Privacy Policy - BIMobject

Effective date: 12th June, 2023

You can view the former privacy policy here.

BIMobject respects your right to privacy

This Privacy Policy explains how BIMobject* collects, uses and shares your personal information when you use our Services (as described in our Terms of Service accessible here). It also informs you about your rights as well as what choices you can make regarding the use of your personal information. We encourage you to read this document carefully in order to be able to make informed decisions when visiting and using our Services.

References in this Privacy Policy to "we", "us" or "our" means BIMobject. Capitalized terms in this Privacy Policy have the same meaning as in our Terms of Service unless we expressly say otherwise.

*See Terms of Service

Applicability of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to your access and/or use of our Services and/or to any services to which this Privacy Policy is expressly stated to apply. It applies to both registered Users (i.e. those who have registered a User Account) and Visitors. It does not apply to any parts of the Services and/or to any other services or third party websites (including those which may be accessible through or from the Services) which are offered under their own or different privacy policy(ies).

Changes/supplements to this Privacy Policy

We may at any time modify or amend this Privacy Policy in response to legal, technical or business developments or changes. You will be able to find and review the latest version of BIMobject’s Privacy Policy at bimobject.com. If we make significant or important changes, we will inform you either through the Services or in another appropriate way. If you are not happy with any changes or the current version of this agreement we advise you to close your User Account and/or stop using the Services. This Privacy Policy became effective on the effective date (stated above) and supersedes any previous versions of BIMobject’s Privacy Policy. You can view a copy of the previous privacy policy by clicking on the link above.

This Privacy Policy may be supplemented by further privacy policies/notices from time to time where required by applicable law or otherwise.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect your personal information because it is necessary in relation to our contract with you (as set out in the Terms of Service). You are not obligated  to provide such information, but, if you choose not to, your access to the Services may be limited to various degrees. The personal information which we collect or which you provide can be combined with other general non-personal information. Personal information you may provide falls into the following categories:

Registration of a User Account:

In order to access features like downloading objects from our platform or other features requiring login credentials you  are required to register a User Account in which the following data is required to be provided:

• First and last name
• Email address
• Password
• Location: zip code, city and country
• Occupation/field
• Employer/company name

Although not required, we provide the option, as part of the registration process, to provide a phone number and/or a profile picture. 

Messaging: When you send messages to others through the Services, we may collect information sent or received in such messaging.

Ratings and reviews: When you engage with the Ratings and reviews feature we collect any reviews written.

Information obtained from forms or questionnaires: Information about Users, and their provided information, is collected when interacting with forms or other questionnaires through the Services, for example, in cases where a User would provide information in order to take part in a user satisfaction or other survey or if participating in a competition and so forth.

Other User provided information: For the avoidance of doubt, any other information, files, images etc. which you may upload when using the Services and/or included in your User Projects, or otherwise provide when using our applications or solutions may be collected and used to improve our services.

Usage information: By using and/or interacting with the Services, usage information is created. At BIMobject the following information may be collected (depending on which part of the Services you access):

1. Services Metadata. The workspaces, channels, people, content and links you interact with, the types of files shared and what third party services are used (if any).
2. Log data. Internet Protocol (IP) address, the address of the web page visited before using the Services, browser type and settings, the date and time the BIMobject Marketplace was used, information about browser configuration and plugins and language preferences.
3. Tracking/Device data. Type of device, operating system, device settings, application IDs, unique device identifiers and crash data. Whether we collect some or all of this information depends on the type of device used and its settings.
4. Location data. IP address received from your browser or device to determine approximate location. We may also collect location information from devices in accordance with the consent process provided by your device.
5. Cookie data. We collect cookies when you visit our website. For more information about the cookies collected and your choices see our Cookies Statement.

Information from other/third-party sources: From time to time, we may receive information about you from third-party sources for example where you log in to your account through Google, Autodesk or LinkedIn.

