Help Pages

Privacy

The Bodyguard, Virtual Defender, Personal Security Network relies on users to voluntarily provide extremely sensitive personal information to their chosen alliance members for the purpose of creating a security blanket at a time of potential vulnerability. Keeping that information private and accessible only by those expressly authorized by the information owner, and only while authorized, is a top priority of the Bodyguard, Virtual Defender Application.

The Bodyguard Application protects user privacy in the following important ways.

1. The Privacy Pledge.

2. Alliance Member Authorization Process.

3. Encryption of Sensitive Information.

4. Restrictions on Sharing.

5. Automatic Deletion of Expired Data.

The Privacy Pledge

It is the philosophy, the guiding principle, and the policy of the Bodyguard Application, that all data generated by the Application on user's behalf is, in effect, property of that user, notwithstanding certain restrictions, and that the user should have maximum control over that data to the extent possible. To that end, we pledge that no user generated data, or volunteered personal information, will ever be sold, or provided to a third party, for any commercial reason or purpose without prior consent of that user.

Furthermore, the Bodyguard Application does not collect, nor share any personal user information, not even in anonymous form, with any commercial entity or service.

Alliance Member Authorization Process

Each user has ultimate control over which of their chosen Alliance Members, and when, have access to the user's Bodyguard generated data.

As already discussed in other sections, selection of your Alliance Members begins when you add them to the Alliance Members group using the MANAGE CONTACTS page, accessible from the Main Menu. This process does not by itself authorize any of your contacts to access your personal information.

You explicitly authorize each of your chosen Alliance Members to access your location and the associated security media when you select them as your active Alliance Members using the ALLIANCE MEMBERS page, accessible from the Main Menu.

Authorizing an Alliance Member to view your data does not automatically grant you access to view their security data. They must also select you as their active Alliance Member before you can monitor their location and any media.

Authorizing an Alliance Member does not guarantee that they will immediately have access to your information. The following must also be true.

1. They must have an active Bodyguard account.

2. This account must be attached to the same Gmail address as specified in your contacts list.

3. They must be logged into their Bodyguard Application using this same Gmail address.

Once all these conditions have been met, your designated Alliance Members will be able to view your personal information, including any location data stored in the cloud and any real-time security media also stored in the cloud. They will not have access to any media stored locally on your device.

You can revoke an Alliance Member authorization at any time by opening the ALLIANCE MEMBERS page and deselecting that particular member from the list of active Alliance Members. When Alliance Member authorization is withdrawn using this method, your data is no longer accessible by that account, and your Status Icon turns solid gray on their device.

After you grant access to one of the members of your Personal Security Alliance Network, it is possible to send them a request to grant you access to their data. It is up to the receiver of the request to act, or not act on the request. If they choose not to grant you the requested access, you will not be able to provide them with assistance, should they need it later.

Encryption of Sensitive Information

The Bodyguard Application protects your privacy by encrypting all sensitive user information using industry standard strong encryption methods. The following user data is encrypted by the Application.

• User Account Data

  - User Name

  - Primary Email Address

  - Secondary Email Address, if given

  - Phone Number, if given

• User Financial Details

  - Credit Card Number

  - Credit Card Details

  - User Subscription Details

  - Payment Details

• Payment History

• User Location Details

• User Location History

All data is encrypted locally on the device and stays encrypted while on the network and in storage. Please refer to the Data Security Help section for more information regarding this topic.

Restrictions on Sharing

The security data generated by the Bodyguard Application is primarily for the use within the Bodyguard Security Network by members of your Personal Alliance. However, sometimes, it may be necessary to share your data with others outside the Bodyguard Security Network. To that end, sharing of audio, images, and video media, as well as location data, is easily achieved using the media sharing tools discussed in the Media and Location Help sections.

The Bodyguard Application protects your privacy by not allowing members of your security alliance network to share your personal data with other apps on their device without your express permission. Only you are able to share your own data (location and media), should you choose to do so. One exception is allowing members of your alliance to share your location information when you give them the appropriate permission. Please refer to the Settings Help section for details regarding this option.

Only your location points can be shared by others, within your security alliance, and only if and when you enable that feature. See the Settings Help section for more information regarding the "Let Others Share Your Location" General Options setting. Sharing of your security media data by others is generally not allowed (see the exception below).

Caution: One possible way for your alliance members to retrieve and share your security media is through screen shots. You must warn them directly if you object to their doing so.

Automatic Deletion of Expired Data

Expired location and security media data is automatically deleted from the cloud store on a regular basis. The regular purging of expired data provides the benefit of keeping this data off the internet when its usefulness has expired. This, in turn, adds a layer of protection that safeguards user's personal information without extra effort.

Sometimes, it may be necessary to keep certain location and/or security media data beyond their normal expiration date. For instance, this data may be key in a criminal investigation, or it may be evidence in a missing person case. In such cases, it is possible to postpone automatic data purge for a period of one week to allow for manual preservation of location data or saving of the relevant media data to local storage.

Please refer to the Settings Help section for more information regarding the "Silence Expired Location Data Alerts" and the "Silence Expired Media Data Alerts" General Options settings that can affect how you are notified of the presence of expired location and security media data.

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