Privacy Statement

Who we are

TrueStyleAI Limited runs the TrueStyleAI application, which barbershops use to help customers choose a haircut and to organise the shop's work. In this statement, "we" means TrueStyleAI Limited, and "you" means anyone using the application, whether you are a customer, a barber or a shop administrator. We are responsible under the Privacy Act 2020 for the personal information the application holds. Your barbershop is responsible for its own use of your information, which we explain where it is relevant below.

What we collect and why

If you are a customer:

• your name, email address, phone number, login details and year of birth, which we use to set up your account, take your booking and send you notifications, and to check you are 18 or over;
• any style preferences you enter yourself, which are optional and which we never work out from your photo;
• your photographs and the preview generated from them;
• your booking history, being the style and service you chose, the cut instructions and your appointment reference, so your barber can do the job and you can repeat a style you liked; and
• your after-service photo, if you or your barber saves one with your consent.

If you are a barber:

• your name, contact details, role, shop, services, availability, profile photo and login details, which we use to set up your account and run your daily job list.

If you are a shop administrator:

• your business and trading name, address, contact person, contact details, services and prices, and your QR code and session settings, which we use to set the shop up, manage staff and build the style menu; and
• your subscription payments, which are handled by a payment provider, with no card details stored in the application.

From everyone:

• your device type, app version and IP address, which we use to run the application and keep it secure;
• logs of access, consents and provider requests, which are our audit trail and hold no photographs; and
• the contact details and content of the notifications, reminders and one-time passcodes we send you.

Your photographs and the AI preview

Using the TrueStyleAI application is your choice. You can book and be served without it, and nothing about your service changes if you decide not to use it.

If you use it, we work out the general shape of your face and the characteristics of your hair from your photograph, and use that to suggest styles you can take or ignore. Your photograph and the style you choose then go to Google's Gemini service, which generates a picture of you wearing that style, changing only your hair and grooming.

We do not use facial recognition. We do not use your face to log you in, and we do not create, store or compare a faceprint, a face template or any other biometric identifier. We never compare your face against anyone else's, against a database or against a portfolio of past work, and we do not work out your ethnicity, age, sex, health, mood or emotions from your photograph.

Your barber sees your photographs. When you book or join a barber's queue with a chosen style, your barber receives your original photograph and your preview, along with the style, the service, the cut instructions and your booking reference, so that they can give you the cut you asked for. They may use these only to do your haircut, and may not keep them afterwards, copy them or use them for anything else.

Sharing your before and after photos publicly

Your barbershop may ask to use your before-and-after photos publicly, for example on its social media. This is entirely optional: you do not have to agree in order to book or be served, and you can withdraw at any time by contacting your Barbershop. The agreement to publish is given to your barbershop rather than to us, and the shop is responsible for what it publishes. Once something is published it may not be possible to recall every copy, so please consider that before agreeing.

Who else sees your information, and where it goes

We use a small number of specialist providers to run the application, covering cloud hosting and storage, login and account security, email and text messaging, and payment processing. They hold information only to do that job for us, act on our instructions, and may not use it for their own purposes. The application's data, including your photographs, is stored in Australia rather than in New Zealand. If you would like to know which providers we use, contact us and we will tell you.

To create your preview, your photograph is sent to Google's Gemini service, which generates the preview and returns it to us. Google runs this service across a number of countries, and we are not able to tell you which one your photograph is processed in.

Apart from these providers and your own barbershop, we do not sell, rent or give your personal information to anyone else, unless the law requires it or someone's safety is at risk.

How long we keep it

We keep your information only for as long as we need it. A photograph rejected at the quality check is deleted immediately, and your photographs and preview are deleted after your session unless you go ahead with a booking, in which case they stay in your visit history so you can find a style again later. Anything you save yourself, such as an after-service photo, stays until you remove it or close your account. Accounts and their booking history are deleted when the account is closed, or after a long period of inactivity. Records held by our hosting and messaging providers, including backups, are kept for short set periods and then deleted. When we delete something we delete it from our live systems and from our backups, and you can ask us at any time how long we keep a particular kind of information.

Keeping your information safe

Your photographs and previews are encrypted while being sent and while stored, and access is controlled by role, so you see your own information, a barber sees only the jobs assigned to them, and an administrator sees only their own shop. Our support staff cannot browse customer photos, and access to image data needs approval, is time-limited, is recorded with the reason for it and is reviewed.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of any information we hold about you, including your photographs, previews and the details we worked out from your photo, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it or close your account, or withdraw your agreement to public sharing, and we will respond within 20 working days. Most account details you can edit yourself, and where the details we worked out from your photo are wrong, the simplest fix is usually to take a new photo and run the preview again.

Contact us and how to complain

Our Privacy Officer is Sowmya Jayasankar, at [email protected], +64223403506. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information or your request, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz, [email protected] or 0800 803 909.

Changes to this statement

We will update this statement when the application changes, and where a change materially affects how we handle your photographs we will tell you before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this version came into force.