PRIVACY POLICY

Effective Date: 1 July 2021

These Privacy Policy address what happens to any personal data or personal information that you give to us, or any that we may collect from or about you at VarScout mobile application (“VarScout App”). It describes how, through the different features VarScout App hosts, we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information.

We are committed to the protection of your privacy while you use our VarScout App.

Please read our Privacy Policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information at VarScout. By continuing to use our VarScout App, you acknowledge that you have had the chance to review and consider this Privacy Policy, and you acknowledge that you agree to it. This means that you also consent to the use of your information and the method of disclosure as described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not understand the Privacy Policy or do not agree to it, then you agree to immediately cease your use of VarScout App.

1. Definitions

These are key terms used in this Policy:
    a. Applicable mobile application: This Privacy Policy will refer to and be applicable to the VarScout mobile application, which shall hereinafter be referred to as "VarScout App".
    b. Effective Date: Means the date this Privacy Policy comes into force and effect.
    c. Parties: The parties to this privacy policy are the following data controller: International Potato Center (“CIP” or "Data Controller") and you, as the user of this VarScout App. Hereinafter, the parties will individually be referred to as "Party" and collectively as "Parties."
    d. Data Controller: Data Controller is the publisher, owner, and operator of the VarScout App and is the Party responsible for the collection of information described herein. Data Controller shall be referred to either by Data Controller's name or "Data Controller," as listed above.
    e. Data Subject: Should you agree to this Privacy Policy and continue your use of the VarScout App, you will be referred to herein as either you, the user, or if any second-person pronouns are required and applicable, such pronouns as 'your", "yours", etc.
    f. Personally Identifiable Information or Personal Data: means personal data and information that we obtain from you in connection with your use of the VarScout App that is capable of identifying you in any manner.

2. Contact

The Party responsible for the processing of your personal data is as follows: International Potato Center. The Data Controller may be contacted as follows:

cip-varscout@cgiar.org
International Potato Center (CIP)
Av. La Molina 1895, La Molina
Lima, Perú

3. Location

Please be advised the data processing activities take place in Switzerland and the European Economic Area. Data may also be transferred to organizations outside European Economic Area, but will only be done so in a manner that complies with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR.

4. Modifications

CIP hereby reserves the right to modify, revise or otherwise amend this Privacy Policy as it may deem necessary at any time, and will be effective as soon as posted.

5. Personal Data we collect

a. Registered Users: You, as a user of the VarScout App, shall be asked to register in order to use the VarScout App in a legal manner. During the process of your registration, we will collect some of the following Personal Data from you through your voluntary disclosure: Name, username, email address and country of location.

This Personal Data may be asked for in relation to:
    I) Interaction with our representatives in any way
    II) Receiving general emails from us
    III) Commenting on our content or other user-generated content on our VarScout App, such as posts, articles, photographs, videos, or participating in our forums, bulletin boards, chat rooms or other similar features
    IV) Or the following other forms of participation: content creation; posting of pictures, videos, photos; browsing list of observations and selection of records created.
By undergoing the registration process, you consent to us collecting your Personal Data, including the Personal Data described in this clause, as well as storing, using or disclosing your Personal Data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

b. User Experience: From time to time we may request information from you to assist us in improving our VarScout App, such as demographic information or your particular preferences.

c. Content Interaction: VarScout App may allow you to comment on the content that we provide or the content that other users provide, such as posts, observations, photos, images. If so, we may collect some Personal Data from you at that time, such as, but not limited to, username or email address.

6. Non identifiable Information

CIP may access, record, and analyze data collected about your interaction with VarScout App. This may include your IP address, the URL/domain name of any referring website, the time and date of your visit to the VarScout App and other user content visited, among other; some of this information may be collected by using cookies. This information provides statistics about the geographical distribution of visitors to VarScout App, most visited user profiles in VarScout App and preferred content shared, which helps us understand the preferences of the users and improve the VarScout App.
This information cannot be traced back to a particular individual and is never connected to the personal contact information you provide to us.
We share non-personal information within the System Organization and with organizations and/or consultants involved in our communications activities.

7. Use of cookies

CIP may record and analyze non identifiable information by using cookies. Cookies are small strings of text used to store some information that may concern the user, his or her preferences or the device they are using to access the internet (such as a computer, tablet, or mobile phone). Cookies are mainly used to adapt the operation of the site to your expectations, offering a more personalized browsing experience and memorizing the choices you made previously.
Cookies do not record or store any Personal Data. If you want, you can prevent the use of cookies, but then you may not be able to use our VarScout App as we intend. To proceed without changing the options related to cookies, simply continue to use our VarScout App.

a. Technical cookies: Technical cookies, which can also sometimes be called HTML cookies, are used for navigation and to facilitate your access to and use of the site. They are necessary for the transmission of communications on the network or to supply services requested by you. The use of technical cookies allows the safe and efficient use of the site. You can manage or request the general deactivation or cancelation of cookies through your browser. If you do this though, please be advised this action might slow down or prevent access to some parts of the site. Cookies may also be retransmitted by an analytics or statistics provider to collect aggregated information on the number of users and how they visit the VarScout App. These are also considered technical cookies when they operate as described. Temporary session cookies are deleted automatically at the end of the browsing session - these are mostly used to identify you and ensure that you don't have to log in each time - whereas permanent cookies remain active longer than just one particular session.

