A. Introduction
The privacy of our website visitors is very important to us, and we are committed to safeguarding it. This policy explains what we will do with your personal information. By consenting to the use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy when you first visit our website, it allows us to use cookies every time you visit our website.
B. Collection of personal information
The following types of personal information may be collected, stored, and used:
- Information about your computer, including IP address, geographic location, browser type and version, and operating system;
- Information about your visits to and use of this website, including the referral source, duration of visit, page views, and website navigation paths;
- Email addresses you provide when registering on our website;
- Information you enter when creating a profile on our website – such as your name, profile pictures, gender, date of birth, relationship status, interests and hobbies, academic background, and employment details;
- Names and email addresses you enter to set up subscriptions to our emails and/or newsletters;
- Information you enter while using the services on our website;
- Information generated while using our website, including when, how often, and under what circumstances you use it;
- Information relating to anything you purchase, services you use, or transactions you make through our website, which includes your name, address, telephone number, email address, and credit card details;
- Information you post to our website with the intention of publishing on the internet, which includes your username, profile pictures, and the content of your posts;
- Information contained in any communication you send to us by email or through our website, including the content and metadata of the communication;
- Any other personal information you send to us. Before you disclose another person’s personal information to us, you must obtain that person’s consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with this policy.
C. Using your personal information
Personal information submitted to us through our website will be used for the purposes specified in this policy or on the relevant pages of the website. We may use your personal information to:
- Administer our website and business;
- Personalize our website for you;
- Enable your use of the services available on our website;
- Send you goods purchased through our website;
- Provide services purchased through our website;
- Send statements, invoices, and payment reminders to you, and collect payments from you;
- Send you non-marketing commercial communications;
- Send you email notifications you have specifically requested;
- Send our email newsletter if you have requested it (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require the newsletter);
- Send you marketing communications relating to our business or carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you, by post or, where you have specifically agreed, by email or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require marketing communications);
- Provide third parties with statistical information about our users (those third parties will not be able to identify any individual user from that information);
- Deal with inquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to our website;
- Keep our website secure and prevent fraud;
- Verify compliance with the terms and conditions governing the use of our website (including monitoring private messages sent through our website private messaging service); and
- Other uses. If you submit personal information for publication on our website, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the license you grant to us. Privacy settings can be used to limit the publication of your information on our website and can be adjusted using privacy controls on the website. Without your express consent, we will not supply your personal information to any third party for their or any other third party’s direct marketing.
D. Disclosing personal information
We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers, or subcontractors as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company, and all its subsidiaries) as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. We may disclose your personal information:
- To the extent that we are required to do so by law;
- In connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;
- To establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);
- To any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information. Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.
E. International data transfers
Information that we collect may be stored, processed in, and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate to enable us to use the information in accordance with this policy. Information we collect may be transferred to the following countries which do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the European Economic Area: the United States, Russia, Japan, China, and India. Personal information you publish on our website or submit for publication on our website may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use or misuse of such information by others. You expressly agree to the transfers of personal information described in this Section E.
F. Retaining personal information
Personal information that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes. We will retain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal data:
- To the extent that we are required to do so by law;
- If we believe that the documents may be relevant to any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings; and
- To establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk). G. Security of personal information
We will take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, or alteration of your personal information. We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall-protected) servers. All electronic financial transactions entered into through our website will be protected by encryption technology. You acknowledge that the transmission of information over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet. You are responsible for keeping the password you use for accessing our website confidential; we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).
H. Amendments
We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you understand any changes to this policy. We may notify you of changes to this policy by email or through the private messaging system on our website.
I. Your rights
You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you; the provision of such information will be subject to:
- The payment of a fee (currently fixed at EUR 10); and
- The supply of appropriate evidence of your identity (for this purpose, we will usually accept a photocopy of your passport certified by a notary plus an original copy of a utility bill showing your current address). We may withhold personal information that you request to the extent permitted by law. You may instruct us at any time not to process your personal information for marketing purposes. In practice, you will usually either expressly agree in advance to our use of your personal information for marketing purposes, or we will provide you with an opportunity to opt out of the use of your personal information for marketing purposes.
J. Third-party websites
Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third-party websites. We have no control over and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.
K. Updating information
Please let us know if the personal information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.
L. Cookies
Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies can be used by web servers to identity and track users as they navigate different pages on a website and to identify users returning to a website. Our website uses both session and persistent cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser, whereas persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted or until they reach a specified expiry date.
M. Our details
This website is owned and operated by [Company Name]. We are registered in [Country] under registration number [Number], and our registered office is at [Address]. You can contact us by writing to the postal address given above, by using our website contact form, by email to [Email Address], or by telephone on [Phone Number].
Please note that any specifics like [Company Name], [Country], [Number], [Address], [Email Address], and [Phone Number] are placeholders and should be replaced with the actual details of the company or entity this privacy policy is intended for.