User Agreement, Privacy Policy & Cookie Policy
Effective from 30th November 2020
Our ref: BlkMk-GB-DN0011.2
BlockMark Technologies Ltd (“BlockMark”) provides a cloud-based web application at registry.blockmarktech.com (along with any associated software widgets, software applications (apps) and links) called BlockMark Registry (“Services”) to enable individuals and organisations to issue, receive, view, verify and manage (“Process”) certificates, badges, marks and logos (“Credentials”).
These Services are made available to registered users (“Users”) through the provision of an “Account” that includes a personal account relating to an individual and / or one or more organisation accounts (all of which have associated publicly viewable “Profiles” and access to repositories of data relating to applicable Credentials).
Some Services are also available to unregistered users (“Visitors”).
The associated and derived content and data arising from the use of these Services is “Information”.
Information comprises of Personal Information (information that is directly attributed to an individual, such as contact information and identity information), Submitted Information (information that is directly inputted by a User or an associated API, which may include Personal Information, but also information relating to Credentials and organisations) and Derived Information (information generated by the Services, for example analytical and statistical information, which may include Personal Information).
This User Agreement (“Agreement”) applies to Users and Visitors and is between you (in the capacity of a User or a Visitor) and BlockMark.
This Agreement further applies to Services and also any other associated software widgets, software applications (apps) and links that make use of any of the Services or Information.
When you use any of the Services, you agree to all of these terms and conditions and associated policies included in this Agreement.
You agree that by clicking “Register” and then registering to use the Services as a User, or by returning to use the Services as a User, or by using any available Services as a Visitor, you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding Agreement with BlockMark (even if you are using the Services on behalf of a company or organisation). If you do not agree to this Agreement, do not register and / or do not use any of the Services.
BlockMark may modify this Agreement from time to time. If BlockMark makes material changes (“Changes“) to this Agreement, BlockMark will notify you so that you have the opportunity to review the Changes before you agree to them.
BlockMark undertakes that Changes will not be retroactive. Your continued use of Services after any Changes to these terms means that you are consenting to the updated terms as of their effective date. If you object to any Changes, you may terminate this Agreement in the manner described later in this Agreement.
To use the Services, you agree that you are at least 18 years old or that you have parental consent and your parent / legal guardian is the party agreeing to this Agreement on your behalf.
When you create a personal Account and associated personal profile, you agree not to create a false identity, misrepresent your identity, create a User profile for anyone other than yourself, or use or attempt to use another person’s Account.
When you create an organisation Account and organisation profile, you agree not to create a false organisation, that you have permission to create the Account and profile on behalf of the organisation, that you will not misrepresent an organisation, and that you will not use or attempt to use another organisation’s Account that you do not have permission to use.
As a User, you agree to use a strong password and to keep it confidential. You are responsible for anything that happens through your personal Account or an associated organisation Account unless you close it or report misuse.
You agree not to override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls of the Service.
Some Services (“Premium Services”) are paid for using non-refundable credits purchased in advance. You agree to honour your payment obligations and you agree that BlockMark may store your payment Information.
You understand that there may be fees and taxes that are added to the prices of Services and that purchases may be subject to foreign exchange fees or differences in prices based on location due to varying exchange rates. BlockMark may calculate taxes payable by you based on the billing Information that you provide at the time of a purchase.
To avoid interruption to Services, you agree to keep your billing Information up to date.
Where they are not made available in your Account, tax / VAT invoices can be requested by contacting BlockMark.
You agree that BlockMark may provide notices and messages to you within the Service or by using your contact Personal Information that you have provided (e.g., email, mobile number, physical address). You agree to keep your contact Information up to date.
When you use the Services, you agree to provide accurate Information and to keep it updated.
You agree that other Users, Visitors or others (including away from the Services, because for example, Information is indexed by third party search engines) can see, copy and use some Information.
The Services allow viewing and sharing of Information in many ways, such Information may relate to your profile, your organisation profile, credentials and analytical data. Where BlockMark have made Account and privacy options (“Settings”) available, you have choices about who can see Information and BlockMark aims to make these Settings understandable and transparent. More details are provided in the Privacy Policy in section 3.
