Last updated: Mar 5th, 2023
Sphinx & Lab K.K. highly respects the data privacy for individuals, and that’s the exact purpose Meerkat has been developed for. By leveraging mutual independent Cloud Storages along with the combination of Secret Sharing and AES 256-bit encryption technologies, Meerkat introduces a handy yet true “Own Your Own Privacy” solution to end users.
1.Definitions
For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:
• Subscription ID means a unique ID created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.
• Affiliate means an entity that controls, is controlled by or is under common control with a party, where “control” means ownership of 50% or more of the shares, equity interest or other securities entitled to vote for election of directors or other managing authority.
• The Software means the software program provided by the Company downloaded by You on any electronic device, named Meerkat
• The Company (referred to as either “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to Sphinx & Lab K.K., Shinjuku Park Tower N30F, Nishishinjuku 3-7-1, Shinjuku,Tokyo.
• Country refers to: Japan
• Device means any device that can access the Service such as a mobile phone, a digital tablet, or a computer.
• Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.
• Service (referred to as either “the App”) refers to the Software
• Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Company in analyzing how the Service is used.
• Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the occupied data volume on Cloud Storages).
• You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.
2. Data safety
Meerkat Storages are managed by the Company and hosted on Amazon AWS or Alibaba Aliyun Cloud infrastructure. Both are the leading companies in the industry having 24×7 monitoring, surveillance and support to prevent unauthorized access and advanced data security. Their commitments on very high level of data availability and durability ensure the continued service and protection of your data from natural disaster, intruders and disruptive events.
However, please remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
3. Zero-trust Data Encryption and Storage
Meerkat adopts a zero-trust encryption and multi-storage security model for ultimate privacy protection. The system architecture guarantees end users and only end users have the ownership of their private data. Anyone who happens to have the access to storage only sees binary “gibberish” but not information or data:
- All encryption and decryption take place on device level and only on device level (end to end encryption). This means both Meerkat Storages and BYOS (your own storage) never store data in plain text.
- If combined with Secret Sharing, a storage only receives a small portion of data slices that cryptographically split away from already AES256 encrypted data by Secret Sharing. Secret Sharing technology guarantees that without gaining access to a bigger portion, i.e., quorum of slices from other storages, there will be no information (any part of the information) can be extracted from that small portion of data slices. Thus, effectively prevents data or information leaking from that storage.
- End users may choose storages they trust, e.g., their own private storage.
- The Software architecture is serverless, therefore no centric server to store user profile. System data resides on user’s local device only.
- Master Encryption Key is a random generated, universally unique, secret key that never leaves user’s device in plaintext.
4. Encrypted Data, Secret Data Slices on Meerkat Storages
No plaintext data will be stored on Meerkat Storages. User may opt to store either end to end AES256 encrypted data, or secret data slices which was split away from already AES256 encrypted data by Secret Sharing (i.e., AES256+Secret Sharing) on Meerkat Storages.
The Company does not have access to or knowledge of user’s PIN Code, Master Encryption Key, Double Lock Passwords, or access to his or her BYOS storage. Those data are completely unreadable to the Company, no information can be extracted from those “gibberish”.
Accordingly, any account disclosure required by law, under a subpoena, would be limited to general subscription information such as the Subscription ID, subscription term, usage data e.g., data volume used on Meerkat Storage.
5. Information We Collect, We Don’t Collect
The Company collects below information from customers to use our services:
Subscription ID
Subscription ID is a universally unique ID derived from Apple ID, and is provisioned by Apple Inc. The Company use Subscription ID to anonymously identify users who have purchased, upgraded, downgraded, terminated their subscriptions, thus could provide, or terminate our service accordingly. The original Apple ID and its related information cannot be extracted or inferred from Subscription ID by the Company.
Usage Data
Usage Data is collected automatically when using our Service. We may collect certain information including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device, mobile device unique ID, the IP address of mobile device, type and version of operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser, data volume used on Meerkat Storage, and other diagnostic data.
The Company DOES NOT collect personal contact information from end users including, but not limited to name, email address, phone number, SNS account, Apple ID. In principle, all uses are anonymous to the Company except we keep a record of the type and term of subscriptions being purchased by Subscription IDs, thus, to provide or terminate our service to users accordingly.
6. Use of Information we collected
The Company may use information collected for the following purposes:
- To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service.
- To manage your Subscription: to manage your subscription as a user of the Service. The information you provided can give you access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to you as a paid or free user.
- For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the services you have purchased or of any other contract with the Company through the Service.
- To inform you: updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation by mobile application’s push notifications.
- To provide you: with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information.
- To manage Your requests: To attend and manage your requests to us.
- For business transfers: We may use your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which data collected and held by us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.
- For other purposes: We may use your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience.
We may share your information in the following situations:
- With Service Providers: We may share information we collected with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.
- For business transfers: We may share or transfer information we collected in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
- With Affiliates: We may share your information with our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with us.
- With business partners: We may share your information with our business partners to offer you certain products, services or promotions.
- With other users: when you share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside.
- With Your consent: We may disclose your information for any other purpose with your consent.
7. Retention of Data
The Company will retain the collected data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies. The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
8. Transfer of Data
Your information is processed at the Company’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data.
9. Disclosure of Data
Business Transactions:
If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your data may be transferred. We will provide notice before your data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.
Law enforcement:
Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose your data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).
Other legal requirements:
The Company may disclose your data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
i. Comply with a legal obligation
ii. Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
iii. Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
iv. Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
v. Protect against legal liability
10. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us:
• By email: meerkat@sphinxlab.jp