Privacy Statement

Ascend Performance Materials Holdings Inc. (Ascend Performance Materials), including its subsidiaries and affiliates, (collectively, the Company, We or Us) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. 

This Statement explains how We -as Data Controller- collect information about you and your interaction with Us through Our website (your Personal Data), how We use this information, how to contact Us with inquiries or complaints, and how to access, modify, or delete your Personal Data.  Please read this Statement carefully before using the website.  You might also like to print a copy so that you can remind yourself of what We do with your Personal Data. 

Please note that information which cannot directly or indirectly be related to you is not considered Personal Data and is not subject to this Statement. Only information which can be connected to you is subject to this Statement.

You can find the addresses and contact details of the different Ascend entities here: http://9h2m.hwfj-art.com/contact-us/locations/ 

WHY WE WILL USE YOUR INFORMATION 

We use Personal Data held about you in the following ways:

Website (including cookies for marketing purposes):

• To make the site work as you expect.
• To ensure that content from Our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
• To estimate Our audience size and usage patterns.
• To store information about your preferences, so We can customize Our site according to your individual interests.
• To speed up your searches.
• To recognize you when you return to Our site.
• To pass your data on to third-parties for marketing purposes, if you agree to the cookies allowing such processing. 
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of Our sites.
• For more information about the processing of your data through the cookies implemented on Our site, see our Cookies notice. 

Social Media

• For statistical purposes, to understand how Our social media pages (e.g. on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn) are consulted. 

Answer to your requests

• To provide you with the information, products and services that you request from Us.
• To answer to the requests you submit Us through the different contact forms on Our website. 

Newsletter

• To provide you with Our latest news and information about upcoming events, if you subscribed to Our newsletter. 
• To notify you about changes to what We do.

Job Applications

• To manage the platform We provide for job applications.
• To manage your application(s), once submitted through Our platform (including by sharing it with the persons responsible for the application management process at Company level). 

Customers, vendors and suppliers management

• To manage Our business relationship with customers, vendors and supppliers. This includes the processing of customers, vendors, suppliers, prospects and business partners’ employees and representatives’ data. 
• To ensure good communication with Our customers, vendors and suppliers, and the proper performance of services and contracts between us. 
• To manage information provided in the course of Our carrier vetting process.
• To comply with legal obligations. 

Other

• To protect the integrity of Our website, Our services, and Our reputation.
• To prosecute or defend legal claims. 
• To protect other users of Our websites, and to ensure no unlawful or unethical activity occurs through Our systems.
• To manage any selling or company acquisition process.

LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING PERSONAL DATA

• Website (including cookies for marketing purposes): Your consent (except in relation to strictly necessary cookies; see Our Cookies Notice for more information). You can withdraw this consent at any time (see below “Your Rights”).
• Social Media: We consider that we have lawful interest to understand the way our page is consulted (e.g., how many times our page is consulted, from which country,…).
• Answer to your requests: Legitimate interests, to be able to answer satisfactorily to your requests;  your consent (when this is specified in the form you complete and submit on Our site). 
• Newsletter: Your consent, that you provide by indicating your email address on Our site and submit it to receive Our newsletter, or by ticking a box before submitting a form on Our site. 
• Job Applications:  Our Legitimate interests, in order to administer and appraise job applications; necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. 
• Customers, Vendors and Suppliers management (depending on the purpose): necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract; legal obligation; legitimate interest. It may also be your consent, when this is specified in a form you complete and submit on Our site.
• Other (depending on the purpose): Our legitimate interests to protect Us, Our reputation, the Integrity of Our website and Our users; legal obligation. 

INFORMATION WE PROCESS

We will collect and process the following data about you (e.g. Website user and/or customers, vendors, prospects, business partners’ employees or representative):

• Website (including cookies for marketing purposes): Technical details of your visits to Our site, including traffic data, IP Addresses, location data, weblogs and other communication data, and the resources that you access, Identity, contact details, information about product or service you may be interested by. See Our Cookies Notice for more information.
• Social media: Aggregate statistical data on how Our social media pages (e.g., Company page on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) are consulted.
• Answer to your requests: Region, first name, last name, email, reason of inquiry and additional message. This includes also any other information that you provide by filling in forms on Our websites, for example to receive information from Us about Our services, or to request further information.
• Newsletter: email address. 
• Job Applications: Information you provide Us when creating an account on and using Our job platform (including your email address and account password that Our system register, even though we do not access it); information you provide Us in the context of your application for a job (e.g. Name, contact details, CV); status of your applications.
• Customers, vendors and suppliers management: contact details(e.g. name and email address) of employees or representatives of Our customers, vendors or suppliers; their Professional Details; Financial data; other information that you provide Us in relation to our business relationships. 
• Other: identification data, contact details data, data about the use of our website.

HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION

We obtain information from you in three ways:

• by you typing your personal details in,
• by the automatic collection of information about you as you use Our websites (through cookies - See Our Cookies Notice for more information),
• or from third parties (for example, you employer if you are an employee of a customer, vendor or supplier).

