Qase Inc. (“Qase”) Privacy Policy
Last Updated: March 6th, 2021
This Privacy Policy applies to anyone who access the Qase Platform, which includes Qase’s products, content, website, and applications, and to Users who create Qase Accounts with us through our website, upload content to the Qase Platform, or engage a Participating Lawyer to provide legal services through the Qase Platform. By using the Qase Platform, or by creating an account, you signify your consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Qase Platform or submit any personal information to us.
This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, process, and disclose your information, including personal information, in conjunction with your access to and use of the Qase Platform. Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy have the meaning given them in our Terms of Service. “Qase,” “we,” “us,” or “our,” refers to Qase Inc. The words “you” and “your” may refer to both a User and/or a Participating Lawyer, depending on the context.
When we talk about “personal information” we mean information about an identifiable individual.
1.1 Information You Give to Us.
Information that is necessary for the use of the Qase Platform.
We ask for and collect the following personal information about you when you use the Qase Platform. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us and to allow us to comply with our legal obligations. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all the requested services.
- Account Information. When you sign up for a Qase Account, we require certain information such as your first name, last name, email address, and date of birth.
- Profile and Listing Information. To use certain features of the Qase Platform (such as booking a free consultation), we may ask you to provide additional information, which may include your address, phone number, and a profile picture.
- Identity Verification Information. To help create and maintain a trusted environment and to help Participating Lawyers meet their regulatory obligations, we may collect identity verification information (such as images of your government issued ID, as permitted by applicable laws) or other authentication information.
- Payment Information. To obtain legal services through the Qase Platform, we will require you to provide certain financial information (like your credit card information) in order to facilitate the processing of payments.
- Communications with Qase and other Users. When you communicate with Qase or use the Qase Platform to communicate with Participating Lawyers, we collect information about your communication and any information you choose to provide. When you have retained a Participating Lawyer to work with you, the contents of your communication are subject to lawyer-client confidentiality obligations and will not be accessible to, or used by, Qase, subject to articles 3.3 and 4.2. We will track information such as the frequency and duration of communications with Participating Lawyers, the number of files posted, and the average duration of cases, to enhance our service. Refer to article 4.1 for further information.
Information you choose to give us.
You may choose to provide us with additional personal information in order to obtain a better user experience when using Qase Platform. This additional information will be processed based on your consent.
- Additional Profile Information. You may choose to provide additional information as part of your Qase profile (such as gender, preferred language(s), and a personal description). This information will not be publicly visible.
- Calendar Data. Certain users may choose to connect their electronic calendar (e.g. Google’s gCal, Apple’s iCal or Microsoft’s Office 365) to the Qase service and share calendar data. In addition to any other usages outlined in this policy, when a user connects an electronic calendar, the Qase platform may query the calendar to determine free and busy times. It may also add tentative and permanent calendar entries based on system appointments requested by users. Sharing of this calendar is governed by the relevant provisions of this Agreement. More specifically, the system may share free and busy times to permit the sharer or other users to book appointments. Calendar data is stored/retained as outlined elsewhere in this Agreement.
- Other Information. You may otherwise choose to provide us information when you fill in a form, conduct a search, update or add information to your Qase Account, respond to surveys, or use other features of the Qase Platform.
1.2 Information We Collect from You Using Technological Means.
When you use the Qase Platform, we may collect information that is automatically sent to us by your web browser or your device which runs our applications. This information may include your domain name, and your numerical IP address. We may also collect other information about your activity on the Platform, such as the type of browser you use which pages you view, and which Qase-created downloadable files you access such as user and support guides. Additionally, we may also collect other technical and system log information from you, such as:
- the hardware you use to interact with the Qase Platform;
- operating system and version information;
- mobile network information;
- pages you view on the Qase Platform;
- your unique device identifier;
- your system activity;
- software debug and crash information; and
- websites or services you visited before using the Qase Platform.
We use this information to improve our understanding of how users use the Qase Platform, and to improve the Qase Platform. The amount of information that is sent to us by technological means depends on your browser or device and settings you use. Please refer to the instructions provided by your browser or device if you want to learn more about what information it sends to applications, like the Qase Platform, you use, or how you may change or restrict this.
