Privacy Policy | AGRU America

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 11, 2023

AGRU America, Inc. (“we” or “us” or “AGRU”) is a US-based manufacturer of flat die extrusion geomembrane liners, geonets, geocomposites, and geotextiles as well as a supplier of geosynthetic clay liners, concrete protective liners, vertical barrier systems, and pipe and fitting systems.  We are committed to protecting the personal information you share with us through our website at https://agruamerica.wpengine.com (the “Site”). We recognize that you have a right to control how your personal information is collected and used. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. This Privacy Policy describes how we use personally identifiable information about you that we collect through your use of our Site.

Topics Covered

  • Collecting Information About You
  • Using and Disclosing Your Personal Information
  • How we Share and Disclose your Information
  • Children’s Personal Information
  • How Long We Keep Your Personal Information
  • Quality of Personal Information
  • Storage and Security of Your Personal Information
  • Visiting our Site from Outside the United States
  • Visiting our Site from the European Economic Area (EEA)
    • The Legal Basis for Using European Personal Information
    • Storage and Processing of Personal Information Outside the EEA
    • Rights and Choices for EEA Residents
    • Sharing European Personal Information
    • Dispute Resolution

This Privacy Policy Does Not Apply to:

  • Changes to Privacy Policy
  • Contacting

With respect to the collection of your information, if you do not want your personal information collected, please do not submit it to us. If you have already submitted information and would like to review, correct or remove it from our records, please contact privacy@agruamerica.com.

By visiting and using the Site, you are deemed to have agreed to the provisions of this Privacy Policy, unless you are in the EEA or Switzerland in which case you are acknowledging that you have been provided this Privacy Policy.

Collecting Information About You

AGRU will only collect personal information which is necessary for the purpose of conducting its business. As AGRU has different business units, we may need to disclose personal information within the group in order to conduct our business.

Personal Information Collected on the Site: When you request a call from an AGRU representative through the Site, we collect your name, employer information, email address, phone number, and country information so we understand more about you and can communicate with you about the services you have requested. You may use many of the features of our Site without telling us your name and if you do not tell us who you are, we do not try to find out.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information Collected through our Site:  We also automatically collect non-identifiable data through the Site.  For example, we collect certain standard information that your browser sends to every website you visit, such as your IP address, browser type, and language, access times and referring website addresses. We may also use website analytics tools on our site to retrieve information from your browser, including the site you came from, the search engines and keywords you used to find our Site, the pages you view within our Site, the links you click on, and your browser add-ons.

Additionally, we may use technologies, such as cookies and web beacons, to collect information about the pages you view, the links you click and other actions you take on our sites and services. Cookies, web beacons and/or similar technologies were originally designed to help a website distinguish a user’s browser from a previous visitor and thus save and remember any preferences that may have been set while the user was browsing the site or to track the user’s activities.

A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. Cookies cannot be used to retrieve any other data from your hard drive, capture your email address, run programs, or deliver viruses to your computer. A web beacon is a small transparent gif image that is embedded in an HTML page or email used to track when the page or email has been viewed. These assist in delivering cookies on our Site and allow us to count users who have visited those pages. This technology is similar to a cookie in that it tracks your visit and the data can only be read by the server that receives the data. It is different than a cookie in that it is not browser-based, may not function as an identification card, and does not store any data on your computer. You can set your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent or to refuse or delete cookies altogether, but certain features of the Site might not work without certain cookies. You can find out how to do so here: www.aboutcookies.org.

We use Google Analytics as described in “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps.” You can prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics on websites by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on here. We also employ IP address masking, a technique used to truncate IP addresses collected by Google Analytics and store them in an abbreviated form to prevent them from being traced back to individual users. Portions of our Site may also use Google Analytics for Display Advertisers including DoubleClick or Dynamic Remarketing which provide interest-based ads based on your visit to this or other websites.

