MLCommons Association Data Privacy and Cookie Policy

MLCommons Association (“MLC”) values your privacy. In this Data Privacy and Cookie Policy (“Policy”), we describe how we collect, use, and disclose information that we obtain about visitors to our website at MLC and affiliated websites, including members (the “websites”), users of the services available through our websites, and the information that we collect from our users. Please read this Policy carefully. By using our sites or the services available through them, you acknowledge the practices described in this Policy. Your use of our sites and the services available to them are subject to our Terms of Use here https://mlcommons.org/en/policies/.

The information that we collect is controlled by MLCommons Association which is headquartered in the United States at 3855 SW 153rd Drive Beaverton, OR 97003.

General Data Usage

Information We Collect Through the Site

Many areas of our websites require you to sign in or register for an account, during which we will ask for your name, email, country, state or province and telephone number. As a registered user on our websites, we also collect your IP address, use geolocation services (with your permission) and collect information on how you use our websites.

As a non-registered user, you are able to browse the sites but may not have full access to certain areas of our websites. For both registered and non-registered users, we collect information about your website behavior, such as the web pages you view; links you click; your IP address; the length of time you visit our websites and or use our services; and the referring URL, or the webpage that led you to our Site. We do not associate non-registered users’ website behavior with personal information, such as your name or email address, but we do aggregate your activities on our sites with all other non-registered users’ website behavioral data. Please see our Cookie Policy for additional information on how we collect this information.

We collect information about website users when they make an inquiry, purchase products through our websites, request support, and through administering agreements with third parties. We collect this information both directly from our users and from our third party distribution partners who sell our products. The personal data that we collect about our users includes names, company name, email addresses, business contact information, and purchase history. If a user registers to use the services available on our websites, we associate the information about their website usage with their personal data. 

How We Use Personal Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes: 

To provide services to you, to provide information about our members’ products, to communicate with you about your use of services or our members’ products, to respond to your inquiries, to fulfill your orders, and for other customer service purposes. 

To tailor the content and information that we may send or display to you on our websites, to offer location customization, such as to provide you information about products and services available in your area, personalized help and instructions, and to otherwise personalize your experiences while using the website or our members’ products or services.

For marketing and promotional purposes and to assist us in advertising our services on third party websites, as permitted by local law. For example, we may use your information, such as your email address, to send you news and newsletters, special offers, and promotions, or to otherwise contact you about products or information we think may interest you. If you no longer want to receive marketing emails from us, you can update your preferences by sending a request to [email protected]. Alternatively, our registered users can set their email preference settings to “no email.” In addition, as described in the section on “Legal Rights” below, users may request that their personal information be deleted. 

To better understand how users access and use our websites and products and services, both on an aggregated and individualized basis, in order to improve our websites and product and services and respond to user desires and preferences, and for other research and analytical purposes. 

To comply with our legal obligations, to protect our rights and interests, such as to resolve any disputes, enforce our Terms of Service, or to respond to legal process. 

To count and recognize visitors to our websites and various Site features and better understand how users access and use our Sites and MLC products and services. 

To create new products and services or improve our (or our members’) existing products and services.

To support website performance, perform website analytics, enhance website navigation, and improve our web design and functionality.

For other research and analytical purposes. 

We collect, use and share your personal information only where we are satisfied that we have an appropriate legal basis to do so.

How We Disclose Your Personal Information

We may share your information, including personal information, as follows:

Affiliates. We may disclose the information we collect from you to our affiliates, members or subsidiaries for the purposes described in this policy, including to market their products and services to you; however, if we do so, their use and disclosure of your personal information will be subject to this Policy. 

Service Providers. We may disclose the information we collect from you to third party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform functions on our behalf. 

Distributor Partners. We may share customer information with our third party distributors in order to provide customer service or to help market our products and services. 

Business Transfers. If we are or may be acquired by or merged with another company, if any of our assets are transferred to another company, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected from you to the other company. 

In Response to Legal Process. We also may disclose the information we collect from you in order to comply with the law, a judicial proceeding, court order, or other legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena. 

To Protect Ourselves and Others. We also may disclose the information we collect from you where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our Terms of Use or this Policy, or as evidence in litigation in which MLC is involved. 

