Privacy Policy
Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, LLC, including its affiliates and subsidiaries, (“HCSS”) is a pioneer and leader in the construction software industry with headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas. HCSS values your privacy and is committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining your trust. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand HCSS’s policies and practices regarding its treatment of your Personal Data (defined below). By using or accessing the Services (defined below) in any manner, you acknowledge, accept, and consent to HCSS’s practices and policies described in this Privacy Policy.
Scope of Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes HCSS’s practices for collecting, using, storing, sharing, disclosing, and processing Personal Data in connection with: (i) your use of HCSS’s products, services, websites, applications, devices, social media pages, marketing activities, and other activities described in this Privacy Policy; (ii) other businesses providing your Personal Data to HCSS, or (iii) offline communications (e.g., phone calls or site visits) and conferences, trade shows, and other events (collectively, the “Services”). “Personal Data” means any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular person and also includes information referred to as “personal information” or “personally identifiable information” under applicable data privacy laws, rules, or regulations. Personal Data does not include information that is publicly available, de-identified, aggregated, or anonymized as defined by applicable law.
HCSS’s Role
Depending on the circumstance, HCSS may be the data controller or the data processor/service provider for the purposes of processing your Personal Data. Generally, HCSS acts as a data processor/service provider and will only process your Personal Data on behalf of and as instructed by HCSS’s customers, which may be your employer. Use of HCSS’s products and services is governed by a separate agreement, that includes data processing terms. HCSS’s customer that entered into such agreement with HCSS controls the use, access, and processing of Personal Data associated with HCSS’s products and services. If you have been granted access to HCSS’s products or services as a user, please contact the customer that has granted you access with any questions regarding the Personal Data being processed.
Collection and Types of Personal Data
HCSS collects Personal Data that you or your representative provide to HCSS, either by creating an HCSS account, using one of HCSS’s website, requesting information about or using the Services, contacting HCSS’s customer service, engaging with HCSS’s social media accounts, or otherwise interacting with HCSS (e.g., at conferences and trade shows). Generally, this information is requested when you are asked to register for an account with HCSS, subscribe to e-mail newsletters, complete an online form, download resource information, or request information about or purchase HCSS’s products or services. When HCSS’s customers use the products or services, they may provide Personal Data about their employees and users directly to HCSS. HCSS often processes Personal Data on behalf of HCSS’s customers subject to a written agreement. In such a case, HCSS does not control the processing of Personal Data.
HCSS may collect Personal Data about you from third parties. HCSS may obtain your work contact information from third party data suppliers or joint marketing partners to contact you with communications containing promotions, customer stories, HCSS news and updates, or thought leadership. HCSS may also get your information from publicly available sources and social networking sites, like LinkedIn or your employer’s website.
The types of Personal Data HCSS may collect include, but are not limited to, your: (i) contact information (e.g., name, postal address, email address, and phone number); (ii) professional information (e.g., organization name, job role, date of hire, supervisor, employee number, and certifications); (iii) transaction information (e.g., billing address and your organization’s purchase or license of the products or services); (iv) login information (e.g., username, password, and HCSS ID); (v) Internet and device information (e.g., IP address, device identifiers, device type, operating system type and version, browser type, geolocation, connection type); (vi) Internet service provider and cookies; (vii) photos or videos used as part of the products or services; (viii) behavior information (e.g., product interest); (ix) any information that you upload to the websites and/or input into your account; and (x) any other information you may voluntarily provide to HCSS. HCSS utilizes credit card payment processors for credit card purchases and does not store any credit card information (other than confirmation that a credit card payment has been made).
Use of Personal Data
HCSS may use your Personal Data in the following ways: (i) performance of agreements with you and/or your employer; (ii) fulfilling orders related to HCSS’s products and services; (iii) creating an HCSS account; (iv) offering and providing you with a newsletter subscription, surveys, contests, and other special offers; (v) customer testimonials, endorsements, and referrals; (vi) marketing, research, and data analysis; (vii) contacting you about other products and services and events; (viii) providing, monitoring, and updating the websites and Services; (ix) improving HCSS’s Services, including the content and functionality of the Services; (x) administering online education; (xi) answering and responding to your questions and requests, including providing customer service; (xii) event management; (xiii) security and fraud prevention; (xiv) complying with applicable laws and legal obligations; and (xv) carrying out any other purpose disclosed to you at the time the Personal Data was collected.