Combining Personal Information with Non- Personally Identifiable Information: If you have actively sent us your name or other personally identifiable information, we may combine such information with tracked information for the purposes set forth below.

No Sensitive Data Collected: We will not collect sensitive information about you that reveals your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or affiliations, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, details of health, disability, sexual orientation, or criminal record.

Using and Disclosing Your Personal Information

Personal information you provide through our Site is used to fulfill your request for information, products or service. At a minimum, we will always give you the opportunity to “opt out” of receiving marketing materials you choose to unsubscribe from. Your information may also be used to help us track the way you use our Site and our services. All of this information will help us to better understand your needs and how we can improve our products and services. We also may use your information to communicate with you and to provide ongoing service and support.

If we would like to use your personal information for any purposes other than those described, we will obtain your prior consent.

How we Share and Disclose your Information
We do not sell or share the information you provide with third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

We may share your information with people and organizations AGRU trusts who need your information in order for AGRU to perform other services related to AGRU running its business and providing its services in the limited circumstances detailed below:

  • When we have your consent to share the information (if required under local law);
  • To our affiliates, third party vendors, employees, individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our affiliates, third party vendors, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Policy for personal information that we share with them;
  • To third party service providers who help us with our business operations or other aspects of our business;
  • In connection with the sale, merger, divestiture, reorganization or any other corporate transaction involving AGRU; and
  • For data and customer relations management, passing your data to our contracted service providers.

We only share personal information with other trusted third-party businesses or persons for the purpose of performing services on our behalf. We require that these parties only process the personal information for limited and specified purposes consistent with this Policy.

We reserve our right to disclose your personal information if we have a good faith belief in our sole discretion that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable terms of use of our Site, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of AGRU, its users or the public as required or permitted by law. You cannot opt out of disclosure of your personal information if required by lawful order.

If we would like to share your personal information for any purposes other than those described, we will obtain your prior consent.

Children’s Personal Information
Our Site is not intended for children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information through our Site from visitors in this age group.  If we learn that we have collected personal information about a child under 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.  If you believe we may have collected information about a child under 16, please contact us at privacy@agruamerica.com .

How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We typically only retain your information for as long as necessary to realize our legitimate business purposes and to comply with the law.

Quality of Personal Information

Our aim is to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Please contact us if the information you have provided us changes and we will use all reasonable efforts to correct the data.

Upon request we will provide you with information about whether we hold, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information. We make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. To request this information, please contact us at privacy@agruamerica.com.

You may modify your communication preferences and/or opt-out from specific communications from our Site at any time. Please specify and adjust your preferences by clicking the unsubscribe link of any email you receive or by contacting us at privacy@agruamerica.com.

Storage and Security of Your Personal Information

AGRU safeguards the personal information you send us and takes reasonable physical, technical, and organizational measures to prevent unauthorized access, unlawful processing, and unauthorized or accidental loss, destruction, or damage to your personal information. We use industry-standard efforts to safeguard the confidentiality of personally identifiable information, including encryption, firewalls and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). While we strive to protect your personal information, we need your co-operation to ensure the security of the information you transmit to us. We urge you to take every precaution to protect your personal information while using the Internet. Change your passwords often, and use a passphrase instead of password with at least 8 characters in combination of letters and numbers. Make sure you use a secure internet browser, follow the vendor suggestion and apply updates when required.

Visiting our Site from Outside the United States

If you are visiting our Site from outside the United States, please be aware that your information will typically be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

Visiting our Site from the European Economic Area (EEA)

The Legal Basis for Using European Personal Information

When we collect information about you through our Site, the legal basis on which we process your personal information is our legitimate interests, namely, to fulfill your request for information, products or service.  If we have received your personal information in some other way and wish to provide you with the AGRU communications and other information marketing our services, we will do so only on the basis of your consent.

Storage and Processing of Personal Information Outside the EEA

If you are located in the EEA, please note that as part of our service, we may transfer your personal information to other regions, including to the United States.

