Zapr’s ‘privacy by design’ policy

Being one of the world’s largest offline media consumption repository, Zapr understands and embraces the responsibility of using and analyzing data collected from millions of smartphone users across the Zapr user-base.

We firmly believe in the philosophy of ‘privacy by design’ and have upheld this from conception to execution, keeping user privacy protection at our very core. With this policy, we intend to answer all your concerns on our philosophy of privacy and you can always reach out to us for any further queries.

What is Zapr technology?

Zapr is a media-tech startup, that leverages proprietary audio-content-recognition (ACR) technology built across digital signal processing, big-data analytics and mobile ad-tech, to analyze offline media consumption. Think of us as the ‘Shazam’ for all media – live TV, music, radio, movies-in-theater etc.

However instead of having a separate user-facing app, our technology is packaged into an analytics Software Development Kit (SDK) and integrated into numerous apps, through partnerships with dozens of app publishers.

Once our partner app is updated with our tech, the users are asked to share microphone access with the app, in order for the app to identify and analyze offline media consumption. The users are explicitly informed of the same, and they can choose whether or not they wish to share their media data with the app.

Having taken mic permission, does Zapr listen or record audio conversations?

We’d like to be really clear here. It is literally impossible for Zapr’s technology to listen in or record any conversations. Today, there are a lot of voice-recognition technologies that we interact with – Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant etc. However, the tech that powers Zapr – audio fingerprinting – is starkly different from these, and is in fact similar to music-detecting services like Shazam, Soundhound etc. Alexa actually needs to ‘listen’ to you to understand how to respond. Zapr does not.

Zapr’s tech converts actual ambient audio into a tiny digital file, called a fingerprint, in real-time. This is a critical point, because it means that at no point in time, ever, is any audio actually saved on the phone or sent to any server. Moreover, the fingerprint itself contains less than 0.1% information from the actual audio, and therefore it is technologically impossible to replicate audio from it.

Finally, these fingerprints are sent to our servers for analysis, where we run them against pattern recognition algorithms against original media content – TV shows, movies, songs etc. to see if there is any match. And that’s it.

On the server, if the fingerprint doesn’t match anything, because perhaps there was no media playing around, then the fingerprint is discarded because it’s useless. If the fingerprint does match something, for e.g. the IPL match, then we attribute that cricket match to the advertiser ID of the phone. And then delete the fingerprint after sometime.

What do we know about you and how do we collect this information?

At Zapr, we hold ourselves to an incredibly high standard when it comes to the privacy of our users. So to start with, we don’t even know who our users are. We capture no Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about any of our users – no names, phone numbers, email addresses etc. The only ID we link to our user, is the anonymized advertiser ID (this is a non-permanent ID provided by Android and iOS to each device). The only data that our tech is capturing through our partner apps, are the TV shows, movies, songs etc. airing offline around the phone. Apart from media consumption data, linked to an anonymized ID, we also get the following basic Android data points such as – device model type, location (if the partner app has permission for it) and telecom operator, etc.

How important is your permission to us?
Zapr collects user data only after obtaining every user’s informed consent. We collect data only after you have granted us permission. At Zapr, we ensure that no user remains uninformed of what data we access, how we access this and what we do with the information. Zapr SDK is integrated as a third-party SDK with 50+ mobile applications which seek permission to access your microphone and location:
Zapr seeks audio access permission
Zapr seeks audio access permission
If we change our policies, you will be the first to know.
Who integrates with Zapr?
Why is it useful for them and you?
Zapr is integrated with a host of publishers across – gaming, news publications, video streaming, and basic utilities categories. Integrating with Zapr SDK is beneficial for app developers to boost monetization, and therefore it is also beneficial for our users as they get to receive more relevant ads, see fewer ads, and have a better app experience. And with some of our app partners we are pushing the boundaries, going beyond the world of ads, and are directly building cool user-centric features, like music detection, AI driven content recommendations etc.
Mobile app monetization by advertisements given by Zapr
Lesser, but more relevant ads
Cool phone features – Content Recommendation and Music Detection
Here’s how we collect your user information
Information we collect from website:
We collect your information using embedded cookies, beacons, tags and scripts
Zapr website makes use of cookies, beacons, tags and scripts on certain pages. This helps us analyze our web page flow, measure promotional effectiveness, and promote trust and safety. We always have an option for you to disable these cookies, but this might limit your use of certain features and functions on our website and services.
Zapr-partnered third parties use cookies to analyze your activities
To display advertisements on our website or on any other site, we partner with third parties who may use technologies such as cookies to analyze your activities on the website or any other site. This helps them understand your interests and promote advertisements that are favourable to you. You can opt out of this by clicking here, but you will still receive generic advertisements that you may not find relevant.
Zapr tracks data about your devices
We automatically receive and track certain data about your mobile device (such as your device-type, device ID, installed software and language preference) or desktop interface, your taps and interests. We may also create a unique device or user ID for you so that we can recognize you.
Collects IP address and information on the page you visited
The social media features and widgets on our website may collect your IP address, information on the page you visit on the website and set a cookie so that the feature functions properly. These social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or directly on our website. Your interaction with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Information you give us
Zapr receives account user information
We receive your user account information, including anything you have used to create your user account on our website. We also get your contact information you submit when you request information about our services or subscribe to our mailing list.
Zapr receives your location once you provide us access
In some cases, when you have consented to sharing your location data with one of our partner mobile apps, we can automatically detect or infer your location using GPS or your IP address. You may opt-out of location based services at any time by emailing us at privacy@zapr.in.
How secure is your information?

