Last updated: November 6, 2023

 

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes how Alternative Embedded Innovation (AEI) AG (“AEI” or “we” or “our” or “us”) collects, stores, shares, and uses information, and your choices about privacy when you use our websites, products, and services (collectively, “Services”). Your privacy is important to us, and we ask that you read this Policy carefully to be informed about our practices. This Policy is part of our Terms of Use, which can be viewed at: Terms of Use. Any capitalized terms that are used but not defined in this Policy have the same meaning given to them in our Terms of Use. By accessing or using our Services in any way, you agree that your information may be collected, stored, shared, and used as described in this Policy and our Terms of Use. By accessing or using our Services in any way, you agree that your information may be collected, stored, shared, and used as described in this Policy. By using our Services, you consent to the collection, use and sharing of your Personal Information as outlined in this Policy. You may withdraw consent at any time in writing, however such withdrawal does not negate our right to process your data prior to your withdrawal.

WHEN THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLIES

This Policy applies to all of our Services, regardless of how you use them, and whether or not you register for an AEI account. This Policy applies to how we collect, store, share, and use information. This Policy does not apply to any entity that we do not own or control, or to any person that we do not employ or manage. If, at any time during the course of using our Services, you are directed to a third-party site, you understand and agree that the policies of the third-party site govern.

TYPES OF INFORMATION WE PROCESS

Information You Provide: We may collect the information that you provide (such as name, email address, home address, phone number) or otherwise make available to us when you access or use our Services, including when you:

• fill in any forms on our Services, such as when you fill in the Contact form, when you register for an AEI account or update your account;
• access or use our Services; or
• communicate with us.

Information Collected Automatically: We may automatically collect certain information about how you access or use our Services, and by using our Services you consent to the collection of that information. Examples include but are not limited to: internet browser, operating system, device and application identifiers, IP address and geo-location information, access times and dates, referring and exit pages and URLs, clickstream data, search terms, pages viewed, time spent on pages, bounce rate and login frequency.

Information from Cookies, Web Beacons and Similar Technologies: We may collect information through the use of cookies, web beacons and similar technologies. These technologies help us to operate, improve and customize our Services. We may also use third-party service providers (such as analytics providers) that may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to help operate their services. Your browser may have settings that allow you to decline cookies, but please note that some of our Services may not be available if you do so, as some of our Services require cookies to operate. For more information about cookies, web beacons, similar technologies, and how they are used, please see our Cookie Policy below.

Information from Other Sources: We may obtain information about you from third-party partners (such as other companies with which we may jointly offer services or conduct promotional events), third-party service providers, credit bureaus or other sources, including but not limited to demographic information, contact information, open data, publicly available data and credit check information. We may use this information for legitimate business purposes, including the performance of a contract, customer support, fraud prevention, and credit-related decisions in connection with our Services, along with other purposes described in this Policy.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND THE REASONS FOR DOING SO

The information we collect helps us to operate, improve, protect, and customize our Services, as well as develop new Services. The information we collect also helps us provide customer support and make our Services more efficient for you and other Users.

For the sake of transparency, it is our responsibility to outline for you the legitimate business purposes for the collection of information and the reasons why we do so, in order for you to make an informed decision regarding the use of our Services.

In addition to the other uses of information described in this Policy, we may use all of the information that we obtain from or about you for the following purposes and reasons:

• to provide our Services to you, including new Services we develop later (reason: legitimate business purpose and performance of a contract);
• to provide you with customer support (reason: legitimate business purpose);
• to facilitate your communications or transactions with us (reason: to receive consent, and for legitimate business purpose);
• to operate, improve, and customize our Services, Content, and marketing, to develop new Services, and to understand how you use and interact with our Services (reason: legitimate business purpose);
• to develop and display more customized Content and ads to you on or off our Services (reason: to receive consent, and for legitimate business purpose);
• to promote and maintain a trusted, safer, and more reliable environment on our Services, for example, to help detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, conduct investigations or risk assessments, or verify actions taken by you or associated with your account (reason: to protect the public interest and for legitimate business purpose);
• to contact you (by email, postal mail, telephone, mobile devices, SMS text message, or as otherwise authorized by you) in order to address issues with your account or use of our Services, collect fees, send you updates about our Services or policies, or for other purposes permitted by law (reason: performance of a contract and for legitimate business purpose);
• to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our Terms of Use or any other AEI policies or agreements with Users (reason: compliance with a legal obligation); and
• to perform other functions as described when the information is collected or requested, or for other purposes with your prior consent (reason: legitimate business purpose).