Sensitive personal information

For the avoidance of doubt, we do not request nor collect personal information relating to your race, ethnicity, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, sexual orientation or criminal record ("Sensitive Personal Information").

How do we use your personal information?

We use your information in a selective way and only for specific purposes. We use your information in the following way:

To provide the Services to you: When you register an account and join the Services, we use the information you submit to create and authorize access to your User Account and to provide you with the Services.

To customize your experience: We use your zip code, city and country to allow us to provide you with content of relevance to your location.

To enhance, provide support and maintain the Services: We use your information to support delivery of the Services, provide you with support, and/or address service errors or technical issues.

When sending  you marketing communications and inviting you to participate in promotions, surveys and competitions: We use your information to send you marketing communications including promotional content about our products and Services as well as requests that you participate in certain surveys and/or competitions run or created by BIMobject (either alone or in some cases in conjunction with our Customers, Manufacturers). We will only send you these communications in accordance with your preference and you may opt out of any such communications by unsubscribing in your Profile Settings or via the unsubscribe links in a received email.

When communicating with you and/or reaching out to you for security matters: We use your information to communicate with you by responding to your requests, comments and questions and if needed, to let you know about changes to our Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy. We may contact you through email, by notices messages to your User Account inbox, and other ways through our Services (or as we see fit) to inform you about technical updates; service-related issues; important changes to, and/or availability of our Services. We can also contact you in this way regarding your safety and security when using the Services and send you important Services-related notices, such as security and fraud notices. including notices regarding security breaches or breach of the Terms of Service. We may also reach out to you to find out more about your user experience and to improve our products and Services to offer you a better use of the Services. These communications are part of the Services and you may not opt out of them.

If required by law, legal processes or regulations: Sometimes we are legally bound or required to do certain things under applicable laws, processes or regulations. We may then use your information to cooperate with any authority or to make sure that we are following the law.

To provide a seamless experience e.g.  easier access or create a profile, on the websites of other BIMobject owned platforms: We may from time to time and where applicable, use your log-in information so that you can more easily create your profile and facilitate a smoother sign-on or account-creation process on other BIMobject- owned or associated platforms or services but only where you clearly choose to register as a User there.

When you send a business message to a brand: We use your email as a sender address when contacting a brand through our Business Messenger on your behalf. If you choose to use this feature, the receiving brand can see and respond to your email address. 

When you engage with the ratings and review feature: We use your email as a sender address when you choose to continue a discussion after a manufacturer has left you an answer for your review.

So we can analyze and monitor usage, trends and your activity on our Website: We use your information to improve, and optimize user experience, such as when we perform analytics and conduct research. This helps us to improve functionality and the Services, for example by allowing us to identify organizational trends and insights, customize a Services experience, create new productivity features, tools and products and further develop the Services.

Where you act as a Sales Representative: If you are a nominated Sales Representative on behalf of a Manufacturer, we use your personal information so you can create your visible Sales Representative profile on a product page.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information: We may aggregate and/or anonymize information collected through the Service so that the information does not identify you. We may use aggregated, anonymized, and other non-personally identifiable information for any purpose, including for research or other purposes, and our use and disclosure of such information is not subject to any restrictions under this Privacy Policy.

Where you expressly consent to the use of your personal information: Where you explicitly consent or agree to the use or sharing of your personal information including contractually, by agreeing through the Services or otherwise.

Other ways your personal information can be used

By our Customers and Manufacturers

It may be viewed by Manufacturers where you download BIM objects or in other ways engage with the manufacturer: If you are a User, you can both view and download content and BIM objects from the BIMobject Marketplace. If you download a BIM object your name, city, company and picture (if you have uploaded one) (but not your email address or phone number) may be visible to the Manufacturer’s representatives. If you are concerned about your personal information becoming visible in this way you should delete your BIMobject account or not register an account with BIMobject.

