Privacy Policy

1. Scope, and the two people this policy addresses

BusyTel is a product of AmiFi LLC, a California limited liability company ("AmiFi", "we", "us" or "our"). This policy describes how we collect, use, disclose and retain personal information in operating the BusyTel service: the website at busytel.com, the telephone numbers we assign or host, the automated assistant that answers calls placed to them, the text messages the service sends and receives, and the accounts behind them.

Two categories of individual appear in this policy, and their relationship to us differs.

• A "Customer" is the business that holds an account, and the individuals at that business who use it. A Customer provides its own information to us and pays us for the service.
• A "Caller" is a person who telephones or messages a Customer's BusyTel number. A Caller has no relationship with us and did not choose the service. We answer the telephone on the Customer's behalf, and this policy describes what happens to the call.

In respect of a Caller's information, the Customer determines that its calls are answered by this service and, through its choice of plan, how far back its call history may be viewed in the service. We process that information on the Customer's behalf and under our agreement with them, and we also process it for the purposes described in sections 6 and 7, for which we are responsible. A Caller may contact us directly, and section 10 describes what follows.

We operate in the United States. All information described in this policy is stored and processed in the United States.

2. Categories of information we collect, and their sources

2.1 Information a Customer provides

• Identifiers and business information: the business name, the nature of the business, its operating hours, and the email address on the account.
• Telephone numbers: the personal number to which the service sends messages and connects calls, and each additional number authorised on the account.
• Commercial information: the plan selected, the area code chosen, the BusyTel number assigned, and the transaction history of the account.
• Payment information: collected directly by our payment processor. Full payment card numbers are not transmitted to or stored by us.
• Account activity: sign-in events, the devices and sessions holding an authenticated session, and changes made to account settings.

2.2 Information generated by a call

• The Caller's telephone number and any caller identification supplied by the network.
• An audio recording of the call and the transcript produced from it.
• The output of the assistant: the Caller's stated identity, the reason for the call, the summary, and the urgency assessment.
• The disposition of the call: accepted, declined, unanswered, not connected, or reported as spam.

2.3 Information generated by text messages

• The messages we send a Customer in respect of a call, and the reply received.
• The message we send a Caller where a call was not connected, and any reply to it.
• Delivery information reported by the carriers: sent, delivered, failed, or opted out.

2.4 Information collected through the website

• Internet activity: the IP address, browser user agent and originating page recorded with each form submission and stored alongside it.
• Traffic source: the referring website, any campaign parameters in the link followed, and the first page visited. This record is first party, is used only for our own measurement, and is neither disclosed to any third party nor used to track an individual across other websites.
• Analytics: Google Analytics, on busytel.com only. No telephone number, business name, email address or postal address is transmitted to it in any parameter, under any name, or in hashed form.

2.5 Records of consent

Where an individual grants a permission, we record the exact text displayed to them, a version identifier for that text, the time, the IP address, the user agent, the telephone number to which the permission relates, and the page on which it was given. We retain the text itself rather than a flag, because the question in any later dispute is what the individual was shown and not whether a value was set. Retention of these records is addressed in section 9.

2.6 Sensitive personal information

Certain state statutes treat the contents of a communication as sensitive personal information where the business is not the intended recipient. We receive the contents of calls and messages in order to deliver them to the intended recipient and to perform the service described in this policy, and we use and disclose that information only for the purposes set out in sections 6 and 7, which are purposes for which no right to limit use applies. We do not process biometric information, and we do not use voice recordings to identify or authenticate an individual by their voice. We do not collect precise geolocation.

3. Recording of calls

Every call the assistant answers is recorded and transcribed. The assistant discloses this to the Caller at the start of the call, before any information is collected, because recording without that disclosure is unlawful in jurisdictions requiring the consent of all parties.

A Caller who does not wish to be recorded may end the call. Where a call is ended at that point, we retain no more than the fact that a call was received and terminated.

The recording, the transcript and the summary constitute the Customer's call history and are accessible to that Customer's account alone.

The Customer's plan determines how far back the Customer may view that history in the service, as stated for each plan on the pricing page. A call may be retained for up to the maximum period stated in section 9, whether or not the Customer's plan displays it. On request, we will delete a specified recording and the transcript produced from it, irrespective of the retention period otherwise applicable. Section 7 states what deletion does and does not reach.

4. Text messages, and the treatment of mobile information

Text messaging is the mechanism by which the service is delivered, and this section addresses it separately for that reason.

4.1 Messages we send

• To a Customer, at a verified number: a six digit verification code; one message for each call the assistant answers, inviting a reply of y or n; notice where an accepted call could not be connected; a summary at the start of business hours where calls were received outside them; and account, billing, delivery and service notices.
• To a Customer who has separately opted in: product and marketing messages, sent from a different number under a separate program.
• To a Caller: one message where the business did not take the call.

4.2 How consent is obtained and recorded

A Customer enters its own telephone number on the signup form at busytel.com, with the disclosure displayed adjacent to the field, and we retain the text displayed as described in section 2.5. The messages listed in the first bullet above are the means by which the service operates and are disclosed rather than offered as an election. Product and marketing messages are a separate, unticked election, are never a condition of purchase, and declining them has no effect on the service.