ACCOUNTS AND USER PROFILES

Registration, Access and Records: To register for a AEI account, you will need to do so by providing your full name and a valid email address. If you have received our permission to use our Services as a business, you may need to complete an additional registration process and provide additional information. If you have a AEI account, you may access, add, remove or update certain information about you in your profile and account settings, as indicated on our Services. It is your responsibility to update all such information as necessary to keep it accurate and current. When you update your account or profile information, we may keep a record of the unrevised information for purposes consistent with this Policy. If you wish to terminate your account, you may do so by contacting us by sending an email to support@alternative-embedded.com, subject to any other agreements between you and us and any transactions which have not yet been completed. If you terminate your account, we may keep a record of any or all information associated with you or your account, as required or permitted by law, for purposes consistent with this Policy, and any such data shall be attached to a unique identifier which cannot be used to identify you; specific account data that includes Personal Information including your name, e-mail, and certain other records such as settings will be removed at such termination. For further information, please contact us at support@alternative-embedded.com.

Data Retention: We will keep and use your data as described in this Policy for (i) as long as your account is in use, is open, or is active; (ii) as long as is necessary to comply with any tax, legal, and/or other regulatory requirements; and (iii) to protect and defend against potential legal claims. If you would like to request the deletion of your personally identifiable information or request that it be returned to you, please contact us at support@alternative-embedded.com. By deleting your data, you understand that you will no longer be able to use our Services. We will retain your anonymized, aggregated, depersonalized data after it has been deleted from our database.

USER COMMUNICATIONS

Personal Information. Under this Policy, “Personal Information” means information that by itself can be used to identify or contact a specific person (for example, a person’s name, email address, postal address or phone number), and Personal Information does not include information that has been aggregated or made anonymous so that by itself it no longer identifies and can no longer reasonably be used to contact a specific person. We will only share your Personal Information with others in the ways described in this Policy, or otherwise with your prior consent. In addition to the other sharing of Personal Information described in this Policy, we may share your Personal Information with others in the following contexts.

• Service Providers: We may contract with third-party service providers that help us provide our Services, or that perform services for us related to our Services, and they may process your Personal Information as necessary to perform those functions for us. Examples may include but are not limited to: identity verification, document authentication, public database review, order fulfillment, payment processing, bill collection, fraud investigation, customer service assistance, web and mobile data analytics, and server and database hosting services. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not sell your Personal Information to our Service Providers.
• Payment Processing: We use third-party payment processor, Stripe, to gather your data from financial institutions. By using our Services, you grant Stripe the right, power, and authority to act on your behalf to access and transmit your personal and financial information from the relevant financial institution according to Stripe’s terms of privacy policies and service terms. You can learn more about Stripe and read its privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy.
• Business Transfers: If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be one of the assets transferred. In this event, if you have registered for a AEI account, we will notify you of the change of ownership by sending an email to the most recent email address you provided us under your AEI account.
• Legal Purposes: We may access, preserve, and disclose your Personal Information and/or other information if we believe that such access, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with any law, regulation, legal process or governmental request (such as search warrants, subpoenas or court orders), which may include responding to legal requests; (ii) enforce our Terms of Use or our other policies or agreements with Users, or investigate potential violations; (iii) detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; (iv) protect or enforce the rights or property of AEI, you, or any other person or entity; or (v) prevent physical harm to any person, including situations involving possible violence or self-harm.

AGGREGATED AND NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may aggregate and/or make anonymous any Personal Information that we have obtained in any way from or about you or others so that such information no longer contains any Personal Information. We may use and share any aggregated, anonymous or other non-personally identifying information for any legitimate business purposes, including research and development, marketing, and to inform others about how our Services are engaged with or used.

PAYMENT INFORMATION

If you purchase certain Services, you may need to provide payment information, such as credit card number, type and expiration date. This information is entered in and stored by a third-party payment processor, Stripe, and the use and storage of this information will be subject to the payment processor’s own Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can learn more about Stripe and read its privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy. We do receive certain information from the payment processor, including a unique token that we associate with you to authorize your purchases in order to help prevent fraud and identity theft. If you do not wish to provide payment information, you will not be able to use certain Services.

