Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 28-08-2023

Thank you for visiting Mereka Connect!

Mereka Connect (“we,” “us,” or “Mereka Connect”) is committed to comply with Personal Data Protection Act 2010 and be transparent about how we manage, protect and process personal information that we collect through Mereka Connect and your choices and rights to privacy.

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) will inform you how we do with personal information that we collect and use for our own purposes, such as your account information and information about how you use and interact with Mereka Connect. Personal information refers to information about you that can be used to contact or individually identify you.

By using Mereka Connect and any Hub Services on the platform, you confirm you have read, understood and agreed to this Policy and all the other policies and agreements under the Terms of Service. We trust that you will make an informed decision whether to provide us with any of your personal information.

1. Definitions

For the purpose of understanding this policy, undefined terms in this Privacy Policy have the same definition as in our Terms of Service (“Terms”).

2. Personal Information We Collect

2.1 Information needed to use Mereka Connect

We collect various personal information regarding you during the course of your use of Mereka Connect and register as a User or Hub. These are essential for us to provide you with all services requested. This information includes, but is not limited to:

Contact Information, Account, Profile Information.⠀Such as your first name, last name, email address, and phone number. In situations where you add an Account type as a Hub or an Expert to your Mereka Connect Account, we may also collect business-related information such as the company’s name, date of incorporation, company registration number, etc.
Payment, Transaction Information.⠀Such as your payment card details, country of issuance, expiration date of the payment card or billing information that you use for any transactions on Mereka Connect will also be processed by our third-party payment processor and are subject to their privacy policies.
Products, Services Information.⠀Such as details of the Hub Services that you list, time, date, location, etc.

2.2 Information you voluntarily disclose

You are responsible for additional personal information that you choose to provide us. Any personal information that you voluntarily disclose that is publicly available can be collected and used by other accounts for any reason. Your profile pages (“Profile”) are typically publicly available. You may control, revise and review what type of Profile information is shown to others through your settings. This information includes, but is not limited to:

Additional Profile Information. Such as your interests, achievements, memberships, portfolios, education background, employment history, profile picture, skills, city or area, language(s), and personal description.
Marketing and Communication Information. Such as your participation in our promotions, initiatives, surveys, community forums, and any communication on Mereka Connect with other accounts; interaction with our representative or help desk via email or other communication methods. This may include health information if you choose to share it with us.

2.3 Information Automatically Collected by Using Mereka Connect

When you use Mereka Connect, we automatically collect personal information. This information may include:

Usage Information.⠀Such as your browsing behavior, searches for any Hub Services listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on Mereka Connect.
Log Data and Device Information.⠀Such as details about how you’ve used Mereka Connect (including if you clicked on links to third-party applications), IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, crash data, cookie data, and the web pages you’ve visited prior or after using Mereka Connect. We may collect this information even if you haven’t created a Mereka Connect account or logged in.
Cookies and Similar Technologies.⠀We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our Services, and to analyze traffic patterns on the Services. The Services also use cookies and similar technologies such as pixel tags, web beacons, clear GIFs, and JavaScript (collectively, “Cookies”) to enable our servers to recognize your web browser and tell us how and when you visit and use our Site and Services, to analyze trends, learn about our end user base and operate and improve our Services. For example, we use Cookies to deliver content specific to your interests, to save your password so you don’t have to re-enter it each time you visit, and to track whether emails we send you have been viewed. Cookies are small files – usually consisting of letters and numbers – placed on your computer, tablet, phone, or similar device when you use that device to visit our Site. We sometimes combine information collected through Cookies that is not Personal Information with Personal Information that we have about you, for example, to tell us who you are or whether you have an account with us. We may also supplement the information we collect from you with information received from third parties.

