Hello VPN Privacy Policy

Appwise O.Ü. (“Hello VPN”, “HelloVPN”, “你好 VPN” , “Hej VPN”, “Hallo VPN”, “Hei VPN”, “Bonjour VPN”, “Hallo VPN”, “Χαίρετε VPN”, “Halo VPN”, “Ciao VPN”, “こんにちは VPN”, “여보세요 VPN”, “Olá VPN”, “привет VPN”, “Hola VPN”, “Hallå VPN”, “สวัสดี VPN”, “Xin chào VPN”, “we”, “our”, or “us”)  is committed to protecting your privacy. We want you to understand what information we collect, what we don’t collect, and how we collect, use, and store information. Hello VPN does not collect your name, email address and personal information.We do not collect logs of your activity, including no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries. We also never store logs of your IP address. Our guiding principle towards data collection is to only collect the minimal data required to operate a world-class VPN service at scale. We designed our systems to not have sensitive data about our customers; even when compelled we cannot provide data that we do not possess. This privacy policy will help you understand how Hello VPN collects, uses, and stores information.

General Information

We collect three types of information:

(i)VPN connection summary statistics

Hello VPN collects minimal information about usage In order to maintain excellent customer support and quality of service. The section below describes in detail what specific information we collect. These statistics never include anything about what the user did with the VPN: no data about the contents or destinations of VPN traffic, no DNS queries, and no IP addresses.

(ii) Apple App Store Purchase Information

We offer in-app purchases for our premium service and we keep the purchase information received from Apple for provision of our world class premium service.

(iii) In-app Analytics Data

We collect data such as which pages the user clicks on the app and the operating system of the user. 

(iv) Other

We collect our customer’s unique id, session id, user type (premium or free), the server ip that the user connects, the input & output data counting (only counting not recording - by 5 minutes interval), timestamp of data counting, connection termination cause, internal ip address of the server that the user connects, the internal ip address of the user’s  connection which is assigned by the server automatically and the user’s purchase information provided by Apple Inc.

 

Personal Information

Hello VPN does not collect your name, email address and personal information. If you wish to initiate an email or Intercom chat for support purposes or other queries, it is up to you to provide your email. If you do so, we will not keep it our database, or sell it to third parties, it will be used for support purposes only.

VPN Connection Summary Statistics

We ensure that we never log browsing history, traffic destination, data content, IP addresses, or DNS queries. Therefore: We do not know which user ever accessed a particular website or service. We do not know the set of original IP addresses of a user’s computer. Should anyone try to compel Hello VPN to release user information based on any of the above, we cannot supply this information because the data don’t exist. In order to maintain excellent customer support and quality of service, Hello VPN collects the following information related to your VPN usage:

Username and Session ID

We store a unique computer generated user id and generate session ids under this user id. This user id allows for complete anonymity while ensuring a successful connection.

User Type & Connection

We store the user type for provision of a premium service for our users. We collect information about whether you have successfully established a VPN, to which VPN location and server IP(but not your assigned outgoing IP address). This minimal information assists us in providing technical support, such as identifying connection problems and to enable Hello VPN engineers to identify and fix network issues. Input and output of data transferred (in MB) is recorded in 5 minute intervals with timestamps. We collect information regarding the total sum of data transfer you consume. Although we provide unlimited data transfer, if we notice that a single user pushes more traffic than thousands of users combined, thereby affecting the quality of service for other Hello VPN users, we may terminate membership. Also, internal IP address of the VPN server that you connect is logged for technical support purposes.

Summary

We collect minimal usage statistics to maintain our quality of service. We may know, for example, that our customer had connected to our London VPN location on Tuesday and had transferred an aggregate of 823 MB of data across a 24-hour period. Our customer can’t be uniquely identified as responsible for any specific behavior because his usage pattern overlaps with thousands of other Hello VPN customers who also connected to the same location on the same day. We’ve engineered our systems to categorically eliminate storage of sensitive data. We may know THAT a customer has used Hello VPN, but we never know HOW they have utilized our service. We stand by our firm commitment to our customers’ privacy by not possessing any data related to a user’s online activities.

Anonymous VPN Connection Diagnostics and Crash Reports (Can be turned off by the user)

We collect anonymized analytics data used for network diagnostics upon installation of the app. We use these data in our network operations tools to help optimize network speeds and to let us identify problems related to specific apps, VPN servers, or ISPs. The information we receive is fully anonymized and cannot be tied back to individual Hello VPN users (i.e. we don’t store which user sent which data, and do not store IP addresses). If you opt in to share this information with Hello VPN, we will collect the following information: Diagnostic information about how a VPN connection attempt failed. Speed test data Crash reports, also without any personally identifiable information. Depending on your platform, these are sent to these third parties: iOS: Crashlytics (owned by Google). See Crashlytics’s Privacy Policy. iOS: Apple. See Apple’s Privacy Policy. iOS shares these data by default. You can disable that in iOS settings as described here. iOS: Firebase. See Firebase’s Terms of Service. iOS: Amplitude. See Amplitude’s Terms of Service. Upon activation of any Hello VPN app, you will be asked if you would like to share these data.

Jurisdiction and Applicable Law

Hello VPN’s core mission is to keep your information private. In service of this mission, Hello VPN’s headquarters and registered place of business is in the The Republic of Estonia (Estonia), which has stricter laws concerning information disclosure than most countries. Should we receive a valid legal order from the Estonia High Court, it is important to note that Hello VPN does not collect any IP addresses, browsing history, traffic data, or DNS queries that could be used to identify any specific user.

Storing of Information Related to Email, Live Chat, and Feedback Forms

Hello VPN keeps records of any correspondence, questions, complaints, or compliments you submit to us through our Site or Services, along with our response. Depending on how you contact Hello VPN, we may collect your email address and any additional information you provide to us. Having full correspondence records enables our staff to provide the best possible customer support experience. We use a third-party platform for support correspondence: Intercom for emails, support tickets and live chat. When you correspond with us using these platforms, your correspondence records, including your name and email address, are stored in their systems. Both platforms utilize modern security practices and HTTPS encryption.

Security

Measures to Protect Your Information

Hello VPN uses best-in-class physical, procedural, and technical security with respect to our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of information. Access to user information is restricted to staff who require such access to perform their job functions. While we believe these systems are robust, it is important to understand that no data security measures in the world can offer 100% protection. Servers are housed in data centers with strong security practices. None of these data centers require us to collect or store any traffic data or personal information related to your use of VPN Services. If any data center were to ask us to log such data, we would immediately cease operations with said data center and find alternative options. Even if a government were to physically seize one of our VPN servers and manage to break their disk encryption, there would be no logs or information that would tie any individual user to a particular event, website, or behavior.

Cookies

Hello VPN does not collect cookies.

Consent and Age Restrictions

By using the Site, Content, Apps, Software, or Services, you agree to have your information handled as described in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The Services are intended for adults aged 18 and above. If you believe your child has provided information to us, please let us know immediately. Changes to the Privacy Policy We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, without prior notice to you, consistent with applicable privacy laws and principles. Your continued use of the Site or Services constitutes your acceptance of our Privacy Policy.

How to Contact Hello VPN

If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy and how we handle your information, please feel free to contact Hello VPN via the live support section in the app.