Pearla.ai ("Pearla") is made by Smart Apps Lab, LLC, a California limited liability company ("we", "us"). Pearla is an AI voice agent that answers phone calls for dental practices. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use and share it, and the choices you have.
We handle information in two different roles:
- As a business, for people who visit pearla.ai, book a demo, or use the Pearla dashboard for their practice, and for our customers' billing contacts. See Information we collect for ourselves.
- As a service provider to dental practices, for people who call a practice that uses Pearla ("callers") and the practice's patients. The practice decides how that information is used, and its own privacy notice applies. See Callers and patients.
Information we collect for ourselves
Visitors to pearla.ai
- Usage information. Our website uses Google Analytics, which sets cookies and collects information such as the pages you visit, when you visit, the site that referred you, your browser and device, and your approximate location derived from your IP address.
- Embedded content. Pages load fonts from Google Fonts, and our home page shows testimonials from testimonial.to. Those companies receive your IP address and browser information when your browser loads their content.
- Demo bookings. The website has no forms of its own. When you book a demo, you do so on Calendly, which collects the information you enter (such as your name and email) under its own privacy policy and shares it with us so we can hold the demo.
- Emails. If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write.
Practice staff who use the dashboard
- Account information: name, email address, practice, and role. Sign-in uses links sent by email through Google Firebase.
- Security logs: when you sign in and use the dashboard, our servers record your email address, IP address and the actions taken, to keep accounts secure and investigate problems.
- Usage information: the dashboard also uses Google Analytics, which records the dashboard pages you visit and the device and browser information described above.
- Practice settings you enter, such as office hours, services and policies, which we use to set up the agent for your practice.
Customers' billing contacts
- Billing contact name, email and address, and payment history. Card payments are handled by Stripe; we don't receive or store full card numbers.
How we use it
To provide, secure and support the service and the dashboard; to set up and bill accounts; to hold demos and answer questions; to send service and account messages; to understand how our website and dashboard are used and improve them; and to comply with the law and protect our rights.
Who we share it with
- Companies that run parts of our business for us: Google (Cloud, Firebase and Analytics), ElevenLabs (which receives the practice settings used to set up each practice's agent, such as office details, hours, policies and the number calls are transferred to), Stripe (payments), SendGrid (email), and Calendly (demo scheduling).
- When the law requires it, or to protect the rights, safety or property of our customers, others or us.
- A buyer or successor if our business or assets are sold or merged, under this policy.
Callers and patients
When you call a dental practice that uses Pearla, an AI voice agent answers for that practice. We handle your information on the practice's behalf, as its service provider, and only to provide our service to that practice.
What we handle
- Call information: your phone number, the time and length of the call, and how it ended.
- Recordings and transcripts: calls are transcribed and summarized by AI. The audio is also recorded and stored, unless the practice has turned on our zero-retention option, in which case audio isn't kept but transcripts and summaries are.
- What you tell the agent, such as your name, date of birth, the reason for your call, the appointment you want, a callback number and when to call, and your insurance carrier if you mention it.
- The practice's records about you: if the practice connects its practice-management system, the agent looks you up there and may see details from your patient record, such as your name, date of birth, phone numbers, email, address and appointments. It can create a new patient record and book, change, cancel or confirm appointments there.
How it's used
Only to answer and handle the call for the practice: to identify you, answer your questions, schedule appointments, take callback requests, transfer your call to the practice's team where it has set that up, and show the practice's staff a record of the call in their dashboard; and to support and secure the service and comply with the law.
We don't sell this information, share it for advertising, or use it to train our own AI models. We don't use it for our own purposes, other than aggregated, de-identified statistics (such as call counts) that we don't try to re-identify.
Who processes it
- ElevenLabs runs the voice agent: speech recognition, the agent's voice, and the AI language models it uses to answer and to summarize calls. ElevenLabs keeps call data for up to 30 days, or not at all for audio and transcripts when the practice uses the zero-retention option.
- Twilio and the phone carriers provide the phone numbers and carry the calls.
- Google Cloud and Firebase host our servers, database and file storage, in the United States.
- The practice's practice-management system (today, OpenDental), which belongs to the practice.
- SendGrid is used to email the practice's staff when a callback request is waiting. That email doesn't include the caller's details.
- Google Analytics receives the addresses of dashboard pages that practice staff visit. Today those addresses can include text a staff member types into the dashboard's call search, such as a caller's name or phone number. We're working to stop sending that search text.
Your requests
The practice controls this information. To see, correct or delete it, or with questions about how it's used, contact the practice you called. If you contact us, we'll refer your request to the practice and help it respond.
Health information
The practice's own notice of privacy practices describes how it handles your health information. We don't currently sign business associate agreements under HIPAA, and we don't represent that our service meets HIPAA's requirements; the practice is responsible for its own obligations under HIPAA and California's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act.
How long we keep information
- Call records (recordings, transcripts, summaries and callback requests) are kept while the practice's account is active and until the practice asks us to delete them. We don't currently delete them on an automatic schedule. After a practice's subscription ends, we may delete its data after 90 days.
- Account, billing and security records are kept while the account is active and afterwards for as long as we need them for the purposes above, such as tax, accounting and security, or as the law requires.
- Website analytics are kept by Google according to our Google Analytics data-retention settings.
- Copies in backups and system logs are removed as those expire.
Security
We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures to protect information. Our cloud providers encrypt it in transit and at rest. The dashboard uses sign-in links sent by email instead of passwords, and access within a practice is limited by role. The connections between our voice provider and our servers are authenticated and signed, and our logs are designed not to record callers' personal details. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't guarantee that information will never be accessed, lost or changed without permission. If we learn of a security breach affecting information we hold for a practice, we'll tell that practice without undue delay.
Cookies, Do Not Track and your choices
- You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or use Google's Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Our website works without them.
- Our websites don't respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals.
- Google, as our analytics provider, may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites. The other companies whose content our pages load (Google Fonts and testimonial.to) receive your IP address and browser information under their own policies. Our websites don't load advertising pixels.
California privacy rights
- No sale or sharing. We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the personal information of anyone under 16.
- Categories. In the last 12 months we collected, for ourselves, the categories described in Information we collect for ourselves: identifiers (such as name, email and IP address), commercial information (billing history), internet activity (website and dashboard usage), approximate location, and professional information (your practice and role). We collected them from you, your device and the companies named above, for the purposes and with the recipients described there, and keep them as described in How long we keep information.
- Your rights. To the extent the California Consumer Privacy Act applies to us, California residents can ask to know what personal information we have about them, to get a copy, to correct it and to delete it, and won't be discriminated against for asking. Email support@smartappslab.com. We'll verify your request by matching information we already have, such as by confirming from your email address. An authorized agent can make a request for you with your signed permission.
- Anyone, wherever you live, can email us to review or correct the account information we hold about them.
- Callers and patients. For information we handle as a practice's service provider, please make your request to the practice; we'll help it respond.
- Shine the Light. We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.
Children, location and links
- Our website and dashboard aren't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information for ourselves. A parent or guardian may call a practice for a child; that information is handled for the practice as described under Callers and patients.
- We operate in the United States, and our own servers and storage are in the United States.
- Links to other websites, such as Calendly, are governed by those websites' own policies.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We'll post the new version here with a new effective date at the top, and for significant changes we'll also tell our customers by email before they take effect.
Contact us
Smart Apps Lab, LLC, Alameda County, California. Email: support@smartappslab.com. Our terms of service govern use of the service by practices.