Groupize Privacy Policy
Last modified October 22, 2021
Introduction
Groupize, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Groupize,” “we,” “us,” and “our”), is strongly committed to the privacy of all of its users. If you have any additional privacy or security questions after reading this information, please contact us. Capitalized terms that we do not define in this Privacy Policy are defined in our Terms and Conditions. Please read the Terms and Conditions.
This policy describes our practices in connection with information that we collect through our software platforms and applications (collectively, the “Groupize Services” or “our Services”) as well as our privacy practices in relation to the use of Groupize’s websites (such as www.groupize.com and other Groupize websites that link to this policy) and external marketing activities.
This policy also describes your data protection rights, including a right to object to some of Groupize’s processing. The Policy does not apply to information collected by any third party, including through any third-party application or content (including advertising) that links to or is accessible from the Groupize Services.
Are you a Customer, Customer Business Contact or Visitor?
This policy applies to the following classification of individuals that interact with Groupize:
What types of personal data do our Customers collect?
The Groupize Services are flexible and allow our Customers to collect a variety of personal data from and about their Customer Business Contacts, including name, organization, title, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number, social media account ID, and other information including but not limited to dietary preferences, interests, opinions, activities, age, gender, education and occupation. We encourage Customer Business Contacts to review the Customers’ privacy policies to further understand the types of data collected.
Groupize’s use of personal information collected through our Services shall be limited to the purpose of providing the service for which our Customers have engaged Groupize, to improve our services, or as required or permitted by law.
If you do not agree with our policies and practices, you may choose not to use our Services.
Please do not include any Protected Health Information, as defined in the HIPAA Rules (defined in the https://www.groupize.com/terms-of-services/ or sensitive financial information, such as any person’s social security number, passport number, bank account or credit card numbers or passwords in your communications using the Services or as part of your Contact Information. We do not require such information and disclaim all liability for the dissemination of such information.
How do our Customers collect personal data?
Customers can use our customizable Groupize Services to collect personal data in a variety of ways as outlined in the examples below. We encourage Customer Business Contacts to review the Customers’ privacy policies to further understand their methods of collecting the personal data.
How do our Customers use personal data?
If a Customer Business Contact chooses to use the Groupize Services to conduct business with a Customer, any information provided in connection with that interaction will be transferred to, and under the control of, the Customer.
Customers will also have access to information (including personal data and Groupize Service usage data) related to how Customer Business Contact interact with the Groupize Services they use. In such instances, the Customers act as data controllers towards the Customer Business Contact, under the European Economic Area (“EEA”) data protection laws. Therefore, Groupize cannot and does not take responsibility for the privacy practices of Customers.
The information practices of our Customers are governed by their privacy policies. We encourage Customer Business Contacts to review the Customers’ privacy policies to understand their practices and procedures.
Does Groupize use or sell personal data collected by our Customers?
Groupize does not use personal data of our Customer Business Contacts for any purposes other than to provide services that our Customers have contracted us to provide through the Groupize Services, as noted below, to improve our services, or as required or permitted by law. Groupize does not sell personal data of our Customer Business Contacts.
How does Groupize collect and process personal data from our Customers and their Customer Business Contacts?
We collect personal data from our Customers in order to facilitate communication and delivery of the Groupize Services that our Customers are interested in or contract us to provide. For example, we may collect Customer contact information, whether through the execution of a contract, use of our services, a form on our website, queries submitted to our chat agent, an interaction with our sales or customer support team, sign up for an event, or a response to one of our surveys or marketing emails. We may also collect credit card information (e.g., credit card number and expiration date, billing address, etc.) or other customary bank information needed for billing and payment purposes.
We may record Customer telephone calls made to our Client Services team for legitimate business interests related to providing Customer support, compliance with laws, training, and quality assurance. Where required by law, we will obtain consent from Customers before proceeding with the recorded telephone or video call. We retain such recordings until 90 days after the date of recording unless otherwise needed for contract implementation or further employee training.