b. Third-party cookies: We may also utilize third-party cookies, which are cookies sent by a third-party to your computer. Permanent cookies are often third-party cookies. The majority of third-party cookies consist of tracking cookies used to identify online behavior, understand interests and then customize advertising for users. Third-party analytical cookies may also be installed. They are sent from the domains of the aforementioned third parties external to the site. Third-party analytical cookies are used to detect information on user behavior on our VarScout App. This place anonymously, in order to monitor the performance and improve the usability of the site.

c. Support in configuring your browser: You can manage cookies through the settings of your browser on your device. However, deleting cookies from your browser may remove the preferences you have set for the VarScout App.
For further information and support, you can also visit the specific help page of the web browser you are using:
    • Internet Explorer: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/block-or-allow-cookies
    • Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-us/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences
    • Safari: http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
    • Chrome: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/61416?hl=en
    • Opera: http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/

8. Third Parties

We may utilize third-party service providers ("Third-Party Service Providers"), from time to time or all the time, to help us with our VarScout App, and to help serve you. We may use Third-Party Service Providers to assist with information storage (such as cloud storage).

We may provide some of your Personal Data to Third-Party Service Providers in order to help us track usage data, such as referral websites, dates and times of page requests, etc. We use this information to understand patterns of usage of, and to improve, the VarScout App.
We may use Third-Party Service Providers to host the VarScout App. In this instance, the Third-Party Service Provider will have access to your Personal Data.

Some of our Third-Party Service Providers may be located outside of Peru and may not be subject to Peruvian privacy laws. The countries or regions in which our Third-Party Service Providers may be located include:
United States
Switzerland

We only share your Personal Data with a Third-Party Service Provider if that provider agrees to our privacy standards as set out in this Privacy Policy.

Your Personal Data will not be sold or otherwise transferred to other third parties without your approval. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Privacy Policy, we may provide your Personal Data to a third party or to third parties in order to protect the rights, property or safety, of us, our customers or third parties, or as otherwise required by law.
We will not knowingly share your Personal Data with any third parties other than in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If your Personal Data might be provided to a third party in a manner that is other than as explained in this Privacy Policy, you will be notified. You will also have the opportunity to request that we not share that information.

In general, you may request that we do not share your Personal Data with third parties. Please contact us via email, if so. Please be advised that you may lose access to certain services that we rely on third-party providers for.

9. Personal Data Storage

We use secure physical and digital systems to store your Personal Data when appropriate. We ensure that your Personal Data is protected against unauthorized access, disclosure, or destruction. Please note, however, that no system involving the transmission of information via the internet, or the electronic storage of data, is completely secure. However, we take the protection and storage of your Personal Data very seriously. We take all reasonable steps to protect your Personal Data.

The systems that we use to store your information include but are not limited to: Android app private file system, Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Storage, AWS S3 (backup)

Personal Data is stored throughout your relationship with us. We delete your Personal Data upon request for cancelation of your account or other general request for the deletion of data. In the event of a breach of your Personal Data, you will be notified in a reasonable time frame, but in no event later than two weeks, and we will follow all applicable laws regarding such breach.

10. Purposes of Processing of Personal Data

We primarily use your Personal Data to help us provide a better experience for you on our VarScout App and to provide you the services and/or information you may have requested, such as use of our VarScout.

Information that does not identify you personally, but that may assist in providing us broad overviews of our users’ base, will be used for improvement efforts of the site. Such information may include, but is not limited to, interests based on your cookies. Personal Data that may be considering identifying may be used for the following: Improving your personal user experience, communicating with you about your user account with us and advising you about updates to the VarScout App or related items.

11. Disclosure of Personal Data

Although our policy is to maintain the privacy of your Personal Data as described herein, we may disclose your Personal Data if we believe that it is reasonable to do so in certain cases, in our sole and exclusive discretion. Such cases may include, but are not limited to:
    a. To satisfy any local, state, or Federal laws or regulations
    b. To respond to requests, such discovery, criminal, civil, or administrative process, subpoenas, court orders, or writs from law enforcement or other governmental or legal bodies
    c. To bring legal action against a user who has violated the law or violated the Terms of use of our VarScout App
    d. As may be necessary for the operation of our VarScout App
    e. To generally cooperate with any lawful investigation about our users
    f. If we suspect any fraudulent activity on our VarScout App or if we have noticed any activity which may violate our terms or other applicable rules

12. Public Information

We allow users to post their own content or information publicly on our VarScout App. Such content or information may include, but is not limited to, photographs, videos, pictures, records, observations and status updates. Please be aware that any such information or content that you may post should be considered entirely public and that we do not maintain the privacy of such public information.

13. Modifying, deleting, and accessing our information

If you wish to modify or delete any information, we may have about you, or you wish to simply access any information we have about you, you may do so from your account settings page.

14.  User rights over Personal Data

You have many rights in relation to your Personal Data. Specifically, your rights are as follows:
    • the right to be informed about the processing of your Personal Data
    • the right to have access to your Personal Data
    • the right to update and/or correct your Personal Data
    • the right to portability of your Personal Data
    • the right to oppose or limit the processing of your Personal Data
    • the right to request that we stop processing and delete your Personal Data
    • the right to block any Personal Data processing in violation of any applicable law
    • the right to submit a complaint with the applicable data protection authority in the corresponding jurisdiction.

Such rights can all be exercised by contacting us at the relevant contact information listed in this Privacy Policy.

15. Contact information for requests and managing your personal information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the way we collect information from you, or if you would like to launch a complaint about anything related to this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at the following email address: cip-varscout@cgiar.org