Privacy Policy
Effective Date: October 4^th, 2024

1. Introduction:

Welcome to Animaat. This Privacy Policy applies to Animaat services (the “platform”), which include Animaat apps, websites, software and related services accessed via any platform or device that links to this Privacy Policy. The platform is provided and controlled by Animaat LLC with its registered address at Swiss Plaza Building, 80, St. 250, Maadi, Cairo, Egypt, 11728 (“Animaat”, “we” or “us”).
We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal information is handled in a safe and responsible manner. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, and protect your information when you interact with us through our platform, on the other hand, it also explains the ways you can control your information.

You must agree to the Privacy Policy to use Animaat.

2. Your Responsibilities to Using Animaat:

In exchange for our dedication to providing our platform services, we ask that you make the following commitments to us.

Eligibility to Use Animaat:

We aim to make our platform as open and inclusive as possible while ensuring it remains safe, secure, and legally compliant. Therefore, we require you to adhere to a few essential restrictions to be part of the Animaat community:

• You must be at least 13 years old, or the minimum legal age required in your country, to use Animaat.
• You must not be barred from receiving any part of our services under applicable laws.
• Your account must not have been previously disabled by us for violating any laws or our policies.
• You must not be a convicted sex offender.
• You must not be a convicted animal abuser or participate in any crimes related to animal cruelty or neglect.
• You must not be part of organized animal abuse groups such as dogfighting and cockfighting.

3. Prohibited Uses of Animaat:

• You cannot impersonate others or provide inaccurate or false information. While you’re not required to disclose your identity on Animaat, any information you do provide (including registration details) must be accurate and up to date, which may include personal data. Additionally, you must not impersonate anyone or anything you are not, and you cannot create an account on behalf of someone else without their explicit consent.
• You are prohibited from engaging in any unlawful, misleading, or fraudulent activities, as well as from using Animaat for any illegal or unauthorized purposes.
• You must not violate, or assist or encourage others to violate, these Terms or our policies, including the Animaat Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.[BO1].
• You must not engage in any activities that interfere with or disrupt the proper functioning of the platform services. This includes the misuse of reporting, such as submitting false or baseless reports.
• You must not promote, share, or encourage ritual mass killings of animals or campaigns advocating for or similar to such acts. For example, you must not be part of or encourage mass poisoning campaigns of stray animals.
• You must not promote, share or encourage animal cruelty activities for entertainment purposes such as wild animals hunting.[BO2]
• You are not allowed to create accounts or access or collect information through unauthorized means. This includes using automated methods to create accounts or gather information.
• You are prohibited from selling, licensing, or purchasing any account or data obtained from us or our service. This includes attempting to buy, sell, or transfer any part of your account (such as your username), soliciting, collecting, or using the login credentials or badges of other users, or requesting or collecting Animaat usernames, passwords, or access tokens in an unauthorized manner.
• You are not permitted to post someone else’s private or confidential information without their consent or engage in any activity that infringes on someone else's rights, including intellectual property rights (e.g., copyright or trademark infringement, counterfeit goods, or pirated content). While you may use others' works under exceptions or limitations provided by applicable law, you must either own or have obtained all necessary rights to the content you post or share.
• You are not allowed to modify, translate, create derivative works from, or reverse engineer our product or any of its components.
• You may not use a domain name or URL in your username without obtaining our prior written consent.

4. Permissions and Information We Collect[AS3]:

When you interact with our platform, we may collect the following types of information:

• Personal Information: This may include your name, username, password, date of birth (where applicable), email address, phone number, and any other information you provide directly to us through your user profile, your photograph, messages, comments, or other interactions.
• User Content: We process the content you generate on the Platform, including photographs, audios and videos you upload or create, posts, photos, comments, hashtags and feedback you make and the associated metadata, such as when, where, and by whom the content was created (“User Content”) and any other content you choose to share on our platform. Even if you are not a user, information about you may appear in User Content created or published by users on the Platform. If you apply an effect to your User Content, we may collect a version of your User Content that does not include the effect.
• Messages: We collect information you provide when you compose, send, or receive messages through[AS4] the Platform’s messaging functionalities. That information includes the content of the message and information about the message, such as when it was sent, received, or read, and message participants. Please be aware that messages you choose to send to other users of the Platform will be accessible by those users and that we are not responsible for the manner in which those users use or share the messages. Also, our messages feature is managed by a third party, to learn more about their privacy policy and terms of use regarding their access to your messaging functionalities please visit their website firebase.google.com
• Clipboard Information: We may access content, including text, images, and video, found in your device’s clipboard, with your permission. For example, if you choose to initiate content sharing with a third-party platform or choose to paste content from the clipboard into the Platform, we access this information stored in your clipboard in order to fulfill your request.
• Your phone and social network contacts: If you choose to sync your phone contacts, we will access and collect information such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses, and match that information against existing users of the Platform. If you choose to share your social network contacts, we will collect your public profile information as well as names and profiles of your social network contacts.
• Proof of your identity or age: We sometimes ask you to provide proof of identity or age in order to use certain features, such as verified accounts, ensure that you are old enough to use the Platform, or in other instances where verification may be required.
• Information in correspondence you send to us, including when you contact us for support or feedback.

