Privacy Policy
View the prior version of our Privacy Policy here.
At Benchling, Inc. (“Benchling,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) privacy is in our DNA. One of our core values is “empower through information,” and we intend to exemplify this value in our Privacy Policy. As such, we will provide you with clear, detailed, and easy-to-understand information about Benchling’s privacy practices and how we process information about you, that directly identifies you, or that makes you identifiable (“Personal Information”)when you use the Benchling Application Services (the “Services”) or when you visit our websites, such as benchling.com (the “Sites”) or when you are our business contact.
Contents of this Privacy Policy:
What does this Privacy Policy Cover?
This Privacy Policy is applicable when you use our Services, visit our Sites or if you are a business contact.
What Personal Information does Benchling collect?
Some Personal Information you share with us directly, some information we collect automatically, and some information we collect from third parties. This section sets forth the categories of data we collect.
Cookies and Tracking Technologies
Benchling uses common information-gathering tools such as cookies, web beacons, pixels and other similar tracking technologies to automatically collect information as you navigate our Sites, use our Services, or interact with emails we send you. You can manage these technologies easily using our Cookie Consent Manager on our Sites.
How we use your Personal Information
Benchling uses Personal Information for a variety of purposes and on the legal bases described in this section.
How long Benchling stores your Personal Information
Benchling will store the Personal Information we collect about you for no longer than necessary for the purposes in which it was collected, in accordance with our legal obligations and legitimate business interests. Read this section to understand the criteria used to determine the period for which we store Personal Information.
How Benchling shares Personal Information
In order to better provide the Services, operate our sites, and for our other legitimate business purposes, Benchling may share your Personal Information with third parties.
How to make choices about your Personal Information
No matter where you are in the world, Benchling provides you with various ways to make choices about your Personal Information, such as accessing it, correcting it, deleting it, or updating your choices about how it is used.
International data transfers
Benchling relies on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) as our primary data transfer mechanism.
California Privacy
California residents should read this section.
Benchling Security Information
Benchling is committed to maintaining reasonable and appropriate security measures to ensure that your Personal Information is protected both online and offline. Read this section to learn more about our security measures and how you can better protect your account.
Contact us
This section includes our physical addresses, email address, and information about how to contact our designated EU & UK representative.
Updates
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will inform you if we make any material changes.
What does this Privacy Policy cover?
This Privacy Policy applies where Benchling is the “data controller” and is generally responsible for and controls the processing of your Personal Information collected through our Site, the Services and about our general business contacts.
This Privacy Policy does not apply in the following scenarios:
Benchling as “Data Processor.” This Privacy Policy does not apply to Personal Information processed by Benchling on behalf of our Customers who have set up a paid account on behalf of an institution or organization (an “Enterprise Account"). Please contact that Customer directly if you have any questions about how it processes your Personal Information for its own purposes.
Employee & recruiting Data. This Privacy Policy also does not apply to Benchling’s processing of employee data or recruiting data. If you are an applicant or employee of Benchling, please reach out to hr@benchling.com to get a copy of our Employee & Recruitment Privacy Notice.
What Personal Information does Benchling collect?
Some Personal Information you share with us directly, some information we collect automatically, and some information we collect from third parties. This section sets forth the categories of data we collect from you.
Information you provide directly to us through the Services
In order to provide you with the Services, we may ask you to provide us with certain details or information (“Account Data”), including:
Contact details such as your name, email address, and phone number. For example, we collect such information when you register for an account, provide information within your account settings, display your user profile information, or communicate with us.
Account details, including username, password, your affiliated company/institution name, profile/avatar picture, and security questions.
Product feedback when you provide it when using our Services.
Information you choose to provide when you communicate with us about yourself or other users of the Service, for example, when sending a message, submitting information through a webform, or collaborating with other users within the Service.
Information we collect from third parties for the purposes of providing the Services
When you use the Services, we may also collect information about you from third parties (“Third Party Data”), including:
Other users of the Service, for example, when another user provides us with information about you for us to invite you to the Services or collaborate with you in the Services.
