Privacy Policy

Thank you for your interest in VYKIX, our Website, and this Privacy Policy! At VYKIX, we take the protection of your Data very seriously. 

This Privacy Policy describes how we, the data controller VYKIX, Guimarães, Portugal ("we," "our," or "us"), collect, store and process information about individual visitors to our Website.

This Privacy Policy only applies to our Website and does not apply to linked websites that are not owned and controlled by us.

What is Personal Data? 

Personal data is any personal or material circumstances related to an identifiable individual. This includes, for example, your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, or telephone number, as well as online identifiers such as your IP address. In contrast, information of a general nature that cannot be used to determine your identity is not personal data. This includes, for example, the number of users of a website.

Commitment to data protection 

In principle, we will only use your data following the applicable data protection laws, in particular, Portugal's National Legal Order of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) on the Protection of Individuals concerning the Processing of Personal Data and the Free Movement of Such Data ("the GDPR Implementation Law"), the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), and only as described in this privacy policy. 

However, we reserve the right to put this data to other uses to the extent permitted or required by law or necessary to support legal or criminal investigations. In this case, we will inform you again about this further data processing to the extent required by law and obtain your consent. 

In the following sections, we explain when and how we process personal data about you when you visit our Website.

Purposes of processing and legal basis 

We collect, process, and use your data for the following purposes:

• Establishment and performance of contractual relationships;

• Customer service and customer support;

• To process orders for our services.

The processing of your data may be based on the following legal grounds:

• Consent: the individual has given explicit consent to process personal data for a specific purpose (Art. 6 (1) a) GDPR).

• Contract: the processing is necessary for a contract or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract (Art. 6 (1) b) GDPR).

• Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for us to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations) (Art. 6 (1) c) GDPR).

• Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is an excellent reason to protect your data that overrides those legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) f) GDPR).

Your data subject rights

You have several rights; these rights are standardized in the GDPR and include the following:

• The right to information (Art. 15 GDPR),

• The right to rectification (Article 16 GDPR),

• The right to erasure (Article 17 GDPR),

• The right to restriction of data processing (Article 18 GDPR),

• The right to data portability (Article 20 GDPR),

• The right to object to data processing (Article 21 GDPR),

• The right to revoke any consent you have given (Art. 7 (3) GDPR), and

• The right to complain to the competent supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR).

The above rights may be limited in some circumstances, for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal Personal Data about another person, if you ask us to delete the information we are required to have by law, or if we have compelling legitimate interests to keep it. 

We will inform you if that is the case and only use your information for these purposes. You may also be unable to continue using our services if you want us to stop processing your Personal Data.

Don't hesitate to contact us anytime with questions and suggestions regarding data protection and to enforce your rights as a data subject. 

Please contact us if you have concerns about how we collect or use your data. However, you also have the right to complain directly to the Portuguese National Data Protection Commission.

Updating your information

If you believe that the information we hold about you is inaccurate or that we are no longer entitled to use it and want to request its rectification, deletion, or object to its processing, please do so by contacting us or through your user account. For your protection and the protection of all of our users, please provide proof of identity before we can answer the above requests.

Remember that we may reject requests for specific reasons, including if the request is unlawful, infringes on trade secrets or intellectual property, or the privacy of another user. Also, we may be unable to accommodate specific requests to object to processing personal data, notably where such requests would not allow us to provide our service to you anymore.

Purposes of use of personal data and legal basis

a) Hosting 

The hosting service used by us to operate our Website is VYKIX. In doing so, VYKIX processes inventory data, contact data, content data, contract data, usage data, metadata, and communication data of customers, interested parties, and visitors of our Website and services based on our legitimate interests in an efficient and secure provision of the Website and services in conjunction with the provision of contractual services. 

b) Collection of access data and log files

We collect data on every access to our Website based on our legitimate interest. The access data includes the name of the Website accessed, file, date and time of access, amount of data transferred, notification of successful access, browser type, and version, the user's operating system, referrer URL (the previously visited page), IP address and the requesting provider. Log file information is stored for security reasons (e.g., for the clarification of abuse or fraud) for a maximum of 7 days and then deleted. Data whose further storage is necessary for evidentiary purposes is exempt from deletion until the respective incident is finally clarified.