Cookies can either be “session Cookies” or “persistent Cookies”. Session Cookies are temporary Cookies that are stored on your device while you are visiting our Site or using our Services, whereas “persistent Cookies” are stored on your device for a period of time after you leave our Site or Services. The length of time a persistent Cookie stays on your device varies from Cookie to Cookie. We use persistent Cookies to store your preferences so that they are available for the next visit, and to keep a more accurate account of how often you visit our Services, how often you return, and how your use of the Services may vary over time. We also use persistent Cookies to measure the effectiveness of advertising efforts. Through these Cookies, we may collect information about your online activity after you leave our Services. Your browser may offer you a “Do Not Track” or “DNT” option, which allows you to signal to operators of websites, and web applications, and services that you do not wish such operators to track certain of your online activities over time and across different websites. Because we collect browsing and persistent identifier data, the Services do not support Do Not Track requests at this time, which means that we may collect information about your online activity both while you are using the Services and after you leave our properties.

Some Cookies are placed by a third party on your device and may provide information to us and third parties about your browsing habits (such as your visits to our Site or Services, the pages you have visited and the links and advertisements you have clicked). These Cookies can be used to determine whether certain third-party services are being used, to identify your interests, to retarget advertisements to you and to serve advertisements to you that we or others believe are relevant to you. We do not control third-party Cookies.

We use the following types of Cookies:

Essential Cookies.⠀Essential Cookies are required for providing you with features or services that you have requested. For example, certain Cookies enable you to log into secure areas of our Site or Services. Disabling these Cookies may make certain features and services unavailable.
Functionality Cookies.⠀Functional Cookies are used to record your choices and settings regarding our Services, maintain your preferences over time and recognize you when you return to our Services. These Cookies help us to personalize our content for you, greet you by name, and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
Performance/Analytical Cookies.⠀Performance/Analytical Cookies allow us to understand how visitors use our Site and Services such as by collecting information about the daily number of visitors to the Services, the daily requests we receive for particular files on the Services, and what geographical areas those requests come from. These aggregated statistics are used internally to better provide services to the public and may also be provided to others. Performance/Analytical Cookies also help us measure the performance of our advertising campaigns in order to help us improve our campaigns and the Services’ content for those who engage with our advertising. For example, Google, Inc. (“Google”) uses cookies in connection with its Google Analytics services. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to the Services is subject to the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You have the option to opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page at https://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html or the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
Retargeting/Advertising Cookies.⠀Retargeting/Advertising Cookies collect data about your online activity and identify your interests so that we can provide advertising that we believe is relevant to you. For more information about this, please see the section below titled “Third-Party Advertising”.

You can decide whether or not to accept Cookies. One way you can do this is through your internet browser’s settings. Most browsers have an option for turning off the Cookie feature, which will prevent your browser from accepting new Cookies, as well as (depending on the sophistication of your browser software) allow you to decide on acceptance of each new Cookie in a variety of ways. You can also delete all Cookies that are already on your computer. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some Services and functionalities may not work.

To explore what Cookie settings are available to you, look in the “preferences” or “options” section of your browser’s menu. To find out more information about Cookies, including information about how to manage and delete Cookies, please visit https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/ or http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

2.4 Personal Information We Collect from Third Parties

We collect personal information from other sources, such as:

Third-Party Services.⠀If you link, connect, or log in to Mereka Connect with a third-party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple), you direct the service to send us information such as your registration and profile information as controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service. This also includes situations when you make payments using our payment processor. Currently, our payment processor is Stripe. Stripe uses and processes your complete payment information in accordance with Stripe’s privacy policy.

3. How We Use Information We Collect

3.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop Mereka Connect

We use personal information to:

enable you to access Mereka Connect and make and receive payments,
enable you to communicate with our representative, help desk, and other accounts,
perform statistical analytics, debug and conduct research,
provide you with supporting services and functions related to your account,
enable you to receive messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications, and
personalize and improve your experience based on your interactions with Mereka Connect, your search and booking history, your profile information and preferences, and other information you submit.

