Privacy notice

Privacy notice

Effective Date: [March 17, 2023]

This Privacy Notice discloses the privacy practices for SES AI Corporation and its affiliates.(“SES,” “we,” “us,” “our”). It describes how we collect, use, and disclose information in connection with your access and use of all websites and other online products and services provided by us that link to this Privacy Notice, including https://ses.ai (and all related subdomains) (the “Sites”) and related online and offline services thereto (collectively the “Services”). SES is the data controller of your information. This notice will inform you of the following:

  • What information we collect;
  • How we use it;
  • With whom it is shared;
  • How it can be corrected;
  • How it is secured;
  • How long it will be stored;
  • How notice changes will be communicated; and
  • How to address concerns over misuse of your information.

Information We Collect
We collect information in three main ways: (1) information collected directly from you; (2) information collected through automated means; and (3) information collected directly from others. We are the sole owners of your information that we collect. We may combine the information you give us with other information sources (both online and offline), including third-party sources, and use it for the purposes identified in this Privacy Notice.

Information Collected Directly from You

The general categories of your information that we collect directly from you (for example, if you fill out the Contact Us form on our Sites or seek customer service) may include, but are not limited to:

  • Commercial information, including your interest in SES products and Services and transaction information;
  • Personal identifiers, including your contact information (name, address, telephone number, email address, business information, and candidate information (for job applicants);
  • Demographic information, including your gender, age, and interests; and
  • Other data collected that could directly or indirectly identify you.

Information Collected Through Automated Means
As discussed further below in the “Analytics/Cookies/Tracking Technologies” section, we, and our service providers, may use a variety of technologies, including cookies, to assist in this information collection. The general categories of your information that we collect through automated means may include, but are not limited to:

  • Information about your access to and use of the Sites and emails, such as your IP address, browser language, the state or country from which you accessed the Services, software and hardware attributes (including device IDs, operating system, and browser type), referring and exit URLs, the links you click and files you download, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the terms you use in searches on our websites, the date and time you accessed our websites or opened our emails, and other similar information;
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information;
  • Information when you use our Services; and
  • Information about your location, including general location information (such as your IP address and ZIP code).

Information Collected Directly from Other Sources
The general categories of your information that we collect directly from others may include, but are not limited to:

  • Information you make public: We collect or obtain your information that you manifestly choose to make public, including via social media (e.g., hashtags, contents, communications, comments, photos, video);
  • Interaction information: If you interact with any third-party content on a Site (including third party plugins and cookies), we may receive your information from the relevant third-party provider of that content;
  • Third party information: We collect or obtain your information from third parties who provide it to us (e.g., credit reference agencies; law enforcement authorities; etc.); and
  • Other sources: we may receive information about you from other sources, such as business partners, marketers, researchers, analysts, social network services, and other parties to help us supplement our records.

Analytics/Cookies/Tracking Technologies
We may use third-party web analytics services on the Services, such as those of Google Analytics. These service providers use the sort of technology described in this section to help us analyze how individuals use the Services, including by noting the third-party website from which you arrive. The information collected by the technology will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers, who use the information to evaluate your use of the Service.

We may use cookies, web beacons, IP addresses, browser/canvas fingerprinting and other tracking technologies on our Sites and in our emails. Using tracking technologies allows us to provide benefits to you such as using cookies to identify you so we can suggest content that is likely more relevant to you, thereby saving you time while on our Sites. Tracking technologies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance their experience on our Sites. Usage of tracking technologies is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our Sites. We also automatically collect data to measure website performance including metadata, log files, page load time, page linger time, click throughs and abandonments, network routing and server configurations. Much of the data collected is aggregated or statistical data about how visitors use our Sites and is not linked to your information.

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information collected on our websites for third-party purposes, and that is why we provide the variety of opt-out mechanisms listed below. Some web browsers offer users a “Do Not Track” privacy preference setting in the web browser. We do not currently recognize or respond to browser-initiated Do Not Track signals. Learn more about Do Not Track.