Privacy Policy

c) Cookies and similar technologies 

For processing personal data using cookies and similar technologies on our Website, please refer to our Cookie Policy, which is part of this privacy policy. As further explained in our cookie policy, the legal basis for using cookies is our legitimate interest or your consent when you agree to use analysis and performance cookies.

d) Contacting us

When contacting us, your details are processed to handle the request and its processing and may include your Full Name, Email address, and other contact details, if provided. Your details may be stored in a customer relationship management system or comparable inquiry system. We delete the inquiries if they are no longer necessary. We review the necessity every two years; furthermore, the legal archiving obligations apply. The legal bases for processing are our legitimate interest and the provision of pre-contractual or contractual measures.

For the Chat, we use the talk.to Life Chat of the company tawk.to, inc ("Tawk.to Life Chat") on our Website. Tawk.to Life Chat uses cookies to enable you to personalize your online experience. We do not know the storage period at tawk.to, and there is no possibility of influencing it.

e) Account Registration 

On our Website, we offer you the opportunity to register by providing personal and non-personal data, particularly your email address. The data entered in the registration form is transmitted to us and stored. Registration is necessary to set up your customer account, which you can use to buy our services. The data processing for this registration thus fulfills the contract of use or the implementation of pre-contractual measures. You can delete your customer account at any time on our Website, either by using the delete function in your account or by contacting us.

f) Purchasing our Services

We collect, process, and use the information you provide in the context of your order to execute the contract. This may include personal and non-personal data, in particular, your name, billing address, and email address, as well as information on the payment method you have chosen. We store the information you provide for processing and handling the purchased services. Afterward, your data will be deleted. Data that we must keep due to legal, statutory, or contractual retention obligations will be blocked instead of deleted to prevent it from being used for other purposes. The processing of the data serves the fulfillment of the contract with you. 

Please note when using our services, you become the data controller, and we become the data processor following Art. Twenty-nine of the GDPR; please refer to our Data Processing Addendum for further information.

g) Payment transactions

During the payment process, we do not collect or store any payment transaction information, such as credit card numbers or bank details. You only provide this information directly to the payment service provider (currently PayPal and Stripe).

h) Administration, financial accounting, office organization, contact management

We process data in the context of administrative tasks and the organization of our operations, financial accounting, and compliance with legal obligations, such as archiving. In this regard, we process the same data we process while providing our contractual services. The purpose and our interest in the processing lie in the administration, financial accounting, office organization, and data archiving, i.e., tasks that serve the maintenance of our business activities, performance of our functions, and provision of our services. Deleting data concerning contractual services and communication corresponds to the data mentioned in these processing activities. The legal basis for processing your data is the provision of contractual services. 

In the course of our financial accounting and invoicing processes, we rely on the software services of Moloni.pt, a regulated Portuguese company specialized in providing invoicing platforms. Moloni allows us to adhere to the Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) standards, which facilitates the transfer and formatting of invoices according to SAF-T standards, making it easy to submit them to the Portuguese national tax authorities or external auditors.
The use of Moloni is essential for generating Portuguese IRS tax receipts, and its use is mandatory for compliance with Portuguese tax regulations. It is important to note that when using Moloni, we share specific user data, such as email, name, phone number, VAT/Tax number (if added), and address, with Moloni to create tax receipts for the Portuguese IRS. This information is essential for tax purposes and is handled in accordance with Moloni's GDPR policies, which can be reviewed by following this link. It is also worth noting that we may utilize Moloni to send emails containing tax receipts to our business customers.

i) Newsletter registration on our Website

On our Website, we can subscribe to a free newsletter. When you register for the newsletter, the data from the input mask is transmitted to us, i.e., at least your email address. The registration is carried out utilizing the so-called double opt-in procedure. 