We and our vendors collect Customer usage information about how our Customers interact with the Groupize Services. This includes which webpages you visit, what you click on, when you perform certain actions, what language preference you have, what you buy, and so on.
We process Customer’s and their Customer Business Contacts’ personal data in the following manner:
We aggregate and anonymize information about (i) Customers and Customer Business Contacts, and (ii) the use of the Groupize Services in order to improve the Groupize Services and to create benchmark and other business intelligence products. None of the aggregated and anonymized information contain personal data (i.e., does not identify any individual).
What is the legal basis for Groupize to process personal data from the EEA?
For individuals that are from the European Economic Area (EEA) or other regions that stipulate a lawful basis for processing personal information (such as under GDPR Article 6), our legal basis for collecting and using their personal information will depend on the nature and circumstances of the processing activity. Where we are the processor for our Customers, our legal basis may be fulfillment of a contract or consent. Where we are the controller, our legal basis will be consent or legitimate interest where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by the individual’s data protection interests, or fundamental rights and freedoms. These interests are to provide individuals with access to the Groupize Services and features of the Groupize Services; to send them information they have requested; to ensure the security of the Groupize Services by trying to prevent unauthorized or malicious activities; or to enforce compliance with our terms of use, contracts and other policies.
How long does Groupize store personal data collected by our Customers?
Where we process personal data for legitimate business interests described in the section “Does Groupize use or sell personal data collected by our Customers,” we keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed for our own obligations and applicable law. For example, to the extent permitted by applicable law, we may keep certain information if it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce the Terms.
How can a Customer Business Contact access, correct or delete their personal data?
In various countries, including countries in the EEA, as well as in some U.S. states, upon their request, Customer Business Contacts have the right to access their personal data and, if necessary, have it amended, deleted or restricted. Customer Business Contacts can also ask for some types of personal data to be delivered to them, or another organization they nominate, in a structured and machine-readable format.
Where we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent. See the Groupize contact section below. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Customer Business Contacts in the EEA also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority for data protection in the country where they live, or where they work – although we hope that we can assist with any queries or concerns you have about our use of your personal data.
Groupize processes Customer Business Contacts’ data under the direction of our Customers and has no direct control or ownership of the personal data we process. Customers are responsible for complying with any regulations or laws requiring notice, disclosure or obtaining consent prior to transferring the data to Groupize for processing purposes. Any Customer Business Contact that seeks to access, correct or delete data, should direct their query to the Customer. If the Customer requests Groupize to remove the personal data of a Customer Business Contact to comply with data protection regulations, Groupize will process this request within the required time under the applicable regulation or law.
We will not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. In such instances, we will inform the Customer about the legal obligations that prevent us from fulfilling the request.
How can a Customer access, correct, or delete their personal data?
Customers have the same rights to access, correct or delete their personal data as outlined above.
Any Customer can access, correct or delete their data, or their Customer Business Contact data by submitting a request on our website at www.Groupize.com/contact. Groupize will process this request within the required time under the applicable regulation or law.
We will not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. In such instances, we will inform the Customer about the legal obligations that prevent us from fulfilling the request.
We will maintain an audit history of any requests to access, correct or delete personal information to maintain a record of compliance with regulatory requirements.
California residents
If you are a California resident, California law provides you with specific rights regarding your personal information, including the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months; the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions; and the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. To make such a request, contact us at www.Groupize.com/contact, or send a letter to:
Groupize, Inc.
100 Cummings Center, Suite 343
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915
Attn: Copyright Infringement
Attention: Privacy Officer
Please note that we are only required to respond to two such requests per individual each year. You also have the right not to be discriminated against if you exercise any of your rights under California privacy law.
Groupize may have collected the following categories of personal information of California residents in the past 12 months:
This information is collected and used for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy. Groupize may have disclosed a Customer’s or Visitor’s, name, title, or business contact information to host venues (e.g., restaurant or hotel) or event sponsors of Groupize marketing events in the 12 months immediately preceding the posting of this updated privacy policy. If a Customer or Visitor wishes to have their information excluded from this type of disclosure, click www.Groupize.com/contact to submit the request. Groupize may have disclosed any of the above categories of personal information pursuant to an individual’s consent or under a written contract with a service provider for a business purpose in 12 months immediately preceding the posting of this updated privacy policy.