Third-party applications, for example, when you choose to upload or transfer information (e.g., documents) either from a third party application into the Services, or vice versa.
Single Sign-on Services (e.g., Okta) and email service providers, if you provide your third-party account credentials to us or otherwise sign in to the Services through a third party site or service, you understand some content and/or information in those accounts may be transmitted into your account with us and covered by this Privacy Policy; for example, your email address if you sign in with Google. Certain information may be required to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features. This information is used to maintain your account and login information.
We may also collect information about you (e.g, your education, company, title, email address) from publicly available third-party sites, and contact you based on such information.
Information you provide directly to us through the Sites or Benchling events
Contact Data such as your name, email address, and phone number and information about your industry, such as the name of your company and your job title. We collect this information when you fill out a web form to request a demo, ask to be contacted by our sales team, sign up for newsletters, or register for Benchling events (such as Benchtalk).
Feedback Data including any other Personal Information you choose to share with us, for example, if you provide us with feedback during a Benchling event.
Information we collect from third parties relating to Benchling events
Event Data: We may collect Personal Information such as your name, email address, and phone number and information about your industry, such as the name of your company and your job title. We may obtain this information from third parties who host joint-events with us.
Information we collect from and about our visitors, vendors and other business partners
Business Data: We may collect Personal Information such as your name, email address, and phone number and information about your industry, such as the name of your company and your job title either when you attend our offices, when you contact us, or from third parties such as business directories.
Information Benchling collects automatically.
Whenever you interact with our Services, we automatically receive and record information about your interaction with the Services (“Usage Data). Additionally, Benchling and our service providers acting on our behalf use common information-gathering tools such as cookies, web beacons, pixels and other similar tracking technologies to automatically collect information as you navigate our Sites or when you interact with emails we sent to you (“Cookie Data). The next section contains more detailed information with respect to Benchling’s use of cookies and other tracking technologies.
The categories of information we may automatically collect include your:
Log data
Web browser information
Device type, such as your phone, computer, or tablet
IP address
Geolocation data
Unique device identifier
Date and time stamps, such as the date and time you first accessed the Sites and Services
Operating system
Page view statistics
Language of device
Other information regarding your interaction with the Sites and Services, such as when you open an email, clickstream data and ad impressions.
Cookies and tracking technologies
What are cookies?
A cookie is a piece of data contained in a very small text file that is stored in your browser or elsewhere on your hard drive. Cookies allow Benchling to identify your device as you navigate our Sites. This makes navigating and interacting with our Sites more efficient, easy and meaningful for you.
By themselves, cookies do not identify you specifically. Rather, they recognize your web browser. So, unless you identify yourself specifically to Benchling, we don’t know who you are just because you visited our website.
Benchling uses both session and persistent cookies. Session cookies are cookies that disappear from your device or browser when you turn off your computer. Persistent cookies stay on your device even after you’ve turned it off. Additionally, the cookies on our websites fall into three categories: (1) Essential Cookies, (2) Functional Cookies, (3) Analytics Cookies, and (4) Advertising Cookies. To learn more about each category of cookie, you can visit our cookie consent tool by clicking on the “Preferences” link on the bottom right of the Benchling website you are visiting.
How Benchling uses Cookie Data
We use Cookie Data to understand how you are using the Sites and which pages and features of the website are most popular. This information ensures our Sites are able to operate and helps us understand how we can improve our Sites and Services, track performance of our advertisements, and better market to you.
We may also collect publicly available information about you that we have gathered through services like LinkedIn. We use this information to help understand our customer base better and to reach out to potential customers.
Web beacons
Benchling also uses web beacons to gather data about your use of our Site and how you interact with emails we have sent to you. Web beacons are clear electronic images that can recognize certain types of data on your computer, like when you view a particular website tied to the web beacon, and a description of a website tied to the web beacon. Additionally, we may put web beacons in marketing emails that notify us when you click on a link in the email that directs you to a Benchling website. We use web beacons to operate and improve our Sites, Services and email communications to you.