It may be used for communication between Users and Manufacturers: As a registered User, you can reach out to Manufacturers on the BIMobject Marketplace either by contacting their designated Representatives (if visible in your location), or alternatively by communicating directly with the Manufacturer. When contact is made with Representatives, your name, company and email will be visible.

Manufacturers can also communicate with you through BIMobject Email Campaigns. Your eligibility to receive such campaigns is based on your activity on BIMobject and your preferences regarding BIM content. Email campaigns will be sent from BIMobject on behalf of the manufacturer to the email address associated with your account. The content of any email campaign is created by the Manufacturer, but will generally consist of information regarding product(s) and/or promotional marketing content. The decision to open and read any Email Campaigns you receive is entirely at your discretion, and you are free to opt out of such communication at any time through your Profile settings or the unsubscribe link included in all Email Campaigns. Please note that Manufacturers cannot see your contact information directly and, as such, any Email Campaigns received are based on broad targeting criteria. If we ever introduce any other ways that Manufacturers/Customers can communicate with you we will inform you through the Services.

It can be processed by Manufacturers on their customer account pages: Manufacturers have their own designated customer account pages on the BIMobject Marketplace, where they process, archive, store and administer information they collect when using the Services for example where they keep track of communication with Users, track the number of downloads of their products for statistical and other reasons and so forth.

Leads generation-export through BIMobject for Business: Certain Manufacturers purchase the function where they can export User information*collected on BIMobject Marketplace. We request that Manufacturers using this service strictly observe data protection laws and we request in appropriate circumstances that Manufacturers outside the EEA have necessary legal and other safeguards in place. See the section entitled International Transfers below.

* Manufacturers in this case may export your name, company, occupation, country, state (where applicable), zip code, city and any activity related to the Manufacturer.

For LinkedIn profile search: As part of certain customer services we include functionality where Manufacturer’s representatives can click on a tab which takes them to www.LinkedIn.com where they can search for your professional profile. We do not provide a direct link to your profile nor do we request that you submit any LinkedIn URL when you register your account.

By other Users and Customers: Some of the Services allow Users to collaborate on specific projects on the BIMobject Marketplace-User Projects. Customers/Manufacturers may also purchase licenses for persons with whom they wish to collaborate and may use the personal information provided when registering an account in order to invite them to take part in the desired project.

When you access third-party services: Where you access third party websites or other services through our Services, for example by clicking on ads or links to third party (not BIMobject) websites, your information may be shared with these third parties and the owners of those services may interact with or in some cases place cookies on your browser. It is important to note that BIMobject does not own or control these services, they have their own policies and practices for collection and use of information and you should ensure that you check the same.

By third party applications/software that integrate with the services: A third party application in this case, means any application connected by a third party developer (not BIMobject) via API to the BIMobject Marketplace and which may be used by that third party developer for commercial or non-commercial purposes to enable Users to download BIM objects and content from the BIMobject Marketplace. Where you allow access, these third party applications may access/use your information.

How do we protect your personal information?

BIMobject takes the security of your personal information very seriously. We use Microsoft Azure, a secure and reputable service provider, as our hosting provider. In addition, we put in place appropriate technical and organizational security measures such as encryption, firewall, secure access controls. You can read our current security statement here.

We remind you however that there is no completely secure system and we cannot provide 100% guarantee that personal information when transferred through the internet or stored on a server will be absolutely safe from intrusion or compromise. If you have any security concerns or believe your Account / personal information has been compromised, please contact us immediately at info@bimobject.com.