A Caller's telephone number is obtained because the Caller placed a call to a BusyTel number. It is used to answer that call and to message the Caller in respect of that call. It is not added to any marketing list and is not used for any other purpose.

The assistant states at the outset of every call, before any information is collected, that the call is recorded and that one message may be sent to the number from which the Caller is calling if the business does not take the call. A Caller who continues the call after that statement consents to both. A Caller who does not may end the call, and section 3 states what is retained where a call is ended at that point.

Where the number from which a Caller is calling has previously stopped messages from us, whether by replying STOP as described in section 10.2 or by instructing us not to contact it, no message is sent to that number in respect of the call and none is attempted. We do not seek the Caller's consent during the call to disregard that instruction. The assistant states the position before the call ends and the business is notified to return the call by telephone.

4.3 Stopping messages

Replying STOP to any message stops further messages to that number under the program it was sent from. Replying HELP returns our contact details. Message and data rates from the recipient's carrier may apply. The effect of each keyword, and the means by which a Customer who has stopped its own call alerts may resume them, are set out in the messaging section of the Terms.

4.4 Mobile information

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All of the categories above exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

We do not sell mobile telephone numbers, we do not rent or trade them, and we do not disclose them to any person for the purpose of marketing to them. The only recipients of a telephone number are the service providers identified in section 8, each of which is engaged to carry a call or a message on our behalf and is restricted by contract to that purpose.

5. Spam reports and the shared reputation dataset

A Customer may report a call as unwanted. Doing so credits the call against that Customer's allowance and contributes the calling number to a reputation dataset against which calls to all accounts are screened. The value of the dataset increases with the number of accounts contributing to it, and it is a feature of the service rather than an incidental use.

The dataset records the calling number, the volume and pattern of reports concerning it, and the determination made. It does not record the identity of the reporting business, and it does not record anything a reported Caller said during a call.

No individual report results in a number being blocked across the service. A system-wide block requires corroborating reports originating from separate accounts and is subject to human review.

6. Purposes for which we use personal information

• Providing the service: answering calls, determining the identity and purpose of a Caller, notifying the Customer, connecting calls, delivering messages, and maintaining the call record.
• Screening: evaluating the reputation of a calling number before the assistant engages, and acting on reports as described in section 5.
• Billing: metering calls against a plan allowance, charging the payment method on file, issuing receipts, and collecting amounts due.
• Support: responding to a Customer enquiry, which may require reviewing the call the enquiry concerns.
• Security, fraud prevention and abuse: rate limiting, verification of possession of a telephone number, and preventing the service being used to cause an uninvolved person's telephone to ring.
• Business operations: measuring the performance of the service and the sources of customer acquisition, in aggregate.
• Improving the service, including training the automated systems described in section 7.
• Legal compliance: meeting a legal obligation, responding to lawful process, and establishing, exercising or defending a legal claim.

The assistant is implemented using speech recognition, language and speech synthesis models. Audio and text from a call are transmitted to the providers operating those models so that the call may be transcribed, a response determined and speech generated. Those providers act on our behalf under contracts restricting them to the provision of that service to us.

7. Training of automated systems

We use the calls and messages that pass through the service to train, fine-tune, evaluate and benchmark the automated systems underlying it. This section states that use expressly rather than leaving it to a general reference to improving the service.

7.1 Material used

• Recordings of calls answered by the assistant, and the transcripts produced from them.
• The summaries, stated reasons for calling and urgency assessments produced by the assistant, evaluated against the outcome of the call.
• Text messages sent and received by the service, in both directions, including a Customer's reply.
• Corrections made by Customers. A report that a call was unwanted, an instruction to allow a screened number, or a correction to a summary or urgency assessment is the most probative signal available to us, because it identifies the correct output.

7.2 Purpose, and limits on it

The purpose is the improvement of the service: fewer unwanted calls reaching a Customer, fewer legitimate calls screened in error, summaries that correspond to what was said, and urgency assessments that distinguish an emergency from a routine enquiry.

We do not sell this material and we do not make it available to any third party for the purpose of developing that party's own products or models. The providers identified in section 8 receive call material because they operate part of the service for us and are restricted by contract to that purpose.

7.3 Callers

A Caller's recorded voice forms part of this material, and a Caller has no relationship with us, so the position is stated directly. The assistant discloses at the start of every call that the call is recorded, and that disclosure is the basis on which the recording is made and used. A Caller who does not wish to be recorded should end the call and contact the business by other means. A Caller may request deletion of a call under section 10.

7.4 The effect of deletion

Deletion of a recording, transcript or message removes it from the call history and from any subsequent training. It does not remove its contribution from a system already trained on it, and no technique available to us or to any provider makes that possible. We state this plainly because a policy promising otherwise would be promising something that cannot be performed.

8. Disclosure of personal information

We disclose personal information to the service providers identified below, each of which processes it in the United States, for the limited purpose of performing services for us, and under a written contract restricting it to that purpose and prohibiting its retention, use or disclosure for any other.