IP ADDRESSES AND COOKIES

For specific information about the use of cookies and other web beacons on Our Website, we invite you to consult Our Cookies Notice. 

WHERE WE STORE AND PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We are a global business. As a result, where necessary for the purposes identified (for example, where needed for the assessment of your job application at the Company), the data We collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, any of Our locations; which may be inside or outside the European Economic Area ("EEA").  

Our primary servers are in data centers and/or cloud based.  Data may also be processed by staff around the world working for Us. For example, Our Staff may be required to have access to your data to respond to your information requests or provide support services, among other things. Data may also be shared with Our vendors that may be located outside EU/EEA or UK.

In any case, if you are located in European Economic Area or United Kingdoms and your data are send to a country outside EEA/UK that has not been recognized as adequate by EEA/UK, an appropriate safeguard or another transfer mechanism will be put in place. This will allow to ensure that the transfer of your data outside EEA/UK is made in compliance with applicable laws, and that your data will be properly protected by the recipient of the data.

This appropriate safeguard may take the form of standard contractual clauses integrated in an intra-group data sharing agreement set up between Our entities worldwide, or in contracts with Our vendors and customers. 

HOW LONG WE KEEP THE DATA 

We will store the Personal Data we collect about you as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, or as long as required to fulfill a legal obligation (laws or regulations may require Us to keep your Personal Data for a minimum period). This will be done in accordance with Our internal retention policies. After the defined time period, your data will be securely erased.

The retention period of your personal data will depend on the purposes for which we process such data: 

Website (including cookies for marketing purposes): see our Cookies Notice. 

Social Media: Statistical information is stored by Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and consequently subject to their retention policy. We may export statistical reports, but we guarantee that this is only in an anonymous form.

Answer to your request: for the time necessary to meet your request. In addition, if you contact Us, We may keep a record of that correspondence for a limited period of time in accordance with Our retention policy.

Newsletter: until you unsubscribe or cancel your subscription to the Newsletter.

Job applications: The account you create on Our platform (and related information) remains until you request its removal through the platform settings or by contacting us (see contact details below). In addition, if you submit Us your information in the course of a specific job application, we will process your information for the time necessary to manage this application. Your data may also be kept by Us as long as needed to demonstrate how the recruitment process took place, and for preventing or handling disputes or other legal matters that may arise from the job application process. 

Customers, Vendors and Suppliers management: As long as a business relationship between us and our client exist, and for all the subsequent legal retention period.

Other: as required per applicable laws or by Our internal retention policies and procedures. This will however never exceed the time necessary to meet the purposes defined above. 

DATA SECURITY

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Data is treated securely and in accordance with this Statement. In particular, We will process your personal data in accordance with our internal policies and procedure, that set out security measures appropriate to protect your personal data.

Where We have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of Our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Please do not share your password with anyone.  

Once We have received your information, We will use Our own procedures and security measures to prevent unauthorized access or any other security incident, including personal data breach.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may disclose your Personal Data to any company in the Ascend Performance Materials group, where necessary for the purpose identified. You can find out more about the group and the companies in the group here: http://9h2m.hwfj-art.com/contact-us/locations. See also section “Where We Store And Process Your Personal Data” of this Privacy Statement.

Where necessary for the purposes identified, We may also disclose your personal information to third parties, including:

• In the event that We sell or buy any business or assets, in which case We may disclose your Personal Data to the prospective seller or buyer of the business or assets.
• If Ascend Performance Materials or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case Personal Data held will be one of the transferred assets. Similarly, your personal information may be passed on to a successor in interest in the event of a reconstruction, liquidation or administration.
• If We are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply Our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Ascend Performance Materials, Our customers, employees or others.
• Data may be disclosed to Our service providers where necessary for the purposes of the processing.
• Data collected through cookies on our website (including in relation to marketing purposes) can also be stored by third-parties. For more information, you can refer to Our Cookies Notice.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

This Statement covers any other website that We may operate (unless Our other websites contain a specific privacy statement), including our Company pages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Please note that, for the use of social media, We will be Joint-Controller (meaning we are jointly determining how and why we use your information) with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn only for the activities consisting in accessing and processing statistical aggregate data from those social media. For any other processing from those social media pages, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn shall be respectively considered as the sole Data Controller.

Facebook, including Instagram, and LinkedIn have created an "addendum" to their user agreements for company pages for the processing for which they are Joint-Controllers with us. Such agreement is not currently provided by Twitter and YouTube.  

Our site may also contain links to and from other websites not operated by Us. For example, if you use Our website to order goods or apply for a job, you may be directed to another website managed by a third party defining on its own how and why your information is used. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that they have their own privacy terms and that We therefore do not accept any responsibility or liability for the processing made on it. If you are directed to one of these other sites, please read their privacy notice before submitting any Personal Data.