You agree that BlockMark owns Derived Information that is created from the use of the Services.
BlockMark may remove published Information relating to the Services with or without notice.
When you use the Services, you agree to do so in a professional manner. You agree to comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements.
You agree that if Submitted Information includes Personal Information, it is subject to the Privacy Policy outlined in this Agreement.
You agree to only provide Submitted Information that you have the right to share and that said Submitted Information is truthful and accurate.
You understand that BlockMark may be required by law to remove certain Information or content in certain countries.
You retain ownership of all of your Submitted Information, but you also grant BlockMark a non-exclusive, worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process Submitted Information that you provide through the Services without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. These rights are limited in the following ways:
a. You can end this license for specific content by deleting such Submitted Information from the Services, or generally by closing your Account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Service and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems.
b. BlockMark may edit and make format changes to your Submitted Information (such as translating or transcribing it, modifying the size, layout or file type or removing metadata).
You agree that BlockMark may access, store, process and use any Submitted Information that you provide in accordance with the terms of the Privacy Policy and your Settings.
By submitting feedback or other suggestions about Services to BlockMark, you agree that BlockMark may use such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.
BlockMark may change, suspend or discontinue any of the Services. BlockMark may also modify the prices for any aspect of the Services where the price will be applied to future transactions. Where discontinued Services have been paid for in advance, BlockMark will make refunds to appropriate credit balances on a pro-rated basis for the unfulfilled portion of the Service.
You agree that BlockMark has no obligation to store, maintain or keep showing any Information.
You agree not to override, bypass or circumvent any use-limits of the Service.
Because the Services rely on Information provided by third parties, BlockMark is not responsible for the accuracy of any Information. Therefore, your use of Information and your use of the Services is at your own risk.
By using the Services, you may encounter Information that might be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. BlockMark does not undertake to review Information provided by Users or others. You agree that BlockMark are not responsible for the accuracy, sufficiency or completeness of Submitted Information and therefore the Derived Information that results. This limitation includes cases where BlockMark have independently verified organisations or certification schemes to help improve the quality the Services.
You acknowledge that BlockMark cannot always prevent this misuse of its Services, and you agree that BlockMark are not responsible for any such misuse.
BlockMark reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your Account if you breach this Agreement or the law or are misusing the Services.
You are not permitted to:
a. Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, (ro)bots or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons or any other technology) to scrape Information or access the Services;
b. Copy or distribute any Information whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines) except where permitted and facilitated by the Services offered, for example to disseminate a Credential;
c. Upload anything that contains software viruses, worms, or any other harmful code;
d. Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Services or any related technology that is not open source;
e. Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the Services or related Information;
f. Deep-link to any Services for any purpose other than to promote your profile, your organisation’s profile or your Credentials.
g. Monitor the Services’ availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;
h. Engage in “framing,” “mirroring,” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Services;
i. Overlay or otherwise modify the Services or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisement included on the Services); and/or
j. Interfere with the operation of, or place an unreasonable load on, the Services (e.g., spam, denial of service attack, viruses, gaming algorithms).
BlockMark respects the Intellectual Property Rights (“IPR”) of others.
You agree that Submitted Information does not violate the IPR of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, other proprietary rights, any applicable law or anyone’s rights to privacy.
You agree not to disclose information that you do not have the consent to disclose, such as confidential information of another individual or organisation, such as your employer.
BlockMark reserves all of its IPR in the Services. Trademarks and logos used in connection with the Services are the trademarks of their respective owners. BlockMark, the BM-in-a-box (“BM”) logo and other BlockMark trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used for the Services are trademarks or registered trademarks of BlockMark.
BlockMark grants you a non-exclusive right to display the BM logo on your website when using the provided web-embed tools provided the associated link code is unchanged and that you are complying with this Agreement.
