Privacy Policy

Parity Technologies Limited and its Affiliates, as defined below, (altogether also referred to as "Parity"; "we"; "us"; or "our") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

In this document “Affiliates” means, in relation to a company, both (i) any subsidiary or holding company from time to time of that company, and any subsidiary from time to time of a holding company of that company, and (ii) any company that directly or indirectly controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with that company. Affiliates include but are not limited to Parity Technologies Deutschland GmbH, Unstoppable Open Source Technologies Lda, Parity Technologies Singapore Pte. Ltd.

This policy (together with our terms of use on our websites parity.io, paritytech.io, substrate.dev, substrate.io and any subdomains (the “Sites”) and any other documents referred to on them) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/ 679 (“GDPR”) and other applicable data protection laws. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. More information about your rights and how you can exercise them is set out in the “Your Rights” section below.

This Privacy Notice applies to Parity website visitors, customers, Blockchain Service users and business partners.

What data do we collect from you?

If you go to our Sites, utilise other services or participate on one of our programs, we may collect and process the following personal data about you:

• Identity and Contact Data, including your name, email address, Element and other social media handles (Github, Telegram, LinkedIn), postal address, telephone number, date of birth, passport number, photos and other personal data concerning your preferences relevant to our services;
• Financial and Payment Data, including your bank account and other data necessary for processing payments and fraud prevention, including other related billing information;
• Business Information, including information provided in the course of the contractual or client relationship between you or your organisation and Parity, or otherwise voluntarily provided by you or your organisation;
• Information you provide to us. This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our Sites, filling in forms on the sites of third-party vendors providing us with a service, or by speaking with us in person, corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you agree to our contributors licence agreement (“CLA”), apply to or attend one of the events that we host, ask to receive our newsletter, provide us with feedback on Parity’s tech and when you report a problem with our Sites. It also includes information you provide to us when you participate in our Bug Bounty programme. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address, registration information (such as username and password when you create an account on our Sites or those of the third parties vendors we work with), phone number, job title, organisation, dietary and/or accessibility requirements or your public Polkadot, Kusama or other blockchain address. We will tell you whether the information we are requesting is essential or whether the supply of this information is optional.
• Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our Sites we may automatically collect the following information:
  • technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, browser type and version, operating system and platform;
  • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), page response times and download errors;
  • Profile and Usage Data, including passwords to Parity websites or password protected platforms or services, your preferences in receiving marketing information from us, your communication preferences and information about how you use our websites(s), including the services you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits and page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs).
• Information we receive from other sources.
  • This is information we receive about you if you use any of the other websites we operate or the other services we provide or, to the extent permitted by law, publicly accessible information about you on e.g. business social media.
  • We may also receive information about you from the Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation (“W3F”) as part of our cooperation. W3F share information about you with us for the purposes of organising joint events, meetups, conferences, workshops or hackathons; assisting and/or following-up with you and coordinating that assistance; addressing and/or following-up with you where you have shown interest in Polkadot, Kusama and/or Substrate; and building and maintaining the Polkadot network and its community of users. To the extent that you would like further information on the data we receive about you from the W3F and the protections we have put in place to ensure it is processed and transferred securely, please contact us at [email protected].
  • In addition, we are working closely with third parties (including, for example, event organisation service providers, event partners, and appointment scheduling services) from whom we will receive information about you. The purposes for which we use this information are listed below. To the extent that you would like further information on any of the parties from whom we receive data about you, and the protections we have put in place to ensure it is processed securely please contact us at [email protected].

Note regarding Blockchain Services

The Polkadot, Kusama and Substrate based blockchain clients written in the programming language Rust which Parity is involved in building and maintaining do not collect information from you. However, any information you publish onto a (public) blockchain like Ethereum, Kusama or Polkadot is public by design. Your use of a client and interaction with a blockchain like Ethereum, Polkadot or Kusama will lead you to interact with other network participants on those blockchains. You should note that where you do so those with whom you interact as well as other participants on those networks may be able to determine certain things about you through your use of those networks.

For what purposes do we use your data and what is the legal basis for this use?

