CleverTap’s Commitment to User Consent and Data Privacy

Given the recent discussion over privacy, security, and the role of service providers such as CleverTap, we’d like to clarify our stand on security, user consent, and data privacy.

What Does CleverTap Do?

CleverTap is an app/web analytics and user marketing platform.
We provide an SDK in various languages, and APIs for our customers to store user data with us. We also provide a dashboard to our customers to view business metrics related to the use of their app/website, and communicate with their users using emails, SMS, push notifications, etc.

Why Do Businesses Use Services Such as CleverTap?

Our customers (aka app publishers) use CleverTap for three primary reasons:  

• Understand app usage – CleverTap helps publishers track various business metrics such as daily app usage, app uninstalls, abandoned carts, etc.
• Develop a better product or service – the CleverTap platform helps publishers record app usage. The publisher may choose to track user actions pertaining to their app usage. They use this information to identify features that drive revenues, simplify their apps, and make their apps more engaging.
• Send personalized and timely messages – the platform allows publishers to send timely messages to users. For example, a travel app can use CleverTap to remind their users of an upcoming flight a few hours before take off.

Publishers use CleverTap to understand their users better and offer an enhanced app experience that helps drive growth and revenue.

How Does CleverTap Work?

CleverTap collects and stores information provided by the app publisher. This data is specific to a certain publisher/customer and is stored in an isolated manner.
The CleverTap dashboard lets the app publisher run queries on this data set to extract reports like App logins, Transactions, Video views, etc. CleverTap also enables publishers to send messages to users based on their actions or demographic profile. For example, a publisher can use CleverTap to send an email to their users thanking them for a recent purchase.
CleverTap works with first-party data provided by the app publisher; we don’t enhance or combine data from other sources at our end.

What Data Do Businesses Need to Share with CleverTap?

CleverTap stores whatever data an app publisher decides to pass on. The data sent could contain user demographic information and/or a user’s in-app actions, like Added to Cart. CleverTap doesn’t have any audio or video storage or processing capabilities.
Neither does CleverTap mandate any specific user information to be sent by the publisher nor does it seek any extra permission outside of what an app might typically ask.
The data collected by the publisher and shared with a service provider is governed by the publisher’s privacy policy. We neither control how publishers frame their privacy policies nor review them.
CleverTap doesn’t sell, share, rent, re-market, or do anything funny with publisher data.

Where Does CleverTap Store User Data?

CleverTap offers a variety of hosting locations globally, including Indian data-centers for those businesses that might have a legal or governance requirement. CleverTap hosts its servers within AWS.

What Is CleverTap’s Commitment to Data Security?

At CleverTap, we believe in making our customers successful. Earning their trust is what we strive for and we realize that consent, privacy, and data security are critical milestones in this journey.  
You can read more details on CleverTap’s security and data privacy here: https://developer.clevertap.com/docs/security-overview

What is CleverTap’s Commitment to Compliance and Privacy?

Many businesses put minimal focus on compliance and data privacy and see it as a step that slows them down. However, for businesses to grow the first thing they need to earn, even before a single app download, is the trust of their prospects.
In just a few months, the European Union will put a new privacy law into effect. Designed to let individuals decide what happens to their personal data, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires companies to conform to data collection and security best practices.
CleverTap is here to help publishers and end-users understand the significance of GDPR, its requirements, and our allegiance to comply with global standards. This post outlines our commitment to GDPR.  
We are also constantly working with our customers and strive to comply with various laws around compliance and privacy.

What Best Practices Can Businesses Follow to Build User Trust?

To embark on an honest and long-lasting relationship, app publishers need to:

1. Create a shared responsibility model between the user, the service provider, and the app publisher. Trust is the foundation of any business relationship. A user doesn’t have to lose for a brand to get more data from them. For a partnership that lasts and provides significant returns, every party that handles user data needs to take their part seriously. The terms of service and privacy policies are different and touch different aspects of consent.
2. Understand and prioritize what matters to your users. Today’s savvy users care about data privacy and security. They want to avail your services but they also want to feel safe about sharing their information with you. Your roadmap needs to give these items importance, and you cannot let privacy and consent be an afterthought. Just as devsecops and devops are becoming mainstream, it won’t be long before privacy and consent are also part of product sprints.
3. Create thought leadership around how end users can better protect their data. As mentioned above, users can opt-in to share data and also edit settings on their end at the device level to have better control of their data. Write blogs, whitepapers, submit answers on Quora and Medium to show that you are committed to helping your users and believe in making it safe for them to engage with you.

Who is WizRocket, and What Is Their Relationship to CleverTap?

CleverTap is the brand name, while WizRocket is the name of the parent company.

The security and confidentiality of your data is always a top priority at CleverTap. If you have any questions for our data governance team, please email us at security@clevertap.com.