If you provide a mark or logo as part of a certification scheme then you grant a non-exclusive right for BlockMark to display said logo within embodiments of the Service, and you also grant Users and associated organisations who embed the associated link code in their website or email footers a non-exclusive right to display said logo; in compliance with your branding guidelines where made available within the Services.
You agree not to violate the IPR of BlockMark, including, without limitation, (i) copying or distributing BlockMark’s Derived Information or other content and materials, (ii) copying or distributing BlockMark’s technology, unless it is released under open source licenses, (iii) using the word “BlockMark” or BlockMark’s logos in any business name, email, or URL.
You must not imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by BlockMark without BlockMark’s written consent.
BlockMark may use Information to generate further content or Derived Information automatically using algorithms and/or machine learning. For example, BlockMark may use Information about Credentials and Users to serve advertisements about third party services that may be relevant to your or other’s needs.
The Services offered can be controlled to varying extents by different Users depending on their role within the ecosystem.
An owner of a certification scheme has control over any issued certificates to you or your organisation, including the ability to suspend, revoke or update a scheme such that information shown on your profile, your website or email footers changes dynamically through using features provided in our Services. By using these Services, you agree that these features are permitted, reasonable and necessary for the provision of the Services offered.
Graphical elements, such as certification scheme marks, served up by our Services on websites and email footers may include the BM logo to indicate that our Service is in use. You agree that this is acceptable and you further agree not to tamper with, exclude, or obstruct the presentation of this element when using our Services. You also agree not to use the BM logo in connection with any other form of presentation to endorse, pass-off, infer, represent or otherwise our Services where they are not legitimately in use.
BLOCKMARK AND ITS AFFILIATES MAKE NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY ABOUT THE SERVICES, INCLUDING ANY REPRESENTATION THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND PROVIDE THE SERVICES (INCLUDING CONTENT AND INFORMATION) ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, BLOCKMARK AND ITS AFFILIATES DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, ACCURACY OF DATA, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, BLOCKMARK, INCLUDING ITS AFFILIATES, WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF STATUTORY DUTY OR OTHERWISE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFIT OR LOST BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, REPUTATION (E.G., OFFENSIVE OR DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS), LOSS OF DATA (E.G., DOWN TIME OR LOSS, USE OF, OR CHANGES TO, YOUR INFORMATION OR CONTENT) OR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE LOSSES OR DAMAGES, IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR ANY OTHER CONTRACT BETWEEN US.
BLOCKMARK AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR ANY OTHER CONTRACT BETWEEN US WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF STATUTORY DUTY OR OTHERWISE, FOR ANY AMOUNT THAT EXCEEDS THE LESSER OF EITHER (A) THE TOTAL FEES PAID BY YOU TO BLOCKMARK FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TERM OF THIS AGREEMENT, IF ANY, OR (B) GBP 1,000.00.
Nothing in these terms shall limit or exclude BlockMark’s liability for:
a. death or personal injury caused by BlockMark’s negligence, or the negligence of BlockMark’s employees, agents or subcontractors (as applicable);
b. fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by BlockMark, or BlockMark’s employees, agents or subcontractors (as applicable);
c. breach of the terms implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 or section 2 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982;
d. defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987;
e. any matter in respect of which it would be unlawful for us to exclude or restrict liability.
If you wish to terminate this Agreement, you can do so by closing your Account and no longer accessing or using the Services either as a User or a Visitor.
Both you and BlockMark may terminate this Agreement at any time with notice to the other. On termination, you lose the right to access or use the Services. The following shall survive termination:
a. Users’ and/or Visitors’ rights to further re-share Information you shared through the Services;
b. Section 2.4.2 of this Agreement;
c. Section 2.5 of this Agreement;
d. BlockMark’s ownership of any Derived Information arising from your use of the Services.
e. Any amounts owed by either party prior to termination remain owed after termination.
BlockMark is committed to being transparent about the Personal Information that it holds about you, how it is used, and with whom it is shared.
This Privacy Policy applies when you use the Services as a User and/or as a Visitor.