With whom do we share your personal information

We may share or disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:

• To Customers, Manufacturers, and other Users and in all circumstances already outlined above.
• To our group companies (including acquired subsidiaries). A list of our current group companies and subsidiaries is available on our Website.
• To our third-party service providers. We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf and provide important services to us for example, to support the delivery of, provide functionality on, or help to enhance the performance of and the security of our solutions and websites. These service providers may also analyze data and user behavior to help us improve our Services, provide marketing assistance, and process credit card payments etc. These service providers have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but may not use it for other purposes. A list of our main current service providers is available here..
• With any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) for fraud prevention purposes, (iii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iv) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person.
• To an actual or potential buyer or seller (and its agents and advisers) in connection with or where BIMobject engages in a merger, acquisition (including acquisition of another entity or business), bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, joint venture, sale of some or all of its assets or stock, financing, public offering of securities, acquisition of all or a portion of our business, a similar transaction or proceeding, or proposals or steps in contemplation of such activities (e.g. due diligence) subject to standard confidentiality arrangements and provided that we will inform any buyer or other relevant party that it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
• To any other person or entity with your consent to the disclosure.

International Transfers

Your personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country.

Our servers are located in the EEA however our group companies and third -party service providers and partners operate around the world. This means that when we collect your personal information, we may process it in any of these countries. However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy. These include putting in place EU Model Clauses or other adequacy provisions.

Contracting Parties-Data Controller

We use the term "Specified Countries" to refer to countries in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland.

From the Effective Date: If you are a User residing in the "Specified Countries" BIMobject AB will be the controller of your personal information provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with our Services (save where otherwise indicated).

If you are a User residing outside of the "Specified Countries", BIMobject Inc. will be the controller of your personal information provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with our Services (save where otherwise indicated).

Other data controllers: On certain occasions our Customers/Manufacturers may determine the purpose of the processing of your personal information once they have accessed it, for example, following the download of their BIM Object(s). In such circumstances Customers/Manufacturers can choose to process your information in the way that they see fit on the BIMobject Marketplace such as, to communicate with you, store and administer your information in their customer pages, export same from the BIMobject Marketplace and so-forth. Where Customers/Manufacturers act as data controllers in this way, their processing activities may also be governed by their own privacy practices.

Legal grounds for processing your personal information

Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you only:

1. where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you,
2. where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your rights, or;
3. where we have your consent to do so.

In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).

If we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), this interest will normally be to operate the BIMobject Marketplace and communicating with you as necessary to provide our solutions to you and for our legitimate commercial interest, for instance, when responding to your queries, improving our Services, undertaking marketing, or for the purposes of detecting or preventing illegal activities. We may have other legitimate interests and if appropriate we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the "Contact Information" heading below.

Account Closure

You can close your User Account using your User profile settings. If you choose to close your User Account your personal information will generally stop being visible to others on our Services. We retain your personal data as stated in the section entitled "Retention" below. Information you have shared with others (e.g., through projects or Business Messenger) may remain visible after you close/delete your User Account and we do not control data that other Users/Manufacturers/Customers have copied out of our Services.

Retention

We retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will anonymize it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

Aggregated or anonymous information is not subject to the same retention standards as personal information. In addition, personal information such as Business Messenger communications held by Customers is subject to their own retention policy.

Your rights

You have the following data protection rights:

• If you wish to access, correct, or update your personal information, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the "Contact Information" heading below.
• If you wish to delete your personal information, you can either use your User Account settings and/or you can also specifically request deletion at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the "Contact Information" heading below.
• In addition, you can object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details provided under the "Contact Information" heading below.
• You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the "unsubscribe" or "opt-out" link in the marketing emails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), then please contact us using the contact details provided under the "Contact Information" heading below.
• Similarly, if we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
• You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.

You also have the right to contact the Lead Supervisory authority of BIMobject AB:

The Swedish Data Protection Authority (Sw. Datainspektionen)

Box 8114

SE-104 20 Stockholm

Sweden Phone number: +46 8 657 61 00

Email: datainspektionen@datainspektionen.se

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

If you have questions or concerns regarding our use of your personal information, please contact us using the information specified in the Contact Information section below.

Contact Information

See here for information including the contact details for BIMobject AB and BIMobject Inc. as well as the BIMobject group/subsidiary companies.

How to contact BIMobject

If you want to contact BIMobject or have any questions about this Privacy Policy please send an email to hello@bimobject.com.