Privacy Policy

We collect the following personal data while you use our Services and/or Website, as further described in this Privacy Policy:

• Identifiers: This includes your full name, postal address, date of birth, email address, IP address, and any other similar identifiers necessary to create and verify your account.
• Account and Contact Information: Your business details (such as chamber of commerce number, business ID, VAT number), address, phone number, and additional contact details.
• Financial Information: This includes your bank account number, IBAN, BIC, PayPal email, Wise email, or any other financial details required for processing payments. We collect only the necessary information to facilitate payouts and invoicing.
• Project and Invoice Information: When you create an invoice on our Platform, we collect data on the project worked on, descriptions of the tasks completed, and related financial information (e.g., hours worked, project costs) to monitor expenses and ROI.
• Commercial Information: Records of services provided, including projects you worked on, expenses submitted, payment history, and other related data on the services or projects you engaged in or considered.
• Optional Account Integration: If you choose, we may collect data via faster login options through Discord or Google, which may include your profile picture, email, and other identifiers linked to your Discord or Google accounts.
• Internet Activity: Your browsing history, interactions with our website and panel, and other related internet usage data to improve user experience, security, and service delivery.
• Non-Personal Data: Aggregated or anonymized data that does not identify any specific individual, which is used for analytics, statistical, or research purposes to improve our services.

Information Automatically Collected

In Short: Some information — such as IP address and/or browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you visit our Website or use our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you interact with our Platform, use our Services, or navigate our panel. This information, while not revealing your specific identity (such as your name or contact details), includes device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser type, device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, location, and information about your activity within our services, including timestamps of visits and actions taken.

This data is essential for the security and smooth functioning of our services and is also used for internal analytics, reporting purposes, and to improve our user experience.

Cookies and Similar Technologies: We use cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as web beacons and pixels) to collect information automatically. These technologies help us improve your experience by remembering your preferences, analysing website traffic, and assisting in marketing activities. Additionally, third-party analytics providers may collect data on our behalf, such as page views, time spent on pages, and user journeys, to help us understand how users interact with our platform.
Information collected from other sources

In Short: We may obtain information from public databases, marketing partners, social media, and other third-party sources.

From time to time, we may collect additional information about you from other sources. This includes public databases, third-party marketing or data providers, business partners, social media platforms (when you use features like Google or Discord for login), or joint marketing partners.

We will always notify you about the source of any third-party information we collect, the type of information obtained, and the purpose of collecting it, within a reasonable period, but no later than one month from obtaining the data.

Information you give us

In Short: When you sign up for our Services or correspond with us, you provide personal data necessary for us to deliver our Services.

We collect the personal information you provide directly to us when you sign up to use our services, register for an account on our panel, or submit an invoice. This includes your full name, address, email address, date of birth, payment information, business details, and project-related information.

You may also provide us with additional data when contacting us via email, submitting forms on our website, or engaging with our support team. All such communications are stored to ensure seamless service delivery and maintain a record of any issues or queries raised.

In Short: We process personal data collected through our services for a variety of business purposes, including operating and improving our services, legal compliance, and communicating with you. We rely on different lawful grounds for each purpose, including our legitimate business interests, performance of a contract, your consent, and compliance with our legal obligations. Below is a detailed overview of how we use your information:

• To Provide and Manage Our Services: We use your information to process orders, facilitate transactions, and deliver the services you have requested. This includes using your data to maintain and manage your account, track your service history, and ensure we fulfill our contractual obligations.
• Marketing and Promotion: With your consent or in accordance with your marketing preferences, we may use the personal data you provide to send you promotional materials, special offers, and news about our Projects or services. You have the option to opt out of receiving these communications at any time.
• Legal Compliance and Obligations: We may process your personal data when required to comply with applicable laws, legal processes, or government regulations. This includes responding to lawful requests for data, subpoenas, and other legal inquiries. Additionally, we use your data to comply with financial regulations, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements.
• Enhancing User Experience and Improving Services: We analyse user data to understand usage trends and improve the overall user experience. This may include gathering feedback, conducting surveys, and performing data analysis to refine our services, optimize website performance, and enhance our marketing strategies. We also use anonymized or aggregated data to gain insights without identifying individual users.
• Communication and Administration: We may use your personal information to send you important updates about the services, including notifications regarding changes to our terms, conditions, and policies, new features, or technical issues. Additionally, we use this information to facilitate our customer support services, address inquiries, and resolve potential issues.
• Fraud Detection and Security: Your data is used to maintain the security and integrity of our services. This includes monitoring for fraudulent activities, detecting unauthorized access, preventing security threats, and conducting regular risk assessments to protect user information.
• Business Operations: We use your information to support our business operations, including internal processes such as data analytics, audits, reporting, identifying usage trends, and evaluating the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. Any information used for these purposes is typically anonymized or aggregated to ensure it cannot be traced back to individual users.
• Compliance with Contracts and Enforcement: We may process personal data to enforce our contractual agreements, and to resolve disputes, collect payments, or take other necessary legal actions. This also includes using your information to protect our rights and interests or to prevent harm.