AGRU complies with the US Department of Commerce EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield program regarding the transfer of Personal Information from European Union member countries and Switzerland to the United States. AGRU has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles of Notice, Choice, Accountability for Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity and Purpose Limitation, Access, and Recourse, Enforcement and Liability.  If there is a conflict between our Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield, Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.

To learn more about the Privacy Shield program and to view our certification, please visit: www.privacyshield.gov

Rights and Choices for EEA Residents

In addition, if you are a resident of the EEA, you have the right to:

  • Find out if we use your personal information, to access your personal information, and receive copies of your personal information.
  • Withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal information at any time without penalty.
  • Access your personal information and have it corrected or amended if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Obtain a transferable copy of some of your personal information which can be transferred to another provider when the personal information was processed based on your consent.
  • If you believe your personal information is inaccurate, unlawful, no longer necessary for our business purposes, or if you object to our processing of your personal information, you also have the right to instruct us to restrict the processing of your data pending our investigation and/or verification of your claim.
  • Request your personal information be deleted or restricted under certain circumstances. For example, if AGRU is using your personal information on the basis of your consent and has no other legal basis to use such, you may request your personal information be deleted when you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, or raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information, please contact us at the details below.

If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your personal information in violation of the law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Authority (also known as Data Protection Authority) in your EEA country. For our operations within the EEA, our Lead Supervisory Authority is the Österreichische Datenschutzbehörde (https://www.data-protection-authority.gv.at/).

Sharing European Personal Information

AGRU complies with European privacy principles for all onward transfers of personal data from the EU, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

We only share European personal information with other trusted third-party businesses or persons who have agreed to

  • only process the personal information for limited and specified purposes consistent with your consent;
  • provide the same level of protection for personal information as is required by European privacy principles; and
  • notify AGRU and cease processing personal information (or take other reasonable and appropriate remedial steps) if the company determines that it cannot meet its obligation to provide the same level of protection for personal information as is required by European privacy principles.

Dispute Resolution

AGRU has mechanisms in place designed to help assure compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles. AGRU conducts an annual self-assessment of its Personal Information practices to verify that the attestations and assertions AGRU makes about its Privacy Shield privacy practices are true and that AGRU’s privacy practices have been implemented as represented and in accordance with the Privacy Shield Principles.

You may file a complaint concerning AGRU’s processing of your Personal Information. AGRU will take steps to remedy issues arising out of its alleged failure to comply with the Privacy Shield Principles. You may contact AGRU as specified below about complaints regarding AGRU’s personal information practices.

In compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles, AGRU commits to resolve complaints about our collection or use of your Personal Information. EU and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding our Private Shield policy should first contact AGRU at privacy@agruamerica.com.

AGRU has further committed to refer unresolved Privacy Shield complaints to JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider located in the United States, under the JAMS EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield.  The services of JAMS are provided at no cost to you. For more information and/or to file a complaint, please visit: https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield.  AGRU is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ensure compliance with the EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield principles outlined in this policy.

If your complaint is not resolved through these channels, under limited circumstances, a binding arbitration option may be available before a Privacy Shield Panel.

This Privacy Policy Does Not Apply to:

(a) acts or practices of AGRU that are directly related to employee records of current or former employees; (b) Information about companies, individual partners or sole traders acting in a business capacity; or (c) any other data, including, without limitation, data that we collect offline or data that others collect on websites operated by others that are linked to our Site.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may from time to time review and revise our policies. Accordingly, we reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. By continuing your use of the Site, you will be agreeing to the revised Privacy Policy.  Please check this page periodically to keep yourself informed of any changes to the Privacy Policy. If we change our Privacy Policy significantly, we may notify you, where appropriate, by other means.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, our privacy practices, or you wish to make a privacy complaint, please contact us at:

Legal

AGRU America, Inc.

500 Garrison Road

Georgetown, South Carolina 29440

USA

privacy@agruamerica.com

4824-6678-5382.1