3.2 Create and Maintain a Trusted and Safer Environment

We use personal information to:

detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security and safety incidents, and other harmful activity,
study and combat discrimination
conduct security investigations, risk assessments, and other internal risk controls
verify or authenticate information provided by you and your business
comply with our legal obligations, protect the health and well-being of our Users, Hubs, Hubs’ employees and Users of the public,
resolve disputes with our Users,
enforce our agreements with third parties,
comply with the law, respond to legal requests, prevent harm and protect our rights (see section 4.5), and
enforce our Terms and other policies.

3.3 Provide, Personalize, Measure, and Improve our Advertising and Marketing

We may use personal information to:

send you marketing communications in relation to Mereka Connect’s promotions, marketing, advertising, and other information
curate, measure, and improve our advertising,
analyze characteristics and preferences to deliver you promotional messages, marketing, advertising and other information that we think might be of interest to you, and
invite you to events and relevant opportunities.

You have the right to withdraw your consent for marketing and promotional email communications at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link.

4. Your Rights

You can exercise any of the rights described in this section consistent with applicable law. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity and request before taking further action on your request.

4.1 Managing Your Information

You can access, correct and update some of your personal information through your Account settings. If you connected your Mereka Connect Account to a third-party service, like Facebook or Google, you can change your settings and unlink from that service in your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up to date.

4.2 Data Access and Portability

In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request certain copies of your personal information or information about how we handle your personal information, request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and/or request that we transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).

4.3 Data Erasure

In certain jurisdictions, you can request that your personal information be deleted. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:

We may retain your personal information as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as prevention of money laundering, fraud detection and prevention, and enhancing safety. For example, if we suspend a Mereka Connect Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain information from that Mereka Connect Account to prevent that User from opening a new Mereka Connect Account in the future.
We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, Mereka Connect may keep information for tax, legal reporting and auditing obligations.
Information you have shared with others (e.g., Reviews, forum postings) will continue to be publicly visible on Mereka Connect, even after your Mereka Connect Account is canceled. However, attribution of such information to you will be removed. Some copies of your information (e.g., log records) will remain in our database, but are disassociated from personal identifiers.

Because we take measures to protect data from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, residual copies of your personal information may not be removed from our backup systems for a limited period of time.

Where you provide consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when authorizing a third-party application or website to access your Mereka Connect account or participating in promotional activities by Mereka Connect partners or third parties.

Though we employ strict measures to protect user privacy, we may need to disclose certain personal information about you, such as your email address, de-identify it, and share it with social media platforms, to generate leads, drive traffic to Mereka Connect or otherwise promote our products and services.

You have the right to withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data. If you wish to do so, please email our team at team@mereka.io.

To help facilitate bookings or other interactions between Users, we may need to share certain information such as:

When a booking request is made or dispute is submitted, certain information may be shared between User(s) and Hub(s), including profile, email address, name, names of any additional Users, cancellation history, review information, age of user (unless prohibited by applicable law), dispute outcome (when applicable) and other information you choose to share and submit. When a booking is confirmed, additional information is shared to assist with coordinating the booking, like profile photo and phone number. When you as a Hub have a confirmed booking, certain information is shared with the User (and the additional Guests they invite, if applicable) to coordinate the booking, such as your profile, full name, phone number, and Hub service address.
When you as a User invite additional Guests to a booking, your full name, Hubs name, Hub service details, the Hub service address, and other related information will be shared with each additional Guest.

5.3 Information You Publish in Profiles, Experiences, and Other Public Information

You can make certain information publicly visible to others, such as:

Your public profile page, which includes your profile photo, first name, description, education background, employment history, interests and city.
Experience pages that include but are not limited to information such as the Experience’s approximate or precise location description, calendar availability, profile photo, aggregated demand information, and any additional information you choose to share.
Reviews, ratings and other public feedback.
Content in a community or discussion forum, blog or social media post.

We may display parts of your public profile and other Content you make available to the public like Experience details on third-party sites, platforms and apps.

Information you share publicly on Mereka Connect may be accessed and browsed through third-party search engines.