How does Groupize use cookies and similar technologies?
Cookies and Web Beacons
We and our vendors use cookies or similar automatic data collection technologies as individuals interact with the Groupize Services to collect certain information about their equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:
Below are the technologies we use for automatic data collection. We do not use any of these technologies to collect information from Customer Business Contacts for marketing or advertising purposes. Our Customers may add cookies or other similar technologies through our Applications for their own purposes, including for marketing purposes.
Neither of these cookies can read or access other cookies or any data from a user’s hard drive. Further, neither of these cookies alone will personally identify a user; however, a cookie will recognize a user’s individual web browser or device through an IP Address, browser version, operating system and other information, and individuals who log in to their Groupize accounts will be individually identifiable to particular Groupize Services using session cookies.
At this time, we do not respond to browser ‘do not track’ signals, as we await for a uniform standard put forth by regulators or the privacy industry. Groupize earnestly considers an individual’s independent right to determine how their personal data is processed and continues to monitor developments in this area.
Advertising
We use third parties (such as LinkedIn, Google AdRoll, YouTube) to serve advertisements that may be of interest to you on other websites. For more information and the ability to control your preferences, please visit:
http://preferences-mgr.truste.com,
http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
http://www.aboutads.info/
https://policies.google.com/privacy/partners
https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/guest-controls/retargeting-opt-out
https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/ad-settings/signedout
https://my.outbrain.com/recommendations-settings/home
https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated
https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/
https://twitter.com/settings/personalization
https://www.quora.com/optout
If you are located in Switzerland or the European Union, please click here.
Third Party Analytics Providers
We use third party analytics providers, including Google and Userpilot, to collect information about the usage of Groupize Services and websites to enable us to improve how they work. The information allows us to see the overall patterns of usage on the Groupize Services, helps us record any difficulties you have with the Groupize Services, shows us whether our advertising is effective or not, and allows us to use responses to advertisements to optimize ad performance. Google and Userpilot use cookies and other similar technologies to collect information about the usage of Groupize Services and to report website trends to us, without storing any personal data on external third-party analytics provider platforms. See below for more information, or to opt out of these practices:
Controlling Cookies
If you are visiting our website from the EU/EEA, then we do not set non-essential cookies unless you accept all cookies on the “cookie banner” that launches when you land on our website.
How does Groupize process data from Visitors?
Groupize processes Visitor data separately and distinctly from the way we process Customer and Customer Business Contact data. By visiting our websites, attending Groupize marketing events or providing us with your personal information, Visitors consent to the collection, processing and storage of their personal information as described in this section.
Visitor Personal Data Collected
Groupize collects personal data including name, title, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, social media account ID, company information (including financial and billing information when purchasing Groupize services), survey responses, message board posts, chat messages, contest entries and promotional enquiries. We may collect this information through a form on our website, queries submitted to our chat agent, an interaction with our sales or customer support team, when signing up for an event, or through a response to one of our surveys or marketing emails. We use this information to provide you with additional details about our services, conduct research, provide whitepapers or to contact you after your visit.
We also collect personal data from third party sources, such as public databases, joint marketing partners, and social media platforms. For example, if a Visitor elects to connect her social media account to her account for our websites, certain personal data from the social media account will be shared with us, which may include personal data that is part of the Visitor’s profile or her friends’ profiles.
If you elect to do so, when you provide a reference, we collect personal information about your contacts, such as:
When you provide us with personal information about your contacts we will only use this information for the specific reason for which it is provided.
If you believe that someone else has provided us with your personal information and you would like to request us to remove it from our database, please submit a request at www.Groupize.com/contact. Additionally, we and our analytics service providers collect personal data from cookies and similar technologies to collect information about the pages Visitors view, links Visitors click on, Visitors’ web browser information, Visitors’ IP address and other actions Visitors may take when accessing our websites. For additional information about our use of these technologies and how to control them, see “Cookies and similar technologies” section above.
