Ask Vim is operated by Ask Vim LLC, a California limited liability company ("Ask Vim," "we," "us," or "our"). This Privacy Policy explains how we handle information in connection with your use of the Ask Vim website and chat assistant (the "Service").
Ask Vim is designed to answer general questions about public health and benefits programs, such as Medicaid, Medi-Cal, Medicare, and local county health services programs (i.e Alignment Healthcare), without requiring you to provide any personal or account specific information. You do not need to create an account to use the core Service, and you should not enter your case number, Social Security number, Medi-Cal or Medicare ID, address, or other identifying information into the chat.
If you do enter this type of information, our system is designed to detect and remove it automatically before it is stored or used to generate a response. This is a technical safeguard, not a guarantee, and you should avoid entering personal or identifying information at any time.
We collect the following categories of information in the ordinary course of operating the Service:
a. Chat content. The text of questions you type into the assistant, after automated removal of detected personal identifiers, is logged so we can improve the accuracy of the Service and identify gaps in our source material. We do not currently require an account to use the Service, and chat content is not tied to an identified individual.
b. Usage and device data. Standard technical information such as browser type, device type, general location derived from IP address, pages visited, and time spent, collected automatically through cookies and similar technologies.
c. Advertising data. Our Service displays advertising, including ads served through Google AdSense and directly sponsored placements. Google and other third party advertising vendors may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
We retain the chat content and usage data described in Section 2(a) and 2(b) for 24 months from the date of collection, after which it is deleted or fully aggregated so it can no longer be tied to an individual session or device. We separately retain aggregated, de-identified statistics derived from this data, such as which topics are asked about most often and where the Service was unable to answer, for as long as they remain useful for improving the Service, since this aggregated form does not identify any individual user.
If we later introduce optional account registration, information tied to your account, described in Section 8 below, will be subject to a separate, disclosed retention rule at that time.
Because Ask Vim answers questions about programs tied to age, disability, and health status, some of the information reflected in your usage of the Service, such as the topics you ask about, may be treated as sensitive personal information under California law, including inferences about health status, disability, or age.
We do not knowingly use the substance of your health or benefits related questions to build an advertising profile. Advertising on this Service is served through Google AdSense's standard publisher tools and, where applicable, is limited to non personalized or contextual advertising rather than advertising personalized to the specific benefits topics you have discussed. You have the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, described in Section 7 below.
We use the information described above to operate, maintain, and improve the Service, to detect and prevent misuse, to generate aggregated and de-identified statistics about how the Service is used, and to support the advertising described in Section 6.
We do not sell your personal information in the traditional sense. Use of AdSense's advertising cookies may be considered "sharing" for cross context behavioral advertising purposes under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), described further below.
This Service is supported in part by advertising, including:
a. Google AdSense. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites. You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google's Ads Settings at adssettings.google.com, or by visiting aboutads.info to opt out of participating vendors' use of cookies for personalized advertising.
b. Direct sponsorships. From time to time, Ask Vim may feature clearly labeled sponsored content from health plans, foundations, or other organizations. Sponsored content is always visually distinct from and clearly labeled apart from the assistant's answers, and does not influence the answers generated by the Ask Vim assistant, which are drawn only from our validated document library.
The presence of an advertisement or sponsor on this Service does not constitute an endorsement by Ask Vim, Santa Clara County, or any government agency of the advertiser's or sponsor's products, services, or claims, nor does it constitute our endorsement of them.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to:
Know what personal information we have collected about you and how it has been used and shared.
Delete personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions.
Correct inaccurate personal information.
Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information.
Limit the use of sensitive personal information.
Not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights.
To exercise these rights, contact us at hi@askvim.com. We may need to verify your identity before processing certain requests.
We may in the future offer an option to create an account. Requiring only a name and email address, to help us understand usage patterns and improve the Service. This would not be used for marketing outreach. If and when this feature launches, we will update this Privacy Policy to describe what account information is collected, how it may be associated with your usage of the Service, and how long it is retained, before the feature becomes available to you.
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect information in our possession, including automated detection and redaction of personal identifiers before storage. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
The Service is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
The Service may contain links to third party websites, including advertiser and sponsor sites, and county or state government resources. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of any third party site.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The effective date at the top of this page will reflect the most recent revision. Material changes will be posted on this page.
Ask Vim LLC
hi@askvim.com