5. Automatically Collected Information:

• Usage Information:

We gather data about your interactions with the Platform, including how you engage with content, comments, videos you watch, any issues encountered, your browsing and search history, the content you like, the content you view, saves, shares, the users you follow, and how you interact with your mutual followers.

• Inferred Information:

We also infer certain attributes about you, such as your interests, gender, and age range, to personalize the content you see.

• Technical Information:

We collect specific details about the device you use to access the Platform, including your IP address, user agent, mobile carrier, time zone settings, advertising identifiers, browser type, device model, system, network type, device IDs or type, screen resolution, operating system, pages you visit on our platform, app and file names and types, keystroke patterns, battery state, audio settings, and connected audio devices. If you log in from multiple devices, we can link your profile information to identify your activity across those devices. We may also associate you with information collected from other devices that you don’t use to log in to the Platform.

• Location Information:

We collect data about your general location, such as your location based on your SIM card or IP address. With your permission, we may also collect precise location data (such as GPS). Additionally, if you choose to add location information to your User Content, we may collect location details such as nearby tourist attractions, shops, or other points of interest.

• Image and Audio Information:

We may gather information about the videos, images, and audio in your User Content, such as identifying objects and scenery, detecting the presence and location of facial and body features and analyzing the nature of the audio. This information is used to enable special video effects, for content moderation, demographic classification, content recommendations, and other non-personally identifying purposes.

• Cookies:
  We, along with our service providers and business partners, use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, flash cookies, etc.) ("Cookies") to automatically collect information. These Cookies help us measure and analyze how you use the Platform, including the pages you view most often and how you interact with content. They enhance your experience, improve the Platform, provide you with advertising, and measure the effectiveness of ads and other content. We and our partners may also use Cookies to promote the Platform on other platforms and websites. Cookies enable certain features and functionality on the Platform. Web beacons, also known as "pixel tags" or "clear GIFs," are small images or data embedded in images that can recognize Cookies, log the time and date a page is viewed, describe the page where the pixel tag is placed, and gather similar information from your computer or device. To learn how to disable certain Cookies, refer to the "Your Rights and Choices" section below.

6. Information From Other Sources:

We may receive information as outlined in this Privacy Policy from various sources, including:

 

Third-Party Social Networks:

If you choose to register or use the Platform through a third-party social network account (e.g., Apple ID, Google) or login service, you may provide us with access to your username, public profile, and other related information from that account. Similarly, we may share certain information with that social network, such as your app ID, access token, and the referring URL. If you link your Animaat account to another service, we may also receive information about your activity on that service.

Other Users and Public Sources:

We may receive information about you from others, including when you are mentioned in User Content, direct messages, complaints, appeals, requests, or feedback submitted to us, or when your contact information is shared with us. We may also collect information about you from publicly available sources.

7. How We Use Your Information:

As outlined below, we use your information to enhance, maintain, and manage the Platform, enable its features, and ensure compliance with our Terms of Service. Additionally, we may use your information to personalize the content you encounter on the Platform, promote the Platform, and tailor your experience. Generally, the information we collect is used in the following ways:

• To Communicate with You: We use your contact information to respond to your comments, questions, requests, platform functionality, support, send notification about changes in services, and information for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical analysis, and surveys, as well as to solicit your feedback.
• To Improve Our Services: We analyze the information we collect to understand how our platform is used, including across different devices, to improve the user experience, develop our platform, conduct product development and train or improve our technology, including our machine learning models and algorithms.
• To Personalize Your Experience: We may use your information to tailor and personalize the content you see on our platform. such as providing services based on your chosen country settings or displaying content similar to what you’ve liked or interacted with. Also, Consistent with your permissions, to provide location-based services.
• To Keep You Updated: We may send promotional materials, via instant messaging or email, from us.
• To Keep You Connected: In order to support the social functions of the Platform, including enabling connections between you and others and sharing your activity status on the Platform with your friends. This also includes providing our messaging service, suggesting accounts, and allowing you and others to share, download, and interact with User Content.
• To Promote Our Platform: We may use User Content as part of our advertising and marketing campaigns to promote the Platform.
• To Comply with Our policies: We may use your data to infer additional information about you, such as your age range, gender, and interests in order to help detect and combat abuse, harmful activity, fraud, spam, and illegal activity on the Platform. Also, to enforce our Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and other conditions and policies.
• To Promote Safety and Security:  We perform this by scanning, analyzing, and reviewing User Content, messages, and associated metadata for violations of our Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, or other conditions and policies.
• To Confirm Eligibility: We need to confirm certain information about you such as your identity and age to process your verification requests and provide certain services.
• To Comply with Legal Obligations: We may use your information to comply with legal obligations, such as responding to legal requests and enforcing our terms and conditions.

