Current as of 20 Jan 2022
Privacy Policy
Your privacy is important to us at GistMobile. We respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect from you across our website.
The Gist Mobile service is provided by Gist Mobile Ltd, a company registered in the UK, registered number 11584577 and having its registered address at 71-75 Shelton Street, London, Greater London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ. Under the Data Protection laws, we are classified as a Data Controller, which means we determine the purposes and means of processing your personal information.
We are committed to protecting your privacy and take it very seriously. We ask you to read this Privacy Policy carefully as it contains important information on:
- The personal information we collect about you;
- What we do with your information;
- Who your information might be shared with;
- Your Rights as a Data Subject
All personal information collected by us is kept in the strictest confidence. We will not share or sell any personal information to any third party unless required to do so by law.
information we collect and why
Gist Mobile must collect some information to operate, understand, support, and market our service. The information we collect will depend on how you use our service, and will be collected when you install, login, or use our services in-app and/or our websites.
The following information is collected from you when completing forms on our website or in-app to create your account. This information may include:
- Your name.
- Current address and proof of address.
- Proof of ID.
- Date of birth.
- Email address.
- Mobile telephone numbers.
- Financial credit and debit card information.
The above information may also be provided to us when:
- You request literature and sign-up for newsletters.
information you provide
Your Account – To create a Gist Mobile account you provide your mobile phone number which will be used to verify your account. You also provide us with the names and phone numbers in your phone’s contacts, both those already using Gist Mobile and your other contacts, so our service can find any contacts you can call and message for free and notify you of any new contacts joining Gist Mobile.
You may also choose to supply your name, address and email address and a profile picture.
If you use Gist Mobile virtual phone numbers, then you will provide a profile name for each virtual number, and optionally a profile picture.
Payments – If you make payment to access paid services, we will ask for and retain certain information. This is so we can process your payment, process refunds, and meet our obligations to provide itemized billing:
- Credit/Debit card: Your card details will be collected by our third-party payment provider. All card information is transmitted directly between your device and our payment provider using SSL secure encryption. In addition, we will collect the billing name and address of your card, and email address, to help decide if you are required to pay EU VAT, and to provide you with an invoice.
- PayPal: Your payment will be processed directly by PayPal. Your PayPal login and payment acceptance is transmitted directly between your device and PayPal using SSL secure encryption. We will receive from PayPal confirmation of your payment, your PayPal registered name, address and email address from PayPal, which we use to help decide if you are required to pay EU VAT, and to provide you with an invoice. We may also require you to verify your PayPal email address before we accept your payment.
- Apple iTunes: Your payment is made directly with Apple iTunes over an encrypted connection. We receive an electronic receipt from your device on a successful payment that identifies your payment via unique tokens and includes no personal data.
- Google Play: Your payment is made directly with Google Play over an encrypted connection. We receive an electronic receipt from your device on a successful payment that identifies your payment via unique tokens and includes no personal data.
Customer Support – If you contact our customer support you will provide us with information related to your use of our Services, including your account phone number and email address to help assist and communicate with you.
information we automatically collect
Calls – We do not store information on free online calls in the normal course of supplying our service to you.
If you make calls to phone numbers, then we store the time, originating phone number, recipient phone number and duration of the calls to provide itemised billing and comply with regulations.
Calls records (time, originating number, recipient number and duration) of received calls to Gist Mobile virtual numbers are also retained to provide itemised billing where charged, and comply with regulations.
SMS and Chat Messages – We store your free chat messages you send and receive on our servers, so that if you reinstall the app or change phone, the app will pick up your chat messages again. You can delete chat messages within the app, and they will be deleted from our systems.
We store your SMS messages to phone numbers on our servers, so that if you reinstall the app or change phone, the app will pick up your messages again. You can delete SMS messages within the app, and the message content will be deleted from our systems. We will retain the time, originating phone number, recipient phone number, and number of SMS parts to provide itemised billing and comply with regulations.
SMS records (time, originating number, recipient number, and SMS parts) of SMS received to Gist Mobile virtual numbers are retained to comply with regulations.
Device Information – When you install or use our service, or when you contact customer support via our app, we collect information on your device’s hardware model and operating system, the Gist Mobile app version, browser information, and your internet connection IP address.
Service Usage Data – We collect service-related diagnostics and logs about your activity on our service, that includes app connection log files and crash reports, and website logs. This information is only held for a short time period for diagnosing issues.
We also retain time and IP connection information on when you first registered with our service, and when you last connected.
Cookies – We use cookies to improve your experience with us when visiting our website, by remembering options such as a login session token and your preferred language. These cookies contain no personally identifiable information.
Like most websites, we use Google Analytics to track user interaction. We use this data to determine the number of people using our website, to better understand how they find and use our web pages and to see their journey through the website. Google Analytics records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system, and your internet connection IP address. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.
Your web browser allows you to delete cookies and disable them in the future. Should you delete or disable cookies, you may find that some of our services are unavailable to you.
third party information
Third-Party Service Providers – We partner with European and US third-party service providers to help us deliver, understand, support, and market our service. For example, we work with companies to terminate and receive calls and SMS, provide virtual phone numbers, process payments, distribute our apps, provide our infrastructure, help us understand how our service is used, and communicate with you. We provide these third-party services only with information absolutely necessary to deliver the part of the service they provide for us.
