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Privacy policy

Last Updated: October 1, 2024

This Privacy Policy describes how In-Q-Tel, Inc. and its affiliates (together, “IQT,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) handles personal information and other information that you may provide (collectively, “Personal Data”) through our website at www.iqt.org (the “Site”) as well as through other activities described in this Privacy Policy.  In-Q-Tel, Inc.’s affiliates include IQT Labs LLC, IQTI LLC, IQT International UK LTD, IQT International Australia Ltd., IQTI GmbH, and IQT International Singapore Pte. Ltd.

For persons outside the EEA/UK: Your provision of any Personal Data to us means you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy so please review this policy carefully.  If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].

If you are a resident of the EEA/UK, Australia, or Singapore, please see sections 9, 10, and 11, respectively, for additional information about the Personal Data that we may collect about you and your rights under the laws of those jurisdictions.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the Personal Data that we collect and process about IQT employees, contractors, personnel, job applicants, or candidates.

Table of Contents

1. Personal Data We Collect

2. How We Use Personal Data

3. Sharing and Disclosure of Personal Data

4. Data Retention

5. Your Privacy Choices

6. California Privacy Disclosures

7. Children

8. Links to Other Websites

9. EU and UK Users

10. Australian Users

11. Singapore Users

12. Cookies and Tracking

13. Security

14. Changes to the Privacy Policy

15. Contact Us

1. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT

Via The Sites. We collect Personal Data that you provide us via the Sites or that you send to us electronically via the Sites.  Some examples are below.

• When you contact us via email to the email addresses provided on the Site (such as to [email protected] or [email protected]). The Personal Data and other information that we collect may include: (i) your name, (ii) the name of your organization (if applicable), (iii) your email address, (iv) information requested in the particular form or survey, and (v) any other information you choose to include in the applicable form, inquiry or survey.  

• When you “Submit a Business Plan” via our Sites.  The Personal Data and other information that we may collect include: (i) your name, contact details (including your email address and phone number), and job title, (ii) information related to your company’s technology and markets, and (iii) names of the company’s current government customers and investors.  

• When you submit an “IQT Speaker Request” via our Site. The Personal Data and other information that we may collect include: (i) your name, contact details (including your email address and phone number), and (ii) information related to the event in which you are requesting an IQT colleague to speak.

• When you subscribe to IQT Updates via our Newsletter via our Site. The Personal Data and other information that we may collect include your name and email address. We collect this information via Mailchimp and you may learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.  

At Events.  We may collect Personal Data from you when you attend one of our events, or that you provide to our employees at business conferences and trade shows. The Personal Data we collect includes information that you voluntarily give to us, such as your business card or contact details.

Potential Strategic Investment Opportunities Other Than Through the Sites. When you (or your company) and IQT agree to discuss a potential strategic investment by IQT, we will collect Personal Data relevant to such discussions including (i) your name, contact details (e.g., email address and phone number), and job title; (ii) information related to your company’s technology and markets, (iii) names of the company’s current government customers and investors, key leadership and founders, and a secondary contact person, and (iv) anything else you choose to tell us about your technology and business.  

Procurement of Goods/Services From You. If you are a supplier or service provider (or the employee or representative of our supplier or service provider), we collect Personal Data that is relevant to procuring your goods and/or services and paying you for them. The Personal Data and other information we collect includes (i) your name, contact details (e.g., email address and phone number) and title, and (ii) your company’s financial information (e.g., bank account details).

Information We Receive Automatically From Your Use of the Site.  When you visit, use and interact with the Site, we collect certain information about your visit, use or interactions. For example, we may monitor the number of people that visit the Site, peak hours of visits, which page(s) are visited on the Site, the domains our visitors come from (e.g., google.com, yahoo.com, etc.), and which browsers people use to access and visit our Site (e.g., Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, etc.), broad geographical information, and Site-navigation pattern. In particular, the following information is created and automatically logged in our systems:

Log data: Information (“log data”) that your browser automatically sends whenever you visit the Site. Log data includes your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address (so we understand which country you are connecting from when you visit the Site), browser type and settings, the date and time of your request, and how you interacted with the Site.

Information from cookies: Please see the “Cookies and Tracking” section below to learn more about how we use cookies and other technologies.

