Privacy Policy | @thetorquemag

Protecting your private information is our priority. This Statement of Privacy applies to torquemag.io and Torque and governs data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to Torque include torquemag.io and Torque. The Torque website is a WordPress news site. By using the Torque website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

Collection of Your Personal Information

Torque may collect personally identifiable information, such as your name. We may gather additional personal or non-personal information in the future.

Information about your computer hardware and software may be automatically collected by Torque. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Torque website.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through Torque’s public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others.

Torque encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from Torque so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. Torque is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the Torque website.

Use of Your Personal Information

Torque collects and uses your personal information to operate its website(s) and deliver the services you have requested. Torque may also use your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from Torque and its affiliates. Torque may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered. Torque may keep track of the websites and pages our users visit within Torque, in order to determine what Torque services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within Torque to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

Torque may share data with trusted partners to help perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to Torque, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Torque does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties.

Torque will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Torque or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Torque; and (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Torque, or the public.

Torque may keep your personal data for as long as reasonably required to meet the purposes described herein. Additionally, we will retain this information as required by law, as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Use of Cookies

The Torque website may use cookies to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize Torque pages or register with Torque site or services, a cookie helps Torque to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same Torque website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Torque features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Torque services or websites you visit.

Security of Your Personal Information

Torque has put in place reasonable measures and appropriate procedures for implementing these policies and for safeguarding the personal data we collect. However, we cannot guarantee that personal data we collect will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

Torque follows generally accepted standards to protect the personal data submitted to us, both during transmission and once it is received, from any unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

Children Under Thirteen

Torque does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen. If you are under the age of thirteen, you must ask your parent or guardian for permission to use this website.

Privacy Shield

Torque is a publication of WPEngine, Inc. We participate in and have certified our compliance with both the E.U.-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks. We are committed to subjecting all personal data received from European Union (E.U.) member countries and Switzerland, respectively, in reliance on each Privacy Shield Framework, to the Framework’s applicable Principles. To learn more about the Privacy Shield Frameworks, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Privacy Shield List at https://www.privacyshield.gov/list.

Under the Privacy Shield Frameworks, we are responsible for the processing of personal data that we collect from you and subsequently transfer to a third party acting as an agent on our behalf. We comply with the Privacy Shield Principles for all onward transfers of personal data from the EU and Switzerland including the onward transfer liability provisions.

With respect to personal data received or transferred pursuant to the Privacy Shield Frameworks, we are subject to the regulatory enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In certain situations, we may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including requests made to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third-party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request. Under certain conditions more fully described on the Privacy Shield website located at https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=How-to-Submit-a-Complaint, you may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.

Your Rights

Even if you’ve chosen to receive communications from us, you may change your preferences at any time. We respect your privacy and give you an opportunity to change your subscription preferences and opt-out of receiving announcements of certain information. Users may opt-out of receiving any or all communications from Velocitize by following the “unsubscribe” instructions provided in such communications or contacting us at [email protected].

Additionally, and upon your request, we will provide you with details regarding your personal information that has been collected by us or which is under our control. You may request that we update any personal information about you that we possess, or delete it entirely, by contacting us at [email protected].

California Residents

If you are a resident of the State of California, this Section addresses your rights and our obligations under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”). Terms used in this Section have the same meaning as provided in the CCPA.

Information We Collect

Our Site collects information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”). In particular, our Site has collected the following categories of personal information from visitors within the last 12 months:

Category: Identifiers.
Examples: A real name, IP address, email address, or other similar identifiers.

Category: Internet or other similar network activity.
Examples: Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.

Category: Geolocation data.
Examples: Physical location or movements.

Personal information does not include:

Publicly available information from government records.
De-identified or aggregated consumer information.
Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope.

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

Directly from you. For example, from forms you complete on our website.
Indirectly from you. For example, from observing your actions on our website or interactions with our advertisers.

Use of Personal Information

We may use, or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:

To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information. For example, if you share your name and contact information to request a price quote or ask a question about our products or services, we will use that personal information to respond to your inquiry. If you provide your personal information to purchase a product or service, we will use that information to process your payment and facilitate delivery. We may also save your information to facilitate new product orders or process returns.
To provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

Sharing Personal Information

We may disclose all of the above categories of personal information to our third-party service providers subject, in each case, to a written contract that describes the business purpose of the disclosure and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.

Sales of Personal Information

We do not and will not sell your personal information.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will provide:

The categories of personal information we collected about you.
The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
The categories of personal information we sold to a purchaser, and the categories of recipients.
The categories of personal information we disclosed for a business purpose, and the categories of recipients.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
Comply with a legal obligation.
Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights

To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, you can contact us by email at [email protected] or by phone at (877) 973-6446. Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time, we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance, specifically by electronic mail communication.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

Deny you goods or services.
Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt in consent, which you may revoke at any time.

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send us an electronic message through our website or write us at our address listed on our webpage.

Changes to this Statement

Torque will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. Torque encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how Torque is protecting your information.

Contact Information

Torque welcomes your questions or comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that Torque has not adhered to this Statement, please contact Torque at [email protected].

Updated: June 19, 2020.