Updated Date: September 12, 2023

Guide Care, Inc. (“Guide Care”, “Alongside”, “We” or “Us”) respects and is committed to protecting your, the end user or authorized agent of the end user (“You” or “Your”), privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how We collect, use, and disclose information about you when you access and use our website located at www.alongside.care (the “Site”), when the Site is used to navigate to third-party platforms, when You access and use the Alongside mobile application (the “App”), and when connectivity required to utilize the social-emotional learning and wellness coaching tools is made available on the Site and the App (collectively, the Site, the App and the connectivity are referred to in this policy as the “Services”). Generally, You can browse through our Site without giving Us any information about yourself. When We do need to collect Your Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”, as defined below) to provide You with the Services, or when You choose to provide Us with Your PII, this Privacy Policy describes how We collect, use, and disclose Your PII.
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Please note that, unless We define a term in this Privacy Policy, all capitalized terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Use. Therefore, please make sure that You have read and understand our Terms of Use.

We may revise our Privacy Policy from time to time. You can see when the last update was by looking at the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. We won't reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. If we make any significant changes, we'll provide prominent notice by posting a notice on the Service or the Alongside and notifying you by email in advance (using the email address you provided), so you can review and make sure you know about them.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time, to stay informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of personal information through the Service and  Alongside. If you don't agree with any changes to the Privacy Policy, you may terminate your account. By continuing to use the Service or the Alongside after the revised Privacy Policy has become effective, you acknowledge that you accept and agree to the current version of the Privacy Policy

The data controller for the Services is Guide Care Inc., a company registered in the United States and having its registered office address at 301 Union St, Unit 21867, Seattle, WA 98111.

Alongside’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at:
Email Address: privacy@alongside.care Address: 301 Union St, Unit 21867, Seattle, WA 98111

Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”), including Personal Health Information (“PHI”), means any information that may be used to identify an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, email address, a home, postal or other physical address, phone number, and online contact information (including a screen or user name, geolocation information sufficient to identify street name and name or city or town, and persistent identifiers that can be used to recognize a user over time and across different Web sites or online services).

Information You Provide to Us. We collect Your PII when You create an Alongside account via the Site or the App, and when You submit Your PII to Us through the Services for any other reason. If You or your school or district registers through or otherwise grants access to a third-party integrated service (“Integrated Service”), such as Google, MS365, Clever, Classlink or direct integration with your SIS, portal or product dashboard, we may collect Personal Information that is already associated with your Integrated Service account. We may also collect birth date, school, preferred pronouns, and preferred language.
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In addition, We collect the following information that You provide to Us: chat entries, journal entries, version of OS used by Your device, what crisis assistance phone numbers or resources You have selected, and what content exercises You have selected.

Cookies and Tracking Technology. A “cookie” is a small data file that certain websites write to your hard drive when you visit them. A cookie file can contain information such as a user ID that the website uses to track the pages you’ve visited, but the only PII a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other websites. We use cookies for the following purposes: to enable certain functions of the Services, to store your preferences, to report usage statistics of the Services and to ensure functionality of the Services such as load balancing and fraud prevention. Cookies can be “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies. Unlike persistent cookies, session cookies are only used in the web version of the Services (not the App) are deleted when you log off from the Services and close your browser.

We do not use cookies to serve third-party advertisements, nor to target users with behavioral advertising. If you'd like to delete cookies or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser. Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, you might not be able to use all of the features we offer, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

Some third-party services providers (e.g., Google or Microsoft for account sign-in) that We engage may also place their own cookies on Your hard drive. Note that this Privacy Policy covers only our use of cookies and does not include use of cookies by such third parties.

Web beacons (also known as Web bugs, pixel tags, or clear GIFs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier that may be included in our Services for several purposes, including to deliver or communicate with cookies, to track and measure the performance of our Services, to monitor how many visitors view our Services, and to monitor the effectiveness of our advertising. Unlike cookies, which are stored on the user’s hard drive, web beacons are typically embedded invisibly on web pages (or in an e-mail).