Legal Bases for Processing Your Personal Data
HCSS may process your Personal Data on a variety of legal bases, depending on the Personal Data concerned and the specific context in which HCSS collects or processes it. Generally, HCSS collects and processes Personal Data from you only when you have consented to such collection or processing, HCSS requires the Personal Data to perform a contract with you or your employer, or the processing is in HCSS’s legitimate interests and is not outweighed by your fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, HCSS may also have a legal obligation to collect Personal Data from you or may otherwise need your Personal Data to protect your vital interests or those of another person.
Sharing Personal Data Outside of HCSS
HCSS may share your Personal Data as follows: (i) to fulfill the purposes for which you or your employer provided such Personal Data; (ii) to HCSS’s affiliates and subsidiaries for the purposes of providing the Services, customer support, or marketing; (iii) to third parties, such as, customers, users, contractors, service providers, data providers, consultants, and other agents (“Service Providers”), that perform tasks on behalf of HCSS or supplement the Services (e.g., hosting and maintenance, data analytics, and data storage); (iv) to HCSS’s business partners, resellers, referral partners, integration partners, HCSS Marketplace partners, and event sponsors; (v) to an actual or potential buyer, investor, or partner (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any actual or proposed divestiture, purchase, merger, or acquisition of any part of HCSS’s business, or any other similar transaction or proceeding; (vi) to law enforcement, public authorities, or legal counsel where HCSS reasonably believes such sharing is necessary and appropriate as a matter of applicable law or to exercise, establish, or defend HCSS’s legal rights; (vii) to protect the safety of you or HCSS’s customers, website visitors, or the public to the extent such disclosure is necessary for such protection; or (viii) to any other person or entity where HCSS has your consent to the disclosure, a legitimate legal basis for the disclosure, or been instructed to share your Personal Data on behalf of HCSS’s customers.
HCSS ensures all Service Providers are contractually bound by confidentiality and privacy obligations, including the restriction to only act on HCSS’s instructions and in accordance with applicable laws. Your Personal Data, such as your name or username, may be available to others (e.g., when you create a profile or submit public queries). This information may be accessed by users or visitors who use HCSS’s websites and may be accessed by commercial search engines to the extent that such engines are permitted to access HCSS’s websites. HCSS does not sell any of your Personal Data.
International Data Transfers
HCSS is headquartered in the United States, and its websites are hosted in the United States. However, your Personal Data may be transferred to and processed in countries other than the country in which you are a resident. Such countries may have data protection laws that are different from the laws of your country of residence. If you are a resident of a country other than the United States and provide HCSS with your Personal Data, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Data into the United States. If HCSS transfers your Personal Data outside of the European Economic Area and/or the United Kingdom, HCSS will ensure your Personal Data is processed only in countries that provide an adequate level of protection for your Personal Data or where the recipient of your Personal Data provides appropriate safeguards, such as the European Union’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the United Kingdom’s International Data Transfer Agreement.
Children's Privacy
HCSS’s Services are not directed toward children, and HCSS does not knowingly collect any Personal Data from children under the age of 13, or such other applicable age of consent for privacy purposes in relevant jurisdictions. If you are under the age of 13, or such other applicable age of consent for privacy purposes in relevant jurisdictions, you must ask your parent or guardian to assist you in using HCSS’s Services. If HCSS becomes aware that HCSS inadvertently received Personal Data from a child under the age of 13, or such other applicable age of consent for privacy purposes in relevant jurisdictions HCSS will delete such Personal Data from HCSS’s records. If HCSS offers or provides any contests, sweepstakes, or promotions, HCSS may restrict entries to such contest, sweepstakes, or promotions to entrants who are at least 18 years of age.
Security
HCSS has implemented and maintains reasonable and appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of your Personal Data. Those safeguards include measures to protect your Personal Data from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized access, alteration, and destruction. HCSS also contractually requires its Service Providers to maintain industry standard safeguards and protect your Personal Data from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized access, alteration, and destruction. To demonstrate HCSS’s commitment to data security, HCSS has undergone external audits and received SOC 1 (Type 2) and SOC 2 (Type 2) reports. You can view more about HCSS’s commitment to data security at HCSS’s Security page.