• Amazon Web Services, Inc. Cloud infrastructure and the databases in which the records described in section 2 are stored.
• Telnyx LLC. Telephone numbers, voice calls, text messages, the real-time audio transport used by the assistant, and the telephone number verification path by which a code is sent by message or read on a call.
• The speech recognition, language model and speech synthesis providers operating the models behind the assistant, which receive the audio and text of a call.
• Stripe, Inc. Payment processing. Payment card details are collected by Stripe directly.
• Google LLC. Analytics in respect of busytel.com only. No call, recording, transcript or telephone number is transmitted to Google.

We also disclose personal information in the following circumstances. On a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganisation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets, information transfers with the business, and this policy continues to apply until replaced by a policy of which the individual is notified. Where required by law, by lawful process or by a governmental request, or where necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, or to protect the rights, property or safety of any person, we disclose what is required and no more.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined under California law and the comparable statutes of other states. We have not done so in the preceding twelve months, including in respect of individuals under 16.

9. Retention

We retain each category of information for the period stated below, or for longer where a longer period is required by law or is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

• Call history, comprising the recording, the transcript, the summary and any notes made on the call: up to five years from the call, irrespective of the portion of that history the Customer's plan displays.
• Records of consent: not less than four years. The federal statute governing text messages runs four years from the message rather than from the closure of an account, so this evidence must outlive the account to which it relates.
• Text messages we send or receive, including any message carrying a verification code or an invitation, and the record of each message's delivery: up to five years from the message, for the same reason.
• Records of an attempt we refused, and the technical records our telephone carrier sends us about the delivery of a call: up to ninety days from the attempt or the delivery. A decision to refuse a person, a number or an address is retained while it applies, and the record of that decision, of who made it and why, without a fixed period.
• Account and billing records: for the duration of the account and thereafter for the period required by applicable tax and accounting rules.

A request for deletion is honoured in respect of every category other than records of consent, which are retained on the basis described above. On request we will identify what was retained and why. Material contributed to a trained system is subject to section 7.4.

Deleted material may persist in backups until those backups expire on their own schedule, during which period it is isolated from further processing.

10. Your rights, and how to exercise them

10.1 Customers

• Access to the personal information we hold about you and about your calls, and a copy of it in a portable format.
• Correction of inaccurate information.
• Deletion, subject to section 9 and to information we are required to retain for tax, accounting or legal purposes.
• Withdrawal of consent to product and marketing messages, by replying STOP to such a message or by contacting us.
• Portability of your BusyTel number to another carrier, at no charge from us, on the terms set out in the Terms of Service.

10.2 Callers

If you telephoned a business that uses BusyTel, you may ask us what we hold in respect of that call and ask us to delete it, and we will do so. Because the call history belongs to the Customer's account, we may refer a request to that business where the decision is properly theirs, and we will tell you when we have done so. If you do not wish to receive any further message from that number, reply STOP to it; that instruction is honoured irrespective of the account behind the number and is not reversed by any action of the business.

10.3 State privacy rights

Depending on your state of residence, you may have the right to confirm whether we process personal information about you, to access it, to obtain a copy of it, to correct it, to delete it, to opt out of its sale, of its sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising, of targeted advertising and of profiling producing legal or similarly significant effects, to limit the use of sensitive personal information, and not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising a right.

We do not sell or share personal information, do not engage in targeted advertising or in profiling of that kind, and do not use sensitive personal information for any purpose beyond those permitted without a right to limit. There is accordingly nothing for an opt-out to act upon, and an opt-out preference signal such as Global Privacy Control has no processing here to which it applies. If that changes, we will honour such signals and amend this policy before doing so.

10.4 Making a request

Requests may be made by writing to legal@busytel.com. We will verify your identity before acting, using information already held by us where possible, and we will use anything provided for verification for that purpose alone. An authorised agent may submit a request on your behalf on production of written authority. We will respond within the period required by the applicable statute. If we decline a request, we will state the reason, and you may appeal by replying to our response; if an appeal is denied you may complain to your state attorney general.

11. Security

We maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls limiting access to recordings, transcripts and account data to personnel requiring it to operate the service, and separate authentication for the internal console through which that data is reachable.

No method of transmission or storage is entirely secure, and we do not warrant that our safeguards will not be defeated. Where a breach of security results in the unauthorised acquisition of personal information, we will investigate and contain it and will notify affected individuals and the relevant authorities to the extent and within the periods required by applicable law.

12. Children

The service is offered to businesses and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly permit an individual under 18 to hold an account, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of an individual under 16.

We do not ask, and have no means of determining, the age of a Caller. If you believe a child's personal information has been provided to us in the course of a call, write to legal@busytel.com and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may amend this policy from time to time. The date at the head of this page records when it was last amended. Where an amendment materially changes how we handle personal information, we will notify Customers directly rather than rely on publication of the amended policy, and where the law requires consent to a new use we will obtain it before making that use.

14. Contact

Privacy enquiries, requests under section 10 and legal notices should be sent to legal@busytel.com.

Support enquiries, including any question about a message received from us, should be sent to support@busytel.com, or you may reply HELP to the message.

AmiFi LLC, a California limited liability company. BusyTel is a product of AmiFi LLC.