Effective Date : December 15, 2019
Welcome to Charging Essentials! This Privacy Notice (this "Notice") explains our practices, defines our users’ ("you" or "your") privacy options, and describes how your information is collected and used by Charging Essentials ("we," "us," "our," or "Charging Essentials").
This Privacy Notice, along with our Cookie Policy and Terms of Use , governs your use of the CE Smart Home by Charging Essentials website at /?locale=en (the "Site") and the Charging Essentials Smart Device software application, CE Smart by Charging Essentials (the "App"). For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, we will refer to all of these access points as the Charging Essentials system ("System").
By using the Charging Essentials System, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, and our Cookie Policy.
What Information Is Collected and How Do We Use It?
Types of Personal Data Collected . In this Policy “personal data” means information that can be used to identify an individual, either from that information alone, or from that information and other information we have access to about an individual. We may collect both personal and non-personal data to enable and facilitate the best user experience possible. To provide the System to you, we may ask you to provide necessary personal data that is required to provide the System. If you do not provide your personal data that is necessary to provide you with products, services, or the System, we may not be able to provide you with our products, services, or the System.
Our primary goal in collecting information is to provide you with a superior customized online experience, an outstanding App, and customer service. When you visit the Site or license the App or use any part of the System, you may provide us with the following types of information:
The lawful basis for collection of this information is Charging Essentials’ legitimate business purposes, as necessary to fulfill a contract with you, and based on your consent.
We collect personal information in the following instances:
Set up and Log in of Charging Essentials Account . Personal data that is collected for creating a Charging Essentials App Account may include your email address or mobile phone number, device related information (e.g. IMEI number) and various location related information (e.g. location area code, mobile network and country codes).
Customer Service for Charging Essentials Products. We may collect your name, phone number, email address, delivery address and order details when providing customer service to assist with issues such as defective products.
Activating Charging Essentials Smart hardware. When you activate the Charging Essentials Smart device hardware, we may collect details you provide as part of your profile.
Sync Charging Essentials Smart device data. When you synchronize the Charging Essentials Smart device data, e.g. to Charging Essentials Smart Device Cloud Service, we may collect data relating to your activities and functionalities of Charging Essentials Smart device, such as those obtained from our sensors and features on Charging Essentials Smart device related information.
Sharing your content. When you share device control or send information to family and friends through our app and website, or if you contact us on behalf of another individual (e.g. regarding product warranty), we may collect personal information of those people, such as their names, email addresses, telephone numbers and mailing address (e.g. if we need to send a product to them). You hereby represent and warrant that you have obtained necessary consent for use of third parties’ personal data if you choose to provide them to us. When you share content or invite users to use Charging Essentials Smart devices, please note that other users may see personal data you share.
Processing the services. In providing the above services, we may also collect data in relation to your device, including your Charging Essentials Smart device ID, firmware version, device OS version, model and system, and visiting IP and time.
Tracking Technologies on the Site. We use tracking technologies such as cookies, log files, and pixel tags to automatically collect information when users visit our Site. We collect IP addresses to measure our website traffic and to help provide a more personalized experience; information regarding your browser and other technical specifications required to use our System; mobile device and internet connection information, including the device’s unique device identifier, operating system, browser type, mobile network information; your transaction history relating to the use of our products and services; computer data or files, often called “cookies,” which may be sent by your web browser and stored on an individual computer to allow our server to “recognize” you through the navigation of the Site; and computer data files, often called “web beacons” that are collected from emails or links on third-party sites that allow our server to evaluate the popularity of those links or the information contained in emails or on third-party sites. For more information, see the Cookie Policy .
How the Personal Data is Used
By using the System, you allow Charging Essentials to access information as stated above, and to record, compile and use such information in the provision and improvement of the services, features, and functionality available from the System. The personal data may also be used to provide you with our products and services, processing your orders, performing contractual obligations between you and us, to ensure the functions and safety of our products, to verify your identity, to prevent and trace fraudulent or inappropriate usage, and for Charging Essentials’ legitimate business purposes.
Charging Essentials may use Personal Data to develop our products and services, together with general and statistical information; to communicate with you, including providing you with notifications on products and services that are updated or launched; to provide marketing and promotional materials to you on our products and services; to invite you to participate in surveys and reviews relating to your use of Charging Essentials Smart device; to conduct investigations regarding our products and services; to personalize user experiences on the System; to perform analytics and improve the System; to provide maintenance services, monitor software licenses, to improve our products or analyze the efficiency of our operations; or for other purposes with your consent.
