Privacy Notice

PRIVACY POLICY

1. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY?

At Pepper, we take privacy seriously. This policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain and protect  personal information. In this Privacy Policy, references to "Pepper", "we", "us" and "our" are to the Pepper Group. Pepper Group means Pomegranate Technologies Australia Pty Ltd (ACN 677 052 934), Pomegranate Technologies Canada, Inc. and Pomegranate Technologies Inc. References to "you", "your" and "yours" are to any individuals whose personal information we collect including our customers, business partners, and third parties.This Privacy Policy applies to each of our websites, apps, services or tools that contain a link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, our “Services”). Please also read our Terms of Service that govern your use of our Services (the “TOS”). We reserve the right to update or change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do so, the updated version will be made available through our Services and/or otherwise made available to you, and we will provide a prominent notice and/or contact you by email or other method if we make material changes to it. By using our Services after receipt of any notice of an update to this Privacy Policy, you agree to the updated version to the extent permitted by law. Please periodically review this Privacy Policy for the latest information on our practices with respect to your Personal Information.

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2. APPLICABILITY OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We provide a centralized platform for Foodservice Establishments and Suppliers (as each term is defined in our Terms of Service) to communicate, place, track and manage orders between one another. This Privacy Policy applies to personal information that we collect in connection with the Services, our website(s) (including https://www.usepepper.com/), and any other products and/or services that link to this Privacy Policy.  If you are using the Services as an employee, contractor or other representative of one of our Foodservice Establishments, Supplier, or other business customers and you have any questions about our privacy practices or would like to exercise any rights with respect to your personal information that we process on behalf of our customers, please contact the corresponding customer as we only process your personal information in our capacity as a service provider to our customer.In addition, our Services are designed for businesses and are not intended for personal, family, or household use. Accordingly, we treat all personal information covered by this Privacy Policy as pertaining to individuals acting as business representatives, rather than in their personal capacity.  

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3. WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Throughout this Privacy Policy, "Personal information" means information or an opinion about an identified individual or reasonably identifiable individual, whether true or not and whether recorded in material form or not. 

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4. WHAT INFORMATION DOES PEPPER COLLECT?

When you use our Services, we may ask you to provide us with certain Personal Information that can be used to contact or identify you, and for other business purposes. We collect or receive information in different ways, depending on how you use and interact with our Services. In some instances, you can choose which information you provide to us, but in others certain information is required so that we can provide our Services to you (like when you create your user account as described in our TOS). Please read on for more information on this.Specifically, the personal information we collect and hold may include:

1. Personal identifiers, including information provided when you create or update your user account or fill out a web form. This is information such as your name, e-mail addresses, payment information (including your credit card details), phone numbers, login and password.‍
2. Business information, including information about items or services you purchased, your feedback or reviews, or details related to your business.‍
3. Information generated from your use of our Services, including device, location and demographic information. some text
   1. Device information including whether you are using our website or apps, your device and connection type and browser, and may include your device’s IP address (see our ”Managing use of cookies, tracking tools and your mobile device” section below for more information on how this information is actually collected).  
   2. Location information is collected to ensure that our Services are provided to the most accurate location (you can usually turn location sharing off in your device’s settings).
   3. Demographic information including gender, interests and favourites, including through user surveys.‍
4. Contact book information, if you give us permission to access your device’s contact book. We will use this information to allow you to invite others to use the Services and to populate the name and phone number of those individuals.‍
5. Your content, which we may collect from information you post on our website or on social media, or when you contact or otherwise communicate with us. It enables us to tailor our Services to your preferences. If your content contains any information about another person, please make sure you have their consent to share it.‍
6. Photos and other images you may choose to upload in your communications with other users.‍
7. Marketing information, such as your preferences for receiving marketing communications and details about your engagement with them.
8. Information collected from third parties, which serves to supplement the information we collect directly from you. It can be from commercial data aggregators as well as marketing and advertising partners.‍
9. For referral services, which we may offer for you to tell friends about our Services. In order to use this referral service, we will need to collect your contact’s name and email address, and they would receive an automatic one-time invitation via email that we send on your behalf inviting them to use our Services.

We collect and record personal information about individuals such as:

1. our customers/clients/members, potential customers/clients/members and their representatives, including but not limited to food distributors, manufacturers and restaurants; 
2. our suppliers, potential suppliers and their representatives, directors, partners, proprietors and shareholders;
3. contractors, subcontractors, potential contractors and subcontractors and their representatives in relation to providing goods and services to us; 
4. our employees past and present, including employment applications; and 
5. other individuals who come into contact with us.

