Privacy | Benchmark Source

INTRODUCTION AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION
1. Purpose of this Privacy Notice
  This privacy notice (together with our terms of use https://benchmarkminerals.com/terms and any other documents referred to in it) ("Notice") sets out information as to how Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Limited of Suite 51, Pure Offices, Kembrey Park, Swindon, SN2 8BW (referred to as "Benchmark" "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Notice) processes any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) that we collect from you, or that you provide to us. Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your Personal Data and how we will treat it.
2. Data Controller
  Benchmark is the controller and responsible for your Personal Data.
3. Contact Details
  Questions, comments and requests regarding this Notice are welcomed and should be addressed to amiller@benchmarkminerals.com or sent by post to the above mentioned address.
4. Changes to this Notice
  Any changes we make to this Notice in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to this Notice.
  It is important that the information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Data changes during your relationship with us.
5. Third Party Links
  Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any Personal Data to these websites.

WHAT PERSONAL DATA DO WE COLLECT AND WHY?

The Types of Personal Data we Process
1. Contact details, including your name, billing address, delivery address, e-mail address and phone number ("Contact Data")
2. Identification details, including your name, personal description and photograph, date of birth, gender, marital status, title ("Identity Data")
3. Financial details, including your financial and payment card details ("Financial Data")
4. Technical details in relation to how you use http://www.benchmarkminerals.com (“Our Site”) including your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform ("Technical Data")
5. Information about your visit(s) to Our Site, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from Our Site (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page ("Usage Data")
6. Your interests, preferences, feedback, survey responses, payments to and from you and details of products/services you have purchased ("Transaction Data")
7. Your preferences in receiving marketing from us and third parties and your communication preferences ("Marketing Data")
Where we Collect Personal Data From
We may collect your Personal Data from you when you:
1. Use Our Site, including when you: fill in forms on Our Site, register to use Our Site, subscribe to our subscription service which can include news, pricing, data, analysis and consultancy in relation to batteries, EV’s, energy storage etc. (the “Service”), search for a product, place an order on Our Site, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on Our Site, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with Our Site; or
2. Correspond with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise.
We may also collect your Personal Data from third party sources. We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies). We will notify you when we receive information about you from them and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.

We use information held about you in the following ways:

We will only use your Personal Data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your Personal Data in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your Personal Data and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. Note that we may process your Personal Data for more than one lawful group.

Purpose/Activity	Type of Data	Lawful basis for processing
To register you as a new customer	(a) Identity Data (b) Contact Data	Performance of a contract with you
To provide you with information, products and services that you request from us	(a) Identity Data (b) Marketing Data	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests
To process and deliver your order including managing payments and collecting and recovering money owed to us	(a) Identity Data (b) Contact Data (c) Financial Data (d) Transaction Data (e) Marketing Data	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you, including: to notify you about changes to our service, updating you about this Notice and asking you to leave a review of take a survey	(a) Identity Data (b) Contact Data (c) Other	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)
To provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about	(a) Identity Data (b) Contact Data (c) Financial Data (d) Transaction Data (e) Marketing Data	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform and assess the effectiveness of our marketing strategy)
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer and to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service	(a) Usage Data (b) Technical Data	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes and as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure	(a) Usage Data (b) Technical Data	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our website operating and functioning well) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

Marketing

If you are an existing customer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale or negotiations of a sale to you and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing. If you are a new customer, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only if you have consented to this – you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us. If you do not want us to use your data in this way, or to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please tick the relevant box situated on the form on which we collect your data (the order form or registration form).

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

Cookies provide information regarding the computer used by a visitor. We may use cookies where appropriate to gather information about your computer in order to assist us in improving our website.

We may gather information about your general internet use by using the cookie. Where used, these cookies are downloaded to your computer and stored on the computer’s hard drive. Such information will not identify you personally; it is statistical data which does not identify any personal details whatsoever.

Our advertisers may also use cookies, over which we have no control. Such cookies (if used) would be downloaded once you click on advertisements on our website.

You can adjust the settings on your computer to decline any cookies if you wish. This can be done within the “settings” section of your computer. For more information please read the advice at AboutCookies.org.

SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We may share your Personal Data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above:
1. Any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.
2. Selected third parties including:
We may also disclose your Personal Data to third parties in the following circumstances:
1. In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your Personal Data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
2. If Benchmark or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case Personal Data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
3. If we are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use (https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/terms/) and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Benchmark, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
TRANSFERS OUTSIDE THE UK
In general, when transferring your Personal Data outside the UK:
1. We will only transfer your Personal Data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for Personal Data.
2. Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give Personal Data the same protection it has in the UK.
Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your Personal Data out of the UK.
STORAGE OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We have implemented administrative, technical, and physical safeguards intended to protect the Personal Data you provide to us. Unfortunately, the transmission and storage of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to Our Site; any transmission is at your own risk.
DATA RETENTION
We retain Personal Data we collect from you only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described above in “We use information held about you in the following ways,” or as otherwise required or permitted by law.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need or purpose to process your Personal Data, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your Personal Data has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your Personal Data and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
YOUR RIGHTS
If you are an individual covered by this Privacy Notice, under certain circumstances, and subject to which laws apply, you may have the following rights under data protection laws in relation to your Personal Data:
- ACCESS: The right to request access to the Personal Data we hold about you. This enables you to receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you and to check that we are processing it lawfully.
- RECTIFICATION: The right to request correction of the Personal Data we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of any new data you provide to us.
- ERASURE: The right to request we erase your Personal Data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove Personal Data where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your Personal Data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- RESTRICTION OF PROCESSING: In certain circumstances you can request that we suspend the processing of your Personal Data.
- OBJECT: The right to ask us not to process your Personal Data in certain circumstances. Specifically, where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
- PORTABILITY: In certain circumstances, you can request the transfer of your Personal Data to you or a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your Personal Data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Where we are relying on consent to process your Personal Data you have the right to withdraw your consent. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at the details in section 1(c) above. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
HOW TO COMPLAIN
Please let us know if you are unhappy with how we use your Personal Data. You can contact us at the details above. You have the right to complain to the regulator and to lodge an appeal if you are not happy with the outcome of a complaint. In the UK, the regulator is the Information Commissioner's Office. Details of how to make a complaint can be found on their website.

ADDITIONAL PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Individuals who are residents of California have certain additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act and accompanying regulations (collectively, the “CCPA”).

This Privacy Notice describes the Personal Data we collect or process about individuals who are California residents, as well as how we use, disclose, and protect that Personal Data. This Privacy Notice also outlines the rights you have with respect to Personal Data that we collect or process.

Supplemental Disclosures:

In the past 12 months, we have collected Personal Data discussed above in “The Types of Personal Data we Process.” The chart below sets forth the categories of third parties to which we disclosed Personal Data for our operational business purposes within the preceding 12 months and the purposes for such disclosures.

Category of Personal Data	Categories of Third Parties to whom the information is disclosed for Operational Business Purposes	Business Purpose for Disclosure
Personal Identifiers: Contact details (including your name, billing address, delivery address, e-mail address and phone number); identification details (including your name personal description and photograph, date of birth, gender, marital status, title); and Financial details (including account and payment card details).	Affiliates; service providers/vendors; professional advisors; third parties in connection with contractual obligations.	To provide Our Site and Services.
Internet or other network activity information: Information regarding your interaction with Our Site and other applications such as analytics information; log data; cookies; links you use or web pages you visit; other applications; browser type; internet service provider (ISP); cookies; and mobile device information including device identifier or other information.	Affiliates; vendors; professional advisors; legal authorities, government agencies, and regulators.	To ensure compliance with company policies; to create and maintain cybersecurity controls; to ensure compliance with legal obligations.

