Privacy Policy

In general, High Fidelity does not require the disclosure of personal information (apart from IP address) to access the High Fidelity platform. As a practical matter, however, certain forms of identifying information may be required in order to use certain features of the High Fidelity platform. 

Online systems may collect other forms of information, namely details about a user's activities and choices online. This information can be valuable in two ways: first, behavioral data is often useful to diagnose problems or defects in the way an online service works. Secondly, this kind of information is often understood to be predictive of a user's future choices and interests. In this second case, behavioral data is collected for individual users to create a user profile that may be used to programmatically modify the experience a user has online.

These two different applications have very different implications for user privacy, and should be treated differently, accordingly:

• You should understand that High Fidelity collects diagnostic information relevant to improving the platform, as will be explained below.
• High Fidelity expressly rejects the creation of systems to predict behavior and monetize users based on collected information. Furthermore, the company will not share information of this sort with third parties to facilitate their exploitation of user profiles.

High Fidelity respects the privacy of users and believes that their online choices and decisions (i.e behavioral data) are subject to some of the same protections as personally identifiable information. These are described below.

Finally, several legal jurisdictions have granted online users certain rights regarding how this kind of information is handled (e.g the European Union's GDPR rulings). High Fidelity is committed to honoring these rights.

As explained above, we may collect two types of information: personal information and behavioral information. We may use personal and behavioral information to create a third type of information, aggregate information.

For clarity's sake, personal identifiable information (Personal Information) is information that identifies (whether directly or indirectly) a particular individual, such as the individual's first and last name, postal address, e-mail address and/or telephone number.

Behavioral Information means information that does not directly or indirectly identify, and cannot reasonably be used to identify, an individual or an individual's computing device. In its origin, however, behavioral information is derived from user activity. This is acutely true for systems like High Fidelity where factors like user movements, gaze, choice of avatar, spatial location, and proximity to other users can potentially be profiled.

Aggregate Information means information about groups or categories of individuals which does not identify and cannot reasonably be used to identify an individual. Aggregate information is essentially anonymized and abstracted behavioral information for users.

We collect and use the following categories of information:

• User information. When you request a High Fidelity space, we log the provided name, provided email address, creation date, and the IP address from which you registered. This is regarded as Personal Information and subject to the rights and restrictions outlined in this Privacy Policy.
• Activity information. For each user session, we may log a wide variety of user actions, including but not limited to:
• Visits to virtual spaces
• Whether you are using tools we provided to protect you against interference by others
• The profile of your computer (operating system, graphics card, memory capacity)
• Your current refresh rate and other hardware performance metrics
• Your chosen audio device
• Your progress through user tutorials
• Whether you crashed while using High Fidelity
• When you left the application

This data is considered behavioral. Activity information is collected both for anonymous users and users that register with High Fidelity.

This information is tokenized, meaning that an abstract token is used to connect relevant pieces of information together (rather than any personal identifying information).

In addition to the information collected by High Fidelity on High Fidelity servers, we also take advantage of third party services to improve our offerings to users. Specifically:

• Analytics: High Fidelity stores some user and behavioral information with a service (e.g. Sumo Logic) that aggregates user behavior to produce trends and community metrics.
• Defect identification: High Fidelity logs IP information and crash messages to a third-party service (e.g. Sumo Logic) to capture aggregate data on common causes for application crashes.
• Defect and feature communication: High Fidelity may use a hosted defect tracking system (e.g. JIRA) to manage user submitted issues, support requests, and feature suggestions. This system may record the email submitted by a user so that the company can respond to requests.
• Website behavior: High Fidelity uses Google Analytics to track user behavior on the company's website. Google has its own privacy policy and self-certifies compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework that the U.S. Department of Commerce developed in consultation with the European Commission to meet the European 'adequacy' standard for privacy protection. Google's privacy policy can be found here. You may opt out of the use of Google Analytics cookies by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On, found here. For web traffic measurement we also include cookies by Facebook and Twitter. High Fidelity also uses Hotjar and Quantcast to track website behavior. You can find Hotjar's privacy statement here: https://help.hotjar.com/hc/en-us/sections/115003180467-Privacy-Security-and-Operations and Quantcast's privacy policy here: https://www.quantcast.com/privacy/
• Recruitment: High Fidelity's website also uses cookies from LinkedIn. This information is covered in their Data Processing Agreement (https://legal.linkedin.com/dpa)

Additionally there are a few special cases of information collection/retention to note:

• Job postings or unsolicited communications: Please note that information we receive in reference to a job posting or by unsolicited communications does not fall within the terms outlined in this Privacy Policy, however information from your resume will be used solely for the purpose of evaluating your candidacy for employment.
• Intellectual property claim notices: If you notify us of an intellectual property claim, the information in your claim notice may be shared with other parties to the disagreement or third parties in our discretion and as required by law.