Where you provide us with the personal information of third parties, it is your responsibility to inform them about the processing of their personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and to confirm that they have given their permission.

2. HOW DOES PEPPER COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We will collect and hold your personal information in a fair and lawful manner, and not in an intrusive way.  Where it is reasonably practical to do so, we will collect your personal information directly from you.We may collect this information when you communicate with us through our websites, by telephone, by email, through a written application and our application. In some circumstances the collection of personal information may be required by law.We may also collect personal information from a third party. We will only collect your personal information from a third party if it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect this information directly from you or if we are otherwise legally permitted to do so. If we collect personal information about you from a third party we will, where appropriate, request that the third party inform you that we are holding such information, how we will use and disclose it, and that you may contact us to gain access to and correct and update the information.We may generally collect your personal information when:

1. you use or buy our products or services;
2. you provide us, or you offer or apply to supply us, with goods or services;
3. you request information about us, our services, programs or application; 
4. you provide feedback to us; 
5. you visit, make an inquiry, or fill in a form on the Websites; 
6. you register to be a member, donor, volunteer or partner; 
7. you submit a job application to us; 
8. conducting customer satisfaction and market research surveys;
9. you contact us by telephone, email, social media, post or in person; and
10. we are otherwise required or authorised by law.

How we collect information from you or third parties may also vary depending on how we interact with you, or our relationship with you. For example:

1. For food distributor employees, we collect your personal information when we sign a contract with our customers and they set up user profiles for the employees to the relevant software platform;
2. For restaurant employees, we collect your personal information from you directly when:some text
   1. you enter the information directly in our application to become a new customer of a distributor; or 
   2. the distributor provides them to us, either over EDI, manually sending them to us, or by inputting them into our application; 
3. For restaurant patrons, we collect your personal information, including payment information, from the distributor or the restaurant through our application

2. WHY AND HOW DOES PEPPER USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We use your Personal Information to provide, improve and personalise our Services for you, if we need to contact you about your user account or our Services, or to provide you with customer support or prevent fraud or other illegal activities. Below are additional details on the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your Personal Information:

1. Providing you with our Services, including processing and communicating with you about your use of our Services, allowing you to access and use our Services, invite and interact with other users of our Services, and to provide you with customer support or otherwise contact you about your use of our Services.
2. Communicating with you, including identifying you and to answer any questions you may have of us, or with respect to any of your account activity.
3. Improving and personalising our Services for you, which helps us provide you with a more customized user experience based on your provided preferences. We also might get information about you from third parties and combine it with what you’ve provided to us for this purpose.
4. For security purposes, to help protect you, our Services, company and our other customers from fraud or other illegal activities.
5. For marketing purposes, so that we can let you know about new features or promotional offers that you might be interested in based on your provided preferences.
6. Pursuing our legitimate interest, including, for example, direct marketing, research (including marketing research), network and information security and fraud prevention.
7. Performing our organisational functions and activities, in order to operate our business efficiently.
8. Complying with our legal obligations, including assisting government and law enforcement agencies or regulators.

We may collect, use and disclose your Personal Information as otherwise permitted or required by law, as long as it’s necessary or relevant to our business, or as we may otherwise notify you.We will not use or disclose your personal information for any other purpose unless you have consented to that use or disclosure.

3. WHO DOES PEPPER SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH, AND WHY?

We may share your Personal Information with third parties under certain limited circumstances. We may disclose your personal information to the following third parties:

1. Third party service providers, who may, as our trusted service providers, need certain of your Personal Information for payment processing, billing, account security, customer support, personalised advertising and other business operations. Third party service providers and/or the equipment on which such service providers store or process Personal Information may be located outside Australia.
2. Third party collaborations. After removing certain identifiers, such as your name, phone, and e-mail address (where provided), and combining the resulting information with similar information from other users, we may use, sell, license and/or share your information with third parties for research, business or other purposes.
3. Credit agencies or bureaus, with whom we may need to share (where legally permitted) certain information if you’ve missed payments or defaulted on your user account.
4. Any of our affiliated or related entities, in order to ensure that you have a secure and consistent experience using our Services. These companies may be providing you with various products and services as our business evolves.
5. professional service providers and advisors who perform functions on our behalf, such as lawyers and accountants;
6. medical providers including medical and rehabilitation practitioners for assessing insurance claims; and
7. Government, regulatory authorities or other organisations as required or authorised by law.

