The Earth Genome and its affiliates (“Earth Genome,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) want you to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose Personal Information. This Privacy Statement describes our practices in connection with Personal Information that we collect through:
- Websites operated by us from which you are accessing this Privacy Statement, including the official website at https://www.earthgenome.org and the Earth Index site at https://www.earthgenome.org/earth-index (“Site”);
- Social media properties from which you are accessing this Privacy Statement (“Our Social Media”);
- HTML-formatted email messages or other communications that we send to you that link to this Privacy Statement (“Emails”); and
- Any other offline interactions you may have with us (“Offline Interactions”).
Collectively, we refer to the Site, Our Social Media, Emails, and Offline Interactions as the “Services.”
Categories and sources of Personal Information collected
“Personal Information” is information that identifies an individual or relates to an identifiable individual. We collect the following categories of Personal Information:
Personal Information we receive from you
| Identifiers | Such as first and last name, prefix, nickname, email address, affiliation, professional or trade-related information. |
|---|---|
| User Content | Such as your contributions to the Earth Index, reviews about our Services, and other content that you may create or share with us during our relationship, including posts on Our Social Media and comment sections. |
| Marketing Data | Such as your choices regarding our newsletters, surveys, and other marketing displayed or provided to you. |
| Visitor and Event Information | Such as details specific to a particular event or conference that you share with us. |
| Communication Information | Such as details of your communications with us, details of your claims, complaints, and queries in general. |
Personal Information collected automatically through your use of our Services
| Online Activity Data | Pages or screens you viewed, how long you spent on a page or screen, navigation paths between pages or screens, information about your activity on a page or screen, access times, and duration of access, and whether you have opened our marketing emails or clicked links within them. |
|---|---|
| Device Information | Your mobile device’s operating system type and version, manufacturer and model, screen resolution, RAM and disk size, CPU usage, device type (e.g., phone, tablet), IP address, language settings, mobile device carrier, radio/network information, and general location information. This includes data obtained through cookies and similar technologies. |
| Audio/Visual Data | Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, and similar information, such as call and video recordings, photos and videos taken at one of our events/conferences, CCTV, and site security information. |
| Geolocation Data | Such as device location and approximate location derived from IP address. |
Other sources from which we collect Personal Information
| Social Media | Such as profile pictures, social media account ID, and other public social media profile information, including lists of friends/followers on social media. |
|---|---|
| Third-Party Logins | When you link, connect, or login to our Services with a third-party service (e.g., Google or Facebook), you direct the service to send us information as controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings on that service. |
| Other Third Parties | We may collect information from sources such as publicly available databases, marketing partners, third-party providers, and data brokers. |
We need to collect Personal Information to provide the requested Services to you. If you do not provide the information requested, we may not be able to provide the Services. If you disclose any Personal Information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with the Services, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Statement.
Personal Information processing purposes
We use Personal Information for legitimate purposes, including:
| Processing Purpose and Examples of Related Activities | Personal Information Used |
|---|---|
| Administering the Services: Providing the Services’ functionality to you, such as arranging access to your registered account; verifying your information; responding to your inquiries and fulfilling your requests, such as when you contact us via one of our online contact forms or otherwise (e.g., when you send us questions or comments, or when you request other information about our Services); to send you administrative information, such as information regarding the Services and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies; and/or to allow you to send Services-related content to another person through the Services if you choose to do so. | Identifiers; User Content; Marketing Data; Visitor and Event Information; Communication Information; Online Activity Data; Device Information; Audio/Visual Data; Geolocation Data. |
| Operations: Administering online Services (including troubleshooting and diagnostic testing, conducting performance analyses of our systems and Services, testing new system features to evaluate their impact, system and log maintenance, technical support, system debugging, and hosting data); and facilitating mergers, acquisitions, and other reorganizations and restructurings of our business (including prospective transactions). | Personal Information as relevant for the specific operation. |
| Conferences, visits, and other events: Facilitating and participating in conferences and events, welcoming guests and visitors to our premises. | Identifiers; Communication Information; Device Information; Online Activity Data; Audio/Visual Data. |
| Marketing: Sending you newsletters, event invitations, and mailings; fulfilling your event registration requests; and providing services, including providing events. | Identifiers; Communication Information; Marketing Data; Visitor and Event Information; Audio/Visual Data; User Content; Online Activity Data; Device Information. |
