Privacy Policy

Effective Date: August 4, 2022

Shield Capital LLC (hereinafter referred to as "Shield Capital", "we" or "us") believes that the responsible use of personal information collected on our website is critical to our business objectives and reputation. As part of our commitment to privacy, we have adopted this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy ("Policy") describes in detail how we deal with information that we collect when you access or use this website (the "Site"), contact our personnel, or otherwise interact with us (collectively, the “Services”). For individuals located in the EEA and/or the UK, there is a “EEA and/or UK Privacy Rights” section in this Policy.

By using or accessing the Site or the Services in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined below, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use and share your information as described in this Policy. This Policy may change from time to time (see the “Changes to Our Privacy Policy” section in this Policy).  Your continued use of the Site after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check this Policy periodically for updates.

Remember that your use of the Services is at all times subject to our Terms of Use and Disclosure Notice, which incorporates this Policy. 

How We Collect Information

We may collect information about you by the following means:

  • Directly from you, when you provide information to us or interact with us;

  • Automatically from you, when you utilize or interact with our Site or Services;

  • Directly from you, when you complete applications, forms or questionnaires you may complete or agreements you enter into with us, including information about your credit history or financial situation, and your transactions with us or others who provide services to us.

  • From other third party sources that provide consumer data, such as information about your interests, demographic information, and marketing inferences.

If you decline to provide us with the personal information we require, then we may not be able to make investment products available to you or to provide other Services to you.

Information We Collect

In order to better provide you with our Services, we may collect the following categories of information:

  • Contact information and any other information you choose to include when you communicate with us via e-mail, mail, phone or other channels;

  • Device information when you utilize our technology platforms, including as model, serial number, device location, usage data, and operating information; 

  • Survey information in response to questions we may send you, including for feedback and research purposes; 

  • User Content you may provide to publicly post via the Services (e.g., comments);

  • Online User Activity described in the next section; 

  • Biographical information when you inquire about or apply for a position with us.

If you provide us with information regarding another individual, you represent that you have that person’s consent to give us his or her information and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Policy.

Online User Activity, Cookies and Information Collected by Other Automated Means

When you interact with the Services, we may automatically collect certain information about your use of our Services. This information may include:

  • Usage Details about your interaction with our Services (such as the date, time, and length of visits, and specific pages or content accessed during the visits, search terms, frequency of the visits, referring website addresses);

  • Device Information including the IP address and other details of a device that you use to connect with our Services (such as device type and unique device identifier, operating system, browser type); 

  • Location information where you choose to provide the website with access to information about your device’s location.

Your browser or device may include “Do Not Track” functionality. If you have selected this feature, we will continue to use cookies and other tracking technologies to provide you the features of our website but will block third parties from being able to collect data regarding your interactions with our website via cookies.

How We Use Personal Information

We use your Personal Information for the following reasons:

  • Enhance the quality of the Services we wish to provide in connection with the Services; 

  • To complete investments between you and Shield Capital;

  • Respond to your requests, questions and comments and provide investor support;

  • To support our legitimate interests of maintaining and improving the user experience, and the Site;

  • Monitor the performance of our Site including metrics such as total number of visitors, and traffic; 

  • Interact with you, including to notify you regarding investments, services, and promotions that may be of interest to you and inform you about important changes to this Privacy Policy, our Terms or other policies;

  • Tailor the content we display to you in our Services and communications, and offer products and services that we believe may be of interest to you;

  • Manage, operate, and improve the Services and grow our business, including understanding our customer base and the effectiveness of our marketing, events, promotional campaigns, and publications, and diagnose or fix technology problems;

  • Evaluate, recruit, and hire personnel;

  • Comply with legal requirements and industry standards, detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be fraudulent or illegal, and protect the rights of Shield Capital, you, or others.

We may use and share information in an aggregated or de-identified manner at our discretion, including for research, analysis, modeling, marketing, and improvement of our Services.

How We Share Your Information

  • Service Providers. We may share your information with service providers that we believe need the information to perform a technology, business, or other professional function for us such as billing and collection, IT services, maintenance and hosting of our Services, payment processors, marketing partners, accounting, auditing, and tax services, and other professional services. 

  • Analytics. We partner with analytics providers, who collect information on our websites to assist us with measuring visits and traffic on our websites so we can measure and improve the performance of the sites.

  • Social Media. If you interact with us on social media platforms, the platform may be able to collect information about you and your interaction with us. If you interact with social media objects on our Services (for example, by clicking on a Facebook “like” button), both the platform and your connections on the platform may be able to view that activity. To control this sharing of information, please review the privacy policy of the relevant social media platform.

  • Affiliates. We share information with other entities in our corporate family, for purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy. 

  • Corporate Event. We reserve the right to transfer to another entity or its affiliates or service providers some or all information about you in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, acquisition, sale of assets or any line of business, change in ownership control, or financing transaction. We cannot promise that an acquiring party or the merged entity will have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Policy.

  • Legal. We share information where necessary to comply with applicable law, regulations, subpoenas, or to respond to requests from law enforcement agencies or other government authorities or third-parties, as required by law and without your consent when it is necessary to protect our customers, employees, or property; detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; in emergency situations; or to enforce our rights under our terms of service and policies.

Please note that Shield Capital only discloses information to our employees and third-party organizations that (1) need to know such information in order to process it on Shield Capital’s behalf or to provide services as described above, and (2) have agreed not to disclose it to any other parties without Shield Capital’s consent. 

