Privacy Policy
Last updated: january 2023
Benchrates is a UGC platform about world hockey (the “Platform”). This privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") applies to the personal information that Benchrates processes on the Platform and other applications, related with Benchrates, websites, products and services that link to or reference this Privacy Policy (together, the "Services").
Data Controller: Benchrates Limited ("Benchrates", "our", "we" or "us") is a controller of information processed according to this Privacy Policy.
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What types of information we collect
〉We collect the following types of information: , and . More details is below.
Information You Provided
Profile Information. We collect information that you add when you fill out your Benchrates account: your birthdate, username, email address and password. You can add other information to your profile: a bio, a profile photo and a city and country.
User Content. We collect the content you create, share or publish on the Platform, including photos, videos, posts, comments and the related metadata (for example, author of the content, creating date, changing date, browser). We collect User Content when you are creating it.
Our Promotions or Surveys. We collect information you provide if you participate in our surveys, promotions, contests, marketing campaigns or events.
Information When You Write Us. When you write or contact us, we collect the information which you send us, for example confirm of identity or age, feedbacks about our Services or information about possible violations of our Terms of Service (our “Terms”), Community Guidelines (our “Community Guidelines”) or other policies.
Auto Collected Information
Technical Information. We collect some information about device, browser and network when you get a access to our Services. This information includes your device model, operating system, IP address. We automatically assign you a user ID when you use our Platform. Where you login from multiple devices, we use user ID to identify your activity across devices to give you a uninterrupted experience and for security reasons.
Location. We collect your estimated location based on your Technical Information (IP address) for secure purposes, to customise your experience and for diagnostics.
Information About Using. We collect information about how exactly you use our Services, including information about the content you view, how long and how often you use our Services, how you contact with other users, your search history on the Platform and your settings.
Intended Information. We determine your attributes (for example, age and gender) and interests based on the information we have about you. We use this information for our Platform safety, content moderation and to display you personalised ads based on your interests if it has been permitted.
Cookies. We use cookies to provide our Services. For example, we use cookies to get you a access to simplest functions of the Platform, for example a search or create an account and also security purposes. We also use these technologies for analytical and marketing purposes. You can read more in our Cookies Policy. We will receive your consent to our use of cookies where required by law.
Information From Other Sources
Advertising, Statistics and Data Partners. Advertise partners, statistics partners and data partners share information with us, for example devices identifiers for advertising, event information about the actions you have taken on the website or app.
Others. Other users or people may send us information about you, including if you are mentioned in other user’s content or a report or feedback submitted by a third party.
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How We Use Your Information
〉You can read more in "Our Legal Bases and ". We use your information to operate, provide, develop and upgrade our Services, including for the following purposes:
- to provide and operate our Services, for example get you a access you to create, share and view content and to interact with other users and their content.
- to personal and customize your experience on the Platform, for example show you "My bench" feed.
- to control a compliance our Terms, Guidelines and other policies that apply to you. We review User Content and other information to secure the safety and comfort of our community.
- to provide and upgrade our advertising services, including to display ads (including personalised ads if it has been permitted) and for statistics and the effectiveness of the ads.
- to keep and upgrade the safety, security and stability of our Services by identifying and fixing technical or security issues or problems (for example, technical bugs, spam, fake accounts, detecting abuse, fraud and illegal activity).
- to review, upgrade and develop our Services, including by monitoring interactions and usage on your devices, analysing how people are using our Services and informing our algorithms.
- to promote our Services or third party services using marketing, contests, or promotions.
- to maintain with our legal obligation, or to protect tasks interests of our users.
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How We Share Your Information
〉Service Providers
We cooperate with service providers that help us provide, support and develop our Services and understand how users are used them. Providers provide services such as cloud hosting, technical support, marketing and analytics. We share , and with these service providers, if it has been necessary, that providers take a access us their services.
Advertising Partners
Advertisers: We give advertisers information about how their ads have performed to help them rate the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. We collect this information using and relating to how you engage with ads on our Platform and . We share your information only to advertisers where it has been permitted.
Marketing and Analytical partners: We also share and with third party marketing and analytical providers who help us measure advertising and other indicators on our Platform and help our advertisers determine how effective their ads have been.
Other cases
We share your information in other limited cases below.
Other users and the public: Your profile Information and your content are visible to other users of the Platform and to people on the internet. Your profile and content may also be visible to third parties, for example search engines, content aggregators and news sites.
Corporate transactions: Your information may be given to third parties according to a corporate transaction, such as a merger, sale of assets or shares, reorganisation, financing, change of control, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business.