Device information: Includes the name of the device, operating system, and browser you are using. Information collected may depend on the type of device you use and its settings.

Usage information: We collect information about how you use the Site, such as the types of content that you view or engage with, the features you use, the actions you take, and the time, frequency and duration of your activities.

Third Party Personal Data and Further Collection.  If you submit any Personal Data about other individuals to us, you represent that you have the authority to do so and that you have informed those individuals of the processing of their Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy. If we collect additional information from or about you, if required by applicable law, we will provide you with additional privacy notices governing our use and disclosure of such information.

2. HOW WE USE PERSONAL DATA

We use Personal Data you provide us through the Site or otherwise for the purposes discussed below or as otherwise described at the time of collection.  

Service delivery, support, and business operations.  We may use your Personal Data as specified below:

• To respond to your inquiries, comments, feedback or questions.

• To process your submissions of business plans.

• To send administrative information to you, for example, information regarding the Site, and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.

• To analyze how you interact with the Site, to provide, maintain, and improve the content and functionality of the Site, and to develop our business (please see the “Cookies and Tracking” section below to learn how we use cookies).

• To provide support related to your use of the Site and/or our services.

• To manage our relationship with you. For example, to manage and maintain your account with us.

Compliance and protection. We may use your Personal Data as specified below:

• To try to prevent fraud, criminal activity, or misuses of the Site, block prohibited reseller traffic, and to ensure the security of our IT systems, architecture and networks.

• To pursue our interests and obligations in complying with legal obligations and legal process and protecting our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or other third parties.

Marketing. We may use your Personal Data as specified below:

• To develop a business relationship with you.

• To contact you about our services or products we believe will be of interest to you.

• To maintain your contact details in our marketing database for marketing purposes.

• To manage and improve our advertising campaigns (both online and offline).

• To tailor content that we may send you, including to personalize your experience.

Potential Strategic Investment Opportunities.  We may use your Personal Data to engage in discussions about potential strategic investment opportunities between you and us, and to conduct due diligence and execute transactions related to such investments.  

Supply and Service Procurement.  If you are a supplier or service provider (or the employee or representative of our supplier or service provider), we may use your Personal Data to explore procuring supplies or services from you, and to conduct due diligence and execute transactions related to such procurements.  

General Business and Operational Support. To consider and implement mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, bankruptcies, and other transactions such as financings, and related to the administration of our general business, accounting, auditing, compliance, recordkeeping, and legal functions.

3. SHARING AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL DATA

In certain circumstances we may share your Personal Data with third parties without further notice to you, unless required by the law, as set forth below:

Affiliates. We may disclose Personal Data to our affiliates who will use and disclose such Personal Data in accordance with the principles of this Privacy Policy.

Vendors and Service Providers. To assist us in meeting business operation needs and to perform certain services and functions on our behalf, we may provide your Personal Data and other information to: (i) providers of hosting, cloud services and other IT services providers; (ii) event management and email communication software providers; and (iii) web analytics services (for more details on the third parties that place cookies through the Site, please see the “Cookies and Tracking” section below). Pursuant to our instructions, these parties will access, process or store Personal Data in the course of performing their duties to us.

Government customers. We may share your Personal Data and other information with our government customers in connection with IQT’s potential strategic investment in you or your company and/or funding to procure your products and services for potential use by our government customers.  Our government customers process Personal Data and other information subject to their privacy policies and practices, which we do not control.

Business Transfers.  If the event of a transaction or proposed transaction, including a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of all or a portion of our assets, transition of service to another provider, and due diligence in connection with any of the foregoing, your Personal Data and other information may be transferred to a successor or affiliate as part of that transaction or diligence along with other assets.

Legal Requirements, Security, and Protection of Rights. If required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to (i) comply with a legal obligation, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements, (ii) protect and defend our rights or property, (iii) prevent fraud, (iv) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the Site, or the public, or (v) protect against legal liability.

• With Permission Where Required. We may disclose Personal Data in ways not described above. If we do so, we will notify you, and if necessary, obtain your consent.

4. DATA RETENTION

We will keep your Personal Data for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, while we have a legitimate business need to do so, or as required by law (e.g., for tax, legal, accounting or other purposes), whichever is longer.

If you have elected to receive marketing communications from us, we retain information about your marketing preferences until you opt out of receiving these communications and in accordance with our policies.

