Privacy

Effective Date: April 27, 2018

Acerti Privacy Statement

Protecting the individual's privacy on the Internet is crucial to the future of Internet-based business and the move toward a true Internet economy. We have created this Privacy Statement to demonstrate our firm commitment to the individual`s right to data protection and privacy. This Privacy Statement outlines how we handle information that can be used to directly or indirectly identify an individual ("Personal Data").

General Information

Who is the Data Controller? The data controller of www.acerti.us is Acerti Consulting Group, LLC., (“Acerti”). Where a registration form is presented on this website, the data controller may vary depending on the actual offering or the purpose of the data collection, but it is in any case displayed on the individual registration form’s privacy statement. The Acerti Group’s data protection officer can be reached at privacy@acerti.us.

What Personal Data does Acerti collect?When you visit Acerti’s websites, Acerti stores certain information about your browser, the operating system, and your IP address.

If you use a registration form, Acerti will collect the information you provide to Acerti, which consists of your first and last name, email addresses, telephone numbers, location (country, state/province, city), company name, job title and role, department and function, current relationship to Acerti, and your company’s industry. If you provide a credit card number or bank details to order goods or services from Acerti, then Acerti will collect this information to process your payment for the requested goods or services.

Why does Acerti need your Personal Data? Acerti requires your Personal Data to provide you with access to this site; to deliver any ordered goods or services; and to comply with statutory obligations, including checks required by applicable export laws. Further information on why Acerti needs your Personal Data can be found in Section B, below, if Acerti’s use of your Personal Data is based on a statutory permission. Further information on why Acerti needs your Personal Data can be found in Section C, below, if Acerti’s use of your Personal Data is based on your consent. If Acerti’s use of your Personal Data is based on consent, note that the information in this Privacy Statement on respective consent statements for certain types of Personal Data uses can also be found in the Consent Resource Center. As a general matter and although providing Personal Data is voluntary, Acerti may not be able to perform or satisfy your request without it; for example, Acerti might require your Personal Data to process an order you place, or to provide you with access to a web offering that you requested. In these cases, it is not possible for Acerti to satisfy your request without certain Personal Data.

Kindly note that you can order goods or services without providing a consent into Acerti’s further marketing operations.

From What Types of Third Parties does Acerti obtain Personal Data?In most cases, Acerti collects Personal Data from you. Acerti might also obtain Personal Data from third parties if the applicable national law allows Acerti to do so. Acerti will treat this Personal Data according to this Privacy Statement, plus any additional restrictions imposed by the third party that provided Acerti with it or the applicable national law. These third-party sources include:

Acerti and/or Acerti Group’s business dealings with your employer
Third parties you directed to share your Personal Data with Acerti

How long will Acerti store my Personal Data? Acerti will only store your Personal Data for as long as it is required:

to make goods and services requested available to you, including use of acerti.us;
for Acerti to comply with its statutory obligations resulting inter alia from applicable export laws;
until you object against such use by Acerti, if Acerti’s use of your Personal Data is based on Acerti’s legitimate business interest as further stated in this Privacy Statement;
until you revoke your consent granted in this Privacy Statement, if Acerti is processing your Personal Data based on your consent;
by applicable mandatory law to retain your Personal Data longer or where your Personal Data is required for Acerti to assert or defend against legal claims, Acerti will retain your Personal Data until the end of the relevant retention period or until the claims in question have been settled.

Who are the recipients of your Personal Data and where will it be processed? Your Personal Data will be passed on to the following categories of third parties to process your Personal Data:

companies and subsidiaries within the Acerti Group
Third-party service providers; e.g., for the provision of the website or newsletter dispatch, for consulting services and other additional related services.

As part of a group of companies operating internationally, Acerti has affiliates (the “Acerti Group”) and third-party service providers outside of the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) and will transfer your Personal Data to countries outside of the EEA. If these transfers are to a country for which the EU Commission has not issued an adequacy decision, Acerti uses the EU standard contractual clauses to contractually require that your Personal Data receives a level of data protection consistent with the EEA. You can obtain a copy (redacted to remove commercial or irrelevant information) of such standard contractual clauses by sending a request to privacy@acerti.us. You can also obtain more information from the European Commission on the international dimension of data protection here.