Groupize’s Use of Visitor Personal Data Collected
Groupize processes Visitor personal data to:
If you wish to remove yourself from marketing communications from Groupize, please click here: www.Groupize.com/contact.
Storing of Visitor Personal Data
Where we process Visitor personal data for marketing purposes or with Visitor consent, we process the data until the Visitor asks us to stop. It typically takes up to 30 days to implement your request, but in no event longer than required by applicable law. Groupize will not retain Visitor personal data longer than the statutory retention period permitted in the local jurisdictions where Groupize services are marketed and provided. We also keep a record of when Visitors have asked us not to send direct marketing or to process Visitor data indefinitely so that we can respect the Visitor’s request in the future.
Sharing of Visitor Data
Groupize may share information with third party service providers contracted to provide services on our behalf as well as third parties who resell Groupize services.
Groupize may also engage with business partners to jointly offer products, services or other programs such as webinars or whitepapers and from time to time, we may share personal data if you purchase or show interest in any jointly-offered products or services.
Groupize will only share personal data of Visitors who attend a Groupize marketing event with third parties if a) the Visitor explicitly consents, b) the Visitor permits their badge to be scanned, or c) it is permissible under applicable law.
Access, correct or delete Visitor data
Visitors have the same rights to access, correct or delete their personal data as do our Customers, as outlined in section “How can a Customer access, correct or delete your personal data?”
Any Visitor that seeks to access, correct or delete data, can do so by submitting a request on our website at www.Groupize.com/contact. Groupize will process this request within 30 days.
We will not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. In such instances, we will inform the Visitor about the legal obligations that prevent us from fulfilling the request.
We will maintain an audit history of any requests to access, correct or delete personal information to maintain a record of compliance with regulatory requirements.
California residents
If you are a Visitor and a California resident, California law provides you with specific rights regarding your personal information. All practices described in the California resident section of “How can a Customer access, correct, or delete their personal data?” also applies to California Visitors.
Cookies and similar technologies
All practices related to cookies and their usage described in section “How does Groupize use cookies and similar technologies” also applies to Visitors when they interact with our websites.
Does Groupize process information of children under the age of 16?
No Groupize Services are directed to children under 16 years of age. We do not directly solicit or knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information from children under the age of 16, we will delete as soon as practicable.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of our Customers with which your child may interact. You should review the applicable terms and policies for Customers to determine their appropriateness for your child, including their data collection and use practices.
Where does Groupize transfer the personal data it processes?
To facilitate our business practices and delivery of our services, personal data may be collected, accessed from, transferred to or stored in the United States or in other countries where we operate, including countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Personal data may be accessed by Groupize personnel providing services in any country where we have facilities or in which we engage third party service providers (processors or subprocessors). In instances where we transfer personal data outside the European Economic Area, we implement safeguards to ensure an adequate level of data protection, such as use of Standard Contract Clauses as approved by the European Commission, or taking other measures to ensure an adequate level of data protection under EU law. We will implement the new Standard Contractual Clauses published on June 4, 2021 by the European Commission during the transition period provided by the Commission.
How does Groupize secure the data it processes?
We use a variety of organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect personal data within our organization. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once it is received. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us in accordance with the “How do you contact Groupize“ section below.
How do you contact Groupize?
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at
Postal Mail Address:
Groupize, Inc.
100 Cummings Center, Suite 336
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915
Attn: Copyright Infringement
Attention: Privacy Officer
Will there be changes and updates to this Privacy Policy?
We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When we do, we will also revise the “last updated” date. For changes to this Privacy Policy that may be materially less restrictive on our use or disclosure of your personal information, we may attempt to notify you by email of the change. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time to stay informed about how we are protecting the information we collect. If you continue to use the Site after we have attempted to contact you about material changes to the privacy policy, we will assume that you agree to the changes.
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