Effective 7 October 2026 (this version replaces the version dated 28 November 2016)

Introduction

This Privacy Policy applies to our website https://www.spalk.tv/ and https://app.spalk.tv/ (referred to as “website”) and explains how we collect and use the personal information and personal data (together, "personal information") that you provide to us when you use the website, sign up as a rightsholder or a commentator, or otherwise contact us.

A "rightsholder" is a customer of Spalk that wishes to use the website in order to receive commentary services from a commentator. A "commentator" is an individual who provides live streamed or pre-recorded audio or audio-visual commentary and related services to Spalk and our rightsholders via the website.

Spalk operates and provides the website on a global basis, including to users, rightsholders and commentators located in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and elsewhere. Spalk (U.S.) Incorporated, of Level 9, WeWork, 750 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022, USA, is the controller responsible for your personal information wherever you are located, except where we process personal information on behalf of a rightsholder under a separate agreement with that rightsholder (in which case that rightsholder is the controller and its privacy policy applies), and complies with applicable data protection and privacy law, including (as applicable to you) the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR"), the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("EU GDPR"), and applicable US federal and state data protection and privacy laws (together, "data protection laws"), when dealing with your personal information. References in this Privacy Policy to "we", "us" and "our" mean Spalk (U.S.) Incorporated.

We have appointed representatives in the United Kingdom and the European Union in accordance with Article 27 of the UK GDPR and Article 27 of the EU GDPR respectively. Our UK representative is EDPO UK Ltd, Unit 33, Waterside, Schooner Court, 44-48 Wharf Road, London, N1 7UX, United Kingdom, who can be contacted using EDPO’s online request and complaint form at https://edpo.com/uk-gdpr-data-request/, and our EU representative is European Data Protection Office (EDPO), Avenue Huart Hamoir 71, 1030 Brussels, Belgium, who can be contacted using EDPO’s online request form at https://edpo.com/gdpr-data-request/. Each representative may be contacted by individuals located in the United Kingdom or the European Union (as applicable) and by supervisory authorities on all issues related to the processing of your personal information, in order to ensure compliance with the UK GDPR and EU GDPR, but neither representative is itself a controller of your personal information and references to "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Policy do not include either representative.

This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under applicable data protection laws. For individuals located in New Zealand, this includes your rights under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (the "Act"); if you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz. For individuals located in the United Kingdom or the European Union, this includes your rights under the UK GDPR or the EU GDPR (as applicable), including your right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority as set out further below. For individuals located in the United States, this includes your rights under applicable US federal or state data protection and privacy laws.

The website is intended for individuals aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18; if you believe we have done so, please contact us at contact@spalk.co and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We keep this Privacy Policy under review and may amend it from time to time, including to reflect new features of the website, changes to how we use personal information, or changes required by law. Where a change is significant, for example because it changes the purposes for which we use your personal information or affects your rights, we will bring it to your attention before it takes effect, such as by giving notice on the website, and we will explain whether it applies to personal information we already hold about you.

If you create an account or we first collect personal information about you after a change is posted, the changed Privacy Policy applies to you immediately. Where such a change would apply to personal information we already hold about you and collected from you under an earlier version of this Privacy Policy, we will only do so after giving you a reasonable opportunity to object. In these circumstances, the changed Privacy Policy will take effect 30 days after we post the change or otherwise notify you of it, unless the change is required for legal or regulatory reasons or addresses new functionality, in which case it may take effect immediately. During this 30 day period, you may object to the changed Privacy Policy applying to personal information we already hold about you and collected from you under an earlier version of this Privacy Policy by notifying us at contact@spalk.co. If you object, the version of this Privacy Policy in force immediately before the change will continue to apply to your personal information, but the changed Privacy Policy will apply to any new personal information we collect about you after this 30 day period ends. However if you object and you are a commentator still committed, on the expiry of this 30 day period, to deliver an existing series (whether directly engaged by Spalk or via one of Spalk’s clients), this 30 day period will be extended until you have completed that committed series after which the changed Privacy Policy will apply to any new personal information we collect about you after this 30 day period ends. Whether or not you object, you retain the right at any time to exercise your rights under this Privacy Policy (including requesting deletion of your personal information) (see “Exercising your rights” section).

Who do we collect your personal information from?

We collect personal information about you from:

• you, when you provide that personal information to us, including via the website and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, through any contact with us (e.g. telephone call or email), or when you buy or use our services and products. This includes for commentators your name, email address, telephone number, social media handles, gender and date of birth. We use your date of birth to confirm that you are 18 or over and, among other things, we use these details to identify and contact you about commentary opportunities that may be suitable for you;
• you, when you, in your capacity as a commentator, use our website for audio and audio-visual commentaries and other related activities.
• third parties where you have authorised this or the information is publicly available.

If possible, we will collect personal information from you directly.