5.4 Hubs Service Providers

Hubs may use third-party services to help manage or deliver their services. Hubs may use features on Mereka Connect to share information about the User with such third-party service providers.

5.5 Conforming with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm and Protecting Our Rights

We may unveil your information to courts, law enforcement, legislative or public authorities, tax authorities, or authorized and approved third parties, if and to the degree we are required or allowed to do so by law or when we have a good faith belief that such action is sensibly essential:

(i) to conform with our legal obligations,
(ii) to comply with a valid legal request or to respond to claims asserted against Mereka Connect,
(iii) to respond to a valid legal request relating to a criminal investigation to address alleged or suspected illegal activity, or to respond to or address any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal or regulatory liability,
(iv) to enforce and administer our agreements with Users, or
(v) to protect the rights, property or individual wellbeing of Mereka Connect, its employees, its Users, or Users of the public. For instance, if permitted due to the forgoing circumstances, Hubs tax information may be shared with tax authorities or other governmental agencies.

Where appropriate, we may notify Users about legal requests unless:

(i) providing notice is denied by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable and relevant law, or
(ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon or harm to Mereka Connect, our Users, or expose Mereka Connect to a claim of obstruction of justice.

For jurisdictions where Mereka Connect facilitates the collection and remittance of Taxes where legally permissible according to applicable law, we may disclose Hubs’ and Users’ information about transactions, bookings, and occupancy Taxes to the applicable tax authority, such as Hub and User names, Experience addresses, transaction dates and amounts, tax identification number(s), the amount of taxes received (or due) by Hubs from Users, and contact information.

In jurisdictions where Mereka Connect facilitates or requires a registration, notification, permit, or license application of a Hub with a local governmental authority through Mereka Connect in accordance with local law, we may share information of participating Hubs with the relevant authority, both during the application process and, periodically thereafter, such as the Hubs’s full name and contact details, Hub address, tax identification number, and Experience details.

5.6 Service Providers

We share personal information with affiliated and unaffiliated service providers to help us run our business, including service providers that help us:
(i) verify your identity or authenticate your identification documents,
(ii) check information against public databases,
(iii) conduct background or police checks, fraud prevention, and risk assessment,
(iv) perform product development, maintenance and debugging,
(v) allow the provision of the Mereka Connect Services through third-party platforms and software tools (e.g. through the integration with our APIs),
(vi) provide customer service, advertising, or payments services,
(vii) process, handle or assess insurance claims or similar claims, or
(viii) facilitate non-profit and charitable activities consistent with Mereka Connect’s mission. These providers are contractually bound to protect your personal information and have access to your personal information to perform these tasks.

5.7 Business Transfers

In the event that Mereka Connect undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we reserve the right to sell, transfer or share some or all of our assets, including your information as part of such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g., due diligence). We may not be able to control how your personal information is treated, transferred, or used.

5.8 Corporate Affiliates

To support us in providing, integrating, promoting and improving Mereka Connect, and our affiliates’ services, we may share personal information within our corporate family of companies that are related by common ownership or control. Some examples are:

Sharing with Mereka Innovative Education Sdn Bhd (1239397-T). Even if your country of residence is not Malaysia, your information will be shared with Mereka Innovative Education Sdn Bhd (1239397-T). which provides the technical infrastructure for Mereka Connect.

6. Security

While no organization can guarantee perfect security, we are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration.

6.1 Data Breach Response and Notification

In the unfortunate event of a data breach, Mereka Connect commits to promptly acting in order to mitigate potential harm.

6.1.1 Notification Procedures

In the event that we believe your personal data has been compromised, we will endeavor to notify you promptly on our social media and via email. Our notification will include information about what we know regarding the breach, what we have done in response, and what steps you can take to better protect your personal information from potential harm, if any.

6.1.2 Investigation and Response

Mereka Connect will promptly investigate any suspected data breach. Upon confirmation of a breach, we will take all necessary measures to contain, mitigate, and remediate the effects of the breach. This may include involving law enforcement agencies, if appropriate, and collaborating with data protection authorities as required.

