Petal Search

Privacy Statement

Add Comment

Statement About Petal Search and Privacy Last updated: September, 2022 Petal Search is a product (web service) provided by Aspiegel SE, a Huawei subsidiary incorporated in Ireland (hereinafter referred to as "we", "us" or, "our"). Petal Search is a search engine and provides users with search functionalities for web pages, apps, pictures, videos, and news, and so forth. This Statement describes: 1 What Data Do We Collect About You? 2 How Do We Use Your Data? 3 How Long Do We Store Your Data? 4 How Do We Share Your Data? 5 What Are Your Rights and Options? 6 How to Contact Us? 7 How Do We Update This Statement? 1 What Data Do We Collect About You? As part of the Petal Search, we shall collect and use your personal data only for the purposes stated in this Statement. Personal data refers to any information that enables us to identify you as a user. We may collect and process the following publicly accessible information: •As part of providing Petal Search we may collect and index information about you from publicly accessible sources. The indexed information may include sensitive information about you. •You have the right to request delisting of a search result that appears when your name is searched in accordance with Section 5.6. As part of such request we shall collect and process information such as your full legal name, contact information, identification documentation, delisting URLs, delisting reasons, and search name subject to delisting request. We shall collect and process the following data of Petal Search users: •Account information: such as your HUAWEI ID account identifier, open advertising identifier (OAID), age, photo, and nickname, as well as service country/region code, access token, user identifier, advertising identifier, and records of agreement (including agreement version, language, and signing country/region). We may use your phone number to allocate different benefits to you based on your HUAWEI ID account phone number inputted by you during different campaigns. We use age information from HUAWEI ID to automatically enable the SafeSearch function and to disable and limit certain service features and content (e.g. ads) in order to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate content. •Device information: such as screen size, service version, device type and model, operating system version, device language, and region. •Network information: such as IP address (used for preventing click fraud, preventing multiple entries to lucky draws and other campaigns, and for providing localized content and features) and network type. We never store the search queries linked with your IP address. •Service usage information: such as search query text, search keywords (derived from your search queries), search intents (derived from your search queries), search channel names (e.g. "news") and IDs, list of returned URLs, search durations, query IDs (unique IDs assigned for each of your search queries), index IDs (order of presented search results), search language and region, and clicked URLs. service usage events (e.g. touched search results). news information and events, e.g. news channel, duration of use, views, follows, playbacks, news index (order of presented news), content reports, shares, and clicks. likes, dislikes, ratings, and feedback. browser type (for compatibility assessment). and ad information and events (e.g. ad identifiers, ad clicks, and views). Mouse activities on the page, browser or browsing simulator information (such as type and version, operating system, active plug-ins, time zone, language, font, screen resolution), HTTP header, etc. are processed for the purpose of identifying malicious cyber-attacks. We collect data using cookies. For more information about how we use cookies, please read our cookie notice. We will use your approximate location (accurate to a specific city) derived from your IP address for location-based functions such as news searches and weather queries. If you want to plot a map route or search for nearby services, we will process your mobile device's precise location. We will only access your device's location with your consent and we will never store such location information on our servers. If you give feedback about specific search results or other Petal Search content, we will process your search query, search language, IP address, search region, device model, operating system language and region, together with your comments and feedback, including any screenshots or screen recordings of the issue. If you feedback about Search's features such as translation or currency converter, we may process your latest input to Search (e.g. the text you translated) based on your prior authorization to enable more efficient feedback handling and troubleshooting. We may test different versions and features of Petal Search on different users. For this purpose, we may assign users to different groups. Such testing requires the processing of information such as your device region, language, time zone, network type, Android version, and group identifiers, which are used to identify the user groups you have been assigned to for the purpose of product or feature testing. To allow you to make searches on your device, we require Internet access (to access the online services) and the Location permission (requested via your browser by Petal Search to provide location-based functions, such as map route plotting, disaster warnings, and weather queries). Petal Search is available as an extension to Google Chrome. The use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. 