Sensitive Personal Data
Please note that we do not collect Sensitive Personal Data when you interact with Our Site or use our Services.
Selling and Sharing Personal Data
Please note that in the past 12 months, we have not sold or shared the Personal Data of any individuals as such terms are defined by the CCPA.
Opt-Out Preference Signals
In addition to the privacy controls described above, we recognize Global Privacy Control signals where legally required. A Global Privacy Control (“GPC”) is a browser setting that a user can set in order to send a signal to each website visited regarding the user’s privacy preferences, such as not to share or sell user’s Personal Data. If your browser or browser extension has GPC enabled, our websites will automatically recognize that signal and opt you out of the sale of your Personal Data. For more information about GPC and how to implement GPC opt-out preference signals, please visit Global Privacy Control.
Your CCPA Rights
Under the CCPA, individuals who are California residents have specific rights regarding their Personal Data. These rights are subject to certain exceptions. When required, we will respond to most requests within 45 days unless it is reasonably necessary to extend the response time.
Right to Disclosure of Information: You have the right to request that we disclose certain information regarding our practices with respect to Personal Data. If you submit a valid and verifiable request and we confirm your identity and/or authority to make the request, we will disclose to you any of the following at your direction:
- The categories of Personal Data we have collected about you in the last 12 months.
- The categories of sources for the Personal Data we have collected about you in the last 12 months.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting that Personal Data.
- The categories of third parties with whom we share that Personal Data.
- The specific pieces of Personal Data we collected about you.
Right to Delete Personal Data: You have the right to request that we delete any of your Personal Data collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Upon receiving a verified request to delete your Personal Data, we will do so unless otherwise authorized by applicable law or regulations, or it is necessary to retain the Personal Data to protect our rights or the rights of others.
Right to Correct your Personal Data: If you find that we maintain any inaccurate Personal Data, you have the right to request that we correct such inaccuracy.
Right to Opt-Out of the Sale or Sharing of Your Personal Data: You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your Personal Data as such terms are defined by the CCPA. However, as we neither share nor sell your Personal Data, we have not provided you with a link to exercise these rights.
Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to be discriminated against for the exercise of your California privacy rights described above.
How to Exercise these Rights
If you wish to submit a request to exercise one or more of the rights listed above you can do this by emailing us at amiller@benchmarkminerals.com, using our webform, or by mail to: amiller@benchmarkminerals.com.
Please include your question or concerns in your note to us. We will respond to verifiable requests for disclosure or deletion of Personal Data free of charge, within 45 days of receipt.
In order to protect your privacy and the security of your information, we verify consumer requests where legally permitted by requesting identification documents and other documentation necessary to confirm your identity. Any additional information you provide will be used only to verify your identity and not for any other purpose.
Authorized Agents
If you want to make a request as an authorized agent on behalf of a California resident, you may use the submission methods noted above. As part of our verification process, we may request that you provide, as applicable, proof concerning your status as an authorized agent. In addition, we may require the individual on whose behalf you are making the request to verify their own identity or your permission to submit the request.

SPECIAL NOTICE TO COLORADO, VIRGINIA, UTAH, OREGON, MONTANA, TEXAS, TENNESSEE, FLORIDA AND CONNECTICUT RESIDENTS
This section describes the Personal Information we collect or process about Colorado, Virginia, Utah, Oregon, Montana, Texas, Florida, and Connecticut residents and describes your rights pursuant to the Colorado Privacy Act, Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, Oregon Consumer Privacy Act, Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act, Tennessee Information Protection Act, Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, Florida Digital Bill of Rights and Connecticut Data Privacy Act.
1. Your Rights
  Users who are residents of these states have specific rights regarding their Personal Data. These rights are subject to certain exceptions described below. When required, we will respond to most requests within 45 days unless it is reasonably necessary to extend the response time. Subject to certain limitations, you have the following rights:
  1. Right of Access & Confirmation: You have the right to confirm whether we process your Personal Data and request access to such Personal Data.
  2. Right to Deletion: You have the right to request that we delete the Personal Data we have collected about you.
  3. Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we provide you with a copy of your Personal Data in a portable format.
  Opt-Outs: At this time, we do not process your Personal Data for purposes of targeted advertising, the sale of Personal Data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legally or similarly significant effects concerning a consumer, and therefore, such opt-out rights are not available.
  Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Montana, Texas, Florida, and Virginia residents only:
  1. Right to Correction: You have the right to correct inaccuracies in your Personal Data.
  Oregon residents only:
  1. The Right to a List of Third-Party Disclosures: At our election, a list of specific third parties, other than natural persons, to which we have disclosed: (a) the consumer’s Personal Data; or (b) any Personal Data.
  Florida residents only:
  1. The Right to Opt-Out of The Collection or Processing of Sensitive Data
  2. The Right to Opt-Out of the Collection of Personal Data Collected Through the Operation of a Voice Recognition or Facial Recognition Feature: Please note that we do not collect any personal information in this manner.
2. How to Exercise these Rights
  You may submit a verifiable consumer request to us for disclosure or deletion of Personal Data by contacting us at amiller@benchmarkminerals.com.
  Alternatively, you may call us at our toll-free number +18449910475.
  We will respond to verifiable requests for disclosure or deletion of Personal Data free of charge, within 10 days of receipt.
  In the event that you are unhappy with the outcome of your request to exercise one of your rights above, you may appeal our decision by emailing us at amiller@benchmarkminerals.com. If additional information is needed for your appeal, we may request you to provide additional information to the extent legally permitted.
  Depending on your state of residence, you may also have the right to designate an agent to exercise these rights on your behalf. We may require proof that you have designated the authorized agent to act on your behalf and to verify your identity directly with us. Please contact us at amiller@benchmarkminerals.com for more information if you wish to submit a request through an authorized agent

Swindon Head Office - office@benchmarkminerals.com or call Emily Dunn on +44 7833 464844

August 2024.

BENCHMARK MINERALS PRIVACY NOTICE