Privacy Policy for the Veggie Challenge Bot
Effective Date: August 1st, 2025
This Privacy Policy describes how the Veggie Challenge Bot (“the Service,” “we,” “us”) collects, uses, and handles your information when you use our application within Microsoft Teams.
1. Service Description
The Veggie Challenge Bot is an application designed to help users in a Microsoft Teams channel participate in the ProVeg Veggie Challenge. The Service posts periodic updates, participant counts, and environmental savings reports to the channel where a challenge has been initiated. To provide personalized data and link your Teams account to the Veggie Challenge, the Service includes a one-on-one chat-based authentication flow.
2. Information We Collect
To operate the Service, we collect the following information:
- Information You Provide to Us:
- Email Address: During the one-on-one authentication flow, we will ask you to provide and confirm your email address. This is used solely to link your Microsoft Teams identity with your Veggie Challenge account.
- Authentication PIN: We process the one-time PIN you provide to finalize the authentication process with the Veggie Challenge backend service.
- Information Collected Automatically:
- Microsoft Teams User ID: We receive your unique Microsoft Teams User ID when you interact with the bot. We use this to manage your authentication state securely and to initiate a private chat with you.
- Microsoft Teams Team ID and Channel ID: When you start a challenge in a channel, we store the ID of that Team and Channel. This information is used exclusively to know where to post the periodic challenge updates.
The Service does not read any messages from your team’s channels. Its activity in a channel is limited to posting messages after a user has explicitly initiated the challenge.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
- To Provide and Maintain the Service: To post periodic challenge updates and savings reports to the designated team channel.
- To Authenticate Your Account: To securely connect your Microsoft Teams user account with the Veggie Challenge backend service, enabling personalized progress tracking.
- To Communicate With You: To send you messages and Adaptive Cards in a private chat as part of the authentication process.
4. How We Share Your Information
We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We share information only in the following limited circumstances:
- With the Veggie Challenge Backend Service: Your email address and the PIN you provide are shared with the Veggie Challenge API to complete the authentication process.
- With Microsoft: As a bot operating on the Microsoft Teams platform, conversational data is processed by the Microsoft Bot Framework as a necessary part of delivering the service.
5. Data Storage and Security
Your authentication status and the necessary identifiers (User ID, Team ID, Channel ID) are stored securely in a Google Cloud Firestore database. We take reasonable technical measures to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.
6. Data Retention
We retain the information we collect for as long as the Veggie Challenge bot is active in your team’s channel. If the bot is uninstalled from a team, the associated channel data will be marked as inactive and will no longer be used for posting messages. You may request the deletion of your personal authentication data at any time.
7. Your Rights and Choices
You have the right to access, correct, or request the deletion of your personal information. To make such a request, please contact us using the information below.
8. Children’s Privacy
The Service is not intended for or directed at individuals under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
9. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
10. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at: [email protected]