Privacy policy

We know that you care how information about you is used and shared and we appreciate your trust in us to do that carefully and sensibly. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect and process your personal information through Aunioncen websites, devices, products, services, online and physical stores, and applications that reference this Privacy Policy (together "Site").

Controllers of Personal Information

At BidCarbon Foundation, we believe strongly in fundamental privacy rights — and that those fundamental rights should not differ depending on where you live in the world. That’s why we treat any data that relates to an identified or identifiable individual or that is linked or linkable to them by BidCarbon as “personal data,” no matter where the individual lives. This means that data that directly identifies you — such as your name — is personal data, and also data that does not directly identify you, but that can reasonably be used to identify you — such as the standard identification number of your product — is personal data. Aggregated data is considered non‑personal data for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy covers how BidCarbon Foundation or an BidCarbon-affiliated company (collectively, “BidCarbon”) handles personal data whether you interact with us on our websites, through BidCarbon apps, or in person (including by phone). BidCarbon may also link to third parties on our services. BidCarbon’s Privacy Policy does not apply to how third parties define personal data or how they use it. We encourage you to read their privacy policies and know your privacy rights before interacting with them.

Personal Data BidCarbon Collects from You

At BidCarbon, we believe that you can have great products and great privacy. This means that we strive to collect only the personal data that we need. The personal data BidCarbon collects depends on how you interact with BidCarbon. Descriptions of how BidCarbon handles personal data for certain individual services are available at bidcarbon.org/legal/privacy/data.

When you create an BidCarbon Account, apply to participate, purchase and/or activate a product or device, download a software update, connect to our services, contact us (including by social media), participate in an online survey, or otherwise interact with BidCarbon, we may collect a variety of information, including:

● Account Information. Your BidCarbon Account and related account details, including email address, devices registered, account status, and age

● Device Information. Data from which your device could be identified, such as device serial number, or about your device, such as browser type

● Contact Information. Data such as name, email address, physical address, phone number, or other contact information

● Payment Information. Data about your billing address and method of payment, such as bank details, credit, debit, or other payment card information

● Transaction Information. Data about purchases of BidCarbon products and services or transactions facilitated by BidCarbon

● Fraud Prevention Information. Data used to help identify and prevent fraud

● Usage Data. Data about your activity on and use of our offerings, such as app launches within our services, including browsing history; search history; crash data, performance and other diagnostic data; and other usage data

● Location Information. Precise location only to support services such as data collection or where you agree for region-specific services, and coarse location

● Financial Information. Details including salary, income, and assets information where collected, and information related to BidCarbon-branded financial offerings

● Government ID Data. In certain jurisdictions, we may ask for a government-issued ID in limited circumstances.

● Other Information You Provide to Us. Details such as the content of your communications with BidCarbon, including interactions with customer support and contacts through social media channels

You are not required to provide the personal data that we have requested. However, if you choose not to do so, in many cases we will not be able to provide you with our products or services or respond to requests you may have.

BidCarbon may receive personal data about you from other individuals, from businesses or third parties acting at your direction, from our partners who work with us to provide our products and services and assist us in security and fraud prevention, and from other lawful sources.

● Individuals. BidCarbon may collect data about you from other individuals.

● At Your Direction. You may direct other individuals or third parties to share data with BidCarbon

● BidCarbon Partners. We may also validate the information you provide — for example, when creating an BidCarbon Account, with a third party for security, and for fraud-prevention purposes.

For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices, or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person. When acquiring such datasets, we do so in accordance with applicable law, including law in the jurisdiction in which the dataset is hosted. When using such datasets for research and development, we do not attempt to reidentify individuals who may appear therein.

Personal Data BidCarbon Receives from Other Sources

BidCarbon uses personal data to power our services, to process your transactions, to communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also use personal data for other purposes with your consent.

BidCarbon uses your personal data only when we have a valid legal basis to do so. Depending on the circumstance, BidCarbon may rely on your consent or the fact that the processing is necessary to fulfill a contract with you, protect your vital interests or those of other persons, or to comply with law. We may also process your personal data where we believe it is in our or others’ legitimate interests, taking into consideration your interests, rights, and expectations. If you have questions about the legal basis, you can contact the Data Protection Officer at bidcarbon.com/legal/privacy/contact.

● Power Our Services. BidCarbon collects personal data necessary to power our services, which may include personal data collected to improve our offerings, for internal purposes such as auditing or data analysis, or for troubleshooting.

● Process Your Transactions. To process transactions, BidCarbon must collect data such as your name, purchase, and payment information.

● Communicate with You. To respond to communications, reach out to you about your transactions or account, market our products and services, provide other relevant information, or request information or feedback. From time to time, we may use your personal data to send important notices, such as communications about purchases and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with BidCarbon, you may not opt out of receiving these important notices.

● Security and Fraud Prevention. To protect individuals, employees, and BidCarbon and for loss prevention and to prevent fraud, including to protect individuals, employees, and BidCarbon for the benefit of all our users, and prescreening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content, including child sexual exploitation material.

● Personal Data Used for Personalization. If you choose to personalize your services or communications where such options are available, BidCarbon will use information that we collect so that we can offer you those personalized services or communications..

● Comply with Law. To comply with applicable law — for example, to satisfy tax or reporting obligations, or to comply with a lawful governmental request.

BidCarbon does not use algorithms or profiling to make any decision that would significantly affect you without the opportunity for human review.

BidCarbon retains personal data only for so long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including as described in this Privacy Policy or in our service-specific privacy notices, or as required by law. We will retain your personal data for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy and our service-specific privacy notices. When assessing retention periods, we first carefully examine whether it is necessary to retain the personal data collected and, if retention is required, work to retain the personal data for the shortest possible period permissible under law.