Data Retention
HCSS generally only retains Personal Data for as long as HCSS needs to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or pursuant to a written agreement. HCSS may retain certain Personal Data as required by applicable law or for legitimate business purposes. When HCSS no longer has an ongoing legitimate business need to process your Personal Data, HCSS may either delete, de-identify, or anonymize your Personal Data. If HCSS cannot delete, de-identify, or anonymize your Personal Data, then HCSS will securely store your Personal Data and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
Third-Party Products, Services, or Applications
HCSS may provide you with the opportunity to access and use third-party products, services, or applications (“Third-Party Services”) through HCSS’s websites and/or products. This Privacy Policy only addresses HCSS’s practices for collecting, using, storing, sharing, disclosing, and processing Personal Data in connection with your use of HCSS’s Services. It does not apply to the practices of third parties that HCSS does not own, control, employ, or manage. HCSS is not responsible or liable for any damages or losses related to your use of any Third-Party Services.
Your Privacy Rights and Choices
Depending on the law applicable to the country, state, or province where you reside, you may have the following rights regarding your Personal Data, subject to certain limitations and exceptions: (i) the right to be informed about the collection and use of your Personal Data; (ii) the right to request access to and disclosure of your Personal Data; (iii) the right to change or correct any mistakes in your Personal Data; (iv) the right to delete your Personal Data from HCSS’s systems; (v) the right to transfer your Personal Data to a third party of your choosing or have your Personal Data provided to yourself in a commonly used and machine-readable format; (vi) the right to restrict HCSS’s processing of your Personal Data; (vii) the right to withdraw consent to the extent HCSS’s processing is based solely upon your consent; (viii) the right to object to any processing of your Personal Data where HCSS relies on legitimate interests; and (ix) the right to object to automated processing.
To exercise any of your rights, please submit a written request using the details provided in the “Contact HCSS” section at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. In certain regions, you may also have the right to issue a complaint with a data protection authority (“DPA”) about HCSS’s collection and use of your Personal Data. Please contact your local DPA for more information. Contact details for DPAs in the European Economic Area and certain other countries can be found here. If you exercise any of your rights detailed in this section, HCSS will not discriminate against you. If HCSS processes your Personal Data on behalf of HCSS’s customer, please direct your privacy inquiries and requests to exercise your rights to such customer.
Before HCSS can provide any of your Personal Data or information you request pursuant to your rights, HCSS must verify your identity. To verify your identity, you may need to provide information about yourself, including, but not limited to, your name, date of birth, contact information, government identification number, answers to your security questions, or other personal identifying information. HCSS will match this information against the information HCSS has previously collected about you to verify your identity and your request. If HCSS is unable to verify your identity as part of your request, HCSS will not be able to satisfy your request. HCSS is not obligated to collect additional information to enable you to verify your identity. For deletion requests, you will be required to submit a verifiable request for deletion. If you would like to appoint an authorized agent to make a privacy right request on your behalf, you must provide the agent with written, signed permission to submit privacy right requests on your behalf, or provide a letter from your attorney. The agent or attorney must provide this authorization at the time of request. HCSS may require you to verify your identity with HCSS directly before HCSS provides any requested information to your approved agent or attorney. Information collected for purposes of verifying your request will only be used for verification.
Under California law, HCSS is only obligated to respond to Personal Data access requests from the same consumer up to two (2) times in a twelve (12) month period. If a consumer makes unfounded, repetitive, or excessive requests (as determined in HCSS’s reasonable discretion) to access Personal Data, HCSS may charge a fee subject to a maximum set by applicable law.
Please note, some of these rights are not absolute. HCSS will respond to your request within thirty (30) days of receiving your request.
Location Information
You can turn location-based services on and off by adjusting the settings of your mobile device. Turning off location-based services may affect the functionality of HCSS’s websites, products, and services.
Cookie Policy
Cookies are small pieces of text containing unique data to identify your computer to the network and are provided by most websites. Cookies help a website remember your preferences, provide you with targeted advertisements or personalized content, and serve many other purposes. They can be enabled when pixels are places on a website, which enable a website to read and place cookies. Pixels are also referred to as web beacons, clear gifs, and tags. HCSS may uses pixels to help HCSS recognize when someone has visited HCSS’s websites or opened an email that HCSS sent.
Cookies can be either first-party or third-party. First-party cookies are set directly by the website owner or service provider. Cookies set by HCSS on HCSS’s websites are first-party cookies. Third-party cookies track your behavior for advertising purposes, enable third-party features or functionality to be provided on or through HCSS’s websites, and are not a direct part of HCSS’s websites. HCSS does not control the collection or further use of data by third parties using third-party cookies.