After registration, you will receive an email asking you to confirm your registration. This confirmation is necessary so no one can register with other people's email addresses. For the data processing, your consent is obtained during the registration, and reference is made to this privacy policy. If you register for our newsletter, which informs you about our latest products and services, the personal data you provide in this context (email address) will be processed by us to send you the newsletter. The legal basis for the newsletter is your consent and our legitimate interest. You can revoke your consent at any time with effect for the future. You can withdraw your consent at any time with effect in the future. The newsletter is sent using the dispatch service provider PostMark, a US provider ActiveCampaign, LLC newsletter dispatch platform.

j) reCAPTCHA

We also use Google Inc.'s reCAPTCHA to check whether data input is made by a human being or by an automated program. For this purpose, reCAPTCHA analyses the website visitor's behavior based on various characteristics. This analysis begins automatically as soon as the website visitor enters the Website. The legal basis for the data processing is our legitimate interest in operating a secure and spam-free website.

k) Content Management System (CMS)

We also use the Content Management System (CMS) of WordPress, a service provided by Automattic Inc, to publish and maintain the created and edited Content and texts on our Website and to deliver the forms used. This means that all Content and readers submitted to us by users for publication are transferred to WordPress. In addition to texts, this also includes, for example, your data in our forms. This represents a legitimate interest.

l) Content Delivery Network (CDN)

We also use the content delivery network (CDN) of Cloudflare, Inc. and BunnyWay d.o.o. A content delivery network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to deliver Internet content quickly and protect it from common malicious attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks. This represents a legitimate interest.

Storage and retention

Your data will be stored by us only for as long as is necessary to achieve the purposes for which the data was collected or - if statutory retention periods exist that go beyond this point and for the duration of the legally prescribed retention period (typically ten years). We then delete your data. Only in a few exceptional cases can your data be stored beyond this period, e.g., if storage is necessary to enforce and defend against legal claims against us. 

Transfer of personal data

VYKIX will not disclose or otherwise distribute your data to third parties unless necessary for our services' performance (please also refer to our Data Processing Addendum). You have consented to the disclosure, or relevant legal provisions permit the disclosure of data. VYKIX is entitled to outsource the processing of your data in whole or in part to external service providers acting as processors for VYKIX according to Art. 4 No. 8 GDPR within the framework of the data protection provisions. External service providers support us, for example, in the technical operation and support of the Website, data management, the condition and performance of services, marketing, and the implementation and fulfillment of reporting obligations. 

The service providers commissioned by VYKIX process your data exclusively following our instructions. VYKIX remains responsible for protecting your data, which is ensured by strict contractual regulations, technical and organizational measures, and additional controls by us.

Where we need to transfer your data outside Portugal or the EEA, we will use one of the following safeguards:

• The use of approved standard contractual clauses in contracts to transfer personal data to third countries.

• Transfers to a non-EEA country with privacy laws that give the same protection as Portugal and the EEA.

Personal data may also be disclosed to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so, e.g., by court order (the legal basis for processing: Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR) or if this is necessary to support criminal or legal investigations or other legal investigations or proceedings at home or abroad or to fulfill VYKIX legitimate interests (the legal basis for processing: Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR).

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making, including profiling according to Art. 22 (1) and (4) GDPR, does not occur on the part of VYKIX.

Analytics

Google Analytics

Based on our legitimate interests and your consent (i.e., interest in our Website's analysis, optimization, and economic operation), Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. of 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, US. Google uses cookies. The information generated by the cookie about the user's use of the online offer is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there.

Google will use this information on our behalf to evaluate your use of our Website, compile reports on website activity for website operators, and provide other services relating to website activity and internet usage. In doing so, pseudonymous user profiles can be created from the processed data.

The IP address transmitted by your browser will not be merged with other data from Google. You can prevent the storage of cookies by setting your browser accordingly. You can also control the collection of the data generated by Google as well as the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available under the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

Advertising and Marketing

We use the data you provide to fulfill and process our contract and to respond to your inquiries on or based on your consent. Insofar as you have also given us your separate consent to process your data for consulting, marketing, and advertising purposes, VYKIX is entitled to contact you for these purposes via the communication channels you have consented to.

You may give us your consent in several ways, including by selecting a box on a form where we seek your permission to send you marketing information, or sometimes your consent is implied from your interactions or contractual relationship with us. Where your consent is indicated, it is on the basis that you would have a reasonable expectation of receiving marketing communication based on your interactions or contractual relationship with us.

Direct Marketing generally takes the form of email but may also include other less traditional or emerging channels. We or our contracted service providers will manage these forms of contact. Every directly addressed marketing sent or made by us or on our behalf will include a means by which you may unsubscribe (or opt-out). 

a) Google Remarketing (Google Ads)

As a further tracking technology, we have integrated Google Remarketing services on our Website. Google Remarketing is a function of Google Ads that enables a company to display advertisements to Internet users who have previously visited the company's Website. The integration of Google Remarketing thus allows a company to create user-related advertising and display interest-relevant advertisements to the Internet user.