What are your data protection rights?

You can request from Acerti: access at any time to information about which Personal Data Acerti processes about you and the correction or deletion of such Personal Data. Please note, however, that Acerti can or will delete your Personal Data only if there is no statutory obligation or prevailing right of Acerti to retain it. Kindly note further that if you request that Acerti deletes your Personal Data, you will not be able to continue to use any Acerti service that requires Acerti’s use of your Personal Data.

If Acerti uses your Personal Data based on your consent or to perform a contract with you, you can further request a copy of the Personal Data that you provided to Acerti. To do so, please contact the email address below and specify the information or processing activities to which your request relates, the format in which you would like to receive this information, and whether the Personal Data should be sent to you or another recipient. Acerti will carefully consider your request and discuss with you how it can best fulfill it.

Furthermore, you can request from Acerti that Acerti restricts your Personal Data from any further processing in any of the following events: (i) you state that the Personal Data Acerti has about you is incorrect, subject to the time Acerti requires to check the accuracy of the relevant Personal Data, (ii) there is no legal basis for Acerti processing your Personal Data and you demand that Acerti restricts your Personal Data from further processing, (iii) Acerti no longer requires your Personal Data but you state that you require Acerti to retain such data in order to claim or exercise legal rights or to defend against third party claims, or (iv) in case you object to the processing of your Personal Data by Acerti based on Acerti’s legitimate interest (as further set out below under Section C.), subject to the time required for Acerti to determine whether it has a prevailing interest or legal obligation in processing your Personal Data.

For individuals within the State of California, you instead have the right:

to request from Acerti access to your Personal Data that Acerti collects, uses, discloses, or sells (if applicable) about you;
to request that Acerti delete Personal Data about you;
to non-discriminatory treatment for exercise of any of your data protection rights; and
in case of request from Acerti for access to your Personal Data, for such information to be portable, if possible, in a readily usable format that allows you to transmit this information to another recipient without hindrance; and
to opt-out of the sale of Personal Data. In accordance with the disclosure requirements under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), Acerti is exempt from providing a notice to opt-out because it does not and will not sell your Personal Data.

Please note, however, that Acerti can or will delete your Personal Data only if there is no statutory obligation or prevailing right of Acerti to retain it. Kindly note further that if you request that Acerti deletes your Personal Data, you will not be able to continue to use any Acerti service that requires Acerti’s use of your Personal Data.

How can you exercise your data protection rights? Please direct any requests to exercise your rights to admin@acerti.us.

For individuals within the State of California, you may also exercise your rights as follows:

You can call toll-free to submit a request using the numbers provided here. You can also designate an authorized agent to submit requests to exercise your data protection rights to Acerti. Such authorized agent must be registered with the California Secretary of State and submit proof that you have given authorization for the agent to act on your behalf. If you are a person with a disability, contact Acerti at the above address or toll-free phone number to access the Privacy Statement in an alternative format.

How will Acerti verify requests to exercise data protection rights? Acerti will take steps to ensure that it verifies your identity to a reasonable degree of certainty before it will process the data protection right you want to exercise. When feasible, Acerti will match Personal Data provided by you in submitting a request to exercise your rights with information already maintained by Acerti. This could include matching two or more data points you provide when you submit a request with two or more data points that are already maintained by Acerti.

In accordance with the verification process set forth in the CCPA, Acerti will require a more stringent verification process for deletion requests, or for Personal Data that is considered sensitive or valuable, to minimize the harm that might be posed to you by unauthorized access or deletion of your Personal Data. If Acerti must request additional information from you outside of information that is already maintained by Acerti, Acerti will only use it for the purposes of verifying your identity so you can exercise your data protection rights, or for security and fraud-prevention purposes.

Acerti will decline to process requests that are manifestly unfounded, excessive, fraudulent, or are not otherwise required by local law.

Right to lodge a complaint. If you take the view that Acerti is not processing your Personal Data in accordance with the requirements in this Privacy Statement or under applicable EEA data protection laws, you can at any time lodge a complaint with the data protection authority of the EEA country where you live or with the data protection authority of the country or state where Acerti has its registered seat.