We and third parties we partner with may use cookies, web beacons, tracking pixels, flash cookies (also known as locally shared objects), HTML5 cookies, entity tags, and other similar technological means on the Qase Platform to help us collection information through technological means. These technological tools may track or collect information such as: (i) IP address; (ii) the type of web browser and operating system used; (iii) the pages of the Qase Platform visited; (iv) the URL that referred you to the Qase Platform; (v) the aspects of the Qase Platform you use; (vi) your activities on the Qase Platform; and (vii) information about your device. Note that Qase does not acknowledge Do Not Track (DNT) settings.
2. HOW WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
We use, store, and process information, including personal information, about you to provide, understand, improve, and develop the Qase Platform, create and maintain a trusted and safer environment and comply with our legal obligations.
2.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop the Qase Platform.
- Enable you to access and use the Qase Platform.
- Enable you to communicate with Participating Lawyers.
- Operate, protect, improve, and optimize the Qase Platform and experience, such as by performing analytics and conducting research.
- Provide customer service.
- Send you service or support messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications.
- To operate, protect, improve, and optimize the Qase Platform and experience, and personalize and customize your experience we conduct profiling based on your interactions with the Qase Platform, your search and booking history, your profile information and preferences, and other content you submit to the Qase Platform.
- To facilitate performance of our contracts with Participating Lawyers, including the fee payment obligations in those contracts.
We process this information given our legitimate interest in improving the Qase Platform and our Users’ and Participating Lawyers’ experience with it, and where it is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract with you.
2.2 Create and Maintain a Trusted and Safer Environment.
- Detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, and other harmful activity.
- Conduct security investigations and risk assessments.
- Verify or authenticate information or identifications provided by you (such as to verify your address or compare your identification photo to another photo you provide).
- Conduct checks against databases and other information sources, including background or police checks, to the extent permitted by applicable laws and with your consent where required.
- Comply with our legal obligations.
- Resolve any disputes with any of our Users or Participating Lawyers and enforce our agreements with third parties.
- Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies.
- In connection with the activities above, we may conduct profiling based on your interactions with the Qase Platform, your profile information and other content you submit to the Qase Platform. In limited cases, automated processes may restrict or suspend access to the Qase Platform if such processes detect a user or activity that we think poses a safety or other risk to the Qase Platform, other Users or Participating Lawyers.
We process this information given our legitimate interest in protecting the Qase Platform, to measure the adequate performance of our contract with you, and to comply with applicable laws.
2.3 Provide, Personalize, Measure, and Improve our Advertising and Marketing.
- Send you marketing, advertising, and other information that may be of interest to you.
- Personalize, measure, and improve our advertising.
We will process your personal information for the purposes listed in this section given our legitimate interest in undertaking marketing activities to offer you products or services that may be of your interest. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by following the unsubscribe instructions included in our marketing communications.
3.1 With Your Consent.
Where you have provided consent, we share your information, including personal information, as described at the time of consent, such as when you attempt to schedule a free consultation, with a Participating Lawyer.
3.2 Qase’s Service Providers
Qase may engage other companies and individuals to facilitate the smooth operation and management of the Qase Platform, to operate a portion of the Qase Platform or provide services connected to the Qase Platform on our behalf, or to assist us in analyzing how the Qase Platform is used.
These service providers have access to your personal information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
3.3 Compliance with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm and Protection of our Rights.
Qase may disclose your information, including personal information, to courts, law enforcement or governmental authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or permitted to do so by law or if such disclosure is reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with our legal obligations, (ii) to comply with legal process and to respond to claims asserted against Qase, (iii) to respond to verified requests relating to a criminal investigation or alleged or suspected illegal activity or any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our Users to legal liability, (iv) to enforce and administer our Terms of Service (v) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Qase, its employees, its Users, or members of the public.
These disclosures may be necessary to comply with our legal obligations, for the protection of your or another person's vital interests or for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interest in keeping the Qase Platform secure, preventing harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage.