We may use, collect and store your personal data for the reasons set out below and in doing so rely on the following legal bases:

• As required by Parity to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. f GDPR), in particular:
  • to notify you about changes to our service;
  • to administer our Sites and for internal operations, including troubleshooting and statistical purposes;
  • to ensure that content from our Sites are presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • to improve our Sites, their security and to ensure that their content remains up to date and presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
  • as part of our efforts to keep our Sites safe and secure;
  • to use information you provide to investigate any complaints received from you or from others, about our Sites or our products or services;
  • to address any interest you or your team show in Parity’s tech, Polkadot or any collaboration with us;
  • to administer and manage our relationship with you, including accounting, and taking other steps linked to the performance of our business relationship including suppliers or service providers;
  • to address any requests, issues or questions you inform us about when you contact us via email, phone or otherwise;
  • to follow-up with you where you have shown interest in Polkadot, Substrate or any of our other products and services;
  • to analyse and improve our services and communications;
  • to protect the security of our communications and other systems and to prevent and detect security threats, frauds or other criminal or malicious activities;
  • for insurance purposes;
  • to collect information about your preferences to personalise and improve the quality of our communications with you;
  • to improve Parity’s tech;
  • to schedule, arrange and administer events, meetups and hackathons in which you have expressed an interest (including creating an attendance record for the event and sending anonymised data to the venue including attendees, dietary requirements and accessibility requirements);
  • to document the copyright and other rights granted with contributions made under our CLA;
  • to allow our services to check for updates and resources necessary for their continued operation;
  • to exercise or defend our legal rights or to comply with court orders and to use data in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory and investigative purposes as necessary (including disclosure of such information in connection with legal process or litigation); and
  • Information we receive from other sources: We will combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We will use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

We have carried out balancing tests for all the data processing we carry out on the basis of our legitimate interests according to Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. f GDPR, which we have described above.

• To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract, with you or your organisation (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. b GDPR). This includes:
  • to register you or your organisation as a customer or business partner;
  • to provide and administer services or solutions, as instructed by you or your organisation;
  • to process payments, billing and collection.

Where we need to collect personal data by law or in order to process your instructions or perform a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to carry out your instructions or perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel our engagement or contract you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

• Where you give us consent according to Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a GDPR:
  • we or our carefully selected partners will send you direct marketing in relation to our relevant products and services, or other products and services provided by us, our Affiliates and carefully selected partners. However, we will only provide you with marketing related information after you have, where legally required to do so, opted in to receive those communications and having provided the opportunity for you to opt out at any time;
  • we place cookies and use similar technologies in accordance with our Cookies Policy below and the information provided to you when those technologies are used;
  • on other occasions where we ask you for consent (we will use the data for the purpose(s) which we explain at the time of collection).

Wherever we rely on your consent, you will be able to withdraw that consent (Art. 7 para. 3 GDPR) at any time, although we may have other legal grounds for processing your data for other purposes, such as those set out above. In some cases, we are able to send you direct marketing without your consent, where we rely on our legitimate interests. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose(s) to which you originally consented unless there is no other legal ground for the processing.

You have the right to withdraw your consent for direct marketing, or profiling we carry out for direct marketing, at any time. You can do this by following the instructions in our communications where this is an electronic message, or by contacting us at [email protected].

• For purposes which are required by law (Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. c GDPR):
  • In response to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.
  • Processing for purposes required by law, including maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, trade sanctions etc.).

Who will we share your data with, where and when?

We will share your personal information with:

• Other members of the Parity group, which means our Affiliates, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries for:
  • the purposes of providing you with our services, addressing a request submitted by you, or follow-up where you have shown interest in our services and technologies, as described in this Privacy Notice; and
  • website maintenance and security.
  • Selected third parties including but not limited to:
  • business partners and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you, such as legal, financial, tax and accounting services providers and IT service providers, including but not limited to hosting and/or maintenance providers;
  • our newsletter service provider for the purposes of providing you with our newsletter;
  • event organisation service providers for the purposes of scheduling and arranging events and meetups in which you have expressed an interest;
  • third-party developers for and/or providers of website hosting and maintenance; and
  • the W3F as part of our cooperation. We will share your data with the W3F for the purposes of organising joint events, meetups, conferences, workshops or hackathons; assisting and/or following-up with you and coordinating that assistance; addressing and/or following-up with you where you have shown interest in Polkadot and/or Substrate; and building and maintaining the Polkadot network and its community of users. For certain processes Parity and W3F also act as joint controllers.