2 How Do We Use Your Data? Collecting and indexing publicly accessible information Petal Search allows you to search for information you are interested in. For this purpose, we must collect and index vast quantities of information from publicly accessible sources. This may include sensitive information about you. For example, if we index an online newspaper article that contains your name, the newspaper article will appear in the search results when a user searches for your name in Petal Search. Handling search result delisting requests If you make a request for the delisting of a search result, we will use the personal information that you supply on the delisting request form and any personal information you may submit in further correspondence for the purposes of processing your request and meeting our legal obligations. Processing Petal Search users' information To fulfill our contractual obligations in relation to Petal Search, we will use and process your personal data for customer relationship management, support and communication, customer complaint handling, maintenance, software and system updates, user identification, as well as for problem diagnosis and repair purposes. The aforementioned processing of your personal data is based on your contract with us. In addition, we use your personal data for the following purposes based on legitimate interests: Search functionality To enable the search functionality, we need to process the following data: your language settings, region, device screen size, time zone, search queries, and query IDs. When you make a search, we never link or associate the search query to you as a specific user. Each search query you make is collected and stored with a unique random identifier that Petal Search creates for the search query. We use your language settings, region, time zone, and device screen size to customize the search results that you receive. We will use your approximate location (accurate to a specific city) based on your IP address to localize the results. If you have enabled location-based services by giving location permission for Search, the search results may be tailored based on your precise location. We may predict your search intents using keywords identified in your search queries. For example, if you enter the name of a movie, we may predict that you are searching for a video and therefore display videos in the search results. The intent categories include "people", "location", "music", "animal", "plant", "video", and "video artist". Your search intents are not linked to you as a specific user but instead to a random query identifier in order to protect your privacy when using Petal Search. Search suggestions We analyze keywords derived from your search queries to derive top keywords used by our users. Such analysis is done on an aggregated basis and we do not link or associate the keywords to you as a specific user. Such processing enables us to provide you with search recommendations and real-time search suggestions as well as hot content (such as trending news and persons) in Petal Search. In practice, we calculate which search keywords are most common and which results (for example, in relation to certain news and persons) are clicked the most. For this purpose, we may collect the following data: search keywords and their respective user count, search language, and region. The keywords are collected and stored with a random identifier to preserve your privacy when using Petal Search. To provide you with the Recommended searches function, we may predict your search intents using keywords identified in your search queries. For example, if you enter the name of a movie, we may predict that you are searching for a video and therefore display videos in the search results. The intent categories include "people", "location", "music", "animal", "plant", "video", and "video artist". Your search intents are not linked to you as a specific user but instead to a random query identifier in order to protect your privacy when using Petal Search. We also use your language settings, region, time zone, and device screen size to customize the suggestions presented to you. By analyzing search keywords, we may predict your search intents and provide specific search results that you may be interested in, such as apps, weather, flights, hotels, sports information, and translation services. For example, if you search for a specific name of a sports team or league, we may display relevant information about the team or league to you. If your search contains a city name (e.g. "from Madrid to Rome", "hotels in Rome" or "weather in Rome"), we may display information regarding available flights to, hotels, and the weather in the city. Such features may be provided in co-operation with our third-party partners. We never share any data with such third-party partners which could be used to identify you as a specific user (we may only share general data, such as keyword from your query (e.g. a name of a sports club or league), your current city, time, and language settings to allow you to use the features provided with such third-party partners). When you use such services provided by third parties (e.g. reserving a table on a restaurant page searched for using Petal Search or tracking a parcel by inputting a tracking code to your chosen carrier), or access them by using different links and shortcuts via Petal Search, the corresponding third party will provide the service to you and process your data in accordance with its privacy policy. Your individual search records will also be stored in your device, unless you have incognito mode enabled, to provide search suggestions based on your previous searches. You can find and manage such records from Settings &gt. Search history. Service improvement In order to improve the quality of our search service (e.g. improve our search algorithms), we will store the URLs of the search results you select, and analyze the types of queries you make and the search results you select. We do not link or associate search result URLs to you as a specific user. The URLs are collected and stored with a random identifier to preserve your privacy when using Petal Search. For similar service improvement purposes, we will also process various service usage events (e.g. buttons and titles that you touch, search result ratings you give, and comments you make), and we will link those events to the random identifier. News The news function may be provided in collaboration with our partners. In