How to control and delete cookies
Transcend Consent Tool. Benchling uses “Transcend” as our cookie consent tool, which you can utilize to customize your cookie preferences. When you visit our Sites for the first time, a cookie consent banner will pop up and ask you to customize your cookie preferences. If you decide to change your preferences at a later date, you can easily do so by clicking on the “Preferences” link on the bottom right of the Site you are visiting. Please note that Required Cookies cannot be disabled and if you decide to opt-out of Functional Cookies, certain functionality of our websites or your account may be impacted.
Using Your Browser. In addition to using our Transcend Cookie Consent tool, you can use your browser settings to opt out of Functional Cookies and Advertising & Analytics Cookies. For more information on how to do that, click here.To manage privacy and storage settings for flash cookies, click here.
Do Not Track. Some browsers allow a “do not track” (DNT) setting that requests that a web application disable its tracking of an individual user. When you choose to turn on the DNT setting in your browser, your browser will send a special signal to websites, analytics companies, ad networks, plug-in providers, and other web services you encounter while browsing and stop tracking your activity. To set up DNT, you can visit the All About DNT page. If you do choose to set up DNT, we will automatically turn off all non-required cookies on Benchling’s websites for you. Please note that this may impact the functionality of our websites or your account.
Global Privacy Control. Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a technical specification that you can use to inform websites of your privacy preferences in regard to ad trackers. To set up GPC, you can visit the Global Privacy Control page. If you do choose to set up GPC, we will automatically turn off all non-required cookies on Benchling’s websites for you. Please note that this may impact the functionality of our Sites and Services.
Opting out of Advertising & Analytics Cookies. To learn more about how to opt out of targeting and advertising cookies, you can go to the Your Online Choices page, the Network Advertising Initiative page, and the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Choice page. These opt-out tools are provided by third parties, not Benchling. We do not control or operate these tools or the choices that advertisers and others provide through these tools.
How we use your Personal Information
This section describes the purpose for which your Personal Information is processed by Benchling, and where required in certain regions such as Europe, also the legal basis for that processing.
Providing the Services: We use Account Data, Third Party Data and Feedback Data to operate and provide our Services and Sites and to tailor our Services and Sites to your needs and preferences to perform our contract with you. Where we have not entered into a contract with you, we process your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests in operating and improving our internal operations, systems, Services and Sites, and to provide you with the Services and Sites you access and request.
Providing Benchling Learning Labs: If you decide to participate in Benchling Learning Labs, we use Account Data, Cookie Data, Feedback Data, and Business Data to: (i) operate and provide Benchling Learnings Labs, (ii) tailor Benchling Learning Labs to your needs and preferences, and (iii) communicate with you about Benchling Learning Labs.
Sending administrative communications: We may use Account Data to send you information related to our Services such as confirmations, invoices, expiration and renewal notices, technical notices, service updates, security alerts, and support, onboarding, and administrative messages to perform our contract with you, or if we have not contracted directly with you, in reliance on our legitimate interests in administering our Services.
Providing customer support: We use Account Data and Feedback Data to troubleshoot and diagnose product problems, and provide other customer care and support services, including to help us provide, improve, and secure the quality of our Services and Sites, and to investigate security incidents in reliance on our legitimate interests.
Handling contact and user requests: If you fill out a web form or request support, if you contact us by other means, including via a phone call, we use your Account Data to perform our contract with you or if we do not have a contract directly with you, in reliance on our legitimate interests in fulfilling your requests and communicating with you.
Improving and developing the Sites and Services: We use Account Data, Cookie Data and Usage Data to improve the Sites and Services in reliance on our legitimate interests in developing and improving our Sites and Services, or where required, with your consent. For example, this data can tell us how often users use a particular feature of the Services, and we can use that knowledge to optimize the Services for as many users as possible.
