Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

AppointOwl is operated by Hualit ("we", "us", "our"). We provide staff scheduling and online appointment management software for service businesses. If you have any questions about this policy, contact us at support@hualit.com.

2. Data We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal data:

• Account data — name, email address, and password (hashed) when you register as a business owner.
• Business data — your business name, operating hours, services, and employee information that you enter into the platform.
• Customer data — names, email addresses, and phone numbers of your customers that are entered when creating appointments.
• Appointment data — dates, times, services, and statuses of bookings made through the platform.
• Usage data — IP addresses and browser information collected automatically when you access our service.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the data we collect to:

• Provide and operate the AppointOwl service
• Send appointment confirmation and reminder emails to your customers on your behalf
• Send you service-related communications (account activation, password reset)
• Ensure the security and integrity of the platform
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not use your data or your customers' data for advertising purposes. We do not sell data to third parties.

4. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

We process personal data under the following legal bases:

• Contract performance — processing necessary to provide the service you have signed up for.
• Legitimate interests — security, fraud prevention, and service improvement.
• Legal obligation — where we are required to retain or process data by law.

5. Data Retention

We retain your account and business data for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, we will delete your personal data within 90 days, except where we are required to retain it by law (for example, for tax or accounting purposes).

Customer data (names, contact details, appointment records) that you enter into the platform is retained as long as your account exists and is deleted when you close your account.

6. Your Rights

Under GDPR and Portuguese data protection law, you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — request correction of inaccurate data
• Erasure — request deletion of your personal data
• Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Restriction — request that we limit how we process your data

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@hualit.com. We will respond within 30 days.

7. Cookies

We use strictly necessary cookies to maintain your login session. We do not use tracking or advertising cookies. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but this will prevent you from logging into the service.

8. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate AppointOwl:

• Resend — transactional email delivery. Customer email addresses are transmitted to Resend solely for the purpose of sending appointment notifications.
• Render — cloud infrastructure where the backend and database are hosted.
• Vercel — cloud hosting for the web application.

All third-party providers are contractually bound to process data only as instructed and in accordance with GDPR.

9. International Transfers

Our infrastructure providers (Render, Vercel, Resend) may process data outside the European Economic Area. Where this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission.

10. Security

We implement technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, and access controls. No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security but we take reasonable precautions.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify registered users by email of material changes at least 14 days before they take effect. The "last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

12. Contact & Complaints

For privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at support@hualit.com.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Portuguese data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD), at www.cnpd.pt.