We may disclose your personal information with third parties for purposes including, but not limited to, the following:

1. as part of a business transaction or in connection with negotiations and preparations for a possible business transaction, including if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing due diligence or other similar event.
2. to enable external service providers to perform services for us or on our behalf or assist us in providing our services or to administer our business;
3. to comply with applicable law
4. to enforce our TOS, prevent, detect, mitigate or investigate fraud or other illegal activity; and 
5. to protect our legitimate business interests.

When we disclose personal information to third parties, we make all reasonable efforts to ensure that we disclose only relevant information and that it is accurate, complete and up to date and that the third party will comply with the applicable laws in relation to the use, disclosure and storage of your information.

2. OTHER PERMITTED DISCLOSURES

We may disclose personal information in other circumstances, where the person concerned has consented to the disclosure, or where we are expressly permitted to do so by under the law. These other disclosures may include where:

1. you would reasonably expect the disclosure to occur (for example, quality assurance purposes or training);
2. we are authorised or compelled by law to disclose; 
3. it will prevent or lessen a serious threat to someone's life, health or safety or a threat to public health or safety; 
4. it is necessary as part of the establishment or defence of a legal claim;
5. it is requested by an enforcement agency such as the police; or 
6. it is a necessary part of an investigation following a complaint or incident.

3. WHAT ARE YOUR CHOICES WITH HOW PEPPER HANDLES MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?

You have a choice about how we handle your Personal Information. There are various ways you are able to control the personal information of yours that we receive and retain, and how your activity is tracked when using our Services. These include:

1. In general, you have the right to object to or opt out of certain uses of your Personal Information, which we describe further in this section. Where you have consented to the processing of your Personal Information, you may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us at help@usepepper.com.
2. Opting out of marketing communications, which you can do by following the instructions in any marketing email or through your account settings. This does not apply to transactional messages that relate specifically to your use of our Services (because you’ll need to receive those in order to use our Services).
3. Updating your account information, including to update or delete incorrect user account information (you must log in to your account to do this).
4. Accessing or correcting your personal information, by contacting us at the details set out below. There may be some circumstances in which we are not required to give you access to your personal information. There is no charge for requesting access to your personal information, but we may require you to meet our reasonable costs in providing you with access (such as photocopying costs or costs for time spent on collating large amounts of material). We will respond to your requests to access or correct personal information in a reasonable time and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold about you remains accurate and up to date. If we refuse to provide you with access to your record or to update your record in the way you request, we will provide you with written reasons. If we refuse to correct or update your information, you may request that we make a note on your record that you are of the opinion that the information is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading, as the case may be.
5. Making a complaint by contacting us at the details set out below, where you may have a complaint or concern regarding our handling of your personal information or think that your privacy has been affected. We will consider your complaint and determine whether it requires further investigation. We will notify you of the outcome of this investigation and any subsequent internal investigation. If you are located in Australia and you remain unsatisfied with the way in which we have handled your privacy complaint or concern, you may approach an independent advisor or contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). See the OAIC website for more information about how to make a complaint.
6. Adjusting contact book preferences, including to revoke our access to your device’s contact book.
7. Opt out of selling your personal information and processing it for targeted advertising purposes. We share information with third-party advertising partners and allow them to collect information about your use of the Services to show you ads as described in the “Why And How Does Pepper Use Your Personal Information” and “Who Does Pepper Share Your Personal Information With, And Why?” sections above. Our disclosure of information to these partners may be considered a “sale” or “targeted advertising” under applicable laws. You can opt out of these disclosures and limit our use of tracking technologies as described in our cookie management information below.
8. Opt out of “profiling” in connection with decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. We do not engage in such profiling activities. 
9. Managing use of cookies, tracking tools and your mobile device, more information for which can be found directly below. 

