Shelest

Research Agreement

1. Agreement and consent

This Research Agreement is incorporated by reference into our Terms of Service. “Shelest,” “we,” “us,” “our,” and “Services” have the meanings given in those Terms. Our Privacy Policy describes how we process personal information in connection with the Services and our business.

By clicking “Continue” or otherwise affirmatively accepting the Terms of Service, you also agree to this Research Agreement and consent to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of the Research Data described below, including audio, face and mouth video, derived features, text, application context, and metadata, to train and improve our AI models and develop our products and services. This includes processing by service providers acting on our behalf, subject to the withdrawal choices below. Any additional consent, choice, or safeguard required by applicable law remains required.

2. Research Data

“Research Data” means information, data, materials, text, or other content that is input, entered, posted, uploaded, submitted, transferred, transmitted, or otherwise provided or made available for processing by or through the Services, or collected or otherwise received by the Services, including:

  • Audio recordings, including your voice, speech, ambient sounds, and other sounds captured when you use audio features.
  • Photos, images, and videos, including your face, mouth movements, cropped mouth images, and the background captured when you use camera features; and measurements, features, or representations derived from those recordings, including facial or mouth geometry.
  • Transcripts, prompts, comments, questions, messages, corrections, annotations, outputs, and other content or information that you generate, transmit, or otherwise make available on the Services.
  • Application context, including the application in which the Services are used and surrounding text or other content from that application, such as documents and messages.
  • Associated metadata, including information on how, when, and where content was collected and how it has been formatted or edited; device and software information, identifiers, access times, duration, settings, synchronization, and performance data.

You will obtain all third-party licenses, consents, and permissions needed for Shelest to use the Research Data for the purposes set forth in this agreement. Research Data may include information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

3. Research and development

We may use Research Data to analyze your usage of the Services, improve the Services, improve the rest of our business, help us understand user activity on the Services, and develop new products and services. This includes training, fine-tuning, developing, testing, evaluating, and improving our artificial intelligence and machine learning models, including models for current and future Shelest products and services, subject to your withdrawal choices.

Processing includes collection, recording, organization, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, analysis, compilation, aggregation, use, copying, alignment or combination, and erasure or destruction. For these purposes, we may prepare and label training and evaluation datasets and create aggregated or de-identified data from Research Data.

4. Data license and ownership

You grant Shelest a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid license to use Research Data as necessary for purposes of providing and improving the Services and carrying out the research and development described in this agreement, and to de-identify and aggregate Research Data for those purposes. This license is subject to the use, disclosure, retention, and withdrawal provisions of this agreement.

As between you and Shelest, Research Data you provide and all intellectual property rights you hold in that data remain your property. All rights in and to Research Data not expressly granted to Shelest in this agreement are reserved by you.

The Services, our models and underlying source code, and all intellectual property rights in them are the exclusive property of Shelest and its suppliers. All rights not expressly granted to you are reserved. We may develop, license, and sell our models, products, and services, without compensation to you for contributing Research Data, subject to the restrictions below and applicable law.

5. No dataset sales or identity matching

We will not sell, lease, trade, or independently license Research Data or datasets containing Research Data, including de-identified recordings and derived features. We will not use face, voice, or other biometric features to identify or authenticate people, and we will not attempt to reidentify de-identified Research Data.

We will prohibit our service providers, including any AI model providers, from using Research Data for their own model training, fine-tuning, development, or improvement purposes. Commercializing our models, products, or services does not authorize the sale or independent licensing of Research Data, or disclosure of identifiable Research Data through those models, products, or services.

6. Access and disclosure

We may share Research Data with third parties that provide services on our behalf or help us operate the Services or our business, such as hosting, information technology, data annotation, research, analytics, and AI training infrastructure. They may process Research Data only on our behalf for the purposes described in this agreement, subject to confidentiality and data-protection obligations. We will require that our personnel who are authorized to access Research Data are subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations. Our Privacy Policy identifies categories and examples of our service providers.

We may also disclose Research Data to comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas, investigations, or requests from government authorities, and to an acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or similar transaction. These disclosures remain subject to applicable law and the protections in our Privacy Policy; a successor receives no broader rights to use Research Data than this agreement permits.

7. Retention and destruction

We retain Research Data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, including satisfying legal requirements and establishing or defending legal claims. To determine the appropriate retention period, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the data, how we use it, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process it and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and applicable legal requirements.

We destroy biometric identifiers and biometric information when the purpose for collecting them has been satisfied, when you withdraw consent or request deletion, or no later than three years after your last interaction with Shelest, whichever occurs first, unless a shorter period applies below.

Where the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act applies, we will permanently destroy biometric identifiers and biometric information when the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such identifiers or information has been satisfied or within three years of your last interaction with Shelest, whichever occurs first, absent a valid warrant or subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Where Colorado’s biometric-identifier requirements apply, we will delete biometric identifiers on or before the earliest of: the date the initial purpose for collecting them has been satisfied; twenty-four months after your last interaction with Shelest; or the earliest reasonably feasible date, no more than forty-five days after an at-least annual review determines that storage is no longer necessary, adequate, or relevant to the express processing purpose. The last period may be extended by up to forty-five additional days where reasonably necessary, taking into account the complexity and number of biometric identifiers to be deleted.

When we no longer require Research Data, we will delete or anonymize it. Residual copies may remain in backup and disaster-recovery systems for up to 7 days after deletion under our ordinary backup-deletion procedures. Those copies will remain protected and isolated from further business use or model training until deleted. If a backup is restored, we will reapply applicable deletion requests and consent withdrawals. These procedures do not extend any applicable destruction deadline. Any retention required by law will be limited to the legally required purposes and period, and the data will remain protected and will not be used for further model training. Anonymization does not replace permanent destruction where the law requires destruction.

8. Withdrawal and your rights

When we use your personal information based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. You can also ask us to delete the personal information that we have collected from you. You may submit these requests by emailing support+privacy@shelest.app.

Withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Following withdrawal, we will cease research processing of your personal information, except for processing necessary to give effect to your request or required by law. Your rights in relation to trained models remain governed by applicable law.

9. Changes to this agreement

We reserve the right to modify this agreement. If we make material changes, we will notify you by posting the updated agreement on the Services or by other appropriate means. We will ask for your consent to use your personal information for further purposes if they are not compatible with the initial purpose for which it was collected.