Where appropriate, we will notify Users and any Participating Lawyers the Users have engaged on the Qase Platform about legal requests unless: (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law, or (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon Qase’s property, its Users, Participating Lawyers, and the Qase Platform. In instances where we comply with legal requests without notice for these reasons, we will attempt to notify that Users about the request after the fact where appropriate and where we determine in good faith that we are no longer prevented from doing so.
3.4 Aggregated Data.
We may also share aggregated information (information about our Users that we combine together so that it no longer identifies or references an individual user) and other anonymized information for regulatory compliance, industry and market analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes. Aggregated data will be de-identified so as to mitigate the risk of re-identification.
4. OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
4.1 Analyzing your Communications.
We may review, scan, or analyze your communications with us on the Qase Platform for fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research, and customer support purposes. We will not do this with any information you share directly with a Participating Lawyer or User or that may otherwise be protected by lawyer-client confidentiality .
Occasionally we may need to manually review some communications, such as for fraud investigations and customer support, or to assess and improve the functionality of these automated tools. We will not review, scan, or analyze your communications to send third party marketing messages to you, and we will not sell reviews or analyses of these communications.
These activities are carried out based on Qase's legitimate interest in ensuring compliance with applicable laws and our Terms, preventing fraud, promoting safety, and improving and ensuring the adequate performance of our services.
4.2 Access for Support
When you request technical support from us, we may need to access your account and information in order to provide that support. The purpose of this access is the provision of support and any disclosure of your personal information or data is incidental to the provision of support. In this case, any collection or use of your information shall be strictly restricted to what is necessary in order to respond to your support request.
5. THIRD PARTY PARTNERS & INTEGRATIONS
The Qase Platform may contain links to third party websites or services, such as third party integrations, co-branded services, or third party-branded services (“Third Party Partners”).
Third Party Providers are different from the Qase Service Providers in section 3.3 who act on behalf of Qase. Qase doesn’t own or control these Third Party Partners and when you interact with them, you may be providing information directly to the Third Party Partner, Qase, or both. Qase’s Privacy Policy will not apply to these Third Party Partners and they will have their own rules about the collection, use, and disclosure of information. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of the other websites you visit.
6.1 Managing Your Information.
You may access and update some of your information through your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up-to-date.
6.2 Rectification of Inaccurate or Incomplete Information, Data Access.
You have a right to access to your personal information and to request a correction to it if you believe it is inaccurate. If you have submitted Personal Information and would like to have access to it, or if you would like to have it corrected, please contact us using the contact information provided below.
6.3 Data Retention and Erasure.
We generally retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us and to comply with our legal obligations. If you no longer want us to use your information to provide the Qase Platform to you, you can request that we erase your personal information and close your Qase Account. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:
- We may retain some of your personal information as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud detection and prevention and enhancing safety. For example, if we suspend a Qase Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain certain information from that Qase Account to prevent that user from opening a new Qase Account in the future.
- We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, Qase may keep some of your information for tax, legal reporting and auditing obligations.
- Because we maintain the Qase Platform to protect from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, residual copies of your personal information may not be removed from our backup systems for a limited period of time.
- Not all personal information a User provides to a Participating Lawyer using Qase’s Platform is under our control. In some cases, the Participating Lawyer will be the custodian of a User’s personal information. This includes any personal information shared directly with a Participating Lawyer during a free consultation or once the User has retained the Participating Lawyer.
7. SECURITY AND RISKS
We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration. Some of the safeguards we use to protect your information are firewalls and data encryption, and information access controls. If you know or have reason to believe that your Qase Account credentials have been lost, stolen, misappropriated, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your Qase Account, please contact us following the instructions in the Contact Us section below.
Notwithstanding Qase’s robust security and privacy measures, we cannot eliminate completely the risk of a security breach. A breach that discloses information you provide to us, like your personal or financial information, may result in such harm as financial loss or identity theft. If you are uncomfortable with these residual risks, please do not use the Qase Platform.
In the event of a breach, we will notify you and advise you of the steps we are taking to address the breach.
8. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. We will reflect any such modifications to this Privacy Policy on our website and will provide you with notice when material changes have occurred. Revisions will be effective immediately and your continued use of the Qase Platform after any such changes will constitute your acceptance of this Privacy Policy, as revised.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at support@qase.ca.