Can I use Acerti’s goods and services if I am a minor or child?

Children. Acerti websites and online services are not directed to users below the age of 16 years, or equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction. If you are younger than 16, you cannot register with and use this websites or online services.

U.S. Children’s Privacy. Acerti does not knowingly collect the Personal Data of children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe Acerti collected information about a child, please contact Acerti as described in this Privacy Statement. Acerti will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible. Given that Acerti websites and online services are not directed to users under 16 years of age and in accordance with the disclosure requirements of the CCPA, Acerti does not sell the Personal Data of any minors under 16 years of age.

Processing based on a statutory permission

Why does Acerti need to use my Personal Data and on what legal basis is Acerti using it?

Processing to fulfill contractual obligations. Acerti requires your Personal Data to deliver goods or services you order under a contract Acerti has with you, to establish a contract for goods or services between you and Acerti, or to send you invoices for ordered goods or services. Acerti processes Personal Data to fulfill contractual obligations pursuant to Article 6(1), lit. b GDPR or under the equivalent article under other national laws, when applicable.

Processing when necessary to fulfill Acerti’s contractual obligation includes responding to your related inquiries, processing your feedback or providing you with support. This can also include conversation data that you may initiate or enable such as through the chat functionalities on acerti.us or other local Acerti web presences, through contact forms, emails, or by telephone. In this Privacy Statement, “goods and services” includes access to Acerti’s web services, offerings, contests, sweepstakes, other content, non-marketing related newsletters, whitepapers, tutorials, trainings and events.

Furthermore, Acerti communicates on a regular basis by email with users who subscribe to its services and will also communicate by phone to resolve your or other customer complaints or to investigate suspicious transactions.

Acerti will use your email address to confirm your opening of an account, to send you notice of payments, to send you information about changes to its products and services, and to send notices and other disclosures as required by law. Generally, users cannot opt out of these communications because these communications are required for the relevant business relationship and not marketing-related in nature.

For marketing-related communications such as emails and phone calls, Acerti will (i) only provide you with such information after you have opted in, if legally required, and (ii) provide you the opportunity to opt out if you do not want to receive further marketing-related communications. You can also opt out of marketing-related communications at any time by updating that preference.

Processing to ensure compliance. Acerti and its products, technologies, and services are subject to the export laws of various countries including, without limitation, those of the European Union and its member states, and of the United States of America. You acknowledge that, pursuant to the applicable export laws, trade sanctions, and embargoes issued by these countries, Acerti is required to take measures to prevent entities, organizations, and parties listed on government-issued sanctioned-party lists from accessing certain products, technologies, and services through Acerti’s websites or other delivery channels controlled by Acerti. This could include (i) automated checks of any user registration data as set out herein and other information a user provides about his or her identity against applicable sanctioned-party lists; (ii) regular repetition of such checks whenever a sanctioned-party list is updated or when a user updates his or her information; (iii) blocking of access to Acerti’s services and systems in case of a potential match; and (iv) contacting a user to confirm his or her identity in case of a potential match. Any such use of your Personal Data is based on the permission to process Personal Data in order to comply with statutory obligations (Article 6(1) lit. c GDPR) and Acerti‘s legitimate interest (Article 6(1) lit. f GDPR) or under the equivalent articles under other national laws, when applicable.

Furthermore, you acknowledge that information required to track your data protection and privacy choices for processing your Personal Data, or for receipt of marketing materials (that is to say, depending on the country in which the relevant Acerti Group company operates and whether you have expressly consented to or opted out of receiving marketing materials) may be exchanged among members of the Acerti Group when necessary to ensure compliance.