Forms of Personal Information Not Covered by This Policy

Our Privacy Policy covers the management of Personal Information that you entrust to us. There are, however, other ways in which you may be identified when using High Fidelity services that are excluded from this policy, specifically:

• Personal chat and communication: Information sent either one-to-one or within a limited group using our communications functionality.

We collect information relating to your use of our website by using cookies. A cookie is a small string of data which often includes an anonymous unique identifier sent to your Internet browser from a website's computers, which is stored on your computer's hard drive and is used to keep records of your access to an online site or product, or store information needed by you on a regular basis (e.g. password retention functionality). High Fidelity (itself or through third parties acting on our behalf) uses cookies for a number of purposes relating to our websites, applications and services, including to access your account information online when you "login" to our websites, forums or other areas and to keep track of your website session data.

You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. Each browser is different, so consult the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how you change your cookie preferences. Please note that if you reject all cookies, you may not be able to use certain of our (or other companies') web pages.

The High Fidelity client is accessed via your Internet browser. The High Fidelity client logs your IP when you sign on. At any time when using High Fidelity, your IP address and behavioral activity are logged by the application and stored in a central database. 

You may elect to turn off the logging of your client status. This information is primarily used to diagnose crashes and improve the product.

Users may not turn off the tracking of IP address while using High Fidelity as that information is required to manage your location in-world and manage the visual and audio information presented to you during your session.

If you install any of our Services into your Slack team, we collect the names and email addresses of all Slack team admins.

We provide more detail below on how you can remove your personally identifying information from the High Fidelity system below.

High Fidelity will be the data controller for the information collected about you while using the platform. "Data controller" is defined as the person or business entity that is responsible for the processing of data collected by a service that anticipates storing Personal Information. You have certain rights with respect to your interaction with the data controller for a service you choose to use.

Except under certain limited circumstances as set forth here and in our Terms of Service, High Fidelity does not disclose to third parties the Personal Information or other account-related information that you provide to us without your permission. You understand, however, that High Fidelity may disclose your Personal Information or other account-related information under the following circumstances (outside of the service providers described elsewhere in this document):

• If we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary under applicable law, or to comply with legal process served on High Fidelity;
• In order to protect and defend the rights or interests of High Fidelity, its products and services, and/or the other users of such products and services;
• In order to report to law enforcement authorities, or assist in their investigation of suspected illegal or wrongful activity, or to report any instance in which we believe a person may be in danger; and
• To other business entities, should we plan to merge with or be acquired by that business entity.

The company limits its use of information about you to the following activities:

• Optimize or improve our products, services and operations
• Detect, investigate and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be illegal
• Communicate with you about your account or transactions with us and send you information about features on our sites and applications, or changes to our policies consistent with local law, or choices and controls that may be available to you.

We will not share your Personal Information outside of High Fidelity except in limited circumstances:

• When companies perform services on our behalf; however, these companies are prohibited from using your Personal Information for purposes other than those requested by us or required by law.
• When we share Personal Information with third parties in connection with the sale of a business, to enforce our Terms of Service or rules, to ensure the safety and security of our users and third parties, to comply with legal process or in other cases if we believe in good faith that disclosure is required by law.
• In certain situations, we may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

We take reasonable measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.

You may update, correct or delete information about you at any time by requesting such deletion at support@highfidelity.com.

We may also retain cached or archived copies of information about you for up to 24 months. You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Promotional Communications

You may opt out of receiving promotional emails from us by following the instructions in those emails. You can also adjust your communications preferences by adjusting the settings in your account. If you opt out, we will still send you non-promotional emails, technical messages, and other messages related to our ongoing business relations.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may change this Privacy Policy to accommodate new technologies, industry practices, regulatory requirements or for other purposes. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.

Comments and Questions

If you have a comment or question about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, or have any data requests, please send an email to privacy@highfidelity.com or mail us at:

High Fidelity
Attn: Privacy
720 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
United States of America