Legal obligations and rights: We may access, preserve and share the information described in "What types of information we collect" with law enforcement agencies, public authorities, copyright holders or other third parties if it is necessary to:
- comply with applicable law, legal process or government requests, as consistent with internationally recognised standards;
- protect the rights, property and safety of our users, copyright holders and others, including to protect life or prevent imminent bodily harm. For example, we may give information (for example your IP address) to law enforcement in the event of an emergency where someone’s life or safety is at risk;
- investigate potential violations of and enforce our Terms, Guidelines or any other applicable terms, policies or standards;
- detect, investigate, prevent, or address misleading activity, copyright infringement, or other illegal activity;
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Our Legal Bases and How We Process Your Information
〉We may only use your information when we have a “legal basis” to do so. We use different legal bases depending on why we use your information (shortly, the “purpose” of our processing). These legal bases involve contractual necessity, legitimate interests (ours, yours or those of third party), consent, compliance with a legal obligation, performing a task in the public interest and protection of vital interests.
Here we explain the legal bases we are based on when we process your information. This section also describes why we use your information, how this information is processed, the categories of information involved and the associated rights (which always includes the right to access your information). For more information on how to exercise any of your rights, please check out the “Your Rights and Choices” section in the Privacy Policy.
Required By Contract
We use , and when it is required by the contract you enter into (our Terms) when you register, access or use our Services. This way we use your information to:
- Give you access to our Services. We use your information to provide you with our Services. This includes using your information so you can create, share content and interact with other users. We also personalise your experience on the Platform, for example providing your “My Bench” feed, which shows you content according to your choises.
- Control a compliance our Terms, Guidelines or policies. We use your information to control a compliance our Terms, Guidelines and policies. This may include deleting content or blocking your account or content if we detected that you are violating our Terms or Guidelines.
- Manage our Services. We also use the information we have to manage our Services, for example communicate with you on service related questions and respond to your queries (including when you tell us about a problem or violation).
Your Rights: When we use your information based on that it is necessary for the contract we have with you, you have the right to port information you have provided to us.
Legitimate Interests
We use your information where this is necessary to achieve legitimate interests - regardless belonging to us, you or a third party - provided these interests are not conflicted by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. We use your information to:
Give an opportunity your content to be used in interactive features.
- We may have our interactive features, for example widgets or types of posts give an opportunity other users to include your content in their content.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To give an opportunity users by features of the Platform to create content, to interact and to have fun. Also to create opportunities for users to find new audiences and like-minded people.
- Information used: ,
Suggest your account to other users.
- We may display or recommend your account to other users.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To realize users to quickly and efficiently interact with other users on our Platform.
- Information used: , and
Provide all users with non-personalised advertising.
- We show all users non-personalised advertising.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: We show non-personalised ads to keep our Platform free of charge. We process a part of your information to make sure our advertising is useful to our advertisers (for example, to display ads to users in a particular groups).
- Information used: and
Determine the effectiveness of advertising.
- We determine the effectiveness of the advertising which you see on our Platform.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To give an opportunity advertisers to view and understand the performance of their ads and make decisions (for example what types of ad campaigns they may want to do and what types of people they want to interest). This helps keep the advertising on our Platform relevant and keeps our Platform free for all users.
- Information used: , and
Keep the safety and comfort of our community.
- We use your information to keep your safety and comfort, including by reviewing User Content (and if permitted under applicable law, related metadata) for violations of our Terms, Guidelines and other policies. We also sometimes determine your approximate age, and with some circumstances, may ask you to provide additional information to confirm your age.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To keep our users safe, review compliance with our Guidelines and prevent violation of our Services.
- Information used: , and
Keep the security and stability of our Services.
- We use your information to test and analysis to keep the stability and security of our Services, including by identifying and fixing technical or security issues (for example technical bugs, spam account, detecting abuse, fraud and illegal activity).
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To keep the continuous stability and security of our Services and to keep they are ongoing available and functioning.
- Information used: , and
Analyze, upgrade and develop our Services.
- We use the information we have to determine how people are using our Services to upgrade and develop our Services (including our algorithms). We also use this information to determine and promote new and popular trends on the Platform.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To upgrade, promote, and develop our Services in the best way.
- Information used: , and
Marketing.
- We may send you marketing messages about features of our Services and third party services that we think will interest you. We may also send you promotions, contests, or marketing campaigns or events. We will get your consent to send you messages where required by law.
- Legitimate Interest relied upon: To promote new features of our Services and/or third party products and services.
- Information used: , and
Your Rights: When we use your information based on that it is necessary for Legitimate Interests, you can object to, and request restriction of, such usage.
Your Consent
We ask for your consent to access or use your information for specific purposes. If we do, you will always be able to revoke your consent through the device permissions or features of the Platform.