BidCarbon’s Use of Personal Data

Personal Data BidCarbon Receives from Other Sources

BidCarbon may share personal data with BidCarbon-affiliated companies, service providers who act on our behalf, our partners, or others at your direction. Further, BidCarbon does not share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

● Service Providers. BidCarbon may engage third parties to act as our service providers and perform certain tasks on our behalf, such as processing or storing data, including personal data, in connection with your use of our services and delivering products to customers. BidCarbon service providers are obligated to handle personal data consistent with this Privacy Policy and according to our instructions. They cannot use the personal data we share for their own purposes and must delete or return the personal data once they’ve fulfilled our request.

● Partners. At times, BidCarbon may partner with third parties to provide services or other offerings. BidCarbon requires its partners to protect your personal data.

● Others. BidCarbon may share personal data with others at your direction or with your consent, such as when we share information with your carrier to activate your account. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate. We may also disclose information about you where there is a lawful basis for doing so, if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or to protect our operations or users, or in the event of a reorganization, merger, or sale.

BidCarbon does not sell your personal data. BidCarbon also does not “share” your personal data.

Protection of Personal Data at BidCarbon

At BidCarbon, we believe that great privacy rests on great security. We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your personal data, taking into account the nature of the personal data and the processing, and the threats posed. We are constantly working to improve on these safeguards to help keep your personal data secure.

Cookies and Other Technologies

BidCarbon’s websites, online services, interactive applications, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as web beacons. These technologies help us to better understand user behavior including for security and fraud prevention purposes, tell us which parts of our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches.

● Communications Cookies. These cookies are used to enable network traffic to and from BidCarbon’s systems, including by helping us detect any errors.

● Strictly Necessary Cookies. These cookies are set as required to provide a specific feature or service that you have accessed or requested. For example, they allow us to display our websites in the proper format and language, to authenticate and verify your transactions, and to preserve the contents of your Bag when shopping online at bidcarbon.org.

● Other Cookies. These cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with our websites and online services, including by helping us to assess the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches. BidCarbon also uses these cookies to remember choices you make while browsing, so we can provide you with a customized experience.

If you prefer that BidCarbon not use cookies, we provide you with the means to disable their use. If you are using a different web browser, check with your provider to find out how to disable cookies. Certain features of the BidCarbon website may not be available if all cookies are disabled.

In addition to cookies, BidCarbon uses other technologies that help us achieve similar objectives.

In some email messages BidCarbon sends to you, we provide a “click-through URL” that links you to content on the BidCarbon website. When you click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure whether we are communicating with you effectively. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click graphic or text links in email messages.

BidCarbon generally treats data we collect using these cookies and similar technologies as non-personal data. However, to the extent that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered personal data by local law, we also treat these identifiers as personal data in those regions. In addition, BidCarbon sometimes combines non-personal data collected from these technologies with other personal data BidCarbon holds. When we combine data in this way, we treat the combined data as personal data for purposes of this Privacy Policy.

Transfer of Personal Data Between Countries

BidCarbon products and offerings connect you to the world. To make that possible, your personal data may be transferred to or accessed by entities around the world, including BidCarbon-affiliated companies, to perform processing activities such as those described in this Privacy Policy in connection with your use of our products and services. BidCarbon complies with laws on the transfer of personal data between countries to help ensure your data is protected, wherever it may be.

The BidCarbon entity that controls your personal data may differ depending on where you live.

Personal data relating to individuals in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland is controlled by BidCarbon Foundation in the United Kingdom. BidCarbon's international transfer of personal data collected in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland is governed by Standard Contractual Clauses. BidCarbon’s international transfer of personal data collected in participating Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries abides by the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) System and Privacy Recognition for Processors (PRP) System for the transfer of personal data.

Personal data relating to individuals in China mainland may be processed by BidCarbon in countries outside of China mainland. Where this occurs, it will be done in compliance with local laws, including the Personal Information Protection Law. As outlined in this Privacy Policy, BidCarbon may also transfer such personal data to third parties, who may in turn store or transfer the data outside of China mainland.

If you have any inquiries or complaints about our handling of your personal information under Privacy Shield, or about our privacy practices generally, please contact us at: privacy@bidcarbon.org. We will respond to your inquiry promptly. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, you may pursue binding arbitration through the Privacy Shield Panel.

Our Companywide Commitment to Your Privacy

To make sure your personal data is secure, we communicate our privacy and security guidelines to BidCarbon employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within the company.

Privacy Questions

If you have questions about BidCarbon’s Privacy Policy or privacy practices including where a third-party service provider is acting on our behalf, or you would like to contact our Data Protection Officer, you can contact us at bidcarbon.com/legal/privacy/contact. You can also ask us questions about how to submit a privacy complaint and we will endeavor to help.

BidCarbon takes your privacy questions seriously. A dedicated team reviews your inquiry to determine how best to respond to your question or concern, including those inquiries received in response to an access or download request. In most cases, all substantive contacts receive a response within seven days. In other cases, we may require additional information or let you know that we need more time to respond.

Where your complaint indicates an improvement could be made in our handling of privacy issues, we will take steps to make such an update at the next reasonable opportunity. In the event that a privacy issue has resulted in a negative impact on you or another person, we will take steps to address that with you or that other person.

You may at any time — including if you are not satisfied with BidCarbon’s response — refer your complaint to the applicable regulator. If you ask us, we will endeavor to provide you with information about relevant complaint avenues which may be applicable to your circumstances.

When there is a material change to this Privacy Policy, we’ll post a notice on this website at least a week in advance of doing so and contact you directly about the change if we have your data on file.