Sending marketing communications: We use Account Data, Cookie Data, Usage Data, certain Third Party Data and Contact Data to reach out to you about other Services we think might be of interest to you or when you ask to be contacted by us (for example in relation to a demo or event). This may include information about our Services or events as necessary for our legitimate interest in conducting marketing, or to the extent you have provided your prior consent. Please see the "How to Make Choices about your Personal Information" section, below, to learn how you can control the processing of your personal information by Benchling for marketing purposes.
Enterprise Account assistance: If you are part of an Enterprise Account, we may send some elements of Usage Data to the administrator of your account or to other individuals at your institution who make decisions about how the Services are used by your institution. This information allows your institution to make decisions about things like purchasing more licenses or what additional modules or features to include in the Services based on usage patterns. Please note that we will never send your geo-location data to your institution.
Securing the Services: We process Account Data and Cookie Data by tracking use of our Sites and Services for the purposes of maintaining the safety and security of our Sites and Services, including verifying accounts and activity, investigating suspicious activity, and enforcing our terms and policies, in reliance on our legitimate interest in promoting the safety and security of our Sites and Services, systems and applications and in protecting our rights and the rights of others.
Displaying advertising and relevant offers: We may use Cookie Data we collect through our interactions with you to advertise to you and provide personalized information about us on and off our Sites, and to provide other personalized content based on your activities and interests to the extent it is necessary for our legitimate interest in advertising our Services, or where necessary, to the extent that you have provided your prior consent. Please see the "Your Privacy Rights" section below to learn how you can control the processing of your personal information by Benchling for personalized advertising. For these purposes, we may link or combine information about you with Third Party Data, to help understand your needs and provide you with better and more personalized service or content
Complying with legal obligations: We may process any of your Personal Information when cooperating with public and government authorities, courts or regulators in accordance with our legal obligations under applicable laws, to the extent this requires the processing or disclosure of Personal Information to protect our rights, or is necessary for our legitimate interest in protecting against misuse or abuse of our Sites and Services, protecting personal property or safety, pursuing remedies available to us and limiting our damages, complying with judicial proceedings, court orders or legal processes, or to respond to lawful requests.
For contacting our vendors, business partners and visitors: We may use Business Data for other legitimate business purposes in reliance on our legitimate interests, such as to update, expand, and analyze our records, identify and contract with new vendors and business partners and to expand our business activities. We may also process it to register visitors to our offices and to manage non-disclosure agreements that visitors may be required to sign, to the extent such processing is necessary for our legitimate interest in protecting our offices and our confidential information against unauthorized access.
How long Benchling stores your Personal Information
Benchling will store the Personal Information we collect about you for no longer than necessary for the purposes in which it was collected. The criteria used to determine the period for which we store Personal Information varies depending on the legal basis under which we process that Personal Information:
Legitimate Interests. Where we are processing Personal Information based on our legitimate interests, we generally will retain such information for a reasonable period of time based on the particular interest, taking into account the fundamental interests and the rights and freedoms of data subjects.
Consent. Where we are processing Personal Information based on your consent, we will retain the information until you withdraw your consent.
Perform a Contract. Where we are processing Personal Information based on a contract with you, we generally will retain the information for the duration of the contract plus some additional limited period of time that is necessary to comply with law or that represents the statute of limitations for legal claims that could arise from the contractual relationship.
Legal Obligation. Where we are processing Personal Information based on a legal obligation, we generally will retain the information for the period of time necessary to fulfill the legal obligation.
We may need to apply a “legal hold” that retains information beyond our typical retention period where we face threat of legal claim. In that case, we will retain the information until the hold is removed, which typically means the claim or threat of claim has been resolved.
In all cases, in addition to the purposes and legal bases, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the Personal Information, as well as the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Information.
How Benchling shares Personal Information
In order to provide our Services, deliver our Sites and conduct our activities described in this Privacy Policy, we may share your Personal Information with the following third parties:
Other Users of the Services. Certain user profile information, including your name, generalized location (city & state), and any video, or image or that you choose to upload to the Services, may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within the Services or address your request for our Services. Please remember that any content you upload to your public user profile, along with any Personal Information or content that you voluntarily disclose online in a manner other users can view (on discussion boards, in messages and chat areas, etc.) becomes publicly available, and can be collected and used by anyone.