Aggregate and De-Identified Information. We may share aggregate or de-identified information about users with third parties for marketing, advertising, research or similar purposes, such as researching how website visitors use our website. 

Legal Basis for Processing Your Personal Information

We will only collect, use, and share your personal information where we are satisfied that we have an appropriate legal basis to do so. This may be because:

You have provided your consent to us using the personal information (for example in relation to our electronic direct marketing activities). 

Our use of your personal information is in our legitimate interest as a commercial organization (for example in order to make improvements to our products and services and to provide you with information you request); you have a right to object to processing as explained in the section below titled Your Legal Rights. 

Our use of your personal information is necessary to perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract with you (for example where we use your contact and demographic information required to provide you with a service or product). and/or 

Our use of your personal information is necessary to comply with a relevant legal or regulatory obligation that we have (where we are required to disclose personal information to a court or tax authority). 

If you would like to find out more about the legal bases on which we process personal information, please contact us using the details below.

Data Retention and Security

We retain your personal data only as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was processed, or as required by law. 

MLC has implemented physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alternation, or destruction. For example, electronically stored personal information is stored on a secure network with firewall protection, and access to our electronic information systems requires user authentication via password or similar means. Despite these precautions, no data security safeguards guarantee 100% security all of the time. In the event of an inadvertent disclosure of personal information we will take all commercially reasonable steps to limit and remedy the disclosure as required by the applicable law.

Your rights

You have certain rights in relation to your personal information, which are detailed in general terms below. These rights are subject to such exceptions and exemptions as provided for by the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, or have any questions regarding this Policy, please feel free to contact our Privacy Officer by e-mail at [email protected].

Right to access, correct, and delete your personal information

You have a right to request that we provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold, and you have the right to be informed of:

  • the source of your personal information;
  • the purposes, legal basis, and methods of processing;
  • the data controller’s identity; and
  • the entities or categories of entities to whom your personal information may be transferred.

We are not required to comply with your request to erase personal information if the processing of your personal information is necessary:

  • for compliance with a legal obligation; or
  • for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

We will respond to your request within 30 days of verifying your identity. To complete a request email [email protected].

Right to Restrict the Processing of your Personal Information

You can ask us to restrict your personal information, but only where:

  • its accuracy is contested, to allow us to verify its accuracy; or
  • the processing is unlawful, but you do not want it erased; or
  • it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, but we still need it to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; or
  • you have exercised the right to object, and verification of overriding grounds is pending.

We can continue to use your personal information following a request for restriction:

  • where we have your consent; or
  • to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; or
  • to protect the rights of another natural or legal person.


Right to Transfer Your Personal Information
You can ask us to provide your personal information to you in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or you can ask to have it transferred directly to another data controller in this format, but in each case only where:

  • the processing is based on your consent or on the performance of a contract with you; and
  • the processing is carried out by automated means.


Right to Object to the Processing of Your Personal Information

You can object to any processing of your personal information which has our legitimate interests as its legal basis, if you believe your fundamental rights and freedoms outweigh our legitimate interests. If you raise an objection, we have an opportunity to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests which override your rights and freedoms.


Right to Object to How We Use Your Personal Information for Direct Marketing Purposes

You can request that we change the manner in which we contact you for marketing purposes.
You can request that we not transfer your personal information to unaffiliated third parties for the
purposes of direct marketing or any other purposes.
If you would like MLC to stop sending promotional communications to your email address, you may opt
out of receiving them by following the “unsubscribe” instructions at the bottom of each communication.
You may opt out of the use of your information for analytics by following the steps detailed in our Cookie
Policy.

Right to Lodge a Complaint with Your Local Supervisory Authority
You have a right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority if you have concerns about how we are processing your personal information. We ask that you please attempt to resolve any issues with us first, although you have a right to contact your supervisory authority at any time.

If you would like to exercise any of the rights described above, please send us a request at the address or email provided in the Contact Us section below. In your message, please indicate the right you would like to exercise and the information that you would like to access, review, correct, or delete.

We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

Subject to legal and other permissible considerations, we will make every reasonable effort to honor your request promptly or inform you if we require further information in order to fulfill your request.

We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.

Privacy and Third-Party Links

This Policy applies solely to information collected by our website and services. We may include third-party links on our Site. These linked sites have separate and independent privacy policies, and we
do not have control over and do not review these linked sites. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites.