Third Parties – All personal information collected by us is kept in the strictest confidence. We will not share or sell any personal information to any third party unless required to do so by law.
External Links – Some of our website pages may contain external links to other websites. We cannot be held responsible for content or privacy policy of those sites.
how we use information
Gist Mobile uses the information we collect to operate, understand, support, and market our service.
Your information is transmitted using encryption technology and securely stored as per our Information Security Policy and controls.
We are the sole owners of the information collected on our website and we will only use your information to respond to you.
We only have access to and collect information that you have voluntarily given us.
If you are required to send us your credit or debit card information, your card details will always be transmitted securely. Any credit or debit card information stored by us are in an encrypted form and cannot be viewed by employees.
The data collected from you will be transferred, processed and stored at our dedicated secured offices, data centers or secure cloud storage. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, processing and storing.
We will take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely.
If we are required to process your information which does not meet the requirements above, we will inform you prior to this.
Our Service – We use the information we collect to operate our service, provide reporting for financial accounting and taxation liabilities, analyze how our service is used, fix and improve our service, and provide customer support.
Communications from Gist Mobile – We may use either in-app messaging or email (if provided) to advise you of our services and inform you of updates to our policies and terms. We will only e-mail you about our products and services if you are an existing customer or we have an accurate record of your recent and freely given consent to do so.
If you have opted-in, we may also provide you marketing for our services. You can withdraw your consent and opt-out at any time by emailing us at support@gistmobile.com
Your Calling and Messaging – When you call or message, you share your phone number (caller ID) or your Gist Mobile virtual number with the recipient(s). With chat and SMS messaging you will also share the content of your message with the recipient(s).
Third-Party Service Providers – We partner with European GDPR and EU-US Privacy Shield compliant third-party service providers to help us deliver, understand, support, and market our service.
Security – We may monitor accounts and usage for suspicious activity to provide security and safety on our service, and to prevent abuse, fraud, illegal usage, and breaches of our terms and conditions.
Transfer – If Gist Mobile are subject to a buyout or merger, we reserve the right to transfer our responsibilities and rights under this privacy policy to the new owners.
how long we keep information
We store your information until it is not needed to provide you a service, or until your account is deleted. When information is deleted will depend on the type of information, why it has been collected and used, and any legal or operational retention requirements.
Data Security – We take all aspects of information security seriously. We store the minimum of data necessary to provide the service to you, while complying with our legal obligations. We apply access controls throughout all our systems and use only trusted third party providers. To protect customer privacy, access to information by employees is restricted.
Should we have a data breach or be made aware of such at one of our third-party providers, we will notify this to the ICO within the prescribed timescales of the GDPR.
Changes to This Privacy Policy – We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 23rd May 2018. When we update this policy, we will notify you if we have the information to do so.
GDPR for European Region Users – From May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will apply to all data we hold about our customers
Your Rights – Customers and subscribers have clear rights under GDPR:
- The right to be informed about the personal data that is being held and processed.
- The right of access to personal data via a Subject Access Request
- The right to rectification of personal data if inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date
- The right to erasure of data where there is no lawful reason for its continued processing
- The right to restrict processing of data where information is inaccurate or there is an objection to the lawfulness of the processing
- The right to portability of personal data to reuse elsewhere.
The right to object if no legitimate reason exists for the processing of data. - The right to check or challenge automated decision making and profiling.
Please refer to the GDPR regulation or ico.org.uk for full details of these items and the conditions under which it may be appropriate to contact us or make an access request.
Our Basis for Processing Information
We collect, use, and share the information detailed above to:
- To provide our service under our Terms and Conditions.
- With your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
- For our own legitimate interests, which is to provide a reliable, safe, and secure, legal, telecoms service to our users and partners, unless those interests are overruled by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms for data protection.
- To comply with our legal obligations.
- To protect yours or others vital interests
Updating and Deleting Your Information
We store your information until it is not needed to provide you a service, or until your account is deleted. When the information is deleted will depend on the type of information, why it has been collected and used, and any legal or operational retention requirements.
You can delete SMS content and chat messages within the Gist Mobile app. The customer portal of the Gist Mobile website also provides you a view of the personal information we store, and the ability to update some of this information.
If you have any questions regarding your personal information or would like to exercise any of your rights under GDPR, such as accessing, updating or deleting your data, then please contact us at support@gistmobile.com.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may keep this privacy policy under review and may make changes from time to time which we will publish on the website and on the app. This privacy policy was last updated on 2nd March 2023
Contact Information
1. For European Region Users
For general enquires, or to have your data updated or deleted, please contact our customer support team by email at support@gistmobile.com
If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, or concerns over our handling of your data, then please contact Gist Mobile’s Data Protection Officer by email at info@gistmobile.com, or in writing to:
The Data Protection Officer (DPO)Gist Mobile Limited71-75 Shelton Street, London, Greater London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ
You also have right to lodge a complaint with Gist Mobile’s lead supervisory authority, the UK’s Information Commissioners Office (ico.org.uk), or your local supervisory authority.
Gist Mobile Limited is registered with the Information Commissioners Office as a data controller.
2. Users Outside of the European Region
If you have any enquiries, or to have your data updated or deleted, then please contact us at support@gistmobile.com, or in writing to:
Gist Mobile Limited, 71-75 Shelton Street, London, Greater London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