DATA PRIVACY NOTICE: AXELAR FOUNDATION (THE “FOUNDATION”)

The Foundation is a foundation company created under the laws of the Cayman Islands.

The purpose of this document is to provide you with information on the Foundation's use of your personal data in accordance with the Cayman Islands Data Protection Act, (2021 Revision) and, in respect of EU data subjects, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (together, the "Data Protection Legislation").

If you are an individual, this Data Privacy Notice will affect you directly. If you are an institution or a legal person/entity/arrangement that provides us with personal data on individuals in connection with your business with us, this Data Privacy Notice will be relevant for those individuals and you should transmit this document to such individuals or otherwise advise them of its content.

Your personal data will be processed by the Foundation, and by persons engaged by the Foundation.  Under the Data Protection Legislation, you have rights, and the Foundation has obligations, with respect to your personal data.  The purpose of this notice is to explain how and why the Foundation, and persons engaged by the Foundation, will use, store, share and otherwise process your personal data. This notice also sets out your rights under the Data Protection Legislation, and how you may exercise them.

Your personal data

By virtue of your business with the Foundation or by virtue of you otherwise providing us with personal information on individuals connected with you (for example directors, trustees, employees, representatives, shareholders, investors, clients, beneficial owners or agents), you will provide us with certain personal information which constitutes personal data within the meaning of the Data Protection Legislation.

You may provide us with personal data in the context of the following: (i) engaging in transactions with the Foundation; (ii) in the course of your provision of services to, or contracts with, the Foundation (e.g. contractors, consultants, counterparties); or (iii) any other circumstances in which you provide the Foundation with personal information relating to individuals.

We may also obtain personal data on you from other public accessible directories and sources. These may include websites; bankruptcy registers; tax authorities; governmental agencies and departments, and regulatory authorities, to whom we have regulatory obligations; credit reference agencies; sanctions screening databases; and fraud prevention and detection agencies and organisations, including law enforcement.

This includes information relating to you and/or any individuals connected otherwise connected with you in relation to your business with the Foundation such as: name, residential address, email address, contact details, corporate contact information, signature, nationality, place of birth, date of birth, tax identification, credit history, correspondence records, passport number, bank account details, and source of funds details.

How the Foundation may use your personal data

The Foundation, as the data controller, may collect, store and use your personal data for purposes including the following:

The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract, including:

  • administering or managing the Foundation;
  • facilitating the provision of services to or by the Foundation;
  • facilitating the continuation or termination of the contractual relationship between you and the Foundation; and
  • facilitating the transfer of funds, and administering and facilitating any other transaction, between you and one or more of the Foundation.

The processing is necessary for compliance with applicable legal or regulatory obligations, including:

  • undertaking customer/counterparty due diligence including anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing checks, including verifying the identity and addresses of our customers and counterparties (and, where applicable, their beneficial owners);
  • sanctions screening and complying with applicable sanctions and embargo legislation;
  • complying with requests from regulatory, governmental, tax and law enforcement authorities;
  • surveillance and investigation activities;
  • carrying out audit checks, and instructing our auditors;
  • maintaining statutory registers; and
  • preventing and detecting fraud.

In pursuance of our legitimate interests, or those of a third party to whom your personal data are disclosed, including:

  • complying with a legal, tax, accounting or regulatory obligation to which we or the third party are subject;
  • assessing and processing requests you make;
  • sending updates, information and notices or otherwise corresponding with your business with the Foundation;
  • investigating any complaints, or pursuing or defending any claims, proceedings or disputes;
  • providing you with, and informing you about products and services;
  • managing our risk and operations;
  • complying with audit requirements;
  • ensuring internal compliance with our policies and procedures;
  • protecting the Foundation against fraud, breach of confidence or theft of proprietary materials;
  • seeking professional advice, including legal advice;
  • facilitating business asset transactions involving the Foundation or related entities;
  • monitoring communications to/from us (where permitted by law); and
  • protecting the security and integrity of our IT systems.

We will only process your personal data in pursuance of our legitimate interests where we have considered that the processing is necessary and, on balance, our legitimate interests are not overridden by your legitimate interests, rights or freedoms.

The Foundation continues to be a Data Controller even though it may from time to time engage service providers and other third parties to perform certain activities on the Foundation's behalf.

Sharing your personal data

We may share your personal data with our affiliates and delegates. In certain circumstances we may be legally obliged to share your personal data and other financial information with respect to your interest in the Foundation with relevant regulatory authorities such as the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority or the Tax Information Authority. They, in turn, may exchange this information with foreign authorities, including tax authorities and other applicable regulatory authorities.

The Foundation’s affiliates and delegates may process your personal data on the Foundation's behalf, including with our banks, accountants, auditors and lawyers which may be data controllers in their own right.  The Foundation's services providers are generally processors acting on the instructions of the Foundation. Additionally, a service provider may use your personal data where this is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which it is directly subject (for example, to comply with applicable law in the area of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing or where mandated by a court order or regulatory sanction). The service provider, in respect of this specific use of personal data, acts as a data controller.

In exceptional circumstances, we will share your personal data with regulatory, prosecuting and other governmental agencies or departments, and parties to litigation (whether pending or threatened) in any country or territory.

Sending your personal data internationally

Due to the international nature of our business, your personal data may be transferred to jurisdictions that do not offer equivalent protection of personal data as under the Data Protection Legislation. In such cases, we will process personal data or procure that it be processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Legislation, which may include having appropriate contractual undertakings in legal agreements with service providers who process personal data on our behalf.

Retention and deletion of your personal data

We will keep your personal data for as long as it is required by us. For example, we may require it for our legitimate business purposes, to perform our contractual obligations, or where law or regulation obliges us to. We will generally retain your personal data throughout the lifecycle of your engagement in transactions or business with us. Some personal data will be retained after your relationship with us ends.  We expect to delete your personal data (at the latest) once there is no longer any legal or regulatory requirement or legitimate business purpose for retaining your personal data.

Automated decision-making

We will not take decisions producing legal effects concerning you, or otherwise significantly affecting you, based solely on automated processing of your personal data, unless we have considered the proposed processing in a particular case and concluded in writing that it meets the applicable requirements under the Data Protection Legislation.

Your rights

You have certain data protection rights, including the right to:

  • be informed about the purposes for which your personal data are processed;
  • access your personal data;
  • stop direct marketing;
  • restrict the processing of your personal data;
  • have incomplete or inaccurate personal data corrected;
  • ask us to stop processing your personal data;
  • be informed of a personal data breach (unless the breach is unlikely to be prejudicial to you);
  • complain to the Data Protection Ombudsman; and
  • require us to delete your personal data in some limited circumstances.

Contact us

We are committed to processing your personal data lawfully and to respecting your data protection rights. Please contact us if you have any questions about this notice or the personal data we hold about you. Our contact details are: info@axelar.foundation marking your communication "Data Protection Enquiry".