Cross-border Transfer of Information
The Association generally maintains servers and systems in the United States hosted by third party service providers. We also may subcontract the processing of your data to, or otherwise share your data with, other third parties in the United States or countries other than your country of residence. As a result, where the personal information that we collect through or in connection with the Site or in providing services to our customers is transferred to and processed in the United States or anywhere else outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for the purposes described above, we will take steps to ensure that the information receives the same level of protection as if it remained within the EEA, including entering into data transfer agreements or using the EU Commission approved Standard Contractual Clauses. You may have a right to details of the mechanisms under which your data is transferred outside the EEA.

Cookie Policy

What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a website or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognize your device the next time you visit. We use the term “cookies” in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.

There are many functions cookies serve. For example, they can help us to remember your username and preferences, analyze how well our website is performing, or even allow us to recommend content we believe will be most relevant to you.

Certain cookies contain personal information – for example, if you click to “remember me” when logging in, a cookie will store your username. Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you, and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our websites, or a user’s
general location.

What sort of cookies does MLC use?
Generally, our cookies perform up to four different functions.
Essential Cookies – Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify registered users and ensure they can access the pages that are only available to registered users. If a user opts to disable these cookies, the user will not be able to access all of the content on our website.

Performance Cookies – We utilize other cookies to analyze how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customizing our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. We might also use these cookies to highlight articles or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.

Functionality Cookies – We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing in your username every time you access the site, and recall your customization preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in.
We also use functionality cookies to provide you with enhanced services such as allowing you to watch a video online, or comment on a blog.

Targeting Cookies – Targeting cookies are used to track your visit to our Site and other websites, including the pages you have visited and the links you have followed, which allows third parties to display targeted ads to you on the websites you visit.


We and our third party service providers use Targeting cookies to:
● Link to social networks, like Facebook, that may subsequently use information about your visit to our website in order to provide advertising or other offers that may be of interest to you when you visit other websites.
● Provide third parties with information on your visit so that they can present you with
advertisements or other offers that may be of interest to you.
If you are in the EU, you may opt-out of certain third party cookies that we and other websites may use for targeting through http://www.youronlinechoices.eu or www.aboutads.info. Opting out of one or more ad networks only means that those particular members no longer will deliver targeted content or ads to you. It does not mean you will no longer receive any targeted content or ads on our websites or
other third party websites. If your browser is configured to reject cookies when you visit one of the above referenced opt-out pages, and you later erase your cookies, use a different computer, or change Web browsers, your preference may no longer be active and you will need to opt-out again. Since all of these cookies are managed by third parties, you should refer to the third parties’ own website privacy notifications and policies for further information (see below for more information about the particular
targeting cookies used on our Site).

Does anyone else use cookies on MLC websites?
Like many companies, the Association uses Google Analytics to help us monitor our website traffic. We may also use third-party cookies to help us with improving site functionality and monitoring compliance with our terms and conditions and copyright policy. To learn more about Google’s privacy practices, please review the Google Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. You can also download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to prevent their data from being used by
Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Can I block cookies?
Yes. As explained below, under Managing Cookies, you can disable our cookies on MLC sites or you may opt-out of targeting cookies by following the links in the Targeting Cookies section above. However, please be aware that this will reduce the functionality of our website. Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our website do not work properly.

If you have any queries regarding this Cookie Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer by email at [email protected].

How to Manage Cookies
As we explain in our Cookie Policy, cookies help you to get the most out of our websites. If you do disable our cookies you may find that certain sections of our website will not work. For example, you may have difficulties logging in or viewing certain information about our products.

Unless you disable our cookies, your continued use of our website will be considered to be your consent to our use of cookies on this device in accordance with our cookie policy. For detailed steps on how to enable or disable cookies using your browser, refer to the links below:
● Google Chrome
● Microsoft Internet Explorer
● Mozilla Firefox
● Safari on OSX
● All other browsers: Please look for a “help” function in the browser or contact the browser provider. Additional Information about Third-Party Cookies Users based in the European Union can visit www.youronlinechoices.eu and users based in the United States can visit aboutads.info/choices to opt out of third-party cookies.

Contact Us
If you have any queries regarding this Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer by email at [email protected].