Privacy Policy

1.1 Interpretation

The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.

1.2 Definitions

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:

• You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the Bamboost App, or the legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing our using the Service, as applicable.
• Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Bamboost App. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Bamboost PH to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Bamboost PH, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Bamboost PH in analyzing how the Service is used.
• Service refers to the Application.
• Users refers to a user who registers for an account with us for use of the Services, including both buyers and sellers.
• Personal Data refers to information, whether true or false, about an individual who can be identified from that information, or from that information and other information to which an organization has or is likely to have access. Examples include a person's name, identification number, and contact information.
• Platform or Application means the software program, Bamboost App, provided by the Bamboost PH downloaded by You on any electronic device.

We will/may collect the following personal information about you:

• when you sign up for and/or use our Services or Platform, or when you create an account with us;

• when you use our electronic services, interact with us through the Bamboost App, or use services on our Platform.

• when you grant permissions on your device to share information with our Platform or Application;

• when you conduct transactions using our Services;

• when you provide us with feedback or complaints;

• when you provide us with your personal information for any reason.

To use Bamboost App we may collect data such as, but not limited to:

• First name

• Middle name

• Last name

• Sex

• Address/Location

• Geolocation

• Bank account and/or payment information

• Date of birth

• Photographs or Audio or Video recordings

• Email address

• Mobile number

For user validation, we may collect additional information:

• Government-issued ID for due diligence, to know your customer, identity verification, or fraud prevention.

• Any of the following documents:

  • Business Permit

  • Barangay Certificate

  • Cedula

  • Certificate of Membership from people’s organization

We collect, process, and store your data on Bamboost database (AWS RDS) for the following purposes:

1. To manage your account that you may have set up with us.

2. To facilitate your use of the Services (the buying and selling) with Bamboost App.

   • To process orders, you submit through the Platform;

   • To deliver the products you have purchased through the Platform. We may pass your personal information on to a third party (e.g. our logistics partner) in order to make the delivery of the product to you;

   • To update you on the delivery of the products;

   • To verify and carry out such payment transactions, payment information, which may include personal data, will be transferred to third parties such as our payment service providers.

   • To ship or deliver the products you have listed or sold through the Platform.

   • To verify the documentation, you submitted to us in order to facilitate your onboarding as a seller on the Platform.

3. To provide you the nearest bamboo selling stores, directions, and to improve customer experiences and efficiency using the geolocation;

4. To produce statistics and research for compliance with reporting obligations to government authorities under applicable laws, rules, and regulations.

5. To process any complaints, feedback, enforcement action and take-down requests in relation to any content you have uploaded to the Platform;

Your data is accessed and used by a small group of Bamboost PH employees (no more than 100). All employees who are concerned have a legitimate interest in the proper use of your data for the performance of their duties. Likewise, these employees are always required to protect your data and uphold your data privacy rights. The Bamboost PH will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with Philippines privacy and data protection laws, regulations, and policies. Bamboost PH is strictly not allowing public or private entities to connect to the database. The Bamboost PH may share the Bamboost App personal data with the DOST, DENR, DTI and other government authorities, to comply with the Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009, to be used for purely statistics as basis for informed decision-making, such as to assess the status of the Bamboo Industry in the Philippines, and to help in value chain analyses in the future. The sharing shall be covered by a Data Sharing Agreement and carried out in a secure manner.

• Service Providers - as the Service Providers we use may have access to your personal data. These third-party vendors collect, store, use, process, and transfer information about your activity on our service in accordance with their privacy policies.

• Syntactics, Inc. – provides API subscription services to Bamboost App under a service contract.

  Prince Technologies Corporation – provides AWS (Amazon Web Server) cloud computing service to Bamboost App under a service contract.

We may use the following third-party service providers to provide better improvement of our service.

• Google Maps - collect information about your location when you use our services, which helps us offer features like search results for bamboo products and stores near you based on your general location.

  The information gathered by Google Maps is held in accordance with the Privacy Policy of Google: https://policies.google.com/privacy

• Mailgun - an email delivery service for sending, receiving, and tracking emails, which collects information to communicate with you about our services (for example through newsletters, marketing emails, announcements, or special offers).

  The information gathered by Mailgun is held in accordance with the Privacy Policy of Mailgun https://www.mailgun.com/legal/privacy-policy

• Semaphore - collect the user's mobile number in order to send an OTP, which is a one-time password generated by the system and delivered to the user's phone in order to confirm their identity.

  The information gathered by Semaphore is held in accordance with the Privacy Policy of Semaphore: https://semaphore.co/privacy

To protect the personal information provided to us, we have implemented appropriate physical, technical, and organizational security measures. To protect data storage, we use a variety of security techniques such as secure servers, firewalls, and encryption. Since we use the Security Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, personal information is encrypted as it travels over the internet. These safeguards are reviewed on a regular basis to protect against unauthorized access, disclosure, and improper use of your information, as well as to maintain the data's accuracy and integrity. We will adapt and implement the necessary changes to ensure the ongoing security of your Personal Information. Your Personal data is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of employees who have special access rights to such systems. However, there can inevitably be no guarantee of absolute security.

The destruction and disposal of collected and stored data shall be done in accordance with the guidelines set by the NAP General Guidelines Circular No. 2. Bamboost PH will request permission to dispose of records to the NAP for appraisal and evaluation by the Records Management Analyst, and approval by the Executive Director. The NAP Executive Director will notify the appropriate office about the timely and proper disposal of records. The request for disposal will be made once the retention period has expired or the personal data is no longer being used.

Digital copies of your personal data stored in the MariaDB MySQL shall be destroyed or deleted in a secure manner once the retention period of five (5) years has been reached.

As our data subject, you are entitled to the guarantees set forth in Section 16 of Republic Act 10173 (Data Privacy Act of 2012), which include the following:

1. Right to be Informed - The user (buyer and seller) is notified and informed of their rights as well as the use of the data collected through the Bamboost App Privacy Policy.

2. Right to Object - Data collection in Bamboost App is done through user registration; you may request that your personal data be deleted. This effectively means that you have the ability to stop or prevent Bamboost PH from using your data.

3. Right to Access - The registered user (buyer and seller) has the right to obtain a copy of any information relating to you that Bamboost PH has on file in our computer database.

4. Right to Rectify - Allows the data subject to dispute any inaccuracy or error in the personal information processed, and to have the personal information controller correct it immediately. A request to rectify or correct a record shall be submitted via email. Before rectifying any record, Bamboost PH will require the data subject to submit a government-issued ID for validation.

5. Right to Erasure or Blocking - Allows the data subject to suspend, withdraw or order the blocking, removal, destruction of his or her personal information from the Bamboost App database. The user may submit valid requests for the deletion of their personal data in the database. Once deleted, personal data will no longer appear or be included in anonymous searches and will be completely removed from all storage locations.

6. Right to File a Complaint - If the personal information has been misused, maliciously disclosed, or improperly disposed, or that any data privacy rights have been violated, the data subject has the right to file a complaint with the Bamboost PH and National Privacy Commission.

7. Right to the Payment of Damages - Claim for compensation if the data subject suffered damages due to inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, false, unlawfully obtained or unauthorized use of personal data, considering any violation of its rights and freedoms as data subject.

We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the "Last modified" date at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices, we welcome you to contact us by email at support@bamboost.ph.