Personalised advertising.
- We will display you with personalised ads based on your activity on and off of the Platform with your consent.
- Information used: , and for this purposes.
Your Rights: When we use your information based on your consent, you can revoke your consent at any time. But your revoke of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing your information based on your consent prior to your revoke of consent. You also have the right to port information you have provided to us that we use based on your consent.
Legal Obligation Compliance
We may use your information including your Profile Information or User Content where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation. This includes cases where we have obligations to secure the safety of our users or comply with a valid legal request for example an order from law enforcement agencies or courts. We generally use and , it depends on the case.
In the public interest
We may use your information where it is necessary in the public interest, including research, preventing and detecting crime, safeguarding children and promoting public safety, security and integrity as laid down by applicable law. We generally use and , it depends on the case.
Your Rights: When we use your information based on that it is necessary in the public interest, you have the right to object to, and seek restriction of, our usage.
In vital interests anyone
We may use your information where it is necessary to protect your or someone else's life, physical integrity or safety. This could include providing law enforcement agencies or emergency services with information in urgent situations to protect health or life. We generally use and , it depends on the case.
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Your Rights and Choices
〉You have rights and choices when it comes to your information. Some of these rights apply generally, while others will only apply in specific circumstances. It is depending on the case, these rights may be subject to some limitations.
Access to your information: You can request us free to confirm what information we process about you, to provide information about the processing, and for a copy of your information. For these purposes you can contact us: support@benchrates.com
Delete your information: You can delete all of your information using these features of the Platform:
- delete the content of your profile and your posts and comments, for example your User Content and your Profile Information.
- delete your account permanently. It can make on the "Account management" page.
Edit your information: You can change your information where that information is not current. You can change or correct much of your information using features of the Platform (for example your Profile Information).
Port your information: You have the right to data portability in circumstances where we rely on contractual necessity and consent as our legal basis. This means that you have the right to receive your information in a structured, often used, and machine-readable format and to share it with a third party. For these purposes you can contact us: support@benchrates.com
Object to the processing of your information: You also have the right to object to the processing of your information in specific circumstances. The right to object applies when the processing you are objecting to is relying on legitimate interest or public interests as a legal basis. In submitting an objection request, you should explain what specific processing activity you are objecting to and why the processing should be stopped. We will stop the particular processing if we don't have compelling legitimate grounds to continue that processing or do not need it for legal claims.
Restrict the processing of your information: You have the right to request the restriction of the processing of your information where (1) you are challenging the accuracy of the information, (2) the information has been unlawfully processed, but you are opposing the deletion of that information, (3) where you need the information to be retained for the pursuit or defence of a legal claim, or (4) you have objected to processing and you are awaiting the outcome of that objection request.
Exercising your rights: To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us support@benchrates.com. Before we can respond to a request to exercise one or more of the rights listed above, you may be required to verify your identity or your account details or provide additional information so that we can understand the issue.
We recommend you to contact us if you are not satisfied with how we have responded to any of your rights requests.
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Data Security and Data Store
〉Security of your information is important to us. We carry out technical, administrative and physical security measures that protect your information from unauthorized access, theft, disclosure, modification or loss. We regularly upgrade our security measures to use new technology and methods.
We store information for as long as necessary to provide our Services and for the other purposes list in this Privacy Policy. We also store information when necessary to comply with contractual and legal obligations, when we have a legitimate business interest (for example upgrading and developing our Services, improving the safety, security and stability of our Services), and for the exercise or defence of legal claims.
The store periods will be different depending on the type of information and the purposes for which we use the information. For example, when we process your information (for example, Profile Information) to provide you with the Service, we keep this information for as long as we have contract. If you violate our Guidelines or Terms, we may delete or block your Profile Information and/or User Content immediately but keep your information as is necessary to process the violation.
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Our Operations and Data Transfers
〉We can share your information to our related companies and other organisations outside of your country of residence as described in the section for support our operations. These organisations are committed to using and storing information in compliance with applicable privacy laws and to apllying appropriate security measures to protect your information.
When we transfer your information to other countries we ensure it benefits from an adequate level of data protection by:
- finding that the third country to which the information is being transferred offers an adequate level of data protection;
- using standard contractual clauses;
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Young Users
〉You can use the Platform if you are 18 years old or older. If you believe that we have information about someone younger than this, please use report feature for this user's content.
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Privacy Policy Updates
〉We may sometimes or update this Privacy Policy. We will notify you of any important changes to this policy by a notice using the Platform features. The “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy reflects the effective date of such policy changes.
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Contact us
〉You can contact us: support@benchrates.com