Cookies can also be persistent or session. A persistent cookie is stored by the web browser on your device until you delete it or it expires. The expiration date is determined by the creator of the cookie. A session cookie is created temporarily on your device for use by a website during your visit, stores information you enter, and tracks your activity within the website. A session cookie is deleted after you leave the website or when the web browser is closed.
HCSS’s websites use first-party cookies and third-party cookies for various purposes, including, but not limited to, facilitating the operation and functionality of HCSS’s websites, improving your user experience on HCSS’s websites, analyzing how HCSS’s websites are used, improving HCSS’s websites and products, researching and analyzing data and statistics, and marketing.
HCSS uses the following types of cookies: (i) necessary cookies; (ii) preference cookies; (iii) statistic cookies; (iv) and marketing cookies.
Necessary cookies help make HCSS’s websites usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the websites. HCSS’s websites cannot function properly without these cookies. Disabling necessary cookies may affect how HCSS’s websites function.
Preference cookies enable HCSS’s websites to remember information that changes the way the websites behave or look (e.g., your preferred language or your region).
Statistic cookies help HCSS understand how visitors interact with HCSS’s websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across HCSS’s websites. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user. HCSS may partner with advertising companies to serve you ads based on your web browsing activity, purchases and/or interests. Some techniques for delivering content based on your interests are referred to as online behavioral advertising (“OBA”). HCSS uses OBA, such as Google AdWords Remarketing and other retargeting vendors, to advertise HCSS in a way that’s relevant and personalized to you. You allow HCSS to use any information you have provided to serve a relevant ad to you. For example, HCSS may display relevant ads tailored to you based on what parts of the HCSS website you have viewed by placing a cookie on your machine. Additionally, if you explicitly consent by submitting HCSS forms, HCSS may use that information within an ad. If you do not wish to participate in HCSS’s Google AdWords Remarketing, you can opt out by visiting Google’s Ads Preferences Manager. You can also opt out of any third-party OBA vendor’s use of cookies by visiting www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.
HCSS’s websites give you the ability to change your preferences in relation to cookies, advertising, and analytic services. You can do so through the cookie banner that appears when you access HCSS’s websites or by submitting a written request to HCSS via the methods listed in the “Contact HCSS” section at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can also choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies. There are also other ways to opt out of having your web browsing information used for behavioral advertising purposes, such as changing your privacy settings on platforms such as LinkedIn or Twitter. Removing or rejecting cookies may affect the functionality of HCSS’s websites, products, and services.
Consumer Privacy Rights for Residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia
As of the version date of this Privacy Policy, five (5) states in the United States provide additional privacy protections to residents of those states. These states and their associated privacy laws are listed below:
- California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (the "CPRA”);
- Colorado Privacy Act (the “CPA”);
- Connecticut Act Concerning Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring (the “CTDPA”);
- Utah Consumer Privacy Act (the “UCPA”); and
- Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (the “VCDPA”).
The additional privacy protections provided by these state privacy laws include: (i) the right to know what Personal Data HCSS collects, discloses, and sells during the past twelve (12) months as well as the categories, sources, and purposes; (ii) the right to request a copy of your Personal Data; (iii) the right to request correction or deletion of your Personal Data; (iv) the right to opt out of the sale of your Personal Data or the tracking or sharing of your Personal Data for purposes of targeted behavioral advertising; and (v) the right to opt out of profiling.
The Personal Data HCSS collects, the categories of Personal Data, and the business purposes for which HCSS collects, uses, shares, and discloses Personal Data with third parties in the past twelve (12) months are described in the “Collection and Types of Personal Da”, “Use of Personal Data”, and “Sharing Personal Data Outside of HCSS” sections of this Privacy Policy.
HCSS does not sell your Personal Data. Please note, some of these rights are not absolute. HCSS will not discriminate or retaliate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights.
To exercise any of your privacy rights, please reference the “Your Privacy Rights and Choices” section of this Privacy Policy.
Updates to the Privacy Policy
HCSS may update this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting the updated Privacy Policy on HCSS’s websites. The most recent version of this Privacy Policy is reflected by the version date at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. By using the Services or providing Personal Data to HCSS following such changes, you will have accepted the updated Privacy Policy.
Contact HCSS
Please use the following contact information below to exercise one of your rights listed in this Privacy Policy or to contact HCSS with any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or HCSS’s practices regarding your Personal Data.
Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, LLC
Attn: Privacy Officer
13151 W Airport Blvd
Sugar Land, TX 77478
privacy@hcss.com
(800) 683-3196
Last Updated: March 23, 2023