| Improving and developing Services that we may provide to you: Conducting data analysis, for example, monitoring and analyzing Services use and using data analytics to improve the efficiency of our Services; developing new Services; considering ways to enhance, improve, repair, maintain, or modify our Services; identifying usage trends, for example, understanding which parts of our Services are most interesting to users; and operating and expanding our activities. | Identifiers; User Content; Visitor and Event Information; Communication Information; Online Activity Data; Device Information; Audio/Visual Data. |
| Relationship building and engagement: Facilitating and responding to any social sharing and posts on our Services and other relationship building activities. | Identifiers; Marketing Data; Visitor and Event Information; Online Activity Data; Device Information; User Content. |
| Aggregation and/or anonymization: Aggregating and/or anonymizing Personal Information so that it will no longer be considered Personal Information. | Personal Information as relevant for the specific purpose. |
| Security and fraud prevention: Conducting audits, verifying that our internal processes function as intended and are compliant with legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements; monitoring for and preventing fraud; and for security purposes, including maintaining system security and on-site security of our premises. | Identifiers; Device Information. |
| Legal and compliance: Fulfilling our legal and compliance-related obligations, including complying with applicable laws; complying with legal processes; responding to requests from public and government authorities; meeting national security or law enforcement requirements, compliance with requirements set by industry-specific supervisory bodies. enforcing our terms and conditions and standards; protecting our operations; protecting our rights, privacy, or property; responding to auditors; and allowing us to pursue available legal remedies and make insurance claims, defend claims, and limit the damages that we may sustain. | Personal Information as relevant for the specific legal action, regulatory investigation, and/or legal processes in question. |
Individuals in the EEA/UK: Please view the EEA/UK Privacy Statement Supplement at the end of this Privacy Statement for more information regarding our legal basis for processing Personal Information.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We disclose Personal Information to third parties and for the purposes described below, depending on each specific jurisdiction and applicable law:
| Recipients | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Third-party service providers | Including service providers that provide website hosting, IT and related infrastructure, email delivery, analytics, and other services for the following purposes:
|
| Analytics providers |
|
| Business partners |
|
| Law enforcement, public, regulatory, and government authorities, courts, tribunals, or third parties where necessary to comply with applicable law and regulations |
|
| Professional advisors, such as accountants, actuaries, auditors, experts, consultants, lawyers, banks, and financial institutions |
|
| Third parties, such as an acquiring entity and its advisors, in connection with a sale or business transaction | We may disclose or transfer your Personal Information in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). You will be notified of any such business transaction and of possible changes to the processing of your Personal Information in accordance with applicable law and the “Updates to this Privacy Statement” section. |
By using the Services, you may elect to disclose Personal Information on message boards, chat, profile pages, blogs, and other services to which you are able to post information and content (including, without limitation, Our Social Media), or through which you are able to send messages through the Services. Please note that any information you post or disclose in this context will become public and may be available to other users and the general public.
Security
We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect Personal Information within our organization. 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, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contacting us” section below.
Email marketing choices
You have choices regarding marketing-related communications. Where required by applicable law, we will ask for your prior opt-in consent. If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails from us on a going-forward basis, you may opt out by following the unsubscribe instructions in any such message or by contacting us by email at info@earthgenome.org.
We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out.
Rights and requests
If you would like to request to access/review, correct, update, suppress/delete, object to, restrict or opt out of the processing of Personal Information, withdraw your consent where relied upon for processing (which will not affect the lawfulness of processing prior to the withdrawal), or if you would like to request to receive an electronic copy of your Personal Information for purposes of transmitting it to another company (to the extent that these rights are provided to you by applicable law), please feel free to contact us in accordance with the “Contacting us” section below. We will respond to your request consistent with applicable law.
In your request, please make clear what Personal Information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your Personal Information suppressed from our database or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of your Personal Information. For your protection, we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.
Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes. Further, certain Personal Information may be exempt from requests pursuant to applicable data protection laws or other laws and regulations.