Other Information
We use statistical data that does not specifically identify you (non-personal data) to help in our operations and improve our products and services and provide a better user experience for you.
When you create a Charging Essentials Account, download our software, register an account, participate in online surveys, reviews, or interact with us in other ways, we may collect your language preferences, postal code, area code number and time zone in which you use our products and services, and your profession.
When you use our services or functions that are based on location information, e.g. carry out a location search, take advantage of advertising, use weather functions, access information based on maps, etc., we may collect your geographical information.
When you use our website, online services, interactive applications, email messages and advertising, we may use cookies and other technical elements (e.g. pixel labels) to collect and store data. These enable us to provide you with a better experience and improve our overall service quality, e.g. in saving your preferred language settings, sending emails in a readable format, to determine whether the emails have been opened or not, etc. For more information, see our Cookie Policy .
When you use the Internet browser in using our products and services, we may collect log information, e.g. IP address, browser type, language, reference source, operating system, date and time marking and click rate data.
When you first use and activate your Charging Essentials Smart device, the device’s unique identification code and approximate geographical information may be collected.
Sharing Your information
We may aggregate and/or anonymize information that we collect from you, including personally identifiable information. We may disclose your personal data to third parties in order to provide the products or services that you have requested.
Disclosure to Charging Essentials group companies and Third Party Service Providers
In order to conduct business operations smoothly, the Charging Essentials entity which collects your personal data may disclose your personal data from time to time to other Charging Essentials group companies (in communications, technology or cloud business), with our app developer, or with our third party service providers which are our mailing houses, delivery service providers, telecommunications companies, data centers, data storage facilities, and customer service providers, agents, related corporations, and/or other third parties (together “ Third Party Service Providers”). Such Third Party Service Providers would be processing your personal data on Charging Essentials’ behalf or for one or more of the purposes listed above.
Disclosure to Others
Charging Essentials may disclose your personal data without further consent if required or permitted by law in the following cases: cases in which the disclosure is required or authorized based on the applicable laws and/or regulations; cases in which the disclosure is necessary to respond to an emergency that threatens the life, health or safety of the individual or another individual; cases in which the disclosure is necessary for the prevention of crime or legal proceedings; cases in which the purpose of such disclosure is clearly in the individual’s interests, and if consent cannot be obtained in a timely way; cases in which the disclosure is necessary for any investigation or proceedings; cases in which the disclosure is to any officer of a prescribed law enforcement agency upon production of written authorization signed by the head or director of that law enforcement agency, or a person of a similar rank, certifying that the personal data is necessary for the purposes of the functions or duties of the officer; and/or cases in which the disclosure is to a public agency and such disclosure is necessary in the public interest.
Charging Essentials may utilize the analytics and crash reporting services of a third party to provide us with anonymous statistical and technical information about your usage of our System.
We may also disclose your information to a third party as part of reorganization or a sale of the assets of Charging Essentials, or its subsidiaries or divisions. Any third party to which Charging Essentials transfers or sells the System or related assets will have the right to continue to use the personal and other information that you provide to us.
Information Not Requiring Consent
We may share anonymized information and statistics in aggregate form with third parties for business purposes, or we may tell our business partners the number of customers in certain demographic groups who purchased certain products or who carried out certain transactions.
For the avoidance of doubt, in the event that we are permitted by law to collect, use or disclose your personal data without your consent, such permission granted by the law shall continue to apply.
Information Safety Safeguards
We are committed to ensuring that your personal data is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure or other similar risks, we have put in place reasonable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. There is regular review of information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems.
Your personal data is stored on secure servers that are protected in controlled facilities.
All data saved in the back-end is classified into different levels based on the importance and sensitivity of the data, e.g. whether the data contains personal data.
In the data centers, clusters that contain sensitive data are grouped together in the network topology, and will be placed in rooms with additional physical security protection.
Data exchanged between Charging Essentials devices and servers are encrypted using Transport Layer Security (“TLS”) Protocol. Information safety is very important to us. We will take all practicable steps to safeguard your personal data. Through our protective measures above, especially encrypted storage and transmission, your data is as secure as it can be.
Collecting Information from Children Under the Age of 16
Our System is not designed for children, and we do not seek to collect information from any person under the age of 16. We consider it the responsibility of parents to monitor their children’s use of our products and services. Nevertheless, it is not our policy to require or collect personal data from minors or offer to send any promotional materials to persons in that category. Should a parent or guardian have reasons to believe that a child under the age of 16 has provided Charging Essentials with personal data without their prior consent, please contact us to ensure that the personal data is removed and unsubscribe them from any of the applicable Charging Essentials services.
