Effective Date: August 21, 2022

Guide Care, Inc. (“Guide Care”, “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.

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 amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. If We make any substantial changes in the way We use Your PII (as defined below), We will notify You of those changes by posting on the Site, App, or by sending You an email or other notification, and We will update the “Last Updated” date above to indicate when those changes will become (or became) effective.

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.

Guide Care’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, gender, ethnicity, preferred language, and personal interests.

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.

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 Guide Care without Your permission, except as described below.

Information Shared with Your School or Your Parent/Guardian. Our services use artificial intelligence algorithms to detect when you may be in crisis, specifically with the potential to self-harm. In those circumstances, We will send a notification to Your school that the crisis detection system has been triggered and the specific input into the Services that caused the trigger. 

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.

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 Connection with Business Transactions. Information that We collect from our users, including PII, is considered to be a business asset. Thus, if We are acquired by a third party as a result of a transaction such as a merger, acquisition or asset sale or if our assets are acquired by a third party in the event We go out of business or enter bankruptcy, some or all of our assets, including Your PII, may be disclosed or transferred to a third-party acquirer in connection with the transaction. The acquiring third party will continue to be bound by this Privacy Policy in administering the Services.

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.

Parents have the ability to control information about their Child User, including the ability to review the Child User’s PII, have the information deleted, and/or refuse to permit its further collection or use. This includes the ability to agree to the collection and use of their Child User’s information but refuse disclosure to third parties, unless such disclosure is part of the service. To review, update, or delete information collected from your Child User contact Us at privacy@alongside.care. 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.

We may periodically send school administrators and school counselors free newsletters and e-mails 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).

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.

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.

Your account information is password-protected for your privacy and security. Guide Care 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.

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

The Services contain links to other sites that are owned or operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the content, privacy, or security practices of any third parties. To protect Your information, We encourage You to learn about the privacy policies of those third parties.

Your information is stored by Guide Care 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.