OTHER WEBSITES AND SERVICES

Our Services may include links to other websites or services that we do not own or control, and other websites or services that we do not own or control may include links to our Services. However, these links and features are not an endorsement by us of any other websites or services, or any of their privacy policies or practices. When you visit or use other websites or services, they may collect information from you, including through the use of cookies, web beacons or similar technologies. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of other websites and services that you visit or use to be informed of their practices.

CHILDREN’S INFORMATION

Our Services are not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from people in this age group. If you believe we may have collected Personal Information from anyone under the age of 21, please contact us at support@alternative-embedded.com.

SECURITY

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Every AEI account is protected by a password to help maintain privacy and security on our Services. If you register for an account, we urge you to use a strong password containing unique numbers, letters and special characters, and to protect the confidentiality of your password at all times. If you suspect or become aware of any unauthorized access to or use of your account or password, you agree to immediately notify us at support@alternative-embedded.com and change your password.

STATUTORY REQUESTS

Some jurisdictions have laws that give people the right to access or correct their Personal Information which a company has about them. We will honor any statutory right you may have to access or correct your Personal Information that we have in our records, and you can email such requests to support@alternative-embedded.com. Once we receive your request, we will let you know if an administrative fee will apply to fulfill your request, as permitted by applicable law. However, please note that even if you have a legal right to request access to information or to correct information, as permitted by applicable law, we may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, would require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or materially changing an existing practice), would jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical to fulfill (for example, requests to access information located on backup systems).

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Any disputes involving you and us that relate to privacy or the use of your information, and that arise out of or are related to this Policy or our Services, will be will be governed solely by the internal laws of Switzerland. The sole, exclusive and mandatory venue for any disputes shall be in the courts located in Zurich, Switzerland. The parties hereby consent to trial without a jury on all matters litigated in relation to privacy.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

Our business changes with time, and our Privacy Policy will change also. We reserve the right to change this Policy, including our Cookie Policy, without prior notice, at any time at our sole discretion. For example, and without limitation, we may change this Policy to reflect changes to the law or changes to our Services. All changes to this Policy will be effective when posted on our Services, or at such later date as may be specified in the updated Policy. We will notify you of any changes to this Policy by posting the updated Policy on our Services, and you agree to review this Policy regularly and inform yourself of all applicable changes. By continuing to use our Services after any changes to this Policy become effective, you agree to such changes and the updated Policy. Unless we notify you otherwise, the current version of this Policy will apply to all information that we have about you or your account.

COOKIE POLICY

Cookies, Web Beacons, and Similar Technologies: We may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, such as tracking URLs, to collect information about how you or others access or engage with our Services, and to operate, develop, improve, and customize our Services. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but your browser may have settings that enable you to decline or delete cookies on your device.

What these Technologies Are: “Cookies” are small data files placed on your computer or other device which record information. For example, a cookie could enable our Services to recognize your browser, while another cookie could store your account preferences and other information to help make our Services more customized. We may use two kinds of cookies, “session cookies” and “persistent cookies.” Session cookies normally expire when you close your browser, while persistent cookies remain on your device until they expire or are deleted. “Web beacons” (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFS”) are pieces of code or pixels embedded in a web page or email to track engagement with and responses to emails, web pages or to access or communicate with cookies. “Tracking URLs” are special URLs that can be used to track engagement with and responses to emails or web pages.

AEI visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using AEI’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of AEI’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies. By continuing to navigate our websites without changing your cookie settings, you hereby acknowledge and agree to AEI’s use of cookies.

Third-Party Analytics and Service Providers: We may use third-party analytics and services providers who help us to better understand how our Services and Content are accessed and used, including for web analytics, audience measurement, personalization and segmentation, and relationship management purposes. In turn, this information helps us to develop and improve our Services. Our third-party analytics and service providers include but are not limited to Google Analytics. These providers may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect information about how Users access or engage with our Services. For more information about how Google may collect and process information in connection with Google Analytics, click here.

CONTACTING AEI

If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, would like to know what Personal Information we hold about you, or would like to update, delete, or request access to such Personal Information, you may contact us by email sent to support@alternative-embedded.com, or by postal mail sent to Alternative Embedded Innovation (AEI) AG, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zürich, Switzerland, Attn: Privacy.