To the extent that you would like further information of any of the parties with whom we share your data, and the protections we have put in place to ensure it is processed securely please contact us at [email protected].

We will also disclose your personal information to third parties:

• 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 in compliance with applicable law.
• If Parity Technologies Limited (and/or any of its Affiliates) 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.
• 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 and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Parity and /or any of its Affiliates, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

International Transfers

The data that we collect from you may be transferred and stored by us or our service provider(s) outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA (such as the US) who works for us or for one of our suppliers.

Where information is transferred outside the EEA, and where this is to a stakeholder or vendor in a country that is not subject to an adequacy decision by the EU Commission, data is adequately protected by data protection agreements, EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses or a vendor's Processor Binding Corporate Rules. A copy of the relevant mechanism can be provided for your review on request to [email protected].

Our Sites may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, 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.

Your rights

According to the GDPR, you may have the following rights pursuant to Art. 15-18 and 20-21 GDPR:

• You may have the right to access your personal data and ask us for a copy of your personal data (Art. 15 GDPR); to correct, delete or restrict (stop any active) processing of your personal data (Art. 16-18 GDPR); and to obtain the personal data you provide to us for a contract or with your consent in a structured, machine readable format, and to ask us to share (port) this data to another controller (Art. 20 GDPR); In addition, you can object to the processing of your personal data in some circumstances (in particular, where we don’t have to process the data to meet a contractual or other legal requirement – Art. 21 GDPR).
• Where we have asked for your consent, you may withdraw consent at any time (Art. 7 par. 3 GDPR). If you ask to withdraw your consent to processing the data, this will not affect any processing which has already taken place at that time.

These rights may be limited, for example if fulfilling your request would reveal personal data about another person, where they would infringe the rights of a third party (including our rights) or if you ask us to delete information which we are required by law to keep or have compelling legitimate interests in keeping. Relevant exemptions are included in the GDPR. We will inform you of relevant exemptions we rely upon when responding to any request you make.

To exercise any of these rights, or to obtain other information, such as a copy of a legitimate interests balancing test, you can get in touch with us using the details set out under the Section “Contact” below. When addressing us, please provide us with specific information regarding your request. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to complain to an EU data protection authority where you live, work or where you believe a breach may have occurred.

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will in any case inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise this right at any time by contacting us at [email protected].

Please note that we may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Which entity is my data controller, and which entities might my data be shared with?

The data controllers for your personal information are Parity Technologies Limited of c/o Ignition Law, 1 Sans Walk, London, England, EC1R 0LT and in some instances its Affiliates who may also act as joint controllers (Article 26 EU GDPR) regarding specific data processing operations. The legal basis for the joint processing and transmission of personal data between the companies lies, unless a different determination is made in individual cases, in the legitimate interests of the companies under Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. f GDPR, to transmit personal data for internal administrative purposes, including the processing of personal data of business partners, customers and employees.

Your data might be shared as part of our business operations with our Affiliates for the management and execution of group functions.

Your personal data might also be shared with the Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation, Baarerstrasse 14, 6300 Zug, Switzerland a third party with whom we are not affiliated but with whom we cooperate on a range of activities. In some cases your data will be jointly controlled (in accordance with Art. 26 GDPR) by the Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation and Parity in the framework of our cooperation. The essence of the corresponding data protection framework agreement will be made available on request.

How long will you retain my data?

Where you are a business partner, contributor, customer or a registered user, we will keep your information for the duration of any contractual relationship you have with us, and, to the extent permitted, after the end of that relationship for as long as necessary to perform the purposes set out in this notice in accordance with applicable law.

Where we process personal data with your consent, we process the data until you ask us to stop and for a short period after this (to allow us to implement your requests). We also keep a record of the fact that you have asked us not to process your data indefinitely so that we can respect your request in future.

