example, you might voluntarily provide your gender or race as part of a research survey for us);
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services, like the actions you take as an administrator of a WordPress.com site);
  • Professional or employment-related information; and

If you are a job applicant, we may have also collected:

  • Education information, such as the education you disclose in your job application.

We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the How and Why We Use Information section. And we share this information with the categories of third parties described in the Sharing Information section We retain this information for the length of time described in our How Long We Keep Information section.

In some US states you have additional rights subject to any exemptions provided by your state’s respective law, including the right to:

  • Request a copy of the specific pieces of information we collect about you and, if you’re in California, to know the categories of personal information we collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, and the categories of third parties we share it with;
  • Request deletion of personal information we collect or maintain;
  • Request correction of personal information we collect or maintain;
  • Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information;
  • Receive a copy of your information in a readily portable format; and
  • Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.

Right to Opt Out

We never sell your personal information for money.

We do not collect or process your sensitive (and potentially sensitive) personal information except where it is strictly necessary to provide you with our service, where the processing is not for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you, or for other purposes that do not require an option to limit under California law. We don’t knowingly sell or share personal information of those under 16.

Contacting Us About These Rights

You can access, correct, or delete your personal data by emailing us at consent@bocoup.com.

When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Bocoup may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Bocoup encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice. Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.

Creative Commons Sharealike License

We’ve used Auttomatic’s Privacy Policy available under a Creative Commons Sharealike license. You can grab a copy of this Privacy Policy and other legal documents on GitHub. You can also copy it, adapt it, and repurpose it for your own use. Just make sure to revise the language so that your policy reflects your actual practices. If you do use it, we’d appreciate a credit and link to Automattic somewhere on your site.