To determine the appropriate retention period for your Personal Data, we will consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Data, the purposes for which we use your Personal Data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances we may deidentify your Personal Data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case it is no longer Personal Data.

5. YOUR PRIVACY CHOICES

You have certain choices regarding the processing of your Personal Data, and we make available several ways for you to manage your preferences and privacy choices, subject to some exceptions:

Correction: if you need to change or correct the Personal Data that we maintain about you, you can contact us at [email protected].

Deletion: if you wish to delete the Personal Data that we maintain about you, you can contact us at [email protected]. Please note that we may be required to maintain certain information that we have collected about you.

Marketing Communications: We may send periodic promotional and operational emails or other similar communications to you. You may change your preferences or unsubscribe by following the instructions provided to you in the communication or by updating your user settings. If you opt out of receiving promotional emails from us, we may still send you communications that you have requested to receive from us.

Industry Ad Choice Programs: You can control how participating ad networks use the information that they collect about your visits to the Site and those of third parties, in order to display more relevant targeted advertising to you. You can obtain more information and opt out of receiving targeted ads from participating ad networks at aboutads.info/choices (Digital Advertising Alliance). If you are in Europe, this information is available at www.youronlinechoices.eu (European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance).

6. CALIFORNIA PRIVACY DISCLOSURES

Do Not Track Signals: Our Site currently does not respond to “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) signals and operate as described in this Privacy Policy whether or not a DNT signal is received.

7. CHILDREN

IQT does not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of 13.  If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Data to IQT through the Site please contact us at [email protected] and we will endeavor to delete that information from our databases.

8. LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

The Site may contain links to other websites not operated or controlled by IQT (“Third Party Sites”), including social media services. The information that you share with Third Party Sites will be governed by the specific privacy policies and terms of service of the Third Party Sites and not by this Privacy Policy. By providing these links we do not imply that we endorse or have reviewed these Third Party Sites. Please contact those Third Party Sites directly for information on their privacy practices and policies.

9. EU and UK USERS

Scope. This section applies if you are an individual in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom (“UK”).

Data Controller. In-Q-Tel, Inc. is the data controller for the processing of your Personal Data.  IQT affiliates may also act as data controllers for the processing of Personal Data collected from or about you in connection with potential strategic investment opportunities and to develop a business relationship with you or your company or achieve other legitimate business purposes; in such case, the IQT affiliate acting as a data controller for your Personal Data will be the entity you interact with. To find out IQT’s contact details, please see the “How to Contact Us” section below.

Legal Basis for Collecting Personal Data. We collect and process Personal Data in reliance on one of the following legal bases:

To perform a contract with you or to take pre-contractual steps at your request. This includes performance of an agreement with you, such as our Site’s Terms of Use, or Terms and Conditions applicable to the services you use.

To comply with EU or UK legal obligations to which we are subject. This includes processing Personal Data to comply with legal obligations, such as to retain records of transactions.

For legitimate interests. We may process Personal Data in furtherance of our legitimate interests, or those of a third party, where those interests are not overridden by your rights, freedoms, and interests. Our legitimate interests include improving and personalizing the services, marketing features that may be of interest, promoting safety and security, conducting our business, and developing a business relationship with you or your company.

With your explicit consent. We may process Personal Data about you based on your consent, for example (where required by law) to send you marketing communications, surveys, news, and updates. Where our processing of Personal Data is based on your consent, you may withdraw consent at any time.

Purposes and Legal Bases for Processing. We use Personal Data for the purposes set forth below, relying on the legal bases described:

Where we process your Personal Data to perform a contract with you or to comply with a legal obligation, the provision of your Personal Data is compulsory so far as it is either a contractual or statutory requirement, or a necessary requirement to enter into a contract. In such cases, provision of your Personal Data is mandatory since it would not otherwise be possible to enter and perform our contract with you, or to comply with our legal obligations.

Your Rights. The EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation (singly or collectively, “GDPR”) allow you to exercise certain rights in relation to the Personal Data that we hold about you, which may be subject to specific conditions and exceptions. The data subject rights available to you are:

Right of access: If you ask us, we will confirm whether we are processing your Personal Data and, if so, provide you with a copy of that Personal Data along with certain other details.