Third-party service providers or consultants. We employ other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and need to share information about you with them in order to provide the Services to you; for example, we may use cloud infrastructure providers, data analytics vendors, consumer data platform, and IT and security vendors to host and operate the Services. Unless we tell you differently, our service providers do not have the right to use the Personal Information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us and in accordance with applicable law.
Compliance with legal obligations. We may disclose your Personal Information to a third party if: (i) we reasonable believe that disclosure is compelled by applicable law, regulation, legal process, or a government request, (ii) to enforce our agreements and policies, (iii) to protect the security or integrity of our Services, or (iv) to protect ourselves, out other customers, or the public from hard and/or illegal activities. If we are required by law to disclose your Personal Information, we will notify you of the disclosure requirement, unless we are prohibited to do so by law. Please note that we will object to requests we do not believe were issued properly.
Business Transfers. If we go through a corporate sale, merger, reorganization, dissolution or similar event, data we gather from you may be part of the assets transferred or shared in connection with the due diligence for any such transaction.
Aggregated or de-Identified data. We may de-identify Personal Information about you so that you are not identified as an individual, and provide that information to our partners. We may also provide aggregate Usage Data to our partners (or allow partners to collect such information from you), who may use such information to understand how often and in what ways people use our Sites and Services, so that they, too, can provide you with an optimal online experience.
How to make choices about your Personal Information
You have the following self-service options and other ways to reach out to us to make choices about how your Personal Information is processed:
Accessing, amending and deleting your Account Data. Through your account settings, you may access, and, in some cases, edit or delete the Personal Information that you have provided to us. Please note that the information you can view, update and delete may change as the Services are updated. If you have any questions about viewing or updating your Personal Information, please contact us at privacy@benchling.com.
Deletion. You can request that we delete your data by clicking here. However, if you have collaborated on projects with other users or if your account is associated with an Enterprise Account, some of your Personal Information may not be deletable, depending on how you have contributed to a project or group.
Obtaining a copy of your data. You may request a copy of your data by clicking here.
Opt-out of marketing communications. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email you receive from us or by emailing us at privacy@benchling.com. You may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing emails.
Cookies and tracking technologies. To learn how you can take control and delete cookies and other tracking technologies when you visit our Sites, please see the next section “Cookies and tracking technologies.”
Depending on the region you are located and how you interact with Benchling, you may have additional rights such as:
Withdrawal of consent: If we are processing your Personal Information based on your consent (as indicated at the time of collection of such data), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent does not affect the processing of your Personal Information carried out with your consent prior to its withdrawal.
Portability: You can ask for a copy of your Personal Information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. You can also request that we transmit it to another controller.
Objection: You can contact us to let us know that you object to the further use or disclosure of your Personal Information for certain purposes, such as for direct marketing purposes.
Restriction of processing: You can ask us to restrict further processing of your Personal Data.
Right to file a complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint about Benchling's practices with respect to your Personal Data with the data protection regulator.
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. In some scenarios we may need to verify your identity to protect your Personal Information.
International Data Transfers
Benchling primarily operates in the United States, so by accessing the Services or visiting our Sites, your Personal Information may be transferred to, stored, or processed in the United States and maintained on computers or servers located outside of your state, province, country, or other jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction.
However, we take appropriate safeguards to ensure that your Personal Information remains protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws. If you are located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom or Switzerland these safeguards include transferring your information to a country that the relevant authorities have determined provide an adequate level of protection for personal information, or by implementing Standard Contractual Clauses with our customers, third party service providers and partners. You can learn more about Benchling’s technical and organizational safeguards here.
Privacy Shield.
While Benchling does not rely on Privacy Shield for cross-border data transfers, we continue to comply with the framework as a matter of good practice, including its dispute resolution process.
