Privacy Policy
Welcome to the Privacy Policy (the Policy).
This Website and Mobile application are owned by the company by the company VAULT IST DMCC, incorporated in the United Arab Emirates with a registered number DMCC198149 and registered office at AG-13-H-F168, AG Tower, Plot No: JLT-PH1-I1A, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai (VAULT).
Choise Services UAB, a legal entity duly registered in the Lithuania with No. 305964183 with a registered office at Vokieciu gatve 18a-7, Vilnius, and Charism LLC, is a limited liability company created and existing under the laws of Saint Vincent and Grenadines, with company number 1999 LLC 2022, registered office at Suite 336, Beachmont Business Centre, Kingstown (the Associated company).
As a high-level summary, we are an evolving cryptocurrency-focused financial institution providing various cryptocurrency-related financial services (the Services). We provide all this by means of the website https://vault.ist/ (the Website) and the related applications and crypto-platforms that we may operate from time to time (each of which, is a Platform) and which may be accessible via the Website or otherwise.
Accordingly, the purpose of this Policy is to set out the basis on which we will process your Personal data when you:
This also includes any data which you may provide to us for our events, newsletters, and other marketing items.
This Policy informs you about the items of Personal data that we may collect about you and how we will handle it, and in turn, also tells you about
Please read the following information carefully to understand our practices regarding your Personal data.
General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (GDPR) regulations shall be implemented for EU users (the Regulation or the GDPR).
This Policy aims to ensure that you are fully informed on how we will collect and process your Personal data in the circumstances and scenarios outlined in the Introduction (namely, through your token subscriptions and purchases, your use of the Website, and any of the related Services).
The Websites, the Platform, and the Services are not intended or in any way made available for minors, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to minors.
You must read this Policy together with any other privacy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing Personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
The opening and registration of a customer account will give rise to the existence of a contractual relationship with us, as regulated by our Terms of Use, and all matters between you and us relating to Services will be deemed to fall within the subject matter of that same contractual relationship. Furthermore, the existence of this contract between you and us will also serve as the legal basis for a number of our processing activities involving your Personal data, as detailed below.
Controllers
VAULT IST(as defined) above is the controller and is responsible for your Personal data. There may be other controllers of your Personal data, such as, for example, electronic identification verification service providers, or Associated companies or other service providers engaged by us for purposes of processing and storing your Personal data. They will be so-called joint controllers of your Personal data and as such, will share responsibility for such control with us.
Presently, we use the services of the following service providers:
Sum & Substance: https://sumsub.com for KYC/AML verification;
Safened: https://www.safened.com for KYC/AML verification;
Ondato: https://www.ondato.com for KYC/AML verification;
Connectum: https://www.connectum.com for credit and debit card processing and acquiring;
EmailOctopus: https://emailoctopus.com for handling e-mail lists and campaigns; and
HasOffers: https://www.hasoffers.com for performance marketing.
Please familiarize yourself with these providers and their privacy and liability policies. If you find any of these may not work for you, please do not access any of the Websites and do not use any of our Services.
As a general rule, we always seek to minimize the amount of your Personal data that we ourselves collect and store.
Contact details
Full name of legal entity: VAULT IST DMCC
Email address: privacy@vault.ist
Please use the words Data Protection Matter in the subject line.
Changes to the Policy and your duty to inform us of changes
This version was last updated on the 8th of June 2023.
It is imperative that the Personal data we hold about you is accurate and current at all times. Otherwise, this will impair our ability to process your token purchases and/or our ability to provide you with the Services that you may request from us (amongst other salient issues).
Please keep us informed if any of your Personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Third-party links
Our Website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notice or policies. We strongly encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit, particularly when leaving our Website.
Set out below are key definitions of certain data protection terms which appear in this Policy.
Consent Form refers to separate documents which we might from time to time provide you where we ask for your explicit consent for any processing which is not for purposes set out in this Policy.
Data subjects means living individuals (i.e. natural persons) about whom we collect and process Personal data.
Data controller or controller means any entity or individual who determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any Personal data is processed.
Data processor or processor means any entity or individual that processes data on our behalf and on our instructions (we being the data controller).
Personal data means data relating to a living individual (i.e. natural person) who can be identified from the data (information) we hold or possess. This includes, but is not limited to, your name and surname (including maiden name where applicable), address, date of birth, nationality, gender, civil status, tax status, identity card number & passport number, contact details (including mobile and home phone number and personal email address), photographic image, bank account details, emergency contact information as well as online identifiers. The term personal information, where and when used in this Policy, shall have taken the same meaning as Personal data.
Processing means any activity that involves use of Personal data. It includes obtaining, recording or holding the data, or carrying out any operation or set of operations on the data including, organizing, amending, retrieving, using, disclosing, erasing or destroying it. Processing also includes transferring Personal data to third parties.