Information Related to Your Use of the Services. If You have not created an account, when You use our Services, You use our Services anonymously. We do automatically log Your IP address (the Internet address of your computer) and other information such as Your browser type, operating system, the web page that You were visiting before accessing our Services, the pages or features of our Services to which You browsed to give Us an idea of which part of our Services You visit and how long You spend there (We refer to this information as “Log Data”). But We do not link Your IP address to any additional PII unless You have logged in via Your account. We use Log Data to administer the Services and We analyze (and may engage third parties to analyze) Log Data to improve, customize and enhance the Services by expanding their features and functionality and tailoring them to our users’ needs and preferences.

Information Sent by Your Mobile Device. We collect certain information that Your mobile device sends when You use our Services, such as user settings and the operating system of Your device, as well as information about Your use of our Services. You understand that, by logging onto the Site or App on Your mobile device, some information pertaining to Your use of our Services may be stored to Your mobile device. We are not responsible for any unauthorized access by any third party to such information on Your mobile device.

Location Information. We do not collect location information from You, apart from Your IP address and the name of the School the student is enrolled in.

Alongside protects the confidentiality of Your information. We will only use the PII collected for the purpose of providing and improving the Services, and sharing information to Your school or Your parents as detailed below. For the Services, We use PII to create and manage accounts, personalize the Services based on your preferences and history, and allow you to access your prior use of the Services. We use aggregated and de-identified information, such as the de-identified contents of chat entries, to improve our chatbot’s automatic responses to user inputs and recommendations for content and exercises.

We do not collect information or create a student profile for any other reason than to provide our Services.

Voluntary Disclosure. We share information you explicitly authorize us to share with Your school or a parent or guardian. For example, the Services allow You to request a meeting or share a chat activity with Your school support team, typically Your school counselors. When choosing to share this information with Your school support team, We will include Your name and email so the school can properly identify You.

Other Disclosures. Your PII is not shared outside of Alongside without Your permission, except as described below.

Information Shared with Your School or Your Parent/Guardian. Our services have been programmed to attempt to recognize if You write about considering self-harm, considering harming someone else, or being abused (“Severe Issue”). In those circumstances, We will send a notification to Your school with the specific input into the Services that caused the trigger and subsequent information you may provide. 

We also comply with the Children Online Protection Privacy Act (“COPPA”) and the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), which allow Your School or Legal Guardian to access Your PII maintained by our Services and request its deletion.

Information Shared with Our Services Providers. We may engage third-party services providers to work with Us to administer and provide the Services. These third-party services providers have access to Your PII only for the purpose of performing services on our behalf and are contractually obligated not to disclose or use Your PII for any other purpose. Please see the section “Third Party Service Providers” below for more details. 

Information Shared with Other Third Parties. We may share de-identified information with third parties to conduct on-going quality improvement activities or for research and analysis. De-identified data will have all direct and indirect personal identifiers removed. This includes, but is not limited to, name, ID numbers, date of birth, demographic information, persistent identifiers, and location information. We do not allow advertising on the Services, do not sell any student information, and do not track students to target ads on other websites.

Information Disclosed in Change of Control. Over time, Alongside may grow and reorganize. We may share your information, including personal information with affiliates such as a parent company, subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us, in which case we will require those companies to agree to use your personal information in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

 In the event of a change to our organizations such that all or a portion of Alongside or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third-party, or in any other situation where personal information that we have collected from users would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by that third-party, this Privacy Policy will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information as per this policy (unless you give consent to a new policy). We will provide you with notice of an acquisition within thirty (30) days following the completion of such a transaction, by posting on our homepage and by email to your email address that you provided to us. If you do not consent to the use of your personal information by such a successor company, subject to applicable law, you may request its deletion from the company.

In the unlikely event that Alongside goes out of business, or files for bankruptcy, we will protect your personal information, and will not sell it to any third-party.

Information Disclosed for Our Protection and the Protection of Others. We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials or private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose any information about You to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as We, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate and to the extent permitted under federal and state law: (i) to enforce our Terms of Use, (ii) to respond to claims, legal process (including subpoenas); (iii) to protect our property, rights and safety and the property, rights and safety of a third party, our users, or the public in general; (iv) to stop any activity that We consider illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity; and (v) as required in accordance with applicable local, state or federal laws.