8. Sharing Your Information:

We do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties. However, we may share your information in the following circumstances:

• With Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party service providers who assist us in operating our platform and conducting our business such as analytics providers to help us in the optimization and improvement of the Platform.
• In Response to Legal Requests: We may disclose your information if required by law or in response to a valid legal request. Additionally, we may share your information if necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves, our users, third parties, or the public, as permitted or required by law. This includes situations where it’s necessary to detect, prevent, or address security, fraud, or technical issues.
• With Your Consent: We may share your information with other third parties with your explicit consent.
• With Our Corporate Group: We may also share your information with other members, subsidiaries, or affiliates of our corporate group, to improve and optimize the Platform, to prevent illegal use and to support users.
• If Your Account is Public: Your content will be visible to anyone on the Platform and may also be accessed or shared by your friends, followers, and third parties like search engines, content aggregators, and news sites. You can adjust who can see your content in your account settings by switching your account to a private profile.[BO5]
• With Business Partners: If you choose to register or use the Platform with your social network account details (e.g., Apple ID, Google), you will either provide us or allow your social network to share your phone number, email address, username, and public profile with us. In return, we may share certain information with the relevant social network, such as your app ID, access token, and referring URL.

When you opt to share content on social media platforms, your posts, username, and accompanying text will be shared on that platform. If you share via instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp, a link to the content will be shared instead.[BO6]

9. Your Information Storage[AS7]:

Your information may be stored on servers located outside your country, including France, Germany and United States. We operate major servers worldwide to ensure our services are available to you globally and continuously.

10. Permissions You Grant Us:

As part of our agreement, you grant us certain permissions necessary to provide the service.

• We Do Not Claim Ownership of Your Content, But You Grant Us a License to Use It.
  Your rights to your content remain unchanged. We do not claim ownership of any content you post on or through the platform, and you are free to share it elsewhere as you wish. However, to operate the service, we require certain legal permissions from you, known as a "license." When you share, post, or upload content protected by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our service, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (in accordance with your privacy and application settings). This license ends when your content is deleted from our systems. You can delete content individually or all at once by deleting your account. For more information on how we use your information, and how to control or delete your content, please review our Privacy Policy and visit the About Animaat section in your account settings. 
• Permission to Use Your Username, Profile Picture, and Information About Your Interactions with Accounts.

You give us permission to display your username, profile picture, and information about your interactions (such as likes) or relationships (such as follows) next to or in connection with accounts that you follow or engage with on Animaat, without compensation to you.

• You Agree That We Can Download and Install Updates to the Service on Your Device.
  You consent to our downloading and installing updates to the service on your device as needed.

11. Additional Rights We Retain:

• Username Changes:

If you choose a username or similar identifier for your account, we reserve the right to change it if we believe it is necessary or appropriate (for example, if it infringes on someone’s intellectual property or impersonates another user).

• Rights to Our Intellectual Property:

If you use content that we own and make available in our service (such as images, designs, videos, or sounds that you add to the content you create or share), we retain all rights to our content. This does not affect your rights to the content you create.

• Use of Our Intellectual Property:

You may only use our intellectual property, trademarks, or similar marks as expressly permitted by our Brand Guidelines or with our prior written consent.

• Modifying Our Code:

To modify, create derivative works from, decompile, or otherwise attempt to extract source code from our software, you must obtain written permission from us or operate under an open-source license that explicitly allows such actions.

12. Content Removal and Account Disabling or Termination:

• Content Removal:

We reserve the right to remove any content or information you share on the platform if we believe it violates our Terms of Use, our policies (including the Animaat Community Guidelines), or if required by law. We may also refuse to provide or may stop providing all or part of the service to you (including terminating or disabling your access to Animaat) immediately if we believe it is necessary to protect our community or services, if you create risk or legal exposure for us, if you violate our Terms of Use or our policies, if you repeatedly infringe on others' intellectual property rights, or where we are permitted or required to do so by law. We may also terminate or modify the service, remove, or block content or information shared on our platform, or stop providing all or part of the service if we determine that such actions are reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts on us. If you believe your account has been terminated in error or if you wish to disable or permanently delete your account, please visit your account settings[BO8]. When you request to delete content or your account, the deletion process will begin automatically within 30 days of your request. It may take up to 90 days to delete content after the process begins. During this time, the content is no longer visible to other users but remains subject to our Terms of Use and our Data Policy[BO9]. Once deleted, it may take up to an additional 90 days to remove it from backups and disaster recovery systems[AS10].