BlockMark continually improves and adds to the Services which means BlockMark generates new Information from Submitted Information and Derived Information, which in turn creates new ways to collect, use, process and share Personal Information. If BlockMark collects materially different Personal Information or BlockMark materially changes how it collects, uses or shares your Personal Information, BlockMark will update this Agreement and notify you.
BlockMark outlines in this Privacy Policy the Personal Information that is collected and why. BlockMark only collects as much Personal Information as is necessary for the Services, and the Personal Information is only used for the purposes for which it was collected. Where BlockMark has the ability to do so, it keeps the Personal Information held up to date.
BlockMark has legal bases for collecting and processing the Personal Information in different circumstances (for example through consent, through contract by agreeing to this Agreement, and through legal to comply with the law). Furthermore, Personal Information is kept safely and securely.
BlockMark is in most cases the data processor of your Personal Information provided to, collected by or for, and/or processed in connection with the Services.
Users that create personal profiles and organisation profiles with Personal Information, and add employees to organisations using Personal Information are the data controller and BlockMark is the data processor.
Users and associated organisations that use Services to issue Credentials using Personal Information are data controllers. In such cases, BlockMark is the data processor.
BlockMark is the data controller of Personal Information associated with the registration, basic operation, and on-going maintenance of a User account.
You provide Personal Information to create an Account with BlockMark and use Services.
To create an Account you need to provide at least one contact email address, a password, and optionally your first name and your last name. You agree that BlockMark may use your email address(es) to contact you to enable the Services, inform you about activity relating to your Account and the Services, and to enable Services to function.
When a third party is preparing to issue a certificate to you personally using one of your registered email addresses, you can choose if your first and last name can be automatically shown and used to generate the name on the certificate. This reduces naming errors on certificates.
Your personal Profile may include further optional information provided by you, for example your photograph. You can decide what optional information is included that is available to be viewed by others.
Your personal profile also shows the certificates that you have received. You can choose whether certificates that are issued to you are publicly viewable or remain private. By default, they are private until you select otherwise.
Your Personal Account includes some security features where BlockMark collects Information. The Audit Log page show the date and time you logged in to your Account, the IP address from which you did this, and the browser and operating system used. The Sessions page shows which login sessions related to your Account are still active, including the IP address from which they are operating, the territory associated with the IP address, the browser and operating system being used, and how long ago activity last occurred. This Information is to help you keep your Account secure, spot any suspicious activity and to manage old sessions on devices you are no longer using. BlockMark also use this Information to better understand the usage of the Services including login activity, technology being used, and the location of uses. This helps BlockMark to make improvements to the Services.
Your Personal Account also includes an Activity Log of the Services you have used. This enables you to keep a record of your actions, for example Credentials you have processed both in your Personal Account and on behalf of an organisation through an Organisation Account. BlockMark also use this Information to better understand the usage of the Services, including statistics related to Credentials received, issued and verified.
Your Personal Information may be associated with one or more Organisation Accounts, for example your employer.
You may associate an email address with an Organisation Account so that certificates issued to an organisation via your email address automatically enter the Organisation Account.
Other members of the Organisation Account may have privileges that enable them to see your association with the organisation, your associated email address and your privileges related to the organisation.
When you perform actions on behalf of an organisation in an Organisation Account, a record of your relevant activity is maintained that is viewable by some or all other members of the organisation. This Information is gathered to provide an audit trail of, for example, who issued which Credential.
When you issue a new Credential, you will need to provide a third party’s Personal Information to BlockMark; for example their contact email address, their first name, their last name and/or the organisation name they are associated with. The information on the Credential may also include Personal Information, for example the qualification.
You agree that you have permission, either personally, or through the applicable organisation’s privacy policy to add a third party’s Personal Information to the Services, and for BlockMark to store and process the Personal Information, for example to contact the recipient by email to alert them to the issuance of a new Credential.
When you use the Services as a User or a Visitor, BlockMark records Information about your actions. Where you are logged in as a User, BlockMark stores Information about your Activity and associates it with your Personal Account or an applicable Organisation Account, as described in the sections above.
If you are using the Services as a Visitor, BlockMark also stores Information relating to your activity, including your IP address, browser technology, operating system, and location.
