Our Privacy Policy
Thank you for choosing to be part of our community at Connect Earth (“Company“, “we”, “us”, “our”). We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy notice or our practices with regard to your personal information, please contact us at dataprotection@connect.earth.
When you visit www.connect.earth (the “Website”) and use any of our services (the “Services”, which include the Website ), we appreciate that you are trusting us with your personal information. We take your privacy very seriously. In this privacy notice, we seek to explain to you in the clearest way possible what information we collect, how we use it and what rights you have in relation to it. We hope you take some time to read through it carefully, as it is important. If there are any terms in this privacy notice that you do not agree with, please discontinue using our Services immediately. This privacy notice applies to all information collected through our Services as well as any related services, sales, marketing or events.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
3. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
4. DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?
5. IS YOUR INFORMATION TRANSFERRED INTERNATIONALLY?
6. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
7. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?
8. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
9. CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES
10. DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?
11. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS NOTICE?
12. HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS NOTICE?
13. HOW CAN YOU REVIEW, UPDATE OR DELETE THE DATA WE COLLECT FROM YOU?
1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT
Information automatically collected:
(A) When you use our Website
In short: Some information — such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address and/or browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you visit our Website.
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate the Website. This information is completely anonymous and does not obtain or process any personal data, such as identifying your identity (like your name or contact information). However, it may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Website and other technical information. We do store this anonymised data and it is used primarily to maintain the security and operation of our Website and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.
Like many businesses, we also collect information through cookies and similar technologies. The information we collect includes:
- Log and usage data. Log and usage data is service-related, diagnostic, usage and performance information our servers automatically collect when you access or use our Website and which we record in log files. Depending on how you interact with us, this log data may include your IP address, device information, browser type and settings and information about your activity on the Website (such as the date/time stamps associated with your usage, pages and files viewed, searches and other actions you take such as which features you use), device event information (such as system activity, error reports (sometimes called ‘Crash dumps’) and hardware settings).
- Device data. We collect device data such as information about your computer, phone, tablet or other device you use to access the Website. Depending on the device used, this device data may include information such as your IP address (or proxy server), device and application identification numbers, location, browser type, hardware model Internet service provider and/or mobile carrier, operating system and system configuration information.
(B) When you use our API, products or partner products
In short: Some information — such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address and/or browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you use our app. However, no personally identifiable data is collected (except in the very rare case where a ‘purchase description’ contains within it some personal data).
We automatically collect certain information when you use our app. This information is completely anonymous and does not obtain or process any personal data, such as identifying your identity (like your name or contact information). However, it may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our app and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to allow for the functioning security and operation of our app and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.
The code we use inside our app may be used to ace your banking data and/or purchasing history, in order to give you information on the carbon footprint of your purchases. In order to provide you with the relevant carbon emissions data our code will locate the ‘purchase description’ on your bank statement. This purchase description will almost always be a very generic description, such as ‘Uber ride 123′ -> ’Uber inc’, ‘Taxi & Rides’. However, it is possible that the purchase description could contain personal data (such as the name of an individual seller). If that were to happen, then the app could inadvertently be found to be transferring ‘personal data’. This PII risk however can be avoided by not sending the optional transaction description to the API or services which is possible with specific integration methods.
Only applicable if using the transaction enrichment add-ons: We may store some of your anonymised purchase information, including your purchase descriptions depending on the integration method used. However, if using the transaction enrichment services we do send your purchase descriptions to a third-party app, called Heron Data (see: https://www.herondata.io/) which we use to help match up customer purchases with their carbon footprints. All data which is transferred to Heron Data is completely anonymised and is not linked to any identifiable customer. No personal data is transferred to Heron Data except in the rare case that your purchase description would contain any personal data as part of its description (as outlined above). Users of the app should also review Heron Data’s privacy policy for more information, at: https://www.herondata.io/privacy).
2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
In short: We process your information for purposes based on legitimate business interests, the fulfilment of our contract with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and/or your consent.
We use personal information collected via our Website for a variety of business purposes described below. We process your personal information for these purposes in reliance on our legitimate business interests, in order to enter into or perform a contract with you, with your consent, and/or for compliance with our legal obligations. We indicate the specific processing grounds we rely on next to each purpose listed below. We use the information we collect or receive:
- To send you marketing and promotional communications. We and/or our third-party marketing partners may use the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. For example, when expressing an interest in obtaining information about us or our Website, subscribing to marketing or otherwise contacting us, we will collect personal information from you. You can opt out of our marketing emails at any time (see the “WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?” below).
- Deliver targeted advertising to you. We may use your information to develop and display personalised content and advertising (and work with third parties who do so) tailored to your interests and/or location and to measure its effectiveness.
3. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
In short: We only share information with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services, to protect your rights, or to fulfil business obligations.
We may process or share your data that we hold based on the following legal basis:
- Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose.
- Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
- Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfil the terms of our contract.
- Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal processes, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
- Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:
- Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with or during negotiations of any merger or sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
4. DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?
In short: We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to access or store information.
A cookie is a small file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser asking permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. The file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our services in order to tailor them to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better experience, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of our services. We may use Hotjar to analyse the use of our website. Hotjar gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Hotjar’s privacy policy can be found at the following web address: https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy/.
5. IS YOUR INFORMATION TRANSFERRED INTERNATIONALLY?
In short: We may transfer, store, and process your information in countries other than your own depending on the service used (e.g. API or Website).
For the API, our servers are located in Europe, the UK and the USA. Specific APIs are available that are specific to certain regions in order to ensure data is not processed or stored outside these regions. This should be agreed with Connect Earth depending on the service used.
Our Website servers are in Europe and the USA. If you are accessing our Website from outside of these regions, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed by us in our facilities and by those third parties with whom we may share your personal information (see “WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?” above), in and other countries. If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom (UK), then these countries may not necessarily have data protection laws or other similar laws as comprehensive as those in your country. We will however take all necessary measures to protect your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable law.
6. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
In short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless otherwise required by law. We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements). No purpose in this notice will require us to keep your personal information for longer than 2 years.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
7. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?
In short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.
We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security, and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, the transmission of personal information to and from our Website is at your own risk. You should only access the Website within a secure environment.
8. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
In short: You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time. If you are a resident in the EEA or UK and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm.
If you are a resident of Switzerland, the contact details for the data protection authorities are available here: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home.html. Cookies and similar technologies: Most Web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove cookies and reject cookies. If you choose to remove cookies or reject cookies, this could affect certain features or services of our Website. To opt out of interest-based advertising by advertisers on our Website, visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.
9. CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy notice.
10. DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?
In short: Yes, if you are a resident of California, you are granted specific rights regarding access to your personal information.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine The Light” law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact information provided below and include the email address associated with your account and a statement that you reside in California. We will make sure the data is not publicly displayed on the Website, but please be aware that the data may not be completely or comprehensively removed from all our systems (e.g. backups, etc.).
11. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS NOTICE?
In short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.
We may update this privacy notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Revised” date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this privacy notice frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
12. HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS NOTICE?
If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at dataprotection@connect.earth.
13. HOW CAN YOU REVIEW, UPDATE OR DELETE THE DATA WE COLLECT FROM YOU?
To review, update or delete any data we may collect, you may contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) by email at dataprotection@connect.earth.