Depending on your jurisdiction, you may also lodge a complaint with a data protection authority for your country or region, or where an alleged infringement of applicable data protection law occurs. For example, a list of EEA data protection authorities is available at: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/list-personal-data-protection-competent-authorities. Information regarding the UK data protection authority is available at: https://ico.org.uk/.
Retention period
We retain Personal Information for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained as outlined in this Privacy Statement unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by applicable law. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include:
- The length of time that we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide the Services to you (for example, for as long as you have a relationship with us or keep using the Services);
- Whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject (for example, certain laws require us to keep records or communications for a certain period before we can delete them); or
- Whether retention is advisable considering our legal position (such as in regard to applicable statutes of limitations, litigation, or regulatory investigations).
Third-party services
This Privacy Statement does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties. This includes any third party operating any website or service to which the Services link. The inclusion of a link on the Services does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates.
In addition, we are not responsible for the information collection, use, disclosure, or security policies or practices of other organizations, such as Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, or any other app developer, app provider, social media platform provider, operating system provider, wireless service provider or device manufacturer, including with respect to any Personal Information you disclose to other organizations through or in connection with Our Social Media.
Use of Services by minors
The Services are not directed to individuals under the age of sixteen (16), and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from individuals under 16.
Cross-border transfer
Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country or region where we have facilities or engage service providers. By using the Services, you understand that your Personal Information will be transferred to countries outside of your country or region of residence, including to the United States, which may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country or region. In certain circumstances, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies, or security authorities in those other countries or regions may be entitled to access your Personal Information.
Some countries outside of the EEA/UK are recognized by the European Commission and/or the UK government as providing an adequate level of data protection according to EEA/UK standards: the list of the EEA’s adequate jurisdictions is available here, and the list of the UK’s adequate jurisdictions is available here. For transfers from the EEA or the UK to countries not considered adequate by the European Commission or the UK government (as applicable), we have put in place adequate measures, such as the standard contractual clauses adopted by the relevant authority to protect your personal data. You may obtain a copy of these measures by contacting us in accordance with the “Contacting us” section below.
Sensitive information
Unless we request it, we ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., Social Security numbers or other ID numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, criminal background, or trade union membership) on or through the Services or otherwise to us.
Updates to this Privacy Statement
The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this Privacy Statement indicates when this Privacy Statement was last revised. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Statement on the Services.
Contacting us
The Earth Genome located at 121 Pepper Drive Los Altos, CA 94022 is responsible for collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information under this Privacy Statement. If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, please contact us.
You can reach us at:
info@earthgenome.org121 Pepper Drive
Los Altos, CA 94022
EEA/UK Privacy Statement Supplement
We process Personal Information based on the following legal bases:
| Purpose | Legal Basis for Processing |
|---|---|
| Administering the Services | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you and/or to comply with a legal obligation. |
| Operations | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you, to comply with a legal obligation, and/or based on our legitimate interest, such as maintaining and improving our Services. |
| Conferences, visits, and other events | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you and/or based on our legitimate interest, such as improving the quality of our events and responding to complaints and concerns relating to an event. |
| Marketing | Where required under applicable law, we obtain your consent to send you direct marketing communications. Where permitted by applicable law, we also engage in marketing activities based on our legitimate interest, such as to promote our Services. |
| Improving and developing Services that we may provide to you | We engage in these activities based on our legitimate interests, such as developing new Services, and with your consent to the extent required by applicable law. |
| Relationship building and engagement | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you, to comply with a legal obligation, and/or based on our legitimate interest, such as improving our Services. |
| Aggregation and/or anonymization | We engage in these activities based on our legitimate interest, such as to generate anonymized data for our own business purposes which does not identify you or another individual. |
| Security and fraud prevention | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you, to comply with a legal obligation, and/or based on our legitimate interest, such as identifying and preventing fraudulent transactions and cyberattacks. |
| Legal and compliance | We engage in these activities to manage our contractual relationship with you, to comply with a legal obligation, and/or based on our legitimate interest, such as our interest in enforcing our terms and conditions and bringing and defending legal claims. |