How We Use the Information We Collect
We may use the categories of your information described above for the following business or commercial purposes:

  • Maintain or service customer accounts;
  • Provide customer service;
  • Audit customer activity;
  • Process or fulfill orders and transactions;
  • Verify customer information;
  • Provide advertising or marketing Services;
  • Contact you about new products or Services and offers, promotional information, and other information we believe will be of interest to you (in accordance with any privacy preferences you have expressed to us);
  • Provide products or Services updates;
  • Improve the Services, including customization and personalization;
  • Invite you to participate in promotions, sweepstakes, surveys, and provide feedback to us;
  • Communicate with investors;
  • Communicate with you about changes to legal policies;
  • Secure the Services and investigate and help prevent fraud, security issues, and abuse;
  • Understand, detect, and resolve problems with the Services and other issues being reported;
  • Comply with contractual obligations;
  • Comply with any procedures, laws, and regulations where necessary for our legitimate interests or legitimate interests of others;
  • Establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights where necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of others, including the enforcement of our legal and contractual rights, other usage policies and agreements, and other legal terms or controls, or to engage in other legal matters; and
  • Fulfill other requests with your consent and for any other purposes disclosed at the time you provide personal information.


We may aggregate and/or de-identify any information collected through the Services so that such information can no longer be linked to you or your device (“Aggregated/De-Identified Information”). We may use Aggregated/De-Identified Information for any purpose, including without limitation for research and marketing purposes, and may also share such data with any third parties, including advertisers, promotional partners, and sponsors, in our sole discretion.

With Whom We Share Information

Affiliated entities

Your information may be shared with affiliated entities to deliver the Services, provide customer service, and operate our business.


Service providers

We use select third-party vendors to help us provide our Services and operate our business, and we may provide access to, or share your information with, these vendors. They provide a variety of services to us, including customer service, payment processing, shipping, sales and marketing, product design and development, data storage, security, fraud prevention, research, and legal services. These service providers are permitted to access and use your information for purposes of performing services for SES or to comply with applicable legal requirements.


Partners

We may share information about your interaction with our Services with our partners in relation to past or potential transactions and integrations.


Protection of SES and others

We may disclose the information we collect about you if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process (for example, a subpoena or court order); (b) enforce our terms of service or sale, this Privacy Notice, or other contracts with you, including investigation of potential violations; (c) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of SES or others.


Business transfers

As we continue to develop our business, we may buy, merge, or partner with other companies. In such transactions, including in contemplation of such transactions, your information may be among the transferred assets. If a portion or all of SES’s assets are sold or transferred to a third party, we may share or transfer your information as part of the transaction.


With Your Consent or At Your Direction

We may share information with third parties when you direct us to do so or if you have consented to additional sharing of your information (including as set out in this Privacy Notice).


International Transfers

Your information may be transferred to, stored in, accessed from, or processed in the United States or other jurisdictions in which we or our service providers maintain facilities. You understand that these jurisdictions may have different data protection regimes than in the country in which you are located.

Legal Bases for Use of Your Information

The laws of some jurisdictions, including the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, require that companies only process your “Personal Data” (as that term is defined in the applicable law, like the EU General Data Protection Regulation) if they have a legal basis (or justifiable need) for processing your Personal Data. To the extent those laws apply, our legal bases for processing Personal Data are as follows:

  • To perform our obligations pursuant to a contract (or pending contract) with you. For example, we will process your Personal Data to enter into a contract with you, and to honor our commitments in any contracts that we have with you;
  • For our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of others. For example, we will process your Personal Data to: operate our business and our Services; identify and fix any issues with our Services; secure the Services; learn more about how our customers use the Services; perform internal analytics; improve the Services and users’ experiences; conduct marketing; provide you with certain information about new products, special offers or other information that we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided in accordance with applicable law; make and receive payments; comply with legal requirements and defend our legal rights; prevent fraud; engage in a business change (e.g., sale, merger); and know the customer to whom we are providing Services;
  • To comply with our legal obligations, such as our obligation to share data with tax authorities; and
  • With your consent. Where we rely on this basis, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time as described in the “Your Access to, Choices and Rights with Respect to Your Information” section below.