YOUR RIGHTS

In some countries, mainly European Union countries and United Kingdoms, you may have legal rights related to the processing of your Personal Data.  These rights may include: obtaining and accessing information regarding the processing of your personal information; asking to have your incorrect or incomplete data rectified; requesting that we erase your personal information in certain circumstances; objecting to, and requesting that we restrict, our processing of your Personal Data; requesting the receipt or the transfer to another organization, in a machine-readable form, of your personal data; withdrawing your consent at any time when this is the legal basis to process your data; not being subject to automated individual decision-making; and lodging a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you think any of your rights have been infringed by us. We can, on request, tell you which data protection authority is relevant to the processing of your personal information.

Please note that there are exceptions to these rights and in some circumstances we are legally entitled to refuse your request to exercise your rights. This may for example be when your attempt to exercise your rights infringe on another’s rights.

If you have any questions about your rights or would like to exercise them, please contact us via email at personaldataprivacy@hwfj-art.com or ascend.dpo@mydata-trust.info if you are in the EU or in the UK. Also, you can consult Our Cookie Notice to see how you can withdraw your authorisation for the processing of your Personal Data made through such cookies.

YOUR RIGHTS – ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Depending on your residency, you may have certain additional information and certain rights. In the United States, these rights vary by States.

If you are a Californian resident, additional information should be provided as follows:

Do Not Track ("DNT") requests. DNT is an optional browser setting that allows you to express your preferences regarding tracking by advertisers or other third parties. Some web browsers may allow you to transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to online services and websites. If a website receives such signal, the web browser can block that website from collecting certain Personal Information about you. We will try Our best to respond to global privacy controls, including DNT signals. However, We do not assume liability for failure to comply with DNT signal by Our partners and / or providers.

Children's Online Data. It is not Our intention to collect personal information from children under the age of 13 through Our website. If you are under 13, please do not give Us any personal information through Our website. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s internet usage and to help enforce Our Statement by instructing their children never to provide Us personal information. If you have reason to believe that a child under age 13 has provided personal information to Us through Our site, please contact Us and We will endeavor to delete that personal information from our records, unless other applicable law requires Us to retain that information

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights with respect to your Personal Information:

"Shine the Light "and "Eraser" Laws.  You may request a list of all third parties to which We have disclosed certain information for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes.

The right to know. You may have the right to request that We disclose to you the personal information We have collected or sold about you and how it is used and shared. Here is the information you may have access to:

• the categories of personal information collected;
• the categories of sensitive personal information collected;
• the categories of sources from which the personal information or sensitive personal information is collected;
• the business purpose for such collection, sharing, or selling;
• the categories of third parties to whom to personal information or sensitive personal information is disclosed to;
• the specific pieces of personal information collected;
• the length of time that the business intends to retain each category of personal information and sensitive personal information.

The right to access. You may have the right to access personal information which We may collect or retain about you free of charge (for which We have 45 days to respond). If requested, We shall provide you with a copy of your personal information which We collect. You also have the right to receive your personal information in a structured and commonly used format so that it can be transferred to another entity (“data portability”).

The right to opt-out of sale/share of my personal information. You have the right to opt-out from selling of your personal information, which means that any third party who has received your personal information as part of their ‘sale’ may only further sell that personal information if you have provided "explicit notice" and the opportunity to opt-out of that subsequent sale. This right to opt-out of the sale is absolute. Further, you have the right to opt-out for sharing your personal information. This right can be exercise by contacting Us (see contact below) and cannot be re-sollicited before a period of 12 months for additional purposes.

The right to limit use of sensitive personal information. You have the right to direct Us to limit the use of your sensitive personal information to what’s necessary or reasonably expected to perform the service or provide the goods. This right can be exercise by contacting Us (see contact details below).

The right to correct inaccurate personal information. You have the right to require rectification of inaccurate personal information about you. Upon verifying the validity of a verifiable consumer correction request, We will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct your personal information as directed within 45 days (with the possibility to extend the period once), taking into account the nature of the personal information and the purposes of maintaining your personal information.

The right to request deletion of personal information. You have the right to request the deletion of your personal information collected, or maintained by Us, subject to certain exceptions permitted by law. In the event of a request for deletion, We will acknowledge receipt of your request within ten (10) business days and will endeavor to respond substantially within forty-five (45) days.

The right to not be subject to discrimination (“right to equal service and price”). You have the right not to be denied of goods or services, to be charged for different prices or rates for goods or services or provided a different level or quality of goods or services.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY STATEMENT

Any changes We make to this Privacy Statement in the future will be posted on this page. Please visit this page regularly to make sure you are comfortable with the Statement.

CONTACT

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Statement are welcomed and should be addressed to personaldataprivacy@hwfj-art.com  or ascend.dpo@mydata-trust.info (if you are in European Union or United Kingdom). 

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your Personal Data you can contact our privacy team at the same email address.

In some countries, especially European Union and UK, if you continue to have unanswered concerns, you may also contact the relevant data protection authority. You can find your EU data protection authority by going to http://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en. If you want to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection authority, you can contact them at http://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/.

Also, if you are a Californian resident, you can file a complaint with the California Privacy Protection Agency and, where appropriate, the California Attorney General’s office. The California Data Protection Agency can be contacted at info@cppa.ca.gov and Attorney General Website can be accessed at http://oag.ca.gov/contact. 

This Privacy Notice was last updated in July, 2024.