Processing based on Acerti’s legitimate interest. Acerti can use your Personal Data based on its legitimate interest (Article 6(1), lit. f GDPR) or the equivalent article under other national laws, when applicable, as follows:

Fraud and Legal Claims. If required, Acerti will use your Personal Data for the purposes of preventing or prosecuting criminal activities such as fraud and to assert or defend against legal claims.
Questionnaires and surveys. Acerti could invite you to participate in questionnaires and surveys. These questionnaires and surveys will be generally designed in a way that they can be answered without any data that can be used to identify you. If you nonetheless enter such data in a questionnaire or survey, Acerti will use this Personal Data to improve its products and services.
Contract Performance. If you purchase or intend to purchase goods or services from Acerti on behalf of a corporate customer or otherwise be the nominated contact person for the business relationship between a corporate customer (a “Customer Contact”) and Acerti, Acerti will use your Personal Data for this purpose. This includes, for the avoidance of doubt, such steps which are required for establishing the relevant business relationship. In case that an existing Customer Contact informs Acerti that you are his replacement, Acerti will, from the point in time of such notification, consider you to be the relevant Customer Contact for the respective customer until you object as further set out below.
Creation of anonymized data sets. Acerti will anonymize Personal Data provided under this Privacy Statement to create anonymized data sets, which will then be used to improve its and its affiliates’ products and services.
Personalized Content. If you opt-in to receive marketing communications such as and including newsletters, brochures or white papers from Acerti, Acerti will collect and store details of how you interact with such content to help create, develop, operate, deliver and improve our communications with you. This information is aggregated and used to help Acerti provide more useful information and to understand what is of most interest to you.
Recordings for quality improvement purposes. In case of telephone calls or chat sessions, Acerti will record such calls (after informing you accordingly during that call and before the recording starts) or chat sessions to improve the quality of Acerti’s services.
To keep you up-to-date or request feedback. Within an existing business relationship between you and Acerti, Acerti might inform you, where permitted in accordance with local laws, about its products or services (including webinars, seminars and events) which are similar or relate to such products and services you have already purchased or used from Acerti. Furthermore, if you attend a webinar, seminar or event of Acerti, download or view whitepapers, newsletters, videos, software free trials, or purchase products or services from Acerti, Acerti might contact you for feedback regarding the improvement of the relevant material, product or service.

Right to object. You can object to Acerti’s use of your Personal Data as set forth in this section at any time by updating that preference. In this case, Acerti will carefully review your objection and cease further use of the relevant information unless Acerti has a compelling legitimate ground for continued use of the information and such ground overrides your objection, or if Acerti requires the information for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

Processing under applicable national laws.If the applicable national law allows Acerti to do so, Acerti will use information about you, some of which is Personal Data, for the following business purposes:

to plan and host events
to host online forums or webinars
for marketing purposes such as to keep you updated on Acerti’s latest products and services and upcoming events
to contact you to discuss further your interest in Acerti services and offerings
to help Acerti create, develop, operate, deliver and improve Acerti services, products, content and advertising and to improve, upgrade, or enhance the service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by Acerti
to provide more personalized information to you
for loss prevention
for account and network security purposes
for internal purposes such as auditing, analysis, and research to improve Acerti’s products or services
to verify your identity and determine appropriate services
detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity
debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality
Undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration
Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by Acerti.

Processing based on consent

In the following cases, Acerti will process your Personal Data if you granted prior consent to the specific proposed processing of your Personal Data (Article 6(1) lit. a GDPR) or the equivalent article under other national laws, when applicable. Each below section about a processing operation of Personal Data is linked to one consent statement in the Consent Resource Center. If you re-open this Privacy Statement after you initially grant one or more consents, you will see the full Privacy Statement and not just information on the consents you granted.

News about Acerti’s Products and Services. Subject to a respective provision and your consent, Acerti may use your name, email and postal address, telephone number, job title and basic information about your employer (name, address, and industry) as well as an interaction profile based on prior interactions with Acerti (prior purchases, participation in webinars, seminars, or events or the use of (web) services - further details on this topic can be found in the Cookie Statement displayed on the relevant Acerti website) in order to keep you up to date on the latest product announcements, software updates, software upgrades, special offers, and other information about Acerti’s software and services (including marketing-related newsletters) as well as events of Acerti and in order to display relevant content on Acerti’s websites. In connection with these marketing-related activities, Acerti may provide a hashed user ID to third party operated social networks or other web offerings (such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Google) where this information is then matched against the social networks’ data or the web offerings’ own data bases in order to display to you more relevant information.