Sensitive Personal data, sensitive data or special categories of Personal data includes information about a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health or condition or sexual life, or about the commission of, or proceedings for, any offence committed or alleged to have been committed by that person, the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings. This type of sensitive data can only be processed under strict conditions.
Note that Personal data does not include information relating to a legal person (such as, for example, a company). Therefore, information such as a company name, its company number, registered address and VAT number, does not amount to Personal data in terms of both the Act and the GDPR. Naturally, we will still treat any and all such information in a confidential and secure manner.
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store, share and disclose different kinds of Personal data about you which (for purely indicative purposes) we have grouped together as follows. For the avoidance of doubt, categories marked in blue are not applicable to non-customers (i.e. individuals who do not hold a registered customer account with us).
We will also collect, use and process any other information that you voluntarily choose to provide or disclose to us where relevant for processing your token requests and/or providing you with your requested Services. Any such information that we receive from you would fall under the Transaction Data category.
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your Personal data but is not considered Personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Website Visit Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific feature of the Website. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your Personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as Personal data which will be used in accordance with this Policy.
If you fail to provide Personal data
Where we need to collect Personal data about you:
and you either fail to provide that data when requested, or else provide incomplete or insufficient data, we may not be able to perform or conclude the contract which we have or are otherwise trying to enter into with you (namely regarding your account opening, token subscriptions and purchases, and provision of the Services).
In certain cases, particularly where it relates to KYC due diligence data (both standard and enhanced), we may even need to exercise our prerogative to terminate our contract with you in accordance with the terms thereof, or else, if still at the application stage, we may have to decline to enter into a customer relationship with you.
We will however notify you if this is the case at the time.
Special categories of Personal data
We do not knowingly collect Special Categories of Personal data (or Sensitive Personal data) about you. Should we receive sensitive Personal data about you, we will only process that data when there is a legitimate basis to do so and, in all circumstances, in accordance with our obligations at law and under the appropriate safeguards.
As set out below in Section 5, we collect and process AML and KYC Data and, if applicable, Enhanced KYC Data in order to order to (i) conduct our AML and KYC checks, and other due diligence checks, on you, (ii) verify your identity or claimed identity and, in those instance of enhanced due diligence, your source of funds and source of wealth, (iii) take an informed decision on whether we want to enter into a customer relationship with you, and, if positive, to conduct initial and ongoing screening and monitoring and (iv) to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation that we may have and/or any Court, regulatory or enforcement order that may be issued upon us.
We generally use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Account Registration. We will ask you to provide us with your Identity, Contact and AML and Risk Data when you apply to open a customer account with us. You provide this information, which will then be collected and processed, when you fill in and submit your account application form (together with other related forms) and complete the required application steps.
Direct Interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact AML and Risk Data, Enhanced KYC Data, and Marketing and Communications Data by filling in our forms (such as our ‘Contact Form’) or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, or otherwise. This includes Personal data you provide when you:
Through our provision of the Services. This may encompass all of the data categories listed in Section 3 (namely, Identity, Contact, AML and Risk Data, Enhanced KYC Data and Transaction Data).
Automated technologies or interactions. When you interact with our Website, we may automatically collect Technical and Usage Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We may collect this Personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies.
Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.
Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive Personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Technical Data from the following parties:
Identity, Contact, AML and Risk Data and Enhanced KYC Data from publicly available sources such as public court documents, the RoC and the company houses and registers of other jurisdictions, and from electronic data searches, online KYC search tools (which may be subscription or license based), anti-fraud databases and other third party databases, sanctions lists, outsourced third-party KYC providers and from general searches carried out via online search engines (e.g. Google).
If you attend an event or meeting at our offices, we may hold images of you captured by our CCTV cameras.
We may also receive customer due diligence reports about our applicants from our outsourced third-party KYC provider. These reports may encompass identity checks, document integrity checks, checks against global sanctions lists and related screening and monitoring measures. In such cases, this third-party provider will conduct the requested customer due diligence checks in an autonomous manner and will generally amount to a controller of the Personal data which it collects in connection with those checks. It also has its own data policies and practices, which will be duly notified and communicated to the applicant.
We will only use your Personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your Personal data in the following circumstances:
Where you wish to enter into a customer relationship with us.
Where we need to perform the contract we have or which are about to enter into with you as a customer (including in respect of your token purchases and subscriptions, and use of the Services).
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
You have the right to withdraw consent to such marketing at any time by contacting us, as indicated above under Contact Details.
