element14 Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) set out the basis upon which the Premier Farnell plc group of companies (“PF/us/we”) provides access to and use of element14. By registering on, accessing or using element14 you agree to be bound by these Terms.

We may update these Terms from time to time without notice so you should check them regularly because your continued use of element14 will constitute your acceptance of the updated Terms.

Any personal information collected on element14 will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Registration

You are required to be registered with element14 in order to participate in, contribute to and access certain services on element14. Your registration is only for your personal use and you should not share your username or password with anyone else. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity that occurs through your account.

Prohibited use / Who should not use element14

You should not use element14 if you are:

1. not of legal age in your country to create binding financial and contractual obligations and  commitments and to assume any liability that you may expose yourself to through your use of element14;
   
   
2. under the age of 13, or if you are between the age of 13 and 18 and do not have the express permission of your parent or guardian to your use of element14;
   
   
3. a person on a  US Denied Persons List or who is a citizen or resident of or located in a country sanctioned by US law (or on any other similar list or  a citizen or resident of or located in a sanctioned country in any other applicable jurisdiction) and we reserve the right to block access to element14 from any such persons or countries;
   
   
4. a person in a country where use of or taking part in any activity or services offered by element14: (i) would be a breach of local laws of the country in which you are located, or (ii) is otherwise prohibited by applicable laws of other countries, including, but not limited to, U.S. export controls;
   
   
5. a person whose use of element14 requires a licence, permission or consent where you do not have such licence, permission or consent.

For the purposes of this paragraph 3, a person excluded from using element14 includes a person doing so on behalf of a company or other organisation that would be prohibited by the terms of paragraph 3.

By using element14 you confirm that you do NOT fall into any of the categories above.

Intellectual property

Content that we provide:

Any content or materials on element14 that we provide will be subject to intellectual property rights (such as copyright, trade marks, design rights) that are owned by or licenced to us.  All rights to this content remains under our ownership or our licensors’ ownership.

No part of element14 or any of its content may be reproduced (in whole or in part) or modified or disassembled/decompiled without our express prior written permission and you should not collect or compile information and/or materials from element14 as part of a database or other work without our express prior written permission. In the event that you are given permission, you are required to retain any copyright or other intellectual property notices contained in the original materials.

Content that you contribute:

We do not claim ownership of any content you contribute to element14 but by posting your content you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free right and licence to use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, process, publish, distribute, transmit, host on our servers and resell/sell/rent any such content.  You confirm that you have all the necessary rights and consents to enable you to grant us this licence.

It is your own responsibility to protect any intellectual property or other rights existing in any content you contribute to element14 and to ensure you have the necessary rights, licences and consents (including from employers) to contribute such content to element14.

By contributing content to a public area of element14 or by choosing to collaborate with another user, the content you contribute or disclose will be available to others and we have no control over how they may use that content or the rights that they may obtain over that content. It is your responsibility to apply any controls you believe to be necessary over the use and rights to such content.

Any content you contribute to a private area of element14 will only be available to users that you have granted access to that area to.

Your responsibilities

You are responsible for:

1. your use of element14, which should be solely for legitimate personal or business purposes;
   
   
2. all content you contribute to element14, including ensuring that such content is not unlawful in any way in your or any other country, offensive or abusive in any way, inaccurate or misleading, confidential, a breach of a third party’s rights or unsolicited/unauthorised advertising or promotional material (spam);
   
   
3. protecting any rights that exist in any content you contribute to element14, as set out in section 4 above;
   
   
4. ensuring that you do not do anything or load onto element14 any content that is technically harmful to or may circumvent, interfere with or jeopardise the security of element14;
   
   
5. keeping back-up copies of any content that you contribute to element14 that you may require;
   
   
6. abiding by any restrictions, limitations and intellectual property rights asserted over content contributed to element14 by other users, including content contributed by us.

