When you use Tounca Marketplace Platform, you trust us with your personal data, as Tounca exists to help build better connection between people and organizations with different types of experts’ knowledge and building world of business solutions more open and inclusive. We’re committed to keeping that trust as we are built on trust. That starts with helping you understand our privacy practices. This policy describes the personal data we collect, how it’s used and shared, and your choices regarding this data.
This Privacy Policy describes how Tounca LLC and its affiliates (“we,” “us,”, “our”, or “Tounca”), process personal information that we collect through the Tounca Marketplace Platform. Depending on where you live and what you are doing on the Tounca Marketplace Platform, the supplemental privacy pages listed below may apply to you. Please follow the links and review the supplemental information provided there with information about how we process personal information for those regions and services.
This policy applies to all users of Tounca Marketplace Platform anywhere in the world, including users of Tounca’s websites, features, future apps, or other services, unless covered by a separate privacy policy.
This Privacy Policy specifically applies to:
Our practices are subject to applicable laws in the places in which we operate. This means that we engage in the practices described in this notice in a particular country or region only if permitted under the laws of those places.
In this Policy, the term “personal information” or “personal data” means personal information or data that relates to an identified or identifiable person. Undefined terms in this Privacy Policy have the same definition as in our Terms and Conditions (“Terms”).
We collect personal information directly from you, about you from third parties such as our marketing affiliates and service providers used to verify your identity and prevent fraudulent activity, other Tounca users and other Tounca clients or customers for the purpose of providing the Tounca services to you and automatically as you use our Website and the services.
We collect personal information about you when you use the Tounca Marketplace Platform. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all services requested. This information includes:
You can choose to provide us with additional personal information. This information may include:
When you use the Tounca Marketplace Platform and Payment Services, we automatically collect personal information. This information may include:
We collect personal information from other sources, such as:
We use personal information to:
We use personal information to:
We may use personal information to:
Personal information is used to enable or authorize third parties to use Payment Services:
Personal information is used to enable making automated decisions relating to use of our services. This includes, but not limited:
Tounca performs the above activities on the grounds that they are necessary to fulfill our obligations to users under our Terms or other policies and agreements with users, or on the grounds that they are necessary for purposes of the legitimate interests of Tounca, its users, and others.
To object to a deactivation resulting from these processes, please contact Tounca Customer Service.
We may use personal information to:
Where you provide consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when authorizing a third-party application or website to access your Tounca account or participating in promotional activities by Tounca partners or third parties.
Where permissible with applicable law, we may use certain information about you, such as your email address, de-identify it, and share it with social media platforms, to generate leads, drive traffic to Tounca or otherwise promote our products and services.
To help facilitate process of ordering or other interactions between Users, we may need to share certain information such as:
You can make certain information publicly visible to others, such as:
We may display parts of your public profile and other Content you make available to the public on third-party sites, platforms, blogs, and apps.
Information you share publicly on the Tounca Marketplace Platform may be indexed through third-party search engines. In some cases, you may opt-out of this feature in your account settings.
Experts may use features on the Tounca Marketplace Platform to share information about the Client (like reference after project is finished) with such third-party service providers.
We may disclose your information to courts, law enforcement, governmental or public authorities, tax authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or permitted to do so by law or where disclosure is reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with our legal obligations, (ii) to comply with a valid legal request or to respond to claims asserted against Tounca, (iii) to respond to a valid legal request relating to a criminal investigation to address alleged or suspected illegal activity, or to respond to or address any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal or regulatory liability, (iv) to enforce and administer our agreements with Users, or (v) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Tounca, its employees, its Users, or members of the public. For example, if permitted due to the forgoing circumstances, Expert’s tax information may be shared with tax authorities or other governmental agencies.
Where appropriate, we may notify Users about legal requests unless: (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law, or (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon or harm to Tounca, our Users, or expose Tounca to a claim of obstruction of justice.
For jurisdictions where Tounca facilitates the collection and remittance of Taxes where legally permissible according to applicable law, we may disclose Experts’ and Clients’ information about transactions, orderings, services, engagements, and Taxes to the applicable tax authority, such as Expert and Client names, project details, transaction dates and amounts, tax identification number(s), the amount of taxes received (or due) by Expert from Client, and contact information.
We share personal information with affiliated and unaffiliated service providers to help us run our business, including service providers that help us: (i) verify your identity or authenticate your identification documents, (ii) check information against public databases, (iii) conduct background or police checks, fraud prevention, and risk assessment, (iv) perform product development, maintenance and debugging, (v) allow the provision of the Tounca Services through third-party platforms and software tools (e.g. through the integration with our APIs), (vi) provide Customer Service, advertising, or payments services, (vii) process, handle or assess insurance claims or similar claims, or (viii) facilitate non-profit and charitable activities consistent with Tounca’s mission. These providers are contractually bound to protect your personal information and have access to your personal information to perform these tasks.