Benchling has been certified with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection and use of Personal Information transferred from the EEA, UK and/or Switzerland to the United States, respectively. Benchling has certified that it adheres to the Privacy Shield principles of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access and enforcement for such Personal Information. To learn more about the Privacy Shield, view a list of entities who have current certification under Privacy Shield, or to view Benchling’s certification, please visit http://www.privacyshield.gov/list. As required under the principles, when Benchling receives Personal Information under the Privacy Shield and then transfers it to a third-party service provider acting as an agent on Benchling’s behalf, Benchling has certain liability under Privacy Shield if both (i) the agent processing the information in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield and (ii) Benchling is responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.
If you have any questions or concerns about Benchling’s privacy practices, please contact us at the addresses listed below in the section titled “Contact Us.” If you have any unresolved Privacy Shield-related concerns, you may also resolve it through JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider. You can visit https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield for more information or to file a complaint, at no cost to you. Under certain conditions, you may also be entitled to invoke binding arbitration for complaints not resolved by other means.
Your California Privacy Rights
If you are a California resident, you may be able to exercise the following rights (subject to certain limitations at law):
The Right to Know any or all of the following information relating to your Personal Information we have collected and disclosed in the last 12 months, upon verification of your identity:
The specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you;
The categories of Personal Information we have collected about you;
The categories of sources of the Personal Information;
The categories of Personal Information that we have disclosed to third parties for a business purpose, and the categories of recipients to whom this information was disclosed;
The categories of Personal Information we have sold and the categories of third parties to whom the information was sold; and
The business or commercial purposes for collecting or selling the Personal Information.
The Right to Request Deletion of Personal Information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions.
The Right to Opt Out of Personal Information Sales to third parties now or in the future.
You also have the right to be free of discrimination for exercising these rights. However, please note that if the exercise of these rights limits our ability to process Personal Information (such as in the case of a deletion request), we may no longer be able to provide you with the Services or engage with you in the same manner.
How to Exercise your California Privacy Rights
You may submit a request to exercise your California Privacy Rights by emailing us at privacy@benchling.com or by clicking here. To fulfill your request, we will need to verify your identity and possibly ask for additional information and documents.
Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request related to Personal Information collected about you. To designate an authorized agent, the authorized agent must provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify that they have been authorized by you to act on their behalf.
Information from Children
We do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Information from anyone under the age of 16. If you are under 16, please do not attempt to register for the Services or send any information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under age 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 16 may have provided us Personal Information, please contact us at privacy@benchling.com.
Benchling security information
Benchling employs technical, organizational and physical safeguards designed to protect the Personal Information we collect. However, security risk is inherent in all internet and information technologies and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your Personal Information.
You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password, phone, and computer by, among other things, signing off after using a shared computer, choosing a complex password that nobody else knows or can easily guess, and keeping your login credentials private and secure.
Please note that we may collect and use your Personal Information to detect, prevent, or investigate security incidents, fraud, or abuse and misuse of our platform and services.
Contact us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:
Benchling, Inc. 680 Folsom St., Floor 8 San Francisco, CA, 94107 privacy@benchling.com
Designated Representative & Contact Information:
Individuals and data protection supervisory authorities in the EEA and the UK may contact our data protection representatives:
EU: DP-Dock GmbH Attn: Benchling, Inc. Ballindamm 39, 20095 Hamburg, Germany www.dp-dock.com benchling@gdpr-rep.com
UK: DP Data Protection Services UK Ltd. Attn: Benchling, Inc., 16 Great Queen Street Covent Garden, London, WC2B 5AH, United Kingdom www.dp-dock.com benchling@gdpr-rep.com
Updates
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, and if we do, the most current version will be available at www.benchling.com/privacy-policy with the date indicating when it was last updated. These changes might be minor, such as updating an address or fixing a typo, or they may be material, such as changes that affect your rights. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy that affect your rights, we will notify you by placing a notice on the Benchling website, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means as required by applicable law.