Child Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance (“COPPA”)Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important to Us, so We have added protections and restrictions designed to help protect PII relating to children who are less than 13 years of age (“Child Users”). We only collect PII through the Services from a child under 13 where a School has agreed to provide consent on behalf of a child’s parent or guardian for that child to use the Services and to disclose PII to Us to improve our Services. If You are a student under 13, please do not send any PII about yourself to Us if Your School has not provided this prior consent, and please do not send any PII other than what We request from you in connection with the Services. If We learn We have collected PII from a student under 13 without parental consent being obtained by his or her School or school district, and/or employee thereof, or if We learn a student under 13 has provided Us PII beyond what We request from him or her, We will delete that information as quickly as possible. If You believe that a student under 13 may have provided Us PII in violation of this paragraph, please contact Us at privacy@alongside.care.

If You are a School or School district, You represent and warrant that You have permission and authorization to consent to the use of the Services for purposes of COPPA compliance. You further represent and warrant that you will make available to all parents the Direct Notice We provide to You concerning the Services.

If the parent or legal guardian of a Student wants to review the information that Alongside has collected about the Student or learn more about the Service(s) the Student is participating in, he or she should contact the Student’s School. A parent can also request to review the Direct Notice provided by Us to the Child User’s School, as required by COPPA, by contacting the School.

If you wish to access, modify or delete other personal information that you have provided to Alongside, such as your name,  email address, please contact us at  privacy@alongside.care for assistance. 

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. Please contact us if you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

We may periodically send school administrators and school counselors free newsletters and emails that directly promote our Services. When school administrators or school counselors receive such promotional communications from Us, the school administrators and school counselors will have the opportunity to “opt-out” (either through an account or by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in the e-mail).
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Separate from the communication sent to school administrators and school counselors, We need to send You certain communications regarding the Services and You will not be able to opt out of those communications – e.g., communications regarding updates to our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy.

You can review Your PII by logging into the App or the Site.

We retain PII collected online from You for only as long as is reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose for which the information was collected. If you choose to delete your account in the app, We will delete Your Data using reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to, or use of, the information in connection with its deletion. Additionally, once You graduate from the school that purchased our Services and no longer wish to use the App or it has been 24 months since You accessed Our service, we will delete Your Data. 
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You may request deletion of Your Data or Your entire account by contacting Us at privacy@alongside.care. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to honor Your request.

Please note that copies of information that you have updated, modified or deleted may remain viewable in cached and archived pages of the Services for a period of time.

The security of your data, including personally identifiable information, is important to Us. Your account information is protected by a single sign on username and password via Google or Microsoft services. Users are required to protect the confidentiality of their passwords. Alongside safeguards the security of the information You provide to Us with physical, electronic, and managerial procedures. In certain areas of our Site and App, We use industry-standard SSL-encryption to enhance the security of data transmissions. While We strive to protect Your PII, We cannot ensure the security of the information You transmit to Us, and so We urge You to take every precaution to protect Your PII when You are on the Internet. Such precautions can include changing your password often, using a combination of letters and numbers in your password, and using a secure browser.

If Alongside becomes aware of a systems security breach by an unauthorized party or that any user data was used for an unauthorized purpose, we will comply with relevant state and other data breach laws. We will notify users of any breach resulting in unauthorized release of data electronically, at minimum, and without unreasonable delay so that you can take appropriate steps. The notification will include: date of the breach, the types of information that were subject to the breach, general description of what occurred, and steps Alongside is taking to address the breach.

Our Site does not have the capability to respond to “Do Not Track” signals received from various web browsers.

We work with vendors, service providers, and other partners to help us provide the Service by performing tasks on our behalf. We may need to share or provide information (including personal information) to them to help them perform these business functions, for example sending emails on our behalf, database management services, database hosting, and security. We may also authorize these third-party companies to collect information on our behalf. These providers have limited access to your personal information to perform these tasks on our behalf and are contractually bound to protect and use it only for the purpose for which it was disclosed. Additionally, these partners and service providers must adhere to confidentiality and security obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy. Please see below for a list of the third-parties we work with to provide our Services.
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Your information is stored by Alongside on controlled servers with limited access and may be stored and processed in the United States. Those who choose to access and use the Services from outside the U.S. do so on their own initiative, at their own risk, and are responsible for compliance with applicable laws

If you have questions or concerns about our collection, use, or disclosure of your PII, please email Us at privacy@alongside.care. You may also contact us by writing to 301 Union St, Unit 21867, Seattle, WA 98111, or by calling (206) 222-1776.