International Data Processing
Charging Essentials is located in the United States and all data related to the System and through our Program is collected and processed by Charging Essentials in the U.S. If you are not located in the U.S., your personal data will therefore be transferred to, processed, and stored in a country outside of the country where you live. By submitting your personal information to us, you are consenting to the processing of your personal information outside of your home country.
Please note also that for the above, Charging Essentials may use overseas facilities to process or back up your personal data. As a result, we may transfer to and store your personal data at our overseas facilities. This does not change any of our commitments to safeguard your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
For European Union data subjects, all personal data will be processed for lawful purposes in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and as described in this Privacy Notice. If your information is only collected based upon your consent and not for other lawful purposes, you may be entitled to withdraw consent by contacting us at privacy@chargingessentials.com . Such withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing prior to the withdrawal of consent. Further, withdrawal of consent does not affect processing of information based on other lawful bases of processing other than consent.
We encourage you to contact us regarding any issue, concern, or complaint at privacy@chargingessentials.com . European Union data subjects may file a complaint with a data protection authority regarding our processing of your personal data. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.
European Data Subject Rights
European data subjects who are residing or are residents of a EU member state at the time of data collection may have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”).
Right to be Informed
You may have a right to be informed about what personal data we collect from you and how it is used, as well as our purposes for processing your personal data, how long we retain your data, and who we share it with.
Right of Access
You may have the right to know what data has been collected about you and how such data has been processed. If you would like to know exactly what information we have collected about you and how it has been used, please contact us.
Right of Rectification
You may have a right to correct any incorrect or incomplete information we have about you. To request a correction, please contact us.
Right to Erasure
In certain circumstances, you may have the right to request that we delete your personal information.
Right to Restrict Processing
In certain circumstances, you may have the right to restrict the processing of your personal information. To exercise your right to restrict processing please contact us.
Right to Data Portability
If our lawful basis for processing your data is consent or performance of a contract, you may have the right to receive personal data we have collected from you in an accessible format. You also have the right to have the personal information we have collected from you transferred to another controller. This right only applies to information processed by automated means. To submit a request to have your information transferred, please contact us.
Right to Object
You may have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes. To object to the processing of your personal data, please contact us.
Rights Related to Automated Decision Making Including Profiling
You may have the right to not be subject to a decision based solely on an automated process (no human involvement) which produces legal effects or significantly affects you in a similar way. We will not make these types of decisions by solely automated processed. If you believe that an automated decision making process was applied to you, please contact us.
Data Retention
We retain data collected from you only for as long as necessary to complete the purpose for which it was collected.
California Privacy Rights
California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine The Light” law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact information provided below.
If you are a California resident, you may also have certain other rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include:
Right to Access
You may have a right to be informed about what personal data we collect from you and how it is used, as well as our purposes for processing your personal data, and the categories of third parties to whom we have shared it over the past 12 months.
Right to Request Deletion
You may have the right to request that we delete personal information that we have collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions.
Verifiable Requests
You may send us a verifiable request at privacy@chargingessentials.com regarding the above rights. Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. The verifiable consumer request must: 1) provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative of that person; and 2) describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.
We endeavour to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time, we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.
Do Not Track Signals
The web browser you choose to use may have a “do not track” (or similar) option available in the browser’s settings. Charging Essentials does not currently respond to the “do not track” signal through the System or online services.
Third Party Sites and Services
This Privacy Policy applies only to Charging Essentials controlled web sites and apps. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to products and services offered by a third party. Charging Essentials does not monitor the content, information, or web practices of any web sites or apps linked to or from our System, and make no representations about the current security of these sites and apps. When you use such products or services, they may collect your information too. For this reason, we strongly encourage you to read the third party’s privacy statements as you have taken them time to read ours. Please note that the existence of any external link to another web site or App does not suggest that we are endorsing the linked company, its products and/or its services.
Updates to the Privacy Policy
If we change our Privacy Policy, we will post the changes on all the Charging Essentials website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it. Such changes to our Privacy Policy shall apply from the time that we post the same on the Charging Essentials website. Your continued use of products and services on the website or App will be taken as acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy. We will seek your renewed consent before we collect more personal data from you or when we wish to use or disclose your personal data for new purposes.
Your Other Options
By providing information to us or using our System, you are consenting to our use of your data as outlined in this Privacy Policy.
While we work hard to use and disclose our users’ personal information only for the purposes identified above, you can choose not to provide personal information or limit the personal information obtained by us as follows:
Contact Us
For additional information pertaining to our Privacy Policy or any of our data practices, please contact:
Charging Essentials