Your Access to, Choices and Rights with Respect to Your Information
You may instruct us not to use your information to contact you by email, postal mail, or phone regarding products, services, promotions, and special events that might appeal to your interests by contacting us by submitting your request via the Contact Us form. In commercial email messages, you can opt out by following the instructions located at the bottom of such emails. Removing your name from the email list may take a reasonable amount of time. Please note that, regardless of your request, we may still use and share certain information as permitted by this Privacy Notice or as required by applicable law. For example, you may not opt out of certain operational emails, such as those reflecting our relationship or transactions with you.


Depending on where you live, you may have certain rights with respect to your information. For example, under local laws, including in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and Canada, you may have some or all of the following rights:

  • The right to access personal information we hold about you;
  • The right to have any inaccurate personal information we hold about you corrected or updated;
  • The right to object to our processing of your personal information or prevent the processing of your personal information for direct-marketing purposes;
  • The right to withdraw your consent at any time if and to the extent we are relying on consent as the basis for processing your personal information;
  • The right to restrict the use of your personal information;
  • The right to have the personal information we hold about you deleted in certain circumstances; and
  • The right to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to request that we transfer it to a third party, with certain exceptions.


To exercise your data protection rights or to receive more details in connection with them, you can submit requests via the Contact Us form. You may be required to provide additional information necessary to confirm your identity before we can respond to your request.


We will consider all such requests and provide our response within the time period required by applicable law. Please note, however, that certain information may be exempt from such requests, for example if we need to keep the information to comply with our own legal obligations or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. Your rights and our responses will vary based on your state or country of residency. Please note that you may be in a jurisdiction where we are not obligated, or are unable, to fulfill a request. In such a case, your request may not be fulfilled. If you are a California resident (i.e., a “Consumer“), please see the “Privacy Information for California Residents” section below for information about your specific rights under California law.


If applicable, you may make a complaint to your local data protection supervisory authority in the country where you are based. Alternatively, you may seek a remedy through local courts if you believe your rights have been breached.

Security
We take a variety of physical, technical, administrative, and organizational security measures to protect your information against accidental or unlawful destruction or accidental loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, and no means of electronic or physical storage, is absolutely secure. As such, you acknowledge and accept that we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to, through, or on our Services or via the Internet and that any such transmission is at your own risk.

How Long We Retain Your Information
We may retain your information we collect for as long as necessary to provide products or Services to you, to operate our business, to enable us to communicate with you, or to satisfy our legal or contractual obligations. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and used it and/or as required to comply with applicable laws. Where required, we may anonymize or dispose of the information we collect.

Third Party Links and Features
Please be aware that third-party websites accessible or recommended through our Services may have their own privacy and data collection policies and practices. These links and features are provided for your reference and convenience only and do not imply any endorsement of information provided through these third-party links and features, nor any association with their operators. We are not responsible for any actions, content of websites, or privacy policies of such third parties. We urge you to read the privacy and security policies of these third parties.

Notification of Changes

Whenever material changes are made to our Privacy Notice, this page will be updated.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, you should contact us via telephone at +1.800.495.0061 or submit your request through the “Contact Us” form.

Privacy Information for California Residents

Terms used in this section and not otherwise defined have the meaning given to them under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). Consistent with the requirements of the CCPA, this section provides additional information about our collection and use of your “personal information” and your choices with respect to such information.

 

The information collected, the sources of that information, the purposes of use and the categories which we disclose for business purposes are set forth in the “Information We Collect”, “How We Use the Information We Collect”, and “With Whom We Share Information” sections above.

 

We do not sell (as that term is defined under the CCPA) California residents’ personal information. We do not sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age.