order to provide local news for you, we need to process information about the news channel and your language and region settings, and share the information with our news partners. User statistics We generate statistical and business insights using general data about Petal Search users (such as how many users make the same search). Such analysis of our users, which is always conducted on an aggregated basis, enables us to understand our users better and to improve the quality and user experience of our current and future services and offerings. Such general data includes the channel name (such as "news"), channel ID (such as "10"), search duration, ID of the search index and search result page, search language, returned URL list, selected URLs, and search region. The data is collected and stored with a random identifier to preserve your privacy when using Petal Search. Advertisements We may use your search queries to provide contextual advertisements based on automatically-identified keywords in your queries. This enables us to show you advertisements that are relevant to you. For example, if your search query includes "hotel" we may show you advertisements relating to hotels. We will use your approximate location (accurate to a specific city) based on your IP address to localize the ads. If you have enabled location-based services by giving location permission for Search, the ads may be tailored based on your precise location. In addition, we collect information about how you select and view advertisements for the purpose of settlement with our advertisement partners. Such data is always aggregated and abstracted. We never link or associate your search queries or any subsequent clicks to you as a specific user. Such information is collected and stored with random identifiers (e.g. ab7221ca3d9f4a43a425ce1e5b85c13), which are created uniquely for each search query and subsequent delivery of advertisements by Petal Search. Security and fraud prevention We will collect your IP address with a random identifier in order to detect possible fraudulent behavior (such as the use of automatic ad clicker bots) and to safeguard our advertisement partners from being unfairly charged. We may also process the IP address, mouse activities on the page, browser or browsing simulator information (such as type and version, operating system, active plug-ins, time zone, language, font, screen resolution), HTTP header, etc. for the purpose of cyber security to identify malicious attacks. By analyzing how users interact with our web pages we can detect and prevent cyber-attack by internet bots (e.g. an attacker using automatic software) or even human. Only identified attack attempts are recorded by us. We also use log information, which may include search queries, for security purposes to provide you with secure and reliable services. In order to detect fraudulent use of our translation service (e.g. using automatic software to perform a large amount of translation on the translation service), we process the total number of characters translated using Petal Search's translation function. To conduct such processing, we do not store the text being translated. 3 How Long Do We Store Your Data? We will retain your personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes defined in this Statement. Petal Search users We will process your data for the duration of the customer relationship. All search queries, which are collected with an identifier or any comparable data, will be erased (or all identifiers removed) within six (6) months of the collection of the data. In addition, we shall retain: •Personal data processed for customer relationship management such as data subject requests, complaints, and customer interaction records for up to six (6) years from the last interaction. •Personal data processed for contract management purposes for up to three (3) years after your HUAWEI ID has been deleted. •Backups and app logs processed for fraud prevention purposes, including for ad click fraud prevention, and for ensuring the security of your data and services, for up to twelve (12) months from the date they were created, in order to ensure the effectiveness of our anti-fraud and security measures. Our logs may contain information about search queries, but they are not stored with any unique identifiers or other comparable data, so they are unable to identify a unique user. Once the retention period expires, we will delete or anonymize your personal data, unless otherwise required by applicable laws and regulations. Search result delisting requesters If you make a search result delisting request, we may store the request and the interaction records up to six (6) years from the closing of your removal request. We will erase any copies of identification documents you have provided to us within three (3) months of closing your removal request except as otherwise required by applicable laws and regulations. 4 How Do We Share Your Data? We will collect and index publicly available information from servers located in EU/EEA and Singapore. Petal Search users We share your data in the following ways: •Third-party search engines may be used in some countries or regions to supplement your searches. In this case, we will transmit the search query as a URL (e.g. if you search for "hotels", we will share .com/query=hotels) to the search engine and you will be directed to the search engine's page. The processing of such shared information and any subsequent use of the third-party search service is governed by the third party's privacy policy. •Our third-party vendors, who provide us with IT (including cloud-based) services and business support as well as customer care services, may need to process your information. All such third parties are operating under contract and acting on behalf of us. Our IT vendors may also process your data from the US, Singapore, China, and Egypt. •If you choose to book a taxi using Search's booking functions, we will share the locations of the start and end points chosen by you with the respective taxi