For data about your visits to our Sites and where we process personal data for Sites security purposes, we will retain this data for 12 months following your last visit to one of our Sites.

Laws may require us to hold certain information of yours for specific retention periods. In other cases, we may retain data for an appropriate period after any relationship with you ends to protect itself from legal claims, or to administer its business.

How will you protect my data?

We strive to maintain the highest standards of security and Parity has put in place robust technical and organisational measures for the protection of your data in accordance with the current, general state of the art technologies, especially to protect the data against loss, falsification or access by unauthorised third persons. However the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. So, whilst we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Sites. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal data we will use strict procedures and security features to prevent unauthorised access.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Sites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Cookie Policy

Our Sites use cookies. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Sites and allows us to improve our Sites.

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by the websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The use of cookies is now standard for most websites. If you are uncomfortable with the use of cookies, you can manage and control them through your browser, including removing cookies by deleting them from your ‘browser history’ (cache) when you leave the site. See the subsection “How to manage cookies” for further information.

We use the following categories of cookies:

Necessary cookies

The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site or provision of our services. Necessary cookies in particular help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

Analytical or performance cookies

These are cookies that are not strictly necessary for the operation of this site or provision of our services, but they enhance the use of the Online Services by remembering certain choices you may make and providing enhanced features. For example, they are used to remember site preferences or choices, such as remembering preferences for language, country, region or other online settings made (e.g. text size, fonts).

These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our Sites and how visitors move around our Sites when they are using them. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functional and marketing cookies placed by third-party providers

Our Sites contain third-party embedded content or allow certain features from external providers, as described below. Please be aware that if you click, view or interact with this third-party content in any way additional third-party cookies may be placed on your browser by them. These external providers have their own terms and conditions and cookie policies, which we have no control over. Party does not directly place these cookies or receive any information about you from them.

Our Sites use the following external providers

• YouTube. This Site uses the YouTube embedding feature to display and play videos from YouTube, operated by Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland; "Google"). We use the YouTube service to provide videos in a user-friendly manner. We use YouTube in the privacy-enhanced mode. According to Google, the privacy-enhanced mode of the YouTube embedded player prevents the use of views of embedded YouTube content from influencing the viewer's browsing experience on YouTube. This means that the view of a video shown in the privacy-enhanced mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalise the YouTube browsing experience, either within the privacy-enhanced mode embedded player on the Website or in the viewer's subsequent YouTube viewing experience. In addition, the view of a video shown in the privacy-enhanced mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalise advertising shown to the viewer outside of the Website.

For more information about YouTube's privacy practices and Google's privacy policy, please refer to the following link: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.

Below follows a list of the cookies placed by these third-party services whenever you interact with content related to them which are embedded on our Sites (e.g. play YouTube videos):

