Privacy Policy
NOVALISTIC is the online home of Daniel Tan (that's me!). It also serves as a brand name under which I publish my own software. Both this site (hereinafter "NOVALISTIC.com" or "my site") and the software I publish may collect and use some of your information to personalize your experience.
Having said that, I care as much about your privacy as you do. To that end, I've written up the following privacy policy outlining what sort of information is collected, what happens to that information, and how you can change it or remove it altogether if it's stored somewhere.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding my privacy policy, please don't hesitate to reach out and I'll do my best to clear things up for you.
NOVALISTIC.com website
You can contact me through my site in a number of ways, including via my contact form and via comments on my blog posts. You will be asked for your name and email address so I know who you are. You are not required to provide your real name — feel free to use your online pseudonym; I do the same on other sites sometimes!
When using my contact form, your name and email address are not stored in a database after your message has been sent to me. Your message will be delivered to my email server so I can read it and reply to you.
When leaving comments on my blog, your name, email address and IP address are stored both in a cookie and along with the comment itself in the comment database. This allows the system to recognize you so your future comments won't be put in a moderation queue.
However, because comments on my blog are guest-posted and there is no account registration system, you won't be able to edit or remove them yourself after the fact. I'll be happy to help — just let me know through my contact form with links to the comments you want revised or removed (or all of them if you prefer). You can also request an export of your personal data.
NOVALISTIC.com employs Google Analytics, which stores and reads cookies, and collects information about your browser, your device and your geographic location so I can learn what my visitors are using to access my site and where they come from. This information can't be used to personally identify you, but it can give me an idea of the audience I'm reaching and help me improve my site. To learn more, see How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps.
Software
Software applications (or "apps") that I publish on the Windows Store may:
Store your content, documents, and settings on your device and, depending on the nature of the content, sync them to your other devices via your Microsoft account for a consistent and seamless experience on all your devices.
Be included in automatic device backups to your OneDrive, which you can turn off in Settings.
Periodically send usage data as well as crash reports, which I can use to learn how people are using my apps as well as to diagnose and fix problems. These are transmitted over the network via Microsoft's servers. Usage data and crash reports may include some personal information. However, I will never use any of the personal information that's sent to track you down or contact you, and I will never share it with anyone else.
When you uninstall an app from a device, app data stored locally on that device is immediately deleted and you can't get it back even if you reinstall. However, documents that you've saved in places such as your hard drive, SD card and cloud storage are left intact and you retain full control over them.
Further details specific to each app are outlined below.
Emergency Chat for Windows
Emergency Chat is assistive software that helps people communicate via text when they lose their ability to speak. It's available for iOS, Android, and Windows, but as only the Windows version is developed and maintained by NOVALISTIC, this privacy policy covers only the Windows version. This section of the privacy policy will eventually be relocated to the app's website, which can be found at http://emergencychat.com, at which point the app will be updated with the new link.
The app makes use of splash screens, which contain a description that you fill in to inform the reader about your situation and how they should respond. This information is entirely free-form and it's up to you how much or how little you want to share. All splash screens and chat conversations are recorded on your device itself and your messages are not delivered over a network. This is not an online messaging app! The only time they are ever transmitted over the network is as part of device backups to your OneDrive (if enabled). In particular, they aren't included in the usage data that's sent to me via Microsoft. Also, unlike most other apps, Emergency Chat settings do not sync across your devices.
Emergency Chat currently does not send any usage data, though it may do so in a future version, at which point this privacy policy will be updated accordingly; however it will send crash reports in the (hopefully rare) event that a crash should occur.