• Exceptions to Deletion Timeline:
  Content may not be deleted within the standard 90-day timeline in the following situations:
  • If your content has been used by others in accordance with this license and they have not deleted it (in which case, this license will continue to apply until that content is deleted).
  • If technical limitations prevent deletion within 90 days, we will complete the deletion as soon as technically feasible.
  • If deletion would interfere with our ability to:
    • Investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our terms and policies (e.g., to identify or investigate misuse of our products or systems).
    • Protect the safety and security of our products, systems, and users.
    • Comply with a legal obligation, such as preserving evidence.
    • Comply with a request from a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement, or a government agency.

In such cases, the content will be retained only as long as necessary for the purposes stated above, with the exact duration varying on a case-by-case basis.

• Effect of Account Deletion or Disabling:

If you delete or we disable your account, the Terms between you and us will terminate, but this section and the section titled "Our Agreement and In Case of a Dispute" will remain in effect even after your account is terminated, disabled, or deleted.

13. Our Agreement and In Case of a Dispute:

Our Agreement:

• Music and API Use:

Your use of music on the platform is subject to our Music Guidelines, and your use of our API is governed by the Animaat Platform Terms. If you use certain features or related services, additional terms will apply and become part of our agreement. If there’s any conflict between those terms and this agreement, the additional terms will take precedence.

• Enforceability:
  If any part of this agreement is found to be unenforceable, the remaining terms will still apply.
• Amendments and Waivers:

Any changes or waivers to our agreement must be in writing and signed by us. Our failure to enforce any part of this agreement does not constitute a waiver of our rights.

• Rights Reserved:
  We reserve all rights not explicitly granted to you.

14. Who Has Rights Under This Agreement

• No Third-Party Rights:
  This agreement does not grant any rights to third parties.
• Transfer of Rights:

You cannot transfer your rights or obligations under this agreement without our consent. However, we may assign our rights and obligations to others, such as in the case of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, or by law.

15. Responsibility and Liability:

• Service As-Is:

Our Service is provided "as is," and we cannot guarantee it will always be safe, secure, or function perfectly. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

• User Actions and Third-Party Services:

We are not responsible for what people, or third parties do or say, and we are not liable for their actions, conduct (online or offline), or content, including unlawful or objectionable content. We are also not responsible for services or features provided by others, even if you access them through our platform.

• Limitation of Liability:

Our liability for any issues arising from the service is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law. You agree that we are not responsible for any lost profits, revenues, information, or data, or for any consequential, special, indirect, exemplary, punitive, or incidental damages related to these Terms, even if we were advised of the possibility. This includes instances where your content, information, or account is deleted.

16. Dispute Resolution:

You agree that any claims arising out of your use of our Platform must be resolved exclusively before the Cairo Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration (“CRCICA”). You submit to the applied arbitration rules of CRCICA, and the laws of the Arab Republic of Egypt will govern these Terms and any related claims, without regard to conflict of law provisions. However, Animaat LLC. reserves the right to bring claims against you related to unauthorized use or interference with our product in the jurisdiction where you reside.

17. Unsolicited[AS11] Material:

We appreciate feedback and suggestions but may use them without restriction or obligation to compensate you. We are not obligated to keep unsolicited material confidential.

18. Data Security:

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.

From time to time, we may include links to and from the websites of our partner networks, and advertisers. Please note that these websites have their own privacy policies, and we do not assume any responsibility or liability for them. Be sure to review their policies before submitting any information.

19. Your Rights:

You Have the Right to:

• Access Your Information: You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.[BO12]
• Correct Your Information: You can request that we correct any inaccuracies in your personal information.
• Delete Your Information: You can request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain legal obligations.

20. Children’s Privacy:

Our platform is not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected such information, we will take steps to delete it as soon as possible.

 

21. Changes to This Privacy Policy:

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. Any changes will be posted on this page, with the effective date updated accordingly. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy regularly to stay informed about how we protect your information.

Similarly, we may also update our Service and Policies from time to time, which may necessitate changes to these Terms to accurately reflect our offerings. Unless required by law, we will notify you (e.g., through our Service) before making any changes and give you the opportunity to review them before they take effect. By continuing to use the Service after the changes take effect, you agree to be bound by the updated Terms. If you do not agree with the updated Terms, you have the option to delete your account.

22. Contact Us:

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our practices, please contact us at:

Animaat LLC
Swiss Plaza Building, 80, St. 250,
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt, 11728.

Contact@animaat.com

Last Updated: 1^st September 2024