Our rights

We have the right to:

1. modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, element14 or any service provided on element14;
   
   
2. where we think it is appropriate, monitor, review, filter, refuse or remove any content, but we have no responsibility for and are under no obligation to monitor, oversee or moderate any content or services on element14 and we do not pre-screen any content;
   
   
3. update, correct, amend or remove any content contributed to element14 (whoever contributed it) although we do not undertake to do so or have any responsibility for doing so;
   
   
4. take any action as we deem appropriate in the event of a failure to comply with these Terms or otherwise, including account withdrawal, content removal and legal action;
   
   
5. close down or archive accounts or projects that have been inactive for an extended period of time;
   
   
6. block any user’s access to element14 for any reason;
   
   
7. change the location of the server on which element14 is hosted from time to time;
   
   
8. assign the benefit, subject to the burden, of the these Terms without consent and without notice to any company in the Premier Farnell group of companies or to a 3rd party in the event of a sale, merger or transfer of all or any part of our business.

Exclusions

We do not have any liability for:

1. the content or services we provide or make available on element14, all of which are made available with a view to providing an open forum for discussion, learning, sharing and social networking and no representations or warranties of any kind are made in respect of such content or services;
   
   
2. any 3rd party materials, services or sites to which you are referred or linked on element14, including liability arising out of allegations that they infringe the rights of any third party or the laws of any country;
   
   
3. any content or information generated or contributed by you or any other 3rd party (including anything you contribute that is technically harmful, e.g. contains viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful date) or for the actions or omissions of any such element14 user or contributor;
   
   
4. element14 or any part of it being suspended or unavailable temporarily or permanently (with or without notice);
   
   
5. the deletion, corruption of or failure to store any content or information contributed to or transmitted via element14;
   
   
6. any claims or loss of any nature arising from the use of or reliance upon any material, products or services contained on or available through element14 (but we do not seek to exclude or limit our liability for any matter which it would be illegal for us to limit or exclude liability, such as death or personal injury caused by our negligence or fraud);
   
   
7. anything that is stated as being your responsibility in sections 4 and 5 above.

General

These Terms and all use of element14 are governed by the laws of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction in the event of any dispute.

Any provision of these Terms that is found by a competent court or authority to be invalid will be deemed to be removed and the remaining provisions of the Terms will continue in full force and effect. Any failure by us to enforce any right or provision in these Terms does not constitute a waiver of our rights or of the applicable provision.

We take the privacy of our customers and prospective customers very seriously. The purpose of this statement is to set out the principles governing our collection and use of personal information we may obtain about you during the course of element14. By accepting these Terms, you are indicating that you have read this Privacy Policy and understand that your personal information may be used in accordance with it.
If you have any questions regarding this Policy or feel that we are not complying with it, please let us know at communitymanager@premierfarnell.com.

How we collect information about you

In order for you to be registered with element14, we need a username, your name and email address (Registration Data) and if you choose to you may at your sole discretion edit your profile and provide further personal information such as employment information, location and photograph (Profile Information). We determine the purpose of collection, use and disclosure of your Registration Data and, as such, are considered the data controller of this information. Because you, not we, determine the purposes for which Profile Information is collected, used and disclosed, we are not the data controller of Profile Information that you provide on your profile.

It is not intended that any sensitive personal data be collected on element14 and therefore you should not include any sensitive personal data (e.g. data relating to health, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnic origin, political opinion) on your profile or otherwise on element14.

During the course of your use of element14 you may pass information to us and/or other Contributors in the context of questions and comments and a dialogue may develop. The majority of this information will not be personal data but, to the extent that you do disclose any personal data during these sessions, that information is retained in accordance with this Policy.

Any information exchanged during an online conversation you have with another Contributor may be recorded, primarily for customer service, monitoring and security purposes, but, save for the tracking referred to below, the storing of emails on our servers of emails sent via element14 and the recordal of your registration and profile information, your participation in the element14 environment will not be recorded.

How we store and use your information

Your Registration Data and Profile Information is stored on a Group server located in the UK and it may be used by us or any other company in the Group:

• For the purposes of your participation in element14, including contacting you in connection with any query you have raised;
• If you have opted in, in order to contact you subsequently to inform you about other products, services or events on offer from Premier Farnell which we think may genuinely be of interest to you. We will always give you the option not to be contacted in this way or at all and you may exercise that option at any time;
• For administration purposes or to help us develop and improve our offering;
• For crime prevention or detection purposes.