Cookie title / cookie name	Placed by/type	Purpose	Expiry
__Secure-3PSIDCC	Google/Marketing	Third-party cookie placed by Google. Targeting cookie. Used to create a user profile and display relevant and personalised Google Ads to the user.	1 year
__Secure-1PSIDCC	Google/Functional	Third-party cookie placed by Google. Cookie required to use website options and services.	1 year
SSID	Google/Marketing	This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website.	1 year 1 month
__Secure-3PAPISID	Google/Marketing	Profiles the interests of website visitors to serve relevant and personalised ads through retargeting.	1 year 1 month
__Secure-1PAPISID	Google/Marketing	Targeting cookie. Used for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising.	1 year 1 month
SIDCC	Google/Marketing	Security cookie to confirm visitor authenticity, prevent fraudulent use of credentials, and protect visitor data from unauthorised access.	1 year
HSID	Google/Security	record the Google account ID and the last login time of a user in digitally signed and encrypted form	1 year 1 month
__Secure-3PSID	Google/Marketing	Builds a profile of website visitor interests to show relevant and personalised ads through retargeting.	1 year 1 month
SID	Google/Security	record the Google account ID and the last login time of a user in digitally signed and encrypted form	1 year 1 month
__Secure-1PSID	Google/Marketing	Used by for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising	1 year 1 month
__Secure-3PSIDTS	Google/Marketing	Google’s “__Secure-3PSIDTS” cookie collects information about your interactions with Google services and ads. It is used to measure advertising effectiveness and deliver personalized content based on your interests. The cookie contains a unique identifier	1 year
SAPISID	Google/Marketing	Google Analytics customisation cookie. Used by the Google + 1 sharing button and is required to link content to your Google 1+ account.	1 year 1 month
APISID	Google/Marketing	Google collects visitor information for videos played out by YouTube.	1 year 1 month
1P_JAR	Google/Marketing	This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website.	1 month
AEC	Google/Security	cookies ensure that requests within a browser session are made by the user and not by other websites.	6 months
DV	Google/Marketing	Store user preferences	1 week
CONSENT	Google/Functional	Save the user's cookie decisions	2 years
NID	Google/Marketing	The NID cookie contains a unique ID Google uses to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language (e.g. English), how many search results you wish to have shown per page (e.g. 10 or 20), and whether or not you wish to have Google's SafeSearch filter turned on.	6 months
OTZ	Google/Functional	Cookie that identifies user preferences.	1 week
SOCS	Google/Functional	used to store a user’s state regarding their cookies choices	1 year 1 month
__Secure-ENID	Google/Marketing	Used by Google to prevent fraudulent login attempts. This also contains a Google user ID which can be used for statistics and marketing purposes following a successful login.	1 year 1 month
APISID	Google/Marketing	Used to personalise Google ads on websites based on recent searches and interactions.	2 years
YSC	Google/Marketing	To store and track user interaction	1 year
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	Google/Marketing	To provide ad delivery or retargeting, store and track a visitor's identity, Store and track interaction	1 year

Parity’s use of cookies

Below follows a list of the cookies placed by us whenever you visit and navigate our sites:

Cookie title / cookie name	Placed by/Type	Purpose	Expiry
_cflb	Parity/necessary	This cookie is a load balancing cookie set by a third-party, CloudFlare (a content delivery network service), and is necessary for the Sites to function properly as it is used to optimise network resource usage. For more information please see: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170156-What-does-the-CloudFlare-cfduid-cookie-do-	This cookie is a session cookie that lasts anywhere from several seconds up to 24 hours.

Before we use cookies which are not strictly necessary for the operation of our Sites or provision of our services we obtain consent from you according to Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a GDPR. Please also see the section “How to manage cookies” below.

How to manage cookies

You can change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking on the cookie consent management tool on our Sites. Parity's Cookie Consent Manager is a tool that allows you to modify settings related to non-necessary Cookies. It is not possible to modify settings related to Necessary Cookies. You can then adjust the available sliders to ‘On’ or ‘Off’, then clicking ‘Save’. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect. These consent settings are stored in your browser’s local storage, are never (as far as technology permits) transmitted to our servers and do not allow our servers to identify or track individual users.

Current versions of web browsers also offer enhanced user controls regarding the placement and duration of both first and third-party cookies. Search for "cookies" under your web browser's "Help menu" for more information on cookie management features available to you. You can enable or disable cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. You can also find out how to do this, and find more information on cookies at <www.allaboutcookies.org>. However, if you choose to disable cookies in your browser, you may be unable to complete certain activities on our Sites or to correctly access certain parts of it. If you would like more information about interest-based advertising, including how to opt-out of these cookies, please visit http://youronlinechoices.eu/.

Simple Analytics

To get information about the behaviour of our visitors, we use Simple Analytics. This analytics software gives us insight about our visitors only in general. It does not give us any insights or information about individuals as it does not track visitors and does not store any personal identifiable information. Go to Simple Analytics documentation to find out what Simple Analytics collects (and most importantly what they don’t).

Changes to our privacy policy

This privacy policy may be updated periodically. Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to [email protected] or by writing to Parity Technologies Limited of c/o Ignition Law, 1 Sans Walk, London, England, EC1R 0LT.

If you have a concern about the way we handle your personal data you have the right to complain to the Data Protection Authority of Berlin or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. You can find details of how to do this on their websites at https://www.datenschutz-berlin.de or https://ico.org.uk

This privacy policy was last updated 14 March 2024.