Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions Updates

We have completed our revised privacy policy and terms and conditions, and we are very proud to announce that the SimplyConvert platform is compliant with the TCPA, GDPR and HIPAA. The highlights are summarized below. We invite you to contact us with any questions or comments.

Privacy Policy Overview

Starting this week, every chat session or submission on one of our embedded contact forms requires the user to manually check a box showing their consent to our privacy policy.

Here is an overview of why we now require this and what this means for your law firm:

TCPA Compliant – You can text freely.

• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires anyone who uses texts, pre-recorded voicemails, and other outreach to cell phones to obtain prior express written consent BEFORE making a call/sending a text.
• Fines for violating the TCPA act are $500 for each violation (and add up quickly for multiple offenses).
• We are VERY excited to report that we are TCPA compliant, and the details of how we achieved this are included in our Text Messaging Policy.
• We recommend that each law firm consider if other platforms/outsourced vendors used are following the same TCPA rules.
• SimplyConvert texting/auto-dialing opportunities will continue to grow.
• We see this as a significant benefit for lawyers using our platform to increase conversions and client outreach.

GDPR Compliant – Isn’t this an EU Policy?

GDPR – the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a digital privacy regulation introduced on May 25, 2018 in the EU. It was intended to standardize various privacy legislations across the EU into one set of rules and protect all web users. There are substantial fines for companies that do not comply.

Although your intended audience is strictly U.S. legal consumers (as is ours), this law has been written very broadly to cover any business that may have a web presence that could be accessible to an EU citizen (i.e, anyone on the world wide web). There is no way for any U.S. law firm to prevent an EU citizen from leaving a message or information on a contact form or chatting with their bot or live chat, so we believe that, for now, we all must comply with this law. Most U.S. businesses do not comply.

Our privacy policy digs deeper into the details of what we did to ensure we comply, including consent, the right to opt-out, the right to access data, the right to be forgotten, and steps taken to keep data safe. It is important that you read through this information so you are aware of any of these actions taken by users.

HIPAA Compliant

SimplyConvert makes reasonable efforts to collect only the minimum necessary information to achieve our purpose: provide instant legal guidance.

That said, under the HIPAA requirements, some of the information we collect may be considered Protected Health Information (PHI). For that reason, we take the protection of that data very seriously through the following steps so that we may remain in compliance with the requirements of HIPAA: 

• We do not allow the uploading of medical files/documents.
• Our platform is hosted by a U.S. data center.
• Lawyers own their “user” information. SimplyConvert will never disclose that information.
• User transcripts are housed on a protected server and cannot be downloaded by any user for further distribution.
• SimplyConvert allows for texting but never sends PHI via text/SMS.
• SimplyConvert uses a cloud-based communication called Twillio to assist with SMS. They follow similar protocols to meet HIPPA requirements.
• SimplyConvert uses a cloud-based electronic contract program called PandaDoc. They follow similar protocols to meet HIPPA requirements.

Compliance with this policy applies only to our platform

• The SimplyConvert privacy policy applies only where you see a direct link to the privacy policy.
• We make no assurances of compliance for any outreach done by your firm outside of the SimplyConvert platform.
• We make no assurances of compliance with these policies by any integrations you use with our platform.
• We make no assurance of compliance by any outside vendors that assist you with intakes, advertising, or legal marketing.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Please review the terms and conditions for utilizing the SimplyConvert platform at your earliest convenience.