Any marketing consents, opt-ins/opt-outs or other preference details provided to us in connection with another site or service operated by us will be recorded and administered separately from any preferences or consents provided in connection with element14, but you have the option at any time to change your preferences registered in connection with any of our sites or services at any time.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

To whom may we disclose your information?

We may need or wish to share your information with a limited number of others for a variety of reasons.

Jive Software, Inc. (Jive) is the company which provides the platform for element14. From time to time, Jive may be required to access our servers in connection with their provision of the platform for element14 and they may therefore have indirect access to all your information on element14 although they will not process your information in any way. Jive has its own privacy policy which is available at http://www.jivesoftware.com/legal.

In connection with element14, we use the services of Fjord Network Limited (“Fjord”) to carry out analysis on information on visits to element14 and to increase the efficiency of element14. Fjord may therefore use your IP address (a series of numbers that identifies a computer on the internet), operating system and browser type to collect among other things, statistical data about users’ browsing actions and patterns but such data will not be used to identify you personally.

Please note that any information that you choose to make visible when you set up your account and any information you include on your edited profile will be made available to other Contributors.Please also note that your username and information you submit or generate will be visible to all participants in element14. Your comments, postings and actions will also be public. This is an intrinsic feature of the element14 community.

If you are not comfortable with this, please do not register to join element14.

For the purposes outlined above we may disclose your information to our service providers and agents who help us to carry on or advise us on how to develop our business (which may include other companies within the Premier Farnell Group, as well as reputable third party providers). We require them to treat your personal information as confidential and to comply with applicable data protection legislation in handling your personal information.

Sometimes, in connection with the purposes outlined above, we may need to transfer your personal information to service providers and agents in countries (such as the USA) which do not provide the same level of data protection as you may be entitled to in your homeland. If we do make such a transfer we will put a contract in place to ensure your information is given the same level of protection as it would have had if it had remained in your country.

Contributors may also be based in countries outside of the European Economic Area, including in the USA. When information is passed to any Contributor in accordance with the terms of this policy, that Contributor becomes responsible for safeguarding your data.

You should also be aware that we may pass on information to a law enforcement agency requesting it in connection with the commission of an offence, once we are reasonably satisfied as to the circumstances surrounding the request, or to comply with applicable laws and any lawful government or regulatory requests.

Security

We take the security of your personal information very seriously. In the near future element14 will use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to protect the information exchanged. In addition to encryption which will create a secure channel to prevent others from tapping into the network, SSL will provide authentication to verify the identity of the parties and message integrity to ensure that messages cannot be altered en route.

Your data and the information you provide is maintained and archived on secure servers. Access to stored data is password protected and access to passwords is limited. Firewall technology is used to prevent unauthorised access and servers are backed up daily, with archives stored in a secure location.

Use of Cookies

We, or Fjord, may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file. A "cookie" is a piece of information that element14 sends to your browser, which then stores this information on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies help us improve element14 and deliver a better and more personalised service by for example recognising you when you return to the site and help speed up your searches).

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of element14.  Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log onto element14.

Your choices

It is up to you how we use your information. If you are not comfortable with our proposed use of your information during the course of the provision of element14, please be aware that we regret that we have limited possibilities to modify element14 and the terms of your participation in it. Please do not set up an element14 account if you object to the use of your information in the manner outlined in this Policy.

If you would prefer that we do not use the data provided to us in connection with registration for or use of element14 in any of the ways proposed following registration, please note that you may let us know at any time by contacting the administrator of element14 at communitymanager@premierfarnell.com.

Your rights to access personal information

You have the right of access to your personal records held on our files by written request to us on payment of a fee.

Who are we

Premier Farnell plc is the holding company of the Premier Farnell plc group of companies. When we refer to “Group”, “Company”, or “we”, “our” or “us” in this notice, we mean Premier Farnell plc and each of its subsidiary companies.