This Information is used to generate analytical data about the Credentials for BlockMark to aggregate and process, for the organisations that issued them to review, and for the Organisations or Individuals presenting or sharing them to review.
The originating website or domain name of shared Credentials is also registered. This Information is used for BlockMark and issuing organisations to ensure Credentials are displayed on valid websites and to generate statistics relating to Credentials such as number of views or number of inspections.
If you contact BlockMark for support, BlockMark uses your Personal Information to help you, investigate problems, resolve complaints and improve Services.
BlockMark uses Personal Information for security, fraud prevention, and investigations of any violations of this Agreement and/or attempts to harm any Users, Visitors, Information and/or Services.
BlockMark shares Personal Information when it is believed to be required to do so by law, or to help protect the rights and safety of you, BlockMark or others.
BlockMark also uses some third party services, such as third party email services, third party software developers, and third party payment services which may have access to your Personal Information so that the Services function and can be improved.
BlockMark currently hosts Personal Information in the UK, but some third party services are elsewhere, and so where these services are used, you accept that your Personal Information could be transferred to other territories, for example the United States or European Union.
BlockMark may share your Personal Information as part of a sale, merger or change in control, or in preparation for any of these events. Any other entity which buys BlockMark or part of BlockMark’s business will have the right to continue to use your Personal Information, but only in the manner set out in this Privacy Policy in this Agreement, unless you agree otherwise.
BlockMark keeps most of your Personal Information for as long as your Account is open or as needed to provide the Services.
Where you have shared your Credentials with others, any associated Personal Information may remain accessible by them after your Account is closed. BlockMark does not control Personal Information that may have been extracted from the Services, for example by printing a copy of a screen or a Credential.
Your Personal Information may continue to be displayed to others (e.g., search engine results) until they refresh their cache
Some Personal Information is depersonalised and aggregated to create Information which survives if your Account is closed.
You can access, change, correct or delete your Personal Information. BlockMark provides Settings that you may change to control how your data is collected, used and shared.
You can request a copy of your Personal Information by contacting BlockMark at its registered address. BlockMark will need to perform further identity checks to ensure the request is bona fide.
When you close your Account, BlockMark generally deletes Personal Information within 30 days of the request.
However, BlockMark retains your Personal Information even after you have closed your Account if reasonably necessary to comply with any legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud and abuse, or to enforce this Agreement.
BlockMark is committed to being transparent about the use of Cookies and similar tracking technologies.
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by 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.
BlockMark uses two types of cookies: persistent cookies and session cookies. A persistent cookie may help recognise a returning User and enable them to use the Services without signing in again. A persistent cookie stays in your browser and will be read by BlockMark when you return to use the Services. Session cookies last only as long as the session, which is usually the current visit to the website.
This section explains the cookies BlockMark uses and why:
a. Cookie Control – to remember a User’s or Visitor’s choice about cookies when using the Services.
b. Google Analytics – to collect information about how visitors use the Services. BlockMark use the information to compile reports and to help BlockMark improve the Services.
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.
In the unlikely event you and BlockMark end up in a legal dispute, it is agreed to resolve the issue in England courts using English law.
If a court with authority over this Agreement finds any part of it unenforceable, you and BlockMark agree that the court should modify the terms to make that part enforceable while still achieving its intent. If the court cannot do that, you and BlockMark agree to ask the court to remove that unenforceable part and still enforce the rest of this Agreement.
This Agreement is the only agreement between you and BlockMark regarding the Services and supersedes all prior agreements for the Services.
If BlockMark does not act to enforce a breach of this Agreement, that does not mean that BlockMark has waived its right to enforce this Agreement. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement (or your use of Services) to anyone without BlockMark’s consent. However, you agree that BlockMark may assign this Agreement to its affiliates or a party that buys it without your consent. There are no third-party beneficiaries to this Agreement.
For general inquiries, you may contact BlockMark at info@blockmarktech.com. For legal notices the only way to contact BlockMark is at its registered address, as provided on the corporate website blockmarktech.com.
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