Right to rectification: If your Personal Data is inaccurate or incomplete, you are entitled to ask that we correct or complete it. If we shared your Personal Data with others, we will tell them about the correction where possible. If you ask us, and where possible and lawful to do so, we will also tell you with whom we shared your Personal Data so you can contact them directly.

Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”): You may ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data, such as where you withdraw your consent. If we shared your Personal Data with others, we will tell them about the erasure where possible. If you ask us, and where possible and lawful to do so, we will also tell you with whom we shared your Personal Data with so you can contact them directly.

Right to restrict processing: You have the right to restrict the processing of your Personal Data, meaning that we will not further process your Personal Data except to store it. You may ask us to restrict or ‘block’ the processing of your Personal Data in certain circumstances, such as where you contest the accuracy of the Personal Data or object to us processing it (please read below for information on your right to object).

Right to data portability: You have the right to obtain a machine-readable copy of your Personal Data or to have us transfer it to another controller of your choice.

Right to withdraw consent: If we rely on your consent to process your Personal Data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent will not affect any processing of your Personal Data before we received notice that you wished to withdraw consent.

Objection. You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to the processing of your Personal Data where we rely on legitimate interests as the legal basis for processing.

You also have the right to prevent the processing of your Personal Data for direct marketing (including profiling) purposes.

Right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority: If you have a concern about our privacy practices, including the way we handled your Personal Data, you can report it to the data protection authority that is authorized to hear those. This link will redirect you to the European Data Protection Board website with an up-to-date list of all European Economic Area Data Protection Authorities:  https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en. The UK authority, the ICO, can be reached here: https://ico.org.uk/.

You can exercise your rights (other than the right to lodge a complaint) by contacting us using the information set out below in the “How to Contact Us” section.

Data Transfers: By using our Services, you understand that your personal information is transferred to countries outside of the EEA and UK, and notably to the United States, which are not deemed by the European Commission or UK government to provide an adequate level of Personal Data protection. We have implemented measures to protect your personal information, including contractual terms such as the European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses and their UK equivalent, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. You can obtain a copy of these terms by contacting us using the information set out below.

Cookies: Some of our cookies are strictly necessary for the Site to function as intended, while others are not strictly necessary and are designed to optimize your experience and to help us understand our users better.  Your consent is required for the use of non-strictly necessary cookies – we obtain this consent through our pop-up cookie preference manager.  You can withdraw your consent at any time using the preference manager, by clicking on the cookie icon in the lower left-hand corner of the Site, or your browser settings.  More information about the individual cookies used on the Site can also be found through the preference manager by clicking on the cookie icon in the bottom left corner of any webpage on the site. Additional details regarding our use of cookies can be found in our Cookie Policy.

How to Contact Us:

If you are an individual in the EU and/or UK, you can contact us at [email protected].

10. AUSTRALIAN USERS

Scope. This section applies if you are an individual in Australia.

Access to and correction of your Personal Data: You may access or request correction of the Personal Data that we hold about you by contacting us.  Our contact details are set out below.  There are some circumstances in which we are not required to give you access to your Personal Data.  There is no charge for requesting access to your Personal Data but we may require you to meet our reasonable costs in providing you with access (such as photocopying costs or costs for time spent on collating large amounts of material).  We will respond to your requests to access or correct Personal Data in a reasonable time.

Complaints: If you have a complaint about the way we have handled any privacy issue, including your request for access or correction of your Personal Data, you should contact us. Our contact details are set out below.  We will consider your complaint and determine whether it requires further investigation. We will notify you of the outcome of this investigation and any subsequent internal investigation. If you remain unsatisfied with the way in which we have handled a privacy issue, you may approach an independent advisor or contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au) for guidance on alternative courses of action which may be available.

If you are an individual in Australia, you can contact IQT AUSTRALIA LTD on matters related to the handling of Personal Data of individuals who are located in Australia. To make such an inquiry, please contact IQT AUSTRALIA LTD at [email protected].

11. SINGAPORE USERS

Scope. This section applies if you are a Singapore resident, or if IQT International Singapore Pte. Ltd is the organization collecting, using or disclosing your Personal Data in its own capacity.

Consent: We collect, use and disclose your Personal Data with your consent, where required to do so by applicable law.