In Short: We only process information with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services, to protect your rights, or to fulfil business obligations.

We may process or share data based on the following legal basis:

• Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific purpose. You may withdraw your consent at any time.
• Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests, such as fraud prevention, network security, and improving and/or providing our Services, provided your rights do not override these interests.
• Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
• Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
• Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

We take every effort to protect your personal data and has taken the necessary steps to this end. Our employees have access to personal data, but only to the extent necessary to properly perform their individual tasks. We further only share personal information with third parties if it is necessary to serve the applicable purpose as set out above.

When a third party processes your personal data, this is only possible according to the instructions given by us. In all cases, we will ensure that third parties with access to your personal information have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to maintain our intended level of privacy and security.

We may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:

• Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third party service providers who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: payment processing, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service, and marketing efforts. Unless described in this Policy, we do not share, sell, rent, or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes.
• Payment Processing. Information regarding your payments is shared with billing and payment processing services, fraud detection and prevention services, accountants and financial advisors.
• Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information 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.
• Authorities. We may disclose user information if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to comply with applicable laws, or to respond to a court order, judicial or other government request in the legally required manner.
• Investigations. We reserve the right to disclose information that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to protect Meraki Studios from fraudulent or unlawful usage, investigate and defend ourselves against third-party claims or allegations, protect the security and integrity of Meraki Studios, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Meraki Studios and our clients.

In Short: We may use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect and store your information. We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to access or store information. Specific information about how we use such technologies and how you can refuse certain cookies is set out in our Cookie Policy.

In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice, unless a longer retention period is required by law.

We retain your personal information only for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this privacy notice, or as required by applicable legal, tax, accounting, or other regulatory requirements. In certain circumstances, we may need to retain your information even if you request its deletion, to comply with legal obligations or resolve disputes.

We will not retain your personal information for longer than one year unless required by law. When we no longer have a legitimate business need to process your data, we will delete or anonymize it. If deletion is not immediately possible (for instance, if your data is stored in backup archives), we will securely store your personal information and prevent it from being further processed until it can be deleted.

In cases where data must be retained for legal purposes, such as compliance with record-keeping laws or in response to a legal request, we will retain only the minimum necessary details and isolate this data from routine processing. We may also pseudonymise the data where possible and appropriate.

In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. We implement a range of security measures, including encryption, firewalls, and access controls, designed to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We also limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who need to know such data for business purposes.

However, please also remember that we cannot guarantee that the internet itself is 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the services within a secure environment.

In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.

We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children under 18 years of age. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent's use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we have collected from children under age 18, please contact us atinfo@merakistudios.eu.

In Short: You have several legal rights that you can exercise regarding your personal data.

• Right of access: You have the right to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you to verify that we are lawfully processing the data.
• Right to correction: You may request any incomplete or incorrect information that we may have about you to be corrected or supplemented
• Right to be “forgotten”: If there is no good reason to keep your personal information, we will stop processing. You also have the right to ask us to delete your personal information.
• Right to limit the processing of your personal data: You can submit a request not to process your personal data, either temporarily or permanently.
• Right to portability: You can submit a request to transfer your personal data to a person or institution designated by you.
• Right to object to processing: Under certain circumstances you can object to the processing of personal data altogether.
• Right to withdraw consent: You also have the right to withdraw your previously granted permission to process your personal data or to object to the processing of your personal data by Meraki Studios.
• The right to non-discrimination when you exercise any of your rights.

Every request is subject to applicable law, which means that we may have to store the personal information.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.

If you are resident in the European Economic Area and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm.

Cookies and similar technologies: Most Web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove cookies and to reject cookies. If you choose to remove cookies or reject cookies, this could affect certain features or services of our Services. To opt-out of interest-based advertising by advertisers on our Services visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

Your personal information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your country of residence. We have implemented safeguards to ensure that your data is adequately protected when transferred internationally.

In Short: Yes, we will update this policy as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Revised” date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.

Our Platform may display links to third-party websites. Unless these other websites are affiliated with Meraki Studios, we are not responsible for the privacy policies that these other websites use, nor for its content and security. We advise you to inform yourself by reading the privacy policies on these websites.

If you have questions or comments about this policy, you may email us at info@merakistudios.eu.