En Route to Saenthood:
#32 Your Privacy is Important to Us (No, Really)
This series is about what we’re learning, observing and experiencing while building our startup Saent (pronounce “Saint”). The good, the bad and especially the ugly, each time in under 5 minutes reading time.
How many times have you been assured your privacy is important to Tech Company X, only to realize it has been greatly violated? Privacy policies of the services we use are now so long and dense, it takes the average person 76 days to read them all! And even if you can decipher them, they don’t always mean much — last year, Facebook’s dubious privacy practices were found to be violating EU law.
When it comes to your privacy and data in the world of tech, “Your Privacy is Important to Us” sounds like a used car dealer who says he has your best interest in mind; yeah, right.
Privacy & Saent
If you’re somewhat familiar with our product (if not, download our app here for free!), you know we potentially have access to sensitive data: we monitor your browsing behavior to help block distractions, we look at your work habits to give you Challenges, and we connect with a range of other (productivity) apps to improve your overall day. By using our product, we are asking you to trust us.
Given the poor track record of the tech industry, trust is a lot to ask for. Who knows what a new and unknown startup will do with your data, right? This was actually the first critical question that came up in our Y-Combinator interview.
We believe we can build this trust through actions, not just words. And actions means putting features and safeguards in place that show we mean business when it comes to your privacy and data. Here’s what we’ve done so far:
- You own your data: you can request us to export or delete your data at any time, right from within the interface of our app (no need to call us or fill out complicated forms). We will delete any data we have on you within a week of receiving your request.
- Peer-to-peer encryption: you have the option to turn on peer-to-peer encryption. This means a unique key gets generated to lock up your data. That key only exists on your local computer(s), so nobody except you can access your data.
- Out of session activity: by default, Saent only stores data about what happens during a Saent session. Anything outside of that is off limits. For certain Challenges and features you will need to turn on out-of-session-activity-tracking, but, most importantly, that choice is yours, not ours.
What’s next?
To guarantee your privacy and data is safe with us, now and in the future, those are just some of the mechanisms we have put in place. There are more features and ideas on the horizon:
- No annoying ads. While at some point Saent might recommend a relevant book, app, or product from a partner based on your work style and behavior, we will never have random, meaningless ads in or on our products.
- Privacy council. We want to appoint a council consisting of our own users, who need to vet that any features and actions we take with regards to your data (e.g., product recommendations we’re running) indeed are relevant to you, our users.
- Data location. Currently, your data is stored on servers in the USA. In the near future, we want to offer you the choice where to store your data (USA, EU, Asia). This way you can decide by which laws your data will be governed.
Eventually, we want Saent to become a role model for how to do privacy & data the right way as a tech company. There is certainly more we can do than the above when it comes to privacy and data. If you have any concerns or ideas, we’d love to hear them. Because, you know, your privacy is important to us!
Ready to give Saent a try?
Download the free app to start working smarter, be more focused, and develop better work habits.