If Tounca undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer, or share some or all of our assets, including your information in connection with such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g., due diligence). In this event, we will notify you before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
To support us in providing, integrating, promoting, and improving the Tounca Marketplace Platform, Payment Services, and our affiliates’ services, we may share personal information within our corporate family of companies that are related by common ownership or control. Some examples are:
We’ll notify you in advance in specific situations where we apply any practices that differ from what is described in this Privacy Policy (including practices pertaining to disclosures to government agencies).
We may review, scan, or analyze your communications on the Tounca Marketplace Platform for reasons outlined in the “How We Use Information We Collect” section of this policy, including fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research, analytics, enforcing our Terms and Conditions, and customer support purposes. For example, as part of our fraud prevention efforts, we scan and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other sites. In some cases, we may also scan, review, or analyze messages to debug, improve, and expand product offerings. We use automated methods where reasonably possible. Occasionally we may need to manually review communications, such as for fraud investigations and customer support, or to assess and improve the functionality of these automated tools. We will not review, scan, or analyze your messaging communications to send third-party marketing messages to you and we will not sell reviews or analyses of these communications.
You can link your Tounca account with certain third-party services like social networks. Your contacts on these third-party services are referred to as “Friends”. When you direct the data sharing by creating this link:
Parts of Tounca may link to third-party services, not owned, or controlled by Tounca, such as Google Maps/Earth or reCAPTCHA. Use of these services is subject to the privacy policies of those providers, such as Google Terms of Use, Google Privacy Policy (see here for more information on how Google uses information), and Mercury Privacy Policy. Tounca does not own or control these third parties and when you interact with them you are providing your information to them.
You can exercise any of the rights described in this section consistent with applicable law. See here for information on data subject rights requests and how to submit a request. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity and request before taking further action on your request.
You can access and update some of your personal information through your Account settings. If you connected your Tounca Account to a third-party service, like LinkedIn, you could change your settings and unlink from that service in your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up to date.
In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request certain copies of your personal information or information about how we handle your personal information, request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and/or request that we transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).
In certain jurisdictions, you can request that your personal information be deleted. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:
While no organization can guarantee perfect security, we are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration.
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with applicable law. If we do so, we will post the revised Privacy Policy and update the “Last Updated” date at the top. In case of material changes, we will also provide you with notice of the modification by email at least thirty (30) days before the effective date. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you can cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of the Tounca Marketplace Platform will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.
For questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or Tounca’s handling of personal information, please call our Customer Service or write an email on customerservice@tounca.com.
For users with the residence in all countries not explicitly mentioned in the Section 10, all Sections from 1 to 9 are fully applicable.
If you reside outside of the United States, such as in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) visit our Appendix A - European Economic Area to learn about (i) the controller(s) of your personal information; (ii) legal bases, including legitimate interests, for collecting and processing your personal information, (iii) safeguards relied upon for transferring personal information outside the EEA; (iv) your rights, and (v) contact details of the controller(s) and Data Protection Officer.
If you reside in California or Vermont, visit our Appendix B - California and Vermont to learn about specific privacy information that applies to you.
This appendix (“Appendix A”) applies if you reside in some of the countries in European Economic Area (“EEA”) and supplements our Privacy Policy. It contains important information we are required by the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) to disclose, including (i) the controller(s) of your personal information; (ii) legal bases, (iii) your legal rights, (iv) safeguards we rely on for transferring your personal information outside the EEA; and (v) the contact details of the controller and Data Protection Officer. This page also contains important information about the Payments Controller (defined below) and the information processed in connection with the Payments Services. Please read this page carefully. If you have any questions, you can contact us at the details below.
Where Appendix A mentions “Tounca” “we”, “us”, or “our”, it refers to the Tounca LLC that is responsible for your information under, this Privacy Policy (the “Controller”). The designated Controller is set as Tounca LLC, 8 The Green, Suite #12457, Dover, Delaware 19901.
The Privacy Policy also applies to the Payment Services provided to you by Tounca pursuant to the Payments Terms (“Payments Terms”).
When using the Payment Services, you will also be providing your personal information, to Tounca, which will be the responsible (the "Payments Controller" is set as Tounca LLC, 8 The Green, Suite #12457, Dover, Delaware 19901), for your information related to the Payment Services, generally depending on your country of residence.
Where Appendix A mentions “Section, this Appendix”, it refers to the Section in Appendix A. Where Appendix A mentions “Section”, it refers to the Section in a bas Privacy Policy.
To contact the Controller, the Payments Controller, or the Data Protection Officer (DPO) for Tounca LLC, click here for contact details.
The Payments Controller needs to collect the following information necessary for the adequate performance of the contract with you and to comply with applicable law (such as anti-money laundering regulations). Without it, you will not be able to use Payment Services:
We may use the personal information as a part of Payment Services to:
We process personal information for the purposes described in the Privacy Policy in line with the lawful bases set out below. For more information on the processing activities, please refer to the relevant section of the Privacy Policy.
How the Payments Controller uses the personal information collected? The Payments Controller processes this personal information given its legitimate interest in improving the Payment Services and its users’ experience with it, and where it is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract with you and to comply with applicable laws.