The purpose of Google Remarketing is to display interest-relevant advertising. Google Remarketing enables us to display advertisements via the Google advertising network or display them on other Internet pages tailored to the individual needs and interests of Internet users.

You have the option to object to interest-based advertising by Google. To do this, the data subject must call the link www.google.com/settings/ads from any internet browser and make the desired settings there.

b) Facebook Ads and Conversion 

We also place ads on Facebook and use the "visitor action pixel" (Conversion Tracking) of Facebook within our Website.

With your consent, Facebook Conversion Tracking stores and processes information about your user behavior on our Website and uses cookies for this purpose, which are stored locally on your device if you have reached our Website via a Facebook advertisement.

We use Facebook Conversion Tracking for marketing and optimization purposes, in particular, to analyze the use of our Website and to be able to improve individual functions and offers as well as the user experience. Through the statistical evaluation of user behavior, we want to improve our offer and make it more interesting for users. This is also our legitimate interest in processing the above data by the third-party provider.

You can object to the collection by the Facebook pixel and use your data to display Facebook ads. To do so, you can visit the page set up by Facebook and follow the instructions there on the settings for usage-based advertising: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads or declare the objection via the US page http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or the EU page https://www.youronlinechoices.com/. 

The settings are platform-independent. The grounds are platform-independent, i.e., applied to all devices, such as desktop computers or mobile devices.

Google Fonts

We integrate the fonts of the provider Google Inc, whereby the user's data is used solely to display the fonts in the user's browser. The integration is based on our legitimate interests in technically secure, maintenance-free, and efficient use of fonts, their uniform display and considering possible licensing restrictions for their integration. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest.

Security and confidentiality 

To ensure the security and confidentiality of the personal data we collect on the Website, we use data networks that are protected by, among other things, industry-standard firewalls, and password systems. When handling your data, we take appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction and to ensure its availability.

Nonetheless, databases or data sets that include personal data may be breached inadvertently or through wrongful intrusion. Upon becoming aware of a data breach, we will notify all affected individuals whose personal data may have been compromised, and the notice will be accompanied by a description of the action being taken to reconcile any damage as a result of the data breach. Statements will be provided as 

expeditiously as possible, after which the breach was discovered.

Social Media

We are present in "social media" (currently, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Discord) to communicate with our customers, interested parties, and users registered there and to be able to inform them about our offers. We want to point out that you use social media platforms, and their functions on your responsibility. This applies to interactive functions (e.g., commenting, sharing, rating). As the provider of our Social Media Profile, we do not collect and process any data from your use of our social media platforms beyond this. The processing of users' data is based on our legitimate interests in providing adequate information and communicating with users.

Controls For Do-Not-Track Features

Most web browsers, mobile operating systems, and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track ('DNT') feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference and not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. No uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized at this stage. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy notice.

Do Not Sell

We do not sell data to third parties. However, we might make available, transfer, and communicate electronically consumer's personally identifiable information by the business to a business affiliated inclusive with a third party but not for money but for other valuable considerations.

Personal data and children 

The services available on our Website are aimed at people aged 18 and over. We will not knowingly collect, use or disclose personal data from minors under 18 without obtaining consent from a legal guardian through direct offline contact. The parent or guardian will be provided with (i) information about the specific type of personal data being collected from the minor, (ii) the purpose for which it will be used, and (iii) the opportunity to object to any further collection, use or storage of such information. We comply with youth protection laws.

Links to other websites 

The Website may contain links to another website. We have no control over the privacy practices or the other Website's Content. Therefore, please carefully read the respective privacy policies of this other Website you visit.

Changes 

This Policy and our commitment to protecting the privacy of your data can result in changes to this Policy. Please regularly review this Policy to keep up to date with any changes.

Whom should I contact for more information?

If you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your rights under applicable laws, don't hesitate to get in touch with us using the following contact details:

VYKIX, Guimarães, Portugal

VAT: PT517675110, LIMITBRAVITY - LDA

Niko Catarino, [email protected]

This Privacy Policy was last updated on Thursday, 29 December 2022