Autumn is built on the framework, Privacy by Design, developed by the renowned Dr. Ann Cavoukian to address issues of privacy in a digital age. Privacy by Design is seen as a global best practice, and forms a foundation for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
It means we put employee privacy first. Employee identity is always kept anonymous, and all personally identifying information is redacted from any and all data used in Autumn's analysis — protecting individual and company privacy.
The following three practices help form our approach to protecting your individual privacy:
All users must actively opt into the use of our features; we never assume data can be shared. Users can opt-in to:
Providing Autumn's Slack Bot with access to some of their Slack data, which is necessary for passive analysis. If a user wishes to use Autumn without providing access to their Slack or other data, they can — as an alternative to passive analysis simple check-in questions are regularly sent to the user in Slack once a week.
Allowing their information to be included in a team aggregate dashboard. If a user chooses not to have their information included in a team aggregate, then they will not be able to access the 'Team page' or otherwise view the data of any team they are invited to.
Autumn aggregates all user data before providing aggregate-level insights to managers or People teams. Data is never dis-aggregated past the level of a team, and all teams must have 4 or more members opted-in, to ensure individual anonymity. If a team has fewer than 4 members, the team features can be made available if each user individually consents, with an understanding that de-identification risk also increases.
Autumn goes to great lengths to remove all direct identifiers (names, SSNs, etc.) and quasi-identifiers (ages, religion, race, ethnicity, zodiac signs, etc.) from data prior to its use in analysis, which ensures the privacy & security of both employees and organizations and reduces the possible risk of bias or skewed results.
This means all data is anonymized before it is ever processed.
For example, a message like "Hey Quinn, wanna go to In-n-Out for lunch tomorrow?" is scrubbed into: "Hey [NAME_1], wanna go to [LOCATION_1] for lunch tomorrow?"
In addition, any data stored is then encrypted and under the strictest safety protocols.
No personally identifying data is ever stored. Only de-identified text data and meta-data (like timestamps, etc.) are stored under encryption and strict data access protocols.
Autumn will never share any of your data or personal information with your organization without you directing us to. Each user individually gets to choose for themselves what information, if any, they want shared.
It's important to clarify with your team that their individual information is never shared with you or the organization. We suggest sharing this FAQ with your team so they can learn more.
More than 75% of employees opt-in to the passive analysis feature when they begin using Autumn. Because unlike surveys, individuals receive direct value from the tool — with Autumn they can measure and manage their own well-being via their own private dashboard.
And your team members will always be able to choose how they interact with Autumn — if anyone prefers not to turn on passive analysis, then they can complete check-ins directly in Slack via Autumn's Slack bot instead.
Your employer will never see any of your personal information.
If you accept an invitation to a team on Autumn, your information is anonymized and aggregated with others on that team. Team data is only displayed once 4 or more members have joined to ensure individual anonymity is preserved. Only those who join the team will be able to view the averaged team data. Everyone on a team has the same team dashboard, managers and team members alike.
Just connect us to your IT team in an email and we will do the rest. We have had many conversations with IT teams about security and our platform structure, and will be happy to answer any of their questions before moving forward.
You can CC us at info@getautumn.com and we'll make sure they get the info they need!
Of course! Sending an email to HR with our contact information has been the most successful for other customers. Feel free to share our website with your HR team, and CC quinn@getautumn.com so we may answer any questions they may have.
Autumn was built for you. If you leave your company, you can keep your data and continue to use Autumn for yourself for free. Just email us at info@getautumn.com and we'll make that happen.