Visual Paradigm Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 30, 2023

This Privacy Policy provides our policies and procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing your information. Users can access the Visual Paradigm online services (the "Service") through our websites online.visual-paradigm.com, explainer.visual-paradigm.com, board.visual-paradigm.com or through Visual Paradigm products on Devices. A "Device" is any computer used to access the Visual Paradigm's online Service, including but not limited to a desktop, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, or other consumer electronic device. This Privacy Policy governs your access of the Visual Paradigm's online Service, regardless of how you access it, and by using our Services you consent to the collection, transfer, processing, storage, disclosure and other uses described in this Privacy Policy. All of the different forms of data, content, and information described below are collectively referred to as "information."


What Information We Collect And Store

We may collect and store the following information when running the Visual Paradigm's online Service:

Your personal information

When you sign up Visual Paradigm (Online), we collect some personal information, such as your name, phone number, email address and home and business postal addresses. We also store your email address for enabling you to login to Visual Paradigm with that address after you subscribed or accepted an invitation as a user of Visual Paradigm.

Projects and related files ("Files")

To enable versioning, we collect and store all revisions of projects and their related files such as teamwork files and PostMania files, which you and your teammates committed to Visual Paradigm Online.

PostMania discussions

All the PostMania comments between you and your teammates are stored in Visual Paradigm Online.

Log data

When you use the Service, we automatically record information from your device, its software, and your activity using the Services. This may include the Device's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, referring and exit pages, information you search for on our website, locale preferences, identification numbers associated with your Devices, your mobile carrier, date and time stamps associated with transactions, system configuration information, metadata concerning your Files, and other interactions with the Service.

Cookies

We also use "cookies", a small data file that we transfer to your Device, to collect information and improve our Services. We may use "persistent cookies" to save your user ID and login password for future logins to the Service. We may use "session ID cookies" to enable certain features of the Service, to better understand how you interact with the Service and to monitor aggregate usage and web traffic routing on the Service. You can change settings of your browser to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all aspects of the Service.


How We Use Personal Information

In the course of using the Service, we may collect personal information that can be used to contact or identify you ("Personal Information"). Personal Information is or may be used: (i) to provide and improve our Service, (ii) to administer your use of the Service, (iii) to better understand your needs and interests, (iv) to personalize and improve your experience, and (v) to provide or offer software updates and product announcements.


Information Disclosure to Third Parties

Service Providers, Business Partners and Others

We may use certain trusted third party companies and individuals to help us provide, analyze, and improve the Service (including but not limited to data storage, maintenance services, database management, web analytics, payment processing, and improvement of the Service's features). These third parties may have access to your information only for purposes of performing these tasks on our behalf and under obligations similar to those in this Privacy Policy.

Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement Requests and Protection of Visual Paradigm International Ltd.'s Rights

We may disclose to parties outside Visual Paradigm International Ltd. files stored in your Visual Paradigm (Online) and information about you that we collect when we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with a law, regulation or compulsory legal request; (b) protect the safety of any person from death or serious bodily injury; (c) prevent fraud or abuse of Visual Paradigm's Services or its users; or (d) to protect Visual Paradigm International Ltd.'s property rights.

Business Transfers

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, but we will notify you (for example, via email and/or a prominent notice on our website) of any change in control or use of your Personal Information or Files, or if either become subject to a different Privacy Policy. We will also notify you of choices you may have regarding the information.

Non-private or Non-Personal Information

We may disclose your non-private, aggregated, or otherwise non-personal information.


Changing or Deleting Your Information

If you are a registered user, you may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information provided in your registration or account profile by changing your account settings. If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may update or delete it by making the change on your account settings. In some cases we may retain copies of your information if required by law. For questions about your Personal Information on our Service, please contact [email protected].


Data Retention

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services, you may unsubscribe from Visual Paradigm by request. We may retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Consistent with these requirements, we will try to delete your information quickly upon request. Please note, however, that there might be latency in deleting information from our servers and backed-up versions might exist after deletion. In addition, we do not delete from our servers files that you have in common with other users.

Our website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Visual Paradigm. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.


Security

The security of your information is important to us. When communicating with Visual Paradigm's online Services by means like connecting, uploading and downloading Files, we encrypt the transmission of information using Secure Sockets Layer technology (SSL).

We follow generally accepted standards to protect the information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our website, you can view our Security Overview page https://online.visual-paradigm.com/security.jsp or contact us at [email protected].


Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected the personal information of a child under 13, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible.


Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].


GDPR Statement

As a company that has always made data protection and information security a central part of our products and services, we welcomes the introduction of GDPR in May 2018.

Under GDPR personal information including identified or identifiable data may be collected. We may only process personal information based on your direction. We do not use your content for our own purposes without your consent. Upon request, our security administrators can locate, modify, and delete your data to meet all of the requirements of GDPR regulations, and can permanently delete applicable data records from our systems.

We are committed to high standards of information security, privacy and transparency and for many years, our products and services managed data are in accordance with the highest recognized standards.

We will comply with all applicable GDPR provisions as they come into force, whilst also working closely with our customers in order to meet our contractual obligations for our products and services in all sectors. To ensure compliance, we already appointed both a Data Protection Officer and a multi-disciplinary GDPR Working Committee.  

We fully recognizes the impact of the GDPR upon our customer base and, as such, continues to be committed to support customers' GDPR obligations.

If you have any questions relating to our approach to data protection and security, please don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected].


Cookie Policy

Please reference to the following page regarding to our Cookie Policy.


Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make a change to this privacy policy that we believe materially reduces your rights, we will provide you with notice by email. By continuing to use the Service after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy.