The Fully Homomorphic Encryption Technical Consortium on Hardware

Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 19/05/2024

Introduction:

The core purpose of the FHETCH consortium (FHETCH Inc, “FHETCH”) is to foster an ecosystem that supports the collaborative development of open standards (collectively, our “Projects”) for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (“FHE”) hardware accelerators. FHETCH is committed to protecting your privacy – this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use, disclosure and sharing or other processing of personal information when you use our website (fhetch.org, or the “Site”) as well as when you interact with or participate in our events and programmes (collectively, our “Services”).

This privacy policy applies to activities by FHETCH and related partners (collectively “we” or “us”). This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected about FHETCH employees or other personnel.

For the purposes of the GDPR, FHETCH Inc is the controller of your personal information. Where processing of personal information is undertaken by our affiliates, subsidiaries and related entities, they are a joint controller with FHETCH for the personal information.

Information We Collect:

We collect personal information directly from individuals and third parties. You do not have to provide us with your personal information. However, if you choose not to disclose certain information, we will not be able to provide you with access to certain services or features including Consortium registration, community event participation, or engagement with certain FHETCH events.

Registration Information

We collect personal information when you register for Consortium or Academic membership, when applying to join the mailing list for Community engagement, and when applying to attend FHETCH-sponsored events.

Consortium and Academic membership. Users may, on authorised behalf of an organisation with material interests in the development of FHE hardware accelerators, apply for, sign-up or request membership in the Consortium. As part of this process, personal information is requested for the purpose of identifying a point of contact to act as a representative of the joining organisation. Personal information collected by both the online web form that gathers this information and the official membership documents includes names, contact and billing information (e.g email address, postal address, telephone), transaction information, information about your current employment affiliation, and other information.

Community membership. When you register to participate in FHETCH events, including but not limited to online community engagement meetings, we collect personal information that includes name, role type (e.g academic, industry, student), contact information (e.g email address) and other information.

Conferences and Summits. When you register for one of our in-person events to participate as a delegate, a speaker or a sponsor, we collect personal information that includes name, company/organisation, contact information and other information. We may also collect optional personal information such as preferred pronouns, dietary restrictions, size preferences for conference promotional attire and other background information. In addition, if you provide it, we may collect a) personal information about disabilities, medical conditions and allergies in order to provide suitable accommodations for attendees, and 2) personal information about your nationality, date of birth, and passport details if you request assistance from us with obtaining a visa or other documentation to allow you to travel to one of our events.

Communications

When you communicate with us (via email, phone or other such methods), we may maintain a record of your communication.

Payment Information

To purchase (where applicable) Services (such as membership of the FHETCH consortium), we collect such information as is necessary to facilitate a transaction.

Purposes and Legal Bases for Our Using of Your Personal Information

FHETCH uses the personal information we collect for our legitimate business interests, which includes the following purposes:

  • Providing our Services. To provide our Services (including Consortium membership), to communicate with your about your engagement or use of our Services, to respond to enquiries, and for other purposes to support users and the community.
  • Operating our technical remit. To enable communication between and amongst developers in our community; to facilitate and document project governance and technical decision making; to maintain, and make publicly available on a perpetual basis, records regarding intellectual property governance and license compliance relating to contributions to technical development; and for related activities to further the FHETCH purpose of fostering an ecosystem that supports collaborative hardware standards development.
  • Event administration. To plan, organise and facilitate access to events and related services and activities, and to carry out informative and safe events for participants including attendees, speakers and sponsors. If you provide us with information about disabilities, medical conditions and allergies, we will use this information to provide appropriate accommodations and to ensure your health and safety; we will not use this information for other purposes, unless required by law or as necessary to defend our legal rights. If you request assistance from us for obtaining a visa letter to travel to one of our events and provide us with such information as is required to render this assistance (such as your nationality/citizenship, date of birth, and passport details), we will use this information in order to assist with providing you a visa letter; we will not use this information for other purposes, unless required by law or as necessary to defend our legal rights.
  • Compliance. To comply with legal obligations and requests. For example, to comply with laws that compel us to disclose information to public authorities, courts, law enforcement, or regulators, maintain records for a certain period, or maintain records demonstrating enforcement and sublicensing of our trademarks and those of our Projects.
  • Business and Legal. As part of our general business and legal operations (e.g accounting, record keeping and for other business administration purposes), and as necessary to establish, exercise and defend (actual and potential) legal claims.
  • Prevent misuse. Where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or otherwise take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person or violations of the relevant Terms or this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure of Your Information:

We disclose personal information as set forth below, and where individuals have otherwise consented:

  • Organisational Events. We may disclose or transfer information, including personal information, as part of any merger, sale or transfer of our assets, during restructuring of our business operations, bankruptcy or similar event, including in negotiations, due diligence, and integrations related to such transactions.
  • Event participation. If you register for an event, we may ask for your consent to share your personal information with third-party sponsors and other participants; for example, to enable you to swipe a badge for entry or to interact with a virtual interface to sign up for or participate in activities and events offered by third parties participating in the event, or to facilitate the option to be listed on an attendee list that is available to other attendees, sponsors and participants. We will not share event information with third parties without your consent, an in particular you have the choice whether or not to permit your badge to be swiped by any third party participating in the event, or to visit and interact with any third parties virtual interfaces.
  • Legally required. We may disclose your information if we are required to do so by law (including to law enforcement in the United States and other jurisdictions).
  • Protection of rights. We may disclose information where we believe it necessary to respond to claims asserted against us, or to comply with legal process (e.g subpoenas or warrants), enforce or administer our agreements and terms, for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, and protect the rights, property or safety of FHETCH, it’s users, participants in its events or projects, or others.

Data Security:

We take reasonable measures to protect your data against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction but cannot guarantee its absolute security. Please be aware that despite our best efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security.

International transfers:

If you are located within the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you should note that your personal information will be transferred to countries outside these jurisdictions, including the United States where FHETCH is located and registered. The U.S is deemed by the European Union to provide inadequate data protection.

You have a right to obtain details of the mechanism under which your personal information is transferred outside of the EU by emailing inquiries@fhetch.org.

Children’s Privacy

Except where specifically indicated within a Site, we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of sixteen (16), or knowingly allow such persons to register for engagement with FHETCH Community events including online conference calls. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under the relevant age without parental consent, we take steps to delete that information. Where we specifically indicate that we collect personal information from children under 16, we will obtain parental or guardian consent and provide adequate notice.

Links to Third Party Sites and Services

Our Sites may contain links to third party sites or online services. Please refer to the privacy policies of the relevant third party websites or services to find our more about how they process and handle personal information.

Your Rights and Submitting a Request:

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have rights to access, correct, or delete your information. To exercise these rights, please contact inquiries@fhetch.org. Please note that we may request proof of identity, and we reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, especially if your request is manifestly excessive or unfounded. We will respond to your request within the applicable timeframes set out by law.

Individuals in the European Economic Area (and other jurisdictions where applicable) have additional rights under applicable laws:

  • To obtain a copy of your personal information together with information about how and on what lawful basis that personal information is processed;
  • To rectify inaccurate personal information (including to have incomplete personal information completed);
  • To erase your personal information (in limited circumstances, such as where it is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or processed);
  • To restrict processing of your personal information under certain circumstances;
  • To export certain personal information in machine-readable format to yourself or a third party when we justify our processing on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract with you and the processing is carried out by automated means;
  • To withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information (where that processing is based on your consent, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal);
  • To obtain, or see a copy of the appropriate safeguards under which your personal information is transferred to a third country or international organisation; and
  • To object to our use and processing of your personal information that is conducted on the basis of our legitimate interest.

Cookies:

Our Site may use cookies to enhance user experience or enable functionality. You can manage cookie preferences through your browser settings – if you do not wish to accept cookies in connection with your use of our Sites, you will need to delete, and block or disable cookies via your browser.

The FHETCH website uses the following cookie types:

  • Strictly necessary cookies, used for:
    • Security purposes
  • Performance cookies, which collect information about how you use the Site, which pages you visit, and any errors encountered. These cookies do not collect information that could identify you and are only used to help us improve how the Site works and understand what interests our users. Some of our performance cookies are managed for us by third parties. We use performance cookies to:
    • Carry out web analytics and provide statistics on how the Site is used
    • Obtain data on the number of users of the Site that have viewed a part of the Site
    • Help us to improve the Site by measuring any errors that occur

Changes to This Privacy Policy:

This policy is current as of the effective date set forth above. We may update this policy. If we do, such changes will be posted on this page – we will also continue to provide access to a copy of the prior version. If we make any changes to this Privacy Policy that materially change how we treat your personal information, we will endeavour to provide you with reasonable notice of such changes, such as via notice on our Site, or to your email address of record. Where required by law, we will obtain your consent or give you the opportunity to opt out of any such changes.

Contact Us:

For questions, please contact us at: inquiries@fhetch.org

Terms of use

Effective Date: 12/10/2024

Terms and conditions of Use for the FHETCH web Site.

BY ACCESSING, BROWSING OR USING THIS SITE, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTAND AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

This Web Site is a Service made available by FHETCH Inc. All documentation, software, information and/or other materials provided on and through this Site (“Content”) may be used solely under the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Use”).

This Site may contain other proprietary notices and copyright information, the terms of which must be observed and followed. The Content on this Site may contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors and may be changed or updated without notice. FHETCH may also make improvements and/or changes to the Content at any time without notice.

FHETCH and its members (“Members”) assume no responsibility regarding the accuracy of the Content and use of the Content is at the recipients own risk. FHETCH and the Members provide no assurance that any reported problems with any Content will be resolved.

Intellectual property rights

Except where otherwise provided, Content on this site, including all materials posted by FHETCH, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) License.

All logos and trademarks contained on this Site are and remain the property of their respective owners. No licenses or other rights in or to such logos and/or trademarks are granted.

Except as otherwise expressly stated by providing the Content, neither FHETCH nor the Members grant any licenses to any copyrights, patents or any other intellectual property rights.