Privacy Policy

This policy describes how Blinks Labs GmbH (" Blinkist", " we", " us") collects, receives, processes, uses, discloses, or shares your information as a test user. When you test new Blinkist features and products, we may obtain data from you and the devices you are using to do so.

This policy is designed to provide transparency into our privacy practices and principles in a format you can navigate, read, and understand easily.

We commit to treating your personal information with care and respect and encourage you to contact us using the methods provided below should you have any questions or concerns about the use of your information.

The Scope of this Policy

This Policy describes the processing of personal information provided or collected during the testing of new features and products on our sites, applications, products or services. For information how Blinkist processes personal data in other circumstances (e.g. during your regular use of our sites, application, products or services), please see the Blinkist Privacy Policy and Notice. We may also provide additional data privacy notices specific to certain products, practices, or regions, if applicable. Those terms should be read in conjunction with this policy.

If you provide information to us on a third-party site or platform, the information you provide may be separately collected by the third-party site or platform. That third-party site or platform's privacy practices will govern the use of your information. Choices you make on that third-party platform will not apply to our use of the information we have collected through our sites, products, or services.

Information Collected or Processed

Blinkist processes the categories of personal information that are identified below. We generally collect the information listed below to collect and analyze your interactions and feedback on our new features and products and gain important insights for our further product development.

• Identifiers such as a real name, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, telephone number, account name, or other similar identifiers.
• Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, information regarding your interaction with an internet website application or mobile application.
• Geolocation data.
• Professional or employment-related information: such as information regarding your current job, your qualifications, and your other activities.
• Education information.
• Interests and learning goals.
• Inferences drawn from any of the information identified in this subdivision to reflect your usage of the new features and products, your preferences, characteristics, behavior, attitudes, abilities, and aptitudes.

We only process your data for as long as is necessary to perform and analyze the tests.

Sources of Information

The sources from which personal information may have been collected or processed are the following: information that you provided to us, automatic data collection technologies, business partners, service providers etc. The purpose of such collection or processing include: execution of tests, evaluation of your user behavior for test and product development purposes, providing the services and features that should be tested, communicating with you, marketing and promotional purposes (which may include targeted advertising) etc.

How We Disclose Information

In the process of providing services to you, we may disclose your Personal Data to our subsidiaries and affiliates, along with our service providers and other third parties. We carefully select our service providers and business partners, especially with regard to the suitability of the technical and organizational measures taken by them. In each case, we take all reasonable measures to ensure that your Personal Data is protected (such as appropriate data processing agreements).

Our Commitment to Protecting Information Belonging to Children

Our services are not intended for children under the age of 14. We do not knowingly collect information via our sites, products, and services from users under the age of 14. If you use our Services, you represent that you are at least the age of majority under the laws of the jurisdiction of your place of residence, or, as a minor, that you are at least 14 years old and that your legal representatives have provided their consent to use our services.

If you believe your child has provided us with personal information, please alert us at privacy@blinkist.com. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a minor without their legal representatives' consent, we will promptly take appropriate steps to delete such information and terminate the minor's account.

Our Global Data Transfer Practices

We store and process your Personal Data primarily in the United States, where our hosting provider (AWS, Amazon Web Services, Inc, Montgomery Street 420, San Francisco CA 94163, USA) is located. Also in other cases our data processing activities may involve the transfer of your Personal Data to "third countries" in the sense of the GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation), i.e. countries outside of the European Economic Area, where the GDPR is not in force. Such a transfer is permissible if the European Commission has determined that an adequate level of data protection is provided in the relevant third country (for example in the UK). If an adequacy decision of the European Commission does not exist, a transfer of your Personal Data to a third country will only take place if appropriate safeguards exist, or if one of the conditions listed in Art. 49 GDPR is met. If you consent to the transfer of Personal Data to third countries, any such transfer will take place on that legal basis. In all other cases, we use the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) as appropriate safeguards for the transfer of Personal Data to third countries that fall outside the scope of the GDPR.

Your Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of certain states or countries, you may have the right to be informed about the way your Personal Data is processed, withdraw your consent (if you have given consent to data processing activities), access your Personal Data, rectify, transfer your Personal Data (right to data portability), restrict the processing of, opt-out from certain types of processing (e.g., targeted advertising, the sale of Personal Data, limit the use and disclosure of sensitive information, and profiling, as defined by the applicable state law(s)), and delete your Personal Data ("right to be forgotten"). If you choose to exercise any of these options, we will not discriminate against you for making that decision.

You can exercise your privacy rights by contacting us at privacy@blinkist.com. When we receive a request to exercise a privacy right, we will review information we have collected about you (if any) with identifying information you may have provided us (such as a login, email address, mailing address, zip code, or transaction or order number) to authenticate your identity. If you use an authorized agent to submit a request, we may require the authorized agent to provide proof that you gave the agent signed permission to submit the request. We may also require you to directly confirm with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request.

If, and to the extent that, we process your Personal Data on the basis of a legitimate interest, in particular if we pursue our legitimate interest to conduct direct marketing or to apply profiling in connection with direct marketing, you have the right to object to such use of your Personal Data at any time. If you object to the processing of your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes, we will promptly stop processing your Personal Data for these purposes. In all other cases, we will carefully consider your objection and stop further use of the information in question, subject to compelling reasons for further processing that may take precedence over your interest in objecting, or if we need to use the information for the justification, exercise or defense of legal claims.

There may be situations where we cannot grant your request regarding your privacy rights. In such a situation, we will explain our reasoning to you and will honor your right to appeal where applicable.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about how we process your information, you can contact us at:

Blinks Labs GmbH Sonnenallee 223 12059 Berlin Germany

Email: privacy@blinkist.com

Our data protection officer can be reached (via an internal privacy coordinator) at the above-mentioned address and email address, attn. Data Protection Officer.

Contacting Supervisory Authorities

If you would like to lodge a complaint against us, you may contact your local privacy regulator. You can make a complaint, for example, to:

Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit

Friedrichstr. 219

10969 Berlin

Telephone: +49 30 13889-0

E-Mail: mailbox@datenschutz-berlin.de

You may also complain to another competent supervisory authority. If you have trouble locating a competent authority, please contact our privacy office at privacy@blinkist.com and they will help you contact the appropriate enforcement agency.

This policy was last updated on: February 09, 2024