Our stringent security measures (physical, electronic and managerial) protect against loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.

Our data is secure – all our servers are hosted on AWS that conform to ISO 27001, 27017, 27018 standards. We also ensure adequate data encryption at the time of data collection to render the information collected as undecipherable.

The audio fingerprints we collect remain in the same format. The fingerprints are NOT reverse engineerable and are sent to Zapr servers securely. Our precise algorithm ensures that only unique aspects are captures and the remaining data is immediately discarded.

We never analyze your audio for speech, language or keywords.

Who has access to your user information?

Only authorized personnel have access to the website’s and integrated app’s servers. Your user information will be shared with them only on requirement basis.

We have third party associations, including advertisers and partners and we share your information with them only on an aggregate level to understand your TV viewership patterns. We share your ad IDs to provide you relevant ads on mobiles.

We may also share your data with some companies who advertise through our apps and may require you to provide your personal data. Any third parties’ use of your personal data is governed by their own privacy policy. To learn more about behavioral advertising or to opt-out of

some types of behavioral advertising for participating ad networks, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative (http://www.net- workadvertising.org/choices/) or the Digital Advertising Alliance(http://www.aboutads.in- fo/choices/).

Zapr has also partnered with the industry’s best research bodies such as Nielsen and Kantar Millward Brown to enhance our partnered research offerings to our clients. You will always know when you are a part of a survey and the response you share is always kept anonymous. The user information data which you might choose to share as a part of a survey is shared at an anonymous, aggregate level and never at an individual level that is personally identifiable.

How is your user information data used?
The media consumption data we obtain from our users is used to send across specific brand content or surveys, such as-

For demographic, behavioral, and geographic ad-targeting or to provide you with specific, localized services. For example, a sports gear brand can reach all IPL viewers, no matter which part of the country they are in.

Analyse your TV viewership patterns and interests, and share aggregate data at a city/state/national level with the media & advertising industry, to identify trends and consumption patterns. For example, out of 100 people who watch IPL, we can identify those who also watch English Premier League for insights on ‘sports’ audiences.

Conduct surveys that help understand the impact of a TV show, channel or the effectiveness of a brand TV Commercial. For example, out of every 100 people exposed to a new car commercial on TV, we can identify the number of people who can recall the same commercial.

Do we collect data from children?
We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under the age of 13 and we do not direct any of our products or services at this age group. If we become aware that we have inadvertently captured any personal data about a person who is under 13 years of age, then we will take the appropriate steps to shut down the account of that person.
General Data Protection Regulation
Zapr helps publishers to be compliant with GDPR by not collecting, sharing or storing any data
from smartphone users located in any country falling within the European Union.

Zapr has deleted ALL historical user data of EU users from all SDK versions integrated with publishers.

EU users are detected by SIM country API and/or IP address. Zapr does not collect or store any data of these users.

Publishers are recommended to upgrade to the latest Zapr SDK version 3.2.0 so that they can proactively stop the SDK from running on the devices of EU users, and ensure that Zapr cannot collect or store any user data.

Still not convinced?
No worries. Just opt-out from Zapr. Let us show you how:
Enter your device Advertiser ID in the input box below, or email us the details at optout@zapr.in. You can locate your Advertiser ID on Android devices by going to Settings > General > Google Services > Ads.
You may also use your Android device settings to “opt out of interest based ads”, and we will stop any targeted ads delivery to your mobile device.
For information on user access and choice and any other privacy concerns, you can reach out to us on privacy@zapr.in