Complying with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm and Protecting our Rights. These disclosures may be necessary to comply with our legal obligations, for the protection of a person's vital interests, for reasons of substantial public interest, or for the purposes of Tounca’s or a third party’s legitimate interest in keeping Tounca secure, preventing a breach of the law, harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, claims, or obligations, facilitating the collection of taxes and prevention of tax fraud or preventing loss or damage.
As Tounca LLC is the Controller and the Payments Controller, you benefit from a number of rights. While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply only in certain limited cases. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity and request before taking further action on your request.
You have the right to request certain copies of your personal information held by us. In certain instances, you also have the right to request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and/or request us to transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).
You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information about you (and which you cannot update yourself within your Tounca account).
We generally retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us, to comply with our legal obligations, and as permitted by applicable law.
You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information, subject to certain limitations and restrictions. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:
If we are processing your personal information based on your consent you can withdraw your consent at any time by changing your account settings or by sending a communication to Tounca specifying which consent you are withdrawing. Please note that the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing activities based on such consent before its withdrawal.
You have the right to limit the ways in which we use your personal information, in particular where (i) you contest the accuracy of your personal information; (ii) the processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of your personal information; (iii) we no longer need your personal information for the purposes of the processing, but you require the personal information for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; or (iv) you have objected to the processing pursuant to Section 5.6 (below) and pending the verification whether the legitimate grounds of Tounca override your own.
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information based on grounds specific to your situation if such processing is for direct marketing or is for a purpose based on a legitimate interest or public interest. If you object to processing based on legitimate or public interests, we will no longer process your personal information for these purposes unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for such processing or where the processing is otherwise required for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.
Where your personal information is processed for direct marketing purposes, you may, at any time ask Tounca to cease processing your data for these direct marketing purposes by sending an e-mail to opt-out@tounca.com.
You have the right to lodge complaints about our data processing activities by filing a complaint with our Data Protection Officer who can be reached by the “Contact Us” section above or with a supervisory authority, either your local supervisory authority or our lead supervisory authority, the Irish Data Protection Commission.
We retain personal information for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained and consistent with applicable law. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include:
To facilitate our global operations Tounca may transfer, store, and process your information within our family of companies, partners, and service providers in other countries. Laws in these countries may differ from the laws applicable to your country of residence. In certain circumstances, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies or security authorities in these other countries may be entitled to access your personal information.
Some of these countries are subject to a European Commission adequacy decision. For other countries, measures have been taken pursuant to applicable data protection law, such as standard contractual clauses within Tounca or with the relevant third party to protect this personal data.
As Tounca LLC is the Controller and your information is shared with corporate affiliates or third-party service providers outside the EEA, we have (prior to sharing your information with such corporate affiliate or third-party service provider) established the necessary means to ensure an adequate level of data protection. This may be an adequacy decision of the European Commission confirming an adequate level of data protection in the respective non-EEA country or an agreement on the basis of the EU Model Clauses (a set of clauses issued by the European Commission).
If you reside in California or Vermont this appendix (“Appendix B”) applies to you and supplements the Tounca Privacy Policy. Where Appendix B mentions “Tounca” “we”, “us”, or “our”, it refers to the Tounca LLC.
Where Appendix B mentions “Section, this Appendix”, it refers to the Section in Appendix B. Where Appendix B mentions “Section”, it refers to the Section in a bas Privacy Policy.
Tounca will not share information it collects about you with its affiliates or third parties (both financial and non-financial), except as required or permitted by your state’s law.
California law permits Users who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those third parties. See the Section 9 (Contact Information) for where to send such requests. Tounca does not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes without your prior consent. Accordingly, you can prevent disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes by withholding consent.
Effective January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) allows California residents, upon a verifiable consumer request, to request that a business that collects consumers’ personal information to give consumers access, in a portable and (if technically feasible) readily usable form, to the specific pieces and categories of personal information that the business has collected about the consumer, the categories of sources for that information, the business or commercial purposes for collecting the information, and the categories of third parties with which the information was shared. For more information about how we collect, use, and disclose personal information for business purposes, please review our Privacy Policy. California residents also have the right to submit a request for deletion of information under certain circumstances. Consistent with California law, if you choose to exercise your rights, we won’t charge you different prices or provide different quality of services unless those differences are related to your information. See here for information on data subject rights requests and how to submit a request. Please note that you must verify your identity and request before further action is taken. As a part of this process, government identification may be required. Consistent with California law, you may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. In order to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requestor's valid government issued identification, and the authorized agent’s valid government issued identification.
You can find information about consumer requests we received and processed under the CCPA during the previous calendar year here.
We do not sell personal information to third parties, we are not data brokers, and we don’t put your data on the open market. We do allow third parties to collect personal information through the Tounca Marketplace Platform and share personal information with third parties for the business purposes described in the Privacy Policy, including without limitation advertising and marketing on the Tounca Marketplace Platform and elsewhere based on users’ online activities over time and across Tounca and services.
Please refer to the Section 6 (Your Rights) of the Privacy Policy.