If you provide us with any Personal Data relating to a third party, by submitting such information to us, you represent to us that you have obtained the consent of such third party to you providing us with their Personal Data for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

Data Transfers: we may transfer your Personal Data outside of Singapore, including to the United States, for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We take steps to ensure that your Personal Data receives a comparable level of protection where it is processed and your rights continue to be protected. For more information, please contact us as described below.

Your Rights: You may have the following rights with regard to your Personal Data that we hold about you:

• request a copy of Personal Data we hold about you and information on how your Personal Data has been used or disclosed by us in the past year;

• ask that we update the Personal Data we hold about you, or correct any Personal Data that you think is incorrect or incomplete;

• ask that we delete Personal Data that we hold about you;

• withdraw consent at any time for the future to our processing of your Personal Data (to the extent such processing is based on consent);

• object to our processing of your Personal Data (including for direct marketing purposes); and

• request your Personal Data be transferred to you or another data controller (the “data portability” right).

To contact us or to enquire about or exercise these rights, see "Contact Us" below.

Changes to the Privacy Policy: If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will obtain your consent to such changes where required by applicable law to do so.

12. COOKIES AND TRACKING

We and our partners use cookies, pixel tags, and other similar tracking technologies to automatically collect information about browsing activity, device type, and similar information within the Site and services. This information, which may be considered Personal Data in some jurisdictions, is used, for example, to analyze and understand how you access, use, and interact with the Site; to identify and resolve bugs and errors on the Site; and to assess, secure, protect, optimize, and improve the performance of Site. You can find additional details regarding our use of cookies in our Cookie Policy.

Type of Cookies Used. We and our partners use cookies to gather usage data on the Site. A “cookie” is a piece of information sent to your browser by a website you visit. By choosing to use the Site after having been notified of our use of cookies in the ways described in this Privacy Policy and, in applicable jurisdictions, through notice and unambiguous acknowledgement of your consent, you agree to such use.

The Site use “analytics” cookies that allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way the Site work, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily. In particular, the Site uses the following technologies:

Google Analytics: The information generated by the Google Analytics about your use of the Site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google, Inc. in the United States (pursuant to Google’s Privacy Shield certification). You can prevent your data from being collected by Google Analytics on the Site by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your current web browser. For more information on Google Analytics privacy practices, read here and, for information on Google Analytics cookies expiration, read here.

Podbean: We embed podcasts into the Site using Podbean. More information about Podbean’s use of cookies is available in Podbean’s Cookie Policy.

Your Choices: To withdraw your consent after accepting cookies, change the configuration of your browser to not accept cookies and delete any existing cookies. For more information on cookies and deletion of cookies, please visit: www.allaboutcookies.org. You can also withdraw your consent at any time using the preference manager, by clicking on the cookie icon in the lower left-hand corner of the Site.  

Please note that if you limit the ability of websites to set cookies, you may be unable to access certain parts of the Site and you may not be able to benefit from the full functionality of the Site.

Pixel Tags and Similar Technologies. Pixel tags (sometime called web beacons or clear GIFs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. We may use these tracking technologies to understand users’ activities, to help manage content and compile usage statistics, and in emails to let us know when they have been opened or forwarded so we can track response rates and gauge the effectiveness of our communications.

Local Storage Objects. Local storage is a web storage mechanism that allows us to store data on a browser that persists even after the browser window is closed. Local storage may be used by our web servers to cache certain information in order enable faster loading of pages and content when you return to the Site. You can clear data stored in local storage through your browser. Please consult your browser help menu for more information.

13. SECURITY

You use the Site at your own risk. We comply with industry standards to protect Personal Data both online and offline from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. However, no Internet or e-mail transmission is ever fully secure or error free. Therefore, you should take special care in deciding what information you send to us via the Site or e-mail. Please keep this in mind when disclosing any Personal Data to IQT via the internet. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you may choose to share information. Therefore, we cannot, and do not, guarantee that information or content submitted by users on or through the Site or otherwise sent to us will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site or third party websites.

14. CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

The Site and our business may change from time to time. As a result, we may change this Privacy Policy at any time and when we do, we will post an updated version on this page, unless another type of notice is required by the applicable law. By continuing to use the Site or providing us with information after we have posted an updated Privacy Policy, or notified you if applicable, you consent to the revised Privacy Policy and practices described in it.

15. CONTACT US

If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or the information practices of the Site, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].