company. •When required in response to a legal process or request from a competent authority according to applicable laws or in connection with a legal proceeding or process. •When required as part of a merger, acquisition, sale of assets (such as service agreements) or transition of service to a Huawei group entity or another company. •If you are using the Petal Search service in Canada, we may also share your personal data to customer service centers located in Mexico and operated by our supplier operating under contract and acting on behalf of us. Your personal data as described in this Section 4 is transferred, processed, and stored outside of Canada. Therefore, it may be available to government authorities under legal orders and applicable laws in the local jurisdiction. When transferring and disclosing your data outside the EU/EEA, where local laws may not provide the same level of protection as in the EU/EEA, we shall comply with applicable legal requirements for providing adequate safeguards by incorporating the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) to such transfers. If you want to obtain a copy of the actual signed SCC, please contact us. Search result delisting requesters In addition to the aforementioned, when you request to delist search results, we may share the details of the request with third parties providing us with legal or other professional support for the handling of such requests. We may also need to share details of your request with the relevant data protection authorities if they require these details to investigate or review a decision that we have made (e.g. if you choose to contact the authorities about our decision). 5 What Are Your Rights and Options? You have the following data subject rights and choices regarding your personal data. 5.1 Access your data You can request information and a copy of personal data we have collected and stored about you in relation to Petal Search and linked to your HUAWEI ID by going to Settings &gt. Account center &gt. Privacy center &gt. Manage Your Data &gt. Request your data from your device. You can also access these Privacy center settings from HUAWEI ID web portal. For additional access requests, please contact us. 5.2 Port your data You can port the personal data that you have provided to us in relation to Petal Search and linked to your HUAWEI ID by going to Settings &gt. Account center &gt. Privacy center &gt. Manage Your Data &gt. Request your data from your device. The data will be ported to you in a commonly used machine readable format. You can also access these Privacy center settings from HUAWEI ID web portal. For additional data portability requests, please contact us. 5.3 Erase your data As a Petal Search user you may at any time: •Delete individual search records in your search history from your device from Petal Search Settings &gt. Search history. •Object to the processing of your data, as detailed in Section 5.4. If your objection is valid, and we no longer have legal basis to continue processing your data, we will erase the relevant data within your effective objection. •Request delisting of a search result, as detailed in Section 5.6. If your request is valid, we will remove the requested search results that appear when your name is searched. •Contact us if you think the processing of your personal data is unlawful and your data should be erased. We shall erase or anonymize your personal data without undue delay in accordance with the retention periods detailed in Section 3. 5.4 Object to processing If you want to object to the processing of your data for statistical and analysis purposes, please contact us. When making the request, please specify the scope of the request. For requests concerning delisting of a search result, please see Section 5.6. 5.5 Restrict processing If you want to restrict the processing of your personal data, please contact us. As a Petal Search user you have the right to restrict the processing of your data in the following circumstances: •Your data is unlawfully processed but you do not want to erase it. •You have a legal claim that you need to establish, exercise, or defend, and you requested us to keep your data when we would not keep it otherwise. •You have contested the accuracy of your personal data and the accuracy of your data is pending our verification. •Your request for objection is pending our verification. When submitting your request, please specify the scope and basis of the request. We will contact you to verify your identity in order to proceed with your request. 5.6 Delist search results You have the right to request delisting of a search result that appears when your name is searched. When we assess the request we will balance your privacy rights with the interest of the general public in having access to the information as well as the right of others to distribute the information. You can file a request and find more information about the assessment criteria here. 6 How to Contact Us? You can find guidance on how to exercise your data subject's rights in Section 5. If you have any questions on your rights as a data subject or the processing of your personal data by us or if you want to contact our Data Protection Officer, please contact us. Our headquarters' address: Aspiegel SE, 3rd floor, Mespil Court, Mespil Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, D04 E516, Ireland. Registration number 561134. If you believe that we do not process your personal data in accordance with this Statement or the applicable data protection laws, you can lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your country/region, or the Data Protection Officer in Ireland. 7 How Do We Update This Statement? We encourage you to regularly check for the latest version of this Statement in Petal Search's settings as we may update it from time to time. In the event of material changes to this Statement, we will inform you of such changes by an appropriate method, such as a notification pop-up dialog, push messages, and so on, depending on the nature of the change. Read more