Your mobile device should allow you to control the types of notifications you receive and to turn off GPS location services if you prefer not to share that information. When you use our Services, we may place a “cookie” or other online tracking device (such as a web beacons) in order to improve your experience by recognizing you when you visit our Services, such as by assigning a session ID and to deliver content specific to your interests. The cookies we place may also collect information about your IP address or clickstream data within our Services (i.e., the actions taken in connection with our Services). This information helps us improve the functionality of our Services. We also use cookies provided by Google Analytics to help us measure how visitors use our Services. The information collected is used for a variety of purposes, such as site traffic reporting, unique visitor counts and content optimization. Although Google Analytics logs the information coming from our Services on our behalf, we control how the data may and may not be used. If you do not want to help us learn how to improve our Services, you can opt-out of this website analysis tool by clicking: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Web browsers often allow you to erase existing cookies from your hard drive, block the use of cookies and/or be notified when cookies are encountered. If you elect to block cookies, please note that you may not be able to take full advantage of the features and functions of our Services. We may keep track of the websites and pages users visit within our Services in order to determine which products or services are most popular. This data is used to deliver advertising to customers whose behaviour indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area. To opt out of such interest-based advertising, visit Digital Advertising Alliance’s Choices page at optout.aboutads.info. We do not, however, engage in the collection of personally identifiable information about your online activities over time across third-party websites or online services.

10. Do Not Track (“DNT”), which is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. We do not respond to or honour DNT signals or similar mechanisms transmitted by web browsers.

4. FOR HOW LONG DOES PEPPER KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

As a general rule, if the information we store is no longer required by us for any purpose for which it was collected and is no longer required by law to be retained by us, we will destroy or de-identify the information. However, we may retain Personal Information from deleted accounts in order to prevent fraud, enforce our rights under our TOS, to enforce our legal rights generally or to comply with our legal obligations.

5. WHAT SECURITY MEASURES DOES PEPPER TAKE TO PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We store most information about you in computer systems and databases operated by us or our external service providers.We strive to protect your Personal Information using reasonable, industry standard technical and administrative security measures to reduce the risks of loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure and alteration. This includes:

1. regularly training staff on how to keep information safe and secure;
2. restricting access to personal information to only those who need access to the personal information do their job;
3. implementing physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard the security and integrity of personal information such as encrypting data in transit;
4. regularly backing up critical assets;
5. employing industry standard VPC and firewall audit mechanisms;
6. requiring two-factor authentication in third-party applications;
7. storing hard copy and electronic records in secure systems; and
8. using trusted contracted service providers (including cloud storage providers)

We advise that there are inherent risks in transmitting information across the internet, including the risk that information sent to or from a website may be intercepted, corrupted or modified by third parties.  If we experience a notifiable data breach (under applicable privacy laws) where your personal information is lost, stolen, accessed, used, disclosed, copied, modified or disposed of by any unauthorised person or in an unauthorised manner, we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible. In these circumstances, our security team will immediately conduct an investigation to eliminate the cause of the breach, seek to remove the source of the breach and recover any affected systems and data. A post-incident analysis is also conducted to prevent future occurrences.If you have any security concerns, or wish to provide personal information by other means (e.g. by telephone or paper), or if you reasonably believe that there has been unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, you may contact us using the contact details set out at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

6. HOW DOES PEPPER HANDLE INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS?

We may disclose your personal information to third party recipients located in Australia or the United States. We are located in and subject to United States laws, which may not afford the same level of protection as those in Australia. Individuals located in AustraliaBy consenting to our collection notice, you agree to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of your personal information in those countries for purposes necessary or useful in the course of operating our business, without us being responsible under the Australian Privacy Act for such collection, use, storage and disclosure (or breach) of your information by the third party recipients. Where such recipients are located overseas, you may have rights to enforce such parties' compliance with applicable data protection laws, but you may not have recourse against those parties under the Australian Privacy Act in relation to how those parties treat your personal information. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes the event that any overseas recipient breaches the Australian Privacy Principles.If you do not want us to disclose your information to recipients outside of Australia, please let us know.

7. PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR SERVICES ARE NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN.

‍Our Services are meant for adults. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from people under the age of 16, nor do we sell such Personal Information. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us at help@usepepper.com. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Information from children under 16 without verification of parental or guardian consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

8. WE MAY LINK TO THIRD PARTY SITES OR SERVICES WE DON'T CONTROL.

Our Services may contain links to third party websites that we do not control. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the privacy practices of those websites. Read the privacy policies of other websites carefully. We are not responsible for these third party sites. Our Services may also serve third party content that contains their own cookies or tracking technologies, and we do not control the use of those technologies.

9. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US.

‍If you need to reach us about anything related to this Privacy Policy or our handling of your Personal Information, please contact us at:Mailing address: Attention: LegalPepperPomegranate Technologies, Inc., 511 West 25th StreetSuite 4-105New York, NY 10001‍Email: help@usepepper.comPlease reference this Privacy Policy and do not include any sensitive details.‍This policy was last updated: August 2024