How we use your personal information

We will use your personal information for the following purposes. For individuals in the United Kingdom and the European Union, we also identify below the legal basis on which we rely for each purpose under the UK GDPR and EU GDPR:

• to verify your identity (necessary to perform our contract with you or, where you are not yet a customer, to take steps at your request before entering into a contract with you)
• to provide services and products to you (necessary to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract with you)
• to market our services and products to you, including contacting you electronically (e.g. by text or email for this purpose) (where you are an existing customer or commentator, on the basis of our legitimate interest in promoting our services to you, or otherwise on the basis of your consent, which you may withdraw at any time)
• to improve the services and products that we provide, including by using pseudonymised audio commentary (so that it does not, on its own, identify you) to monitor, test and improve our website and to train and improve the machine learning models that support our products and services (on the basis of our legitimate interest in maintaining and improving the accuracy, quality and functionality of the website and those products and services). We ensure we obtain your express consent directly before we use outputs generated by those models which bear your name, voice or likeness, otherwise they will not do so. You have various rights in respect of your pseudonymised personal information (see “Exercising your rights” section)
• to undertake credit checks of you, if necessary (necessary to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract with you)
• to bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing credit card transactions (necessary to perform our contract with you)
• to respond to communications from you, including a complaint (on the basis of our legitimate interest in ensuring we can properly respond to your query)
• to conduct research and statistical analysis, on an anonymised basis (on the basis of our legitimate interest in understanding and improving our services)
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim (on the basis of our legitimate interest in protecting our business and legal position)
• for any other purpose authorised by you or data protection laws.

Where providing personal information is needed for us to enter into or perform a contract with you, and you withdraw or restrict our ability to use such personal information, we may not be able to fulfil our obligations to you under that contract.

Disclosing your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to:

• another company within our group
• any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or our other services and products
• a credit reference agency for the purpose of credit checking you
• other third parties (for anonymised statistical information)
• a person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g. a regulatory authority)
• any other person authorised by applicable data protection laws or another law (e.g. a law enforcement agency)
• any other person authorised by you.

We list the businesses that process personal information on our behalf, including other companies in our group, at spalk.tv/legal/subprocessors. The list shows what each one does, where it processes personal information and the transfer safeguard we rely on. We update the list when we add or replace a provider. Adding or replacing a provider within the categories described above is not a change to this Privacy Policy.

A business that supports our services and products, including providers of cloud computing infrastructure, software services and other third parties, may be located outside of the country in which you are located, including in the United States. This may mean your personal information, including your email address, IP address and voice recordings, is held and processed outside of the country in which you are located. Where we transfer personal information in this way, we take steps intended to ensure it continues to receive an appropriate level of protection under data protection laws. For individuals in the United Kingdom and the European Union, where your personal information is transferred outside of the UK or European Union, this includes by using recognised transfer safeguards such as standard contractual clauses or an equivalent data transfer framework permitted under UK GDPR and EU GDPR. For individuals in the United States, this includes taking contractual and technical measures with our service providers consistent with applicable US federal and state data protection and privacy laws. You can ask for a copy of the safeguard we rely on for a particular transfer by emailing contact@spalk.co.

Protecting your personal information

We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse.

Automated Decision making

We do not currently make decisions about you based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produce legal or similarly significant effects for you. If that changes, we will update this Privacy Policy before doing so and, where data protection laws require it, obtain your consent or give you the right to obtain human review of the decision.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, or as required by data protection laws. Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in data protection laws, including the UK GDPR or EU GDPR (for individuals in the United Kingdom or the European Union) or applicable US federal or state data protection and privacy laws (for individuals in the United States), you have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you (for individuals in New Zealand, your readily retrievable personal information) and to request a correction to your personal information. If you are located in the United Kingdom or the European Union, you also have the right to request that we restrict our use of your personal information, object to our use of it, ask us to transfer it to a third party, and, where we rely on your consent, withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdrew it. If you are located in the United States, you may have similar rights under applicable US federal or state data protection and privacy laws, including the right to opt out of certain uses of your personal information. Before you exercise any of these rights, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.

In respect of a request for correction, if we think the correction is reasonable and we are reasonably able to change the personal information, we will make the correction. If we do not make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note on the personal information that you requested the correction.

We will not charge you for this unless data protection laws permit it (for example where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive), in which case we may charge a reasonable fee.

Requesting deletion of your personal information

Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in data protection laws, including the UK GDPR or EU GDPR (for individuals in the United Kingdom or the European Union) or applicable US federal or state data protection and privacy laws (for individuals in the United States), you have the right to request deletion of your personal information that we hold. Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.

Internet use

While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.

If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information. We suggest you review that site’s privacy policy before you provide personal information.

We use cookies and similar technologies on the website. Some are strictly necessary for the website to work. We only use analytics cookies with your consent, which you can give or withdraw at any time using the cookie settings on the website. For details of the cookies we use and how to manage them, see our Cookie Policy.

Exercising your rights

If you want to exercise any of your rights under this Privacy Policy, including accessing, correcting, deleting your personal information, excluding your personal information from some of the uses we make of it or any other of the above rights, email us at contact@spalk.co. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the action, that you are requesting).

We will acknowledge your request by return email within 5 business days.

Making complaints

If you are located in the United Kingdom or the European Union, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the United Kingdom, this is the Information Commissioner's Office. If you are based in the European Union, you can find your relevant supervisory authority via the European Data Protection Board's website. If you are located in the United States, you may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission or, where applicable, your state attorney general or state privacy regulator.