6.1.3 Preventive Measures and Ongoing Review

Mereka Connect uses robust security measures to protect your data, including encryption, firewalls, and access controls. We continually review and update our practices in response to changes in technology and threats, to ensure we are using the best tools available to protect your data.

6.1.4 Your Role

It’s also important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer and always notify us of any unauthorized use of your account or any other breach of security.

Please remember that despite our best efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security at all times. Our notification of a data breach does not constitute an acknowledgment of any fault or liability with respect to the data breach.

By using Mereka Connect, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to assume these risks.

7. Request for Data Deletion

7.1 Retention of Data

Mereka Connect retains your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Please note that we cannot control the retention policies of third parties. If you provide personal data directly to a third party, such as through a link on our website, you will need to consult with that third party to understand how they handle your data.

Your rights, including the right to access or correct your personal data, request that we stop processing your data, or withdraw your consent to processing, remain unaffected. If you wish to exercise these rights, please contact us at our designated contact point.

7.2 Deletion of Data

To request the deletion of your personal data held by Mereka Connect, you can submit a request via email to team@mereka.io. Your request should clearly state that you are requesting the deletion of your personal data and provide sufficient information to identify your account and the data that you want to be deleted.

Mereka Connect will review your request and take appropriate action to delete your personal data, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. After we have processed your request, we will reply to you via email at the email address you provided with confirmation that the data has been deleted. If we are unable to delete your data for any reason, we will also let you know and explain the reasons for this decision.

Please note that deleting your personal data may affect your ability to use certain features or services provided by Mereka Connect. The deletion process may take some time to complete, as Mereka Connect needs to ensure that all copies of your personal data have been removed from our systems and backups. We appreciate your patience during this process and will do our best to complete the deletion process as quickly as possible.

8. Other Important Information

8.1 Analyzing your Communications

We may review, examine, or analyze your communications on Mereka Connect for reasons laid out in the “How We Use Information We Collect” section of this policy strategy, including fraud and misrepresentation prevention, risk evaluation, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research, analytics, authorizing our Terms of Service, and customer support purposes.

For instance, as part of our fraud and misrepresentation prevention efforts, we filter and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other sites. In some cases, we may also scan, review, or analyze messages to debug, improve, and expand product offerings. We utilize automated methods where sensibly conceivable. Occasionally we may need to manually review communications, such as for fraud investigations and customer support, or to assess and improve the functionality of these automated tools. We will not review, examine, or analyze your messaging communications to send third-party marketing messages to you and we will not sell reviews or analyses of these communications.

9. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with applicable law. If we do so, we will post the revised Privacy Policy and update the “Last Updated” date at the top. In case of material changes, we will also provide you with notice of the modification by email at least thirty (30) days before the effective date. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you can cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of Mereka Connect will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.

10. Contact Information

You may submit your complaints, request for access to and/or request correction of your Personal Information, request to limit the processing of your Personal Information for the Additional Purposes and/or make any inquiries regarding your Personal Information by contacting:

Designation : Business Development Associate
Address : Lot 1A-3, Level G1, Publika Shopping Gallery, Solaris Dutamas, Jalan Dutamas 1, Kuala Lumpur 50480 Malaysia
Email : gurpreet@mereka.io (CEO of Mereka & Data Protection Officer)
Telephone Number : 603 6419 4755
Operating Hours : 9am – 6pm from Mondays – Fridays (excluding Public Holidays)

We may impose a fee for processing the aforesaid requests.

In respect of your right to access and/or correct your Personal Information, we have the right to refuse your requests to access and/or make any correction to your Personal Information for the reasons permitted under law, such as where the expense of providing access to you is disproportionate to the risks to your or another person’s privacy.

If you do not wish for your Personal Information to be collected via cookies on the Websites, you may deactivate cookies by adjusting your internet browser settings to disable, block or deactivate cookies, by deleting your browsing history and clearing the cache from your internet browser.