Creating user profiles. Acerti offers you the option to use its web offerings including forums, blogs, and networks (such as the Acerti Community) linked to this website that require you to register and create a user profile. User profiles provide the option to display personal information about you to other users, including but not limited to your name, photo, social media accounts, postal or email address, or both, telephone number, personal interests, skills, and basic information about your company.

These profiles may relate to a single web offering of Acerti or, if created in the Acerti Cloud Platform Identity Authentication Service, may also allow you to access other web offerings of Acerti or of other entities of the Acerti Group, or both (irrespective of any consent granted under the section “Forwarding your Personal Data to other Acerti companies.” below). It is, however, always your choice which of these additional web offerings you use and your Personal Data is only forwarded to them once you initially access them. Kindly note that without your consent for Acerti to create such user profiles Acerti will not be in a position to offer such services to you where your consent is a statutory requirement that Acerti can provide these services to you.

Within any web offering, beyond the mere provision of access your profile is used to personalize interaction with other users (for example, by way of messaging or follow functionality) and by Acerti to foster the quality of communication and collaboration through such offerings and for Acerti to provide gamification elements (gamification is the process of taking something that already exists, such as a website, an enterprise application, or an online community, and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty). To the greatest extent supported by the relevant web offering, you can use the functionality of the relevant web offering to determine which information you want to share.

Special categories of Personal Data. In connection with the registration for and provision of access to an event or seminar, Acerti may ask for information about your health for the purpose of identifying and being considerate of individuals who have disabilities or special dietary requirements throughout the event. Any such use of information is based on the consent you grant hereunder.

Kindly note that if you do not provide any such information about disabilities or special dietary requirements, Acerti will not be able to take any respective precautions.

Event profiling. If you register for an event, seminar, or webinar of Acerti, Acerti may share basic participant information (your name, company, and email address) with other participants of the same event, seminar, or webinar for the purpose of communication and the exchange of ideas.

Forwarding your Personal Data to other Acerti companies. Acerti may transfer your Personal Data to other entities in the Acerti Group. The current list of Acerti Group entities can be found here. In such cases, these entities will then use the Personal Data for the same purposes and under the same conditions as outlined in this Section C. above.

Forwarding your Personal Data to other Third Parties. At your request, as indicated by your consent, Acerti will transfer your registration data to the companies listed on the registration page. The companies will use your registration data for the purposes of their participation in the event and are obliged to delete the data thereafter. If a company intends to use your data for any other purposes, they will contact you to explain how and for which other purposes they will use your registration data.

Revocation of a consent granted hereunder. You may at any time withdraw a consent granted hereunder by unsubscribing. In case of withdrawal, Acerti will not process Personal Data subject to this consent any longer unless legally required to do so. In case Acerti is required to retain your Personal Data for legal reasons your Personal Data will be restricted from further processing and only retained for the term required by law. However, any withdrawal has no effect on past processing of personal data by Acerti up to the point in time of your withdrawal. Furthermore, if your use of an Acerti offering requires your prior consent, Acerti will not be (any longer) able to provide the relevant service (or services, if you revoke the consent for Acerti to use your profile under the Acerti Cloud Platform Identity Authentication Service for multiple Acerti offerings), offer or event to you after your revocation.

Cookies and similar tools

Information gathered by cookies or similar technologies, and any use of such information, is further described in Acerti’s Cookie Statement. You can exercise your cookie preferences as outlined in Acerti’s Cookie Statement by visiting the “Cookie Preferences” link in the bottom footer of the acerti.us homepage.

Additional Country-Specific Provisions

Where Acerti is subject to U.S. privacy requirements, the following also applies:

Do Not Track. Your browser may allow you to set a “Do not track” preference. Unless otherwise stated, our sites do not honor “Do not track” requests. However, you may elect not to accept cookies by changing the designated settings on your web browser or, where available, by referring to our Cookie Statement. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer while visiting certain sites on the Internet used to identify your computer. Please note that if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use certain functions and features of our site. This site does not allow third parties to gather information about you over time and across sites.