Effective Date: Feb 26, 2025

Last Updated: March 2, 2026

At PulseIQ, your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information when you participate in research interviews conducted via the PulseIQ platform.

1. Who This Policy Applies To

This Privacy Policy applies to individuals (“Respondents”) who participate in interviews conducted through PulseIQ’s research platform.

2. What Information We Collect

When you participate in a study, we may collect the following categories of personal information:

Identifiers: Name, email address, or other contact details.
Demographic Information: Age, gender, location, or any screening responses you provide.
Audio/Visual Data: Video or audio recordings of your interview sessions.
Text Responses: Anything you type or submit through our platform.
Device/Usage Information: Technical data such as browser type, IP address, or device activity logs.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use this information to:

Facilitate and record your participation in research interviews.
Analyze your responses (manually and via AI) to generate research insights.
Provide anonymized data to our clients.
Operate, improve, and secure our platform.
Comply with applicable laws.
Fine-tune and enhance the performance of our AI models.

How AI is used to process your responses:

PulseIQ is an AI-powered platform. Every study uses artificial intelligence at multiple stages of the research process. Specifically:

Interview moderation. Your session is conducted by an AI moderator rather than a human interviewer.
Transcription. Your audio or video responses are converted to text using automated speech-to-text tools.
Sentiment analysis. AI systems analyze the emotional tone and sentiment expressed in your responses.
Theme and pattern extraction. Large language models (LLMs) identify recurring themes and patterns across responses.
Summarization. AI generates summaries of findings that may be shared with the Study Sponsor.

Your responses may be processed by third-party AI services that support these functions. These providers are bound by confidentiality agreements and are only permitted to use your data to deliver their services to PulseIQ. AI is not used to make decisions that significantly affect your rights or opportunities.

4. Roles and Responsibilities (Controller vs Processor)

PulseIQ provides a platform that enables organizations to conduct research with participants.

In most cases:

The organization sponsoring the research ("Customer") acts as the data controller, meaning they determine the purpose and means of collecting and using respondent information.
PulseIQ acts as a data processor, processing respondent data on behalf of the Customer in order to provide the research platform, including hosting sessions, recording interviews, generating transcripts, and producing AI-generated insights.
Respondents are the data subjects, meaning the individuals whose personal data is collected and processed as part of the research study.

PulseIQ processes respondent data only as necessary to operate and improve the platform and in accordance with agreements with the Customer. Customers are responsible for determining the lawful basis for collecting respondent data and for how research results are used. If you have questions about how your responses are used within a specific study, you may contact the research sponsor directly or reach out to PulseIQ at privacy@trypulseiq.com.

5. How We Share Your Information

We may share your data with:

Customers who commissioned the research, subject to confidentiality agreements.
Third-party service providers who help us operate the platform. See Section 6 for a full list of our subprocessors and what data they process.
Legal authorities, if required by law or subpoena.

We do not sell your personal information.

6. Third-Party Subprocessors

To deliver our platform, PulseIQ works with a number of trusted third-party service providers that may process your personal data on our behalf. These providers are contractually required to protect your data and may only use it to deliver their services to PulseIQ.

LiveKit – Video session infrastructure (Audio, video)
OpenAI – LLM summarization and analysis (Transcripts, text responses)
Google Gemini – LLM summarization and AI moderation (Transcripts, text responses)
Deepgram – Speech-to-text transcription (Audio recordings)
ElevenLabs – Text-to-speech AI moderator voice (Generated audio)
Modal – AI model infrastructure and video processing (Audio, video, transcripts)
Render – Backend processing (Session data)
Vercel – Platform hosting and delivery (Usage and technical data)

We review our subprocessors periodically and will update this list when changes occur. If you have questions about a specific provider, contact us at privacy@trypulseiq.com.

7. How We Retain Your Data

We retain your information for as long as reasonably necessary to support the research purpose, comply with legal obligations, or enforce our agreements.

8. Your Rights

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants you the right to:

Know what categories of personal information we collect and how we use it.
Access a copy of your personal data.
Delete your personal information, with certain exceptions.
Opt out of certain types of data sharing (we do not sell personal information).
Non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights.

How to make a request. To exercise any of the rights above, contact us at privacy@trypulseiq.com. Please include your name, the study you participated in (if known), and the nature of your request. We will respond within 45 days. If we need more time, we'll let you know.

Important note on deletion. Because your raw responses are owned by the Study Sponsor (as described in our Terms of Service), some deletion requests may need to be coordinated with them. We'll let you know if that applies to your request.

You may also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf.

9. International Users

PulseIQ primarily serves users based in the United States. While we aim to respect the privacy of all users, our platform is not yet fully aligned with international data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If you're accessing the platform from outside the U.S., we encourage you to review this policy and contact us with any questions or concerns.

10. Security

We use industry-standard security measures, including encryption, access controls, and secure infrastructure, to protect your data. No system is 100% secure, but we are committed to minimizing risk.

11. Children’s Privacy

Our platform is not intended for individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

12. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies, web beacons, and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience, analyze traffic, and support core platform functionality. These technologies may collect technical data such as device identifiers, browser types, IP addresses, and user interactions.

We use the following types of cookies:

Strictly Necessary Cookies: Required for platform functionality and user authentication.
Performance Cookies: Help us understand how users navigate the platform so we can improve user experience.
Analytics and Research Cookies: Used to collect usage data for research and platform optimization.

You can control cookie preferences through your browser or device settings. Most browsers allow you to refuse or delete cookies. Please note that disabling cookies may affect the availability or functionality of certain features.

13. Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on our platform and effective immediately unless otherwise stated.

14. Contact Us

Questions about this policy or your data? Contact us anytime:

privacy@trypulseiq.com
PulseIQ Labs, Inc.

PulseIQ Respondents Privacy Policy