In the preceding 12 months, we may have disclosed the following categories of personal information to the following categories of recipients:

 

Vendors (including data storage and hosting providers, email providers, payment processors, shipping vendors, marketing vendors, IT support providers, CRM providers) may receive:

  • Personal Identifiers;
  • Demographic Information;
  • Commercial Information;
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information; and
  • Inferences for use in creating a consumer profile.

 

Partners (including sales and integration partners) may receive:

  • Personal Identifiers;
  • Demographic Information;
  • Commercial Information;
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information; and
  • Inferences for use in creating a consumer profile.

 

Consistent with the CCPA, we allow individuals to make requests about their personal information. Specifically, unless certain exceptions apply, you may request that we:

  • Inform you about the categories of personal information we collect or disclose about you; the categories of sources of such information; the business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information; and the categories of third parties with whom we share/disclose personal information;
  • Provide access to and/or a copy of certain personal information we hold about you;
  • Delete certain personal information we have about you;
  • Provide you with information about certain financial incentives that we offer to you, if any; and
  • We also do not discriminate or take adverse action against individuals who make requests about their personal information.

 

We reserve the right to verify your identity before responding to a request, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name, email address, phone number, or other information. You are also permitted to designate an authorized agent to submit certain requests on your behalf. In order for an authorized agent to be verified, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may also follow up with you to verify your identity before processing the authorized agent’s request.

 

Please note that certain information may be exempt from such requests, consistent with California law. For example, we must retain certain information in order to provide the Services to you or to comply with legal obligations. If you would like further information regarding requests for personal information or would like to make such a request, please call us toll free at +1.800.495.0061 or submit your request through the “Contact Us” form.

 

California “Shine the Light” Disclosure.

The California “Shine the Light” law gives residents of California the right under certain circumstances to opt out of the sharing of certain categories of personal information (as defined in the Shine the Light law) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not share your personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes within the meaning of that law.

Privacy Information for Nevada Residents

Under Nevada law, certain Nevada consumers may opt out of the sale of “Personally Identifiable Information” for “Monetary Consideration” (as such terms are defined under Nevada law) to a person for that person to license or sell such information to others. We do not engage in such activity; however, if you are a Nevada resident who has purchased goods or services from us, you may submit a request to opt out of any future sales under Nevada law by contacting us via telephone at +1.800.495.0061 or submit your request through the “Contact Us” form. Please note we may take reasonable steps to verify your identity and the authenticity of the request.

Supplemental Privacy Notice for South Korea Residents

Pursuant to the Personal Information Protection Act of Korea (“PIPA”), this Supplemental Privacy Notice for South Korea Residents sets forth the matters on (i) third-party provision of personal information, (ii) outsourcing of personal information processing, (iii) personal information destruction procedure and methods, and (iv) privacy officers. This Supplemental Privacy Notice only applies to our processing of personal information of users in South Korea.

Provision of Personal Information to Third Parties

We process your personal information only within the scope of the disclosed purpose of personal information processing. In the event that we use a third party to process your personal information, we will obtain your consent or where permitted or required under law, statute, or regulation, including Articles 17 or 18 of the PIPA. Your personal information will not otherwise disclosed to a third party.

Outsourcing of Personal Information Processing

We do not outsource the processing of your personal information to third-party service providers.

Personal Information Destruction Process and Methods

We destroy your personal information without delay when your personal information becomes no longer necessary either because the retention period has expired or the disclosed purpose for personal information processing has been achieved. If the retention period expired or the disclosed purpose for processing has been achieved but we must continue to retain your personal information due to applicable laws, statutes, or regulations, we store and manage your personal information as a separate database.

The destruction process and method is as follows:

  • We select personal information for which the grounds of destruction have been met and destroy such selected information pursuant to the approval of our privacy officer.
  • We destroy personal information recorded and stored in the form of electronic files so that records cannot be reproduced, and the personal information printed on paper is either shredded or incinerated.


Privacy Officer

We have a designated privacy officer to oversee data privacy-related issues and to handle complaints and requests related to the processing of the personal information of users in South Korea. If you have any questions, requests or complaints arising out of our services, you can contact our privacy officer through the “Contact Us” form.