Purposes for which we will use your Personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your Personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your Personal data pursuant to more than one lawful ground or basis, depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us at privacy@vault.ist if you need details about the specific lawful basis we are relying on to process your Personal data where more than one lawful basis has been set out in the table below.
|
Purpose/Activity |
Type of data |
Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
|
(a) To conduct customer due diligence measures on you (following your application to enter into a customer relationship with us). (b) To determine whether we want to enter into a customer relationship with you and, if positive, to register your customer account and on-board you as a customer. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) AML and KYC. |
(a) Performance of a contract with you or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into such a contract. (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to verify your identity, conduct initial screening and monitoring (sanctions lists, fraud databases and other KYC checks), determine whether you present any risks as a prospective customer, and ultimately to enable us to take an informed decision on whether we want to enter into a customer relationship with you). |
|
(a) To establish and verify your identity. (b) To fulfill our other internal KYC policies and requirements. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) AML and KYC; (d) Enhanced KYC Data (for payments over a certain threshold); and (e) Transaction. |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (for risk assessment purposes, to prevent and mitigate against fraud, to safeguard the reputation of our business). |
|
(a) To enable your use of the Platform, process your token subscriptions, purchases and trading activity, and provide you with the Services that you have requested from us. (b) To keep your account portfolio accurate and updated. (c) Manage transactions and generate transaction reports and records. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Financial; (d) Transaction; and (e) Portfolio. |
(a) Performance of a contract with you. (b) Necessary to comply with our contractual obligations. (c) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation. |
|
For tax and accounting purposes (e.g. reporting to tax authorities, and accounting and reporting requirements). |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Financial; and (d) Transaction. |
Necessary to comply with a legal obligation. |
|
(a) For billing and invoice purposes; (b) To collect and recover money which is owed to us (debt recovery); (c) Internal record keeping (including files). |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Financial; (d) Transaction; and (e) Portfolio. |
(a) Performance of a contract with you. (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation. (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us, to keep track of your token subscriptions and purchases and the provision of the Services to you (including any developments that took place), and to then be able to review such information should an issue arise). |
|
To manage our customer relationship with you, which may include to: (a) notify you about changes to our terms of service or privacy notices; (b) set up, manage and administer your customer account on the Website; (c) distribute and account your funds; (d) deal with your enquiries, requests, complaints or reported issues; (e) contact you in the course of providing the requested services; (f) ask you to participate in a survey; (g) request feedback from you; (h) advise you of industry and legislative updates, (i) inform you about our events and seminars (including webinars); (j) provide you with information about our products and services; (k) provide you with any other information or materials which you have requested from us. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Financial; (d) Transaction; (e) Usage; (f) Portfolio; and (g) Marketing and Communications. |
(a) Performance of a contract with you. (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for customer relationship handling and management, to study business growth and possible trends regarding our products and service areas, to enable a review and assessment of our products and service provision, to develop and grow our business). |
|
(a) To detect, prevent and/or report fraud or any other potentially illegal or prohibited activity that comes to our attention. (b) To assist and cooperate in any criminal or regulatory investigations against you, as may be required of us. (c) To enforce our service terms. (d) To protect the rights and property of ourselves and others. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) AML and KYC; (d) Enhanced KYC; (e) Data; (f) Financial; (g) Transaction; and (h) Payment. |
(a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation. (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (including, to protect the reputation of our business). |
|
To administer and protect our business, the Website and our Platform (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data). |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Usage; (d) Technical; and (e) Website Visit. |
(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running and administering our business (including IT support), systems administration, network security, to prevent fraud and to maintain the confidentiality of communications, and in the context of a business reorganization or group restructuring exercise). (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation. |
|
(a) To carry out market research campaigns; (b) To market our products and services to you by email or other means if you have subscribed to one of our mailing lists (where you are not a customer); (c) To deliver relevant Website content and advertisements to you, and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising that we serve to you. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) Technical; (d) Usage; (e) Website Visit; and (f) Marketing and Communications. |
(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products and services and grow our business, to define our customers, to keep our products, services and the Website updated and relevant, and to inform our marketing strategy). (b) On the basis of your consent, in the absence of a customer relationship. |
|
To permit us to pursue available remedies or limit any damages which we may sustain. |
(a) Identity; (b) Contact; (c) AML and KYC; (d) Enhanced KYC; (e) Data; (f) Financial; (g) Transaction; (h) Portfolio; and (i) Marketing and Communications. |
(a) Performance of a contract with you. (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests. |
Legitimate Interest means our interest to conduct and manage our business affairs appropriately and responsibly, to protect the reputation of our business, and to provide our customers with the best possible service and the users of the Websites with a secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before your Personal data is processed for our legitimate interests. We do not use your Personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at the following email address: privacy@vault.ist
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract. This includes our Terms of Service or other applicable terms of business.
Comply with a legal obligation means processing your Personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject.
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain Personal data uses, particularly around advertising and marketing. Through your Identity, Contact, Usage, Technical and Website Visit Data, we are able to form a view on