How We Protect and Store Your Personal Information

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may need to keep your data for longer than our specified retention periods to honor your requests, including to continue keeping you opted out of marketing emails, or to comply with legal or other obligations. 

We use a combination of physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the information we collect through the Services. While we use these precautions to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of the networks, systems, servers, devices, and databases we operate or that are operated on our behalf.

If you use our Services outside of the United States, you understand that we may collect, process, and store your personal information in the United States and other countries. 

Your Privacy Options

You may have certain choices when it comes to how we collect and use your information:

  • Email Marketing. If at any time you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email or email us at privacy@shieldcap.com.

  • Online Activity Tracking. You have several options to either prevent our collection of information regarding your online activity:

    • You can opt out or set preferences regarding cookies when a device you utilize visits the Sites, by clicking here to access our cookie management tool.

    • You can usually modify your browser setting to disable or reject cookies across the internet. Note that if you delete your cookies or if you set your browser to decline cookies, some features of our website or Services may not function properly or be available.

    • If you are visiting the Services from a mobile device, the operating system of the device may offer you options regarding how the device collects and uses your information. Click here for more information.

Links

This Site may contain hyperlinks to other websites that are not operated or monitored by Shield Capital. These other websites are not subject to this Policy and we are not responsible for their content or for the policy they apply to the treatment of Personal Information. We recommend that you read the privacy policy on these websites and check how these websites protect your Personal Information and whether they are trustworthy.

Persons Under the Age of 18

The Site is not intended for persons under 18 years of age. No one under age 18 may provide any information to or on the Site.  We do not knowingly collect personal information from persons under 18.  If you are under 18, do not use or provide any information on this Site or on or through any of its features.  If we learn we have collected or received personal information from someone under 18 years of age without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as soon as possible and cease the use of that information in accordance with applicable law.  If you believe we might have any information from or about a person under 18 years of age, please contact us privacy@shieldcap.com.  

Jurisdiction-Specific Notices

Certain jurisdictions may provide additional rights to individuals with respect to the collection and use of Personal Information that we have collected. For example, you may have the right to request that we: (i) disclose to you any Personal Information that we have about you; (ii) correct or delete Personal Information that we have about you (subject to certain exceptions); or (iii) not disclose or sell your information to a third party (excluding qualified service providers). If you are a resident of any of the following jurisdictions, click on your location to learn more.

California Residents

California’s “Shine the Light” law permits customers in California to request certain details about how certain types of their information are shared with third parties for those third parties’ own direct marketing purposes. We do not share information with third parties for their own marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and have questions about this, you may email us at Privacy@shieldcap.com.

EEA, Switzerland and/or UK Privacy Rights

If you are located in the EEA, Switzerland, or the UK, you are entitled to certain rights, subject to applicable exceptions, under the GDPR, Swiss, and UK data protection laws. Please note that, in order to verify your identity, we may require you to provide us with information prior to accessing any records containing information about you.

We typically will process your information pursuant to the following legal bases: (1) with your consent; (2) as necessary to perform our agreement to provide Services to you; or (3) as necessary for our legitimate interests in providing the Services where those interests do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms related to data privacy. We also may process your information where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

EU/UK Privacy Rights

If you are an EU or UK a resident, applicable laws may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. We may extend these rights to all users, within the limitations of this Privacy Policy, including the following: 

  • Right of Access: You have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether we are processing personal data about you, and if so, request a copy of the personal data. If you would like a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, please send a description of the personal data you would like a copy of and proof of your identity to our email as set forth below.

  • Right to Correction: You have the right to correct any inaccuracies in the personal data that we hold about you and, where applicable, to complete any incomplete personal data that we hold.

  • Right to Erasure: You have the right to request that we erase the personal data that we hold about you if one of the conditions in Article 17 of the GDPR applies. The right to erasure does not apply in certain circumstances, including where the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

  • Right to Restriction of Processing: You have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data if one of the conditions in Article 18 of the GDPR applies.

  • Right to Data Portability: You have the right to receive personal data concerning you in a structured, common, and machine-readable format or request transmission of the data to a third party, if the conditions in Article 20 of the GDPR are met.

  • Right to Object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data based on our legitimate interests at any time. We will no longer process the data, unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for our processing that override the interests, rights, and freedoms of the data subject, or the processing serves the purpose of asserting, exercising, or defending legal claims. You also have the right to object at any time to the use of your data for direct marketing.

  • Right to Withdraw Consent: If we are processing your personal data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

How To Submit a Request

To submit a request to exercise your rights, please email us at privacy@shieldcap.com. We may have a reason under the law why we do not have to comply with your request, or may comply with it in a more limited way than you anticipated. If we do, we will explain that to you in our response.

Cross-border Transfer of Data

If you use our Services outside of the United States, you understand that we may collect, process, and store your personal information in the United States and other countries. The laws in the U.S. regarding personal information may be different from the laws of your state or country. Any such transfers will comply with safeguards as required by relevant law. By using the Services, you consent to the collection, international transfer, storage, and processing of your data.

Lodging a Complaint

Users that reside in the EEA, Switzerland, or the UK have the right to lodge a complaint about our data collection and processing actions with the supervisory authority concerned. Contact details for data protection authorities are available here.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to the Policy on this page.  The date the Policy was last revised is identified at the bottom of the page.  You are responsible for periodically visiting the Site and the Policy to check for any changes.

How to Contact Shield Capital

Contact privacy@shieldcap.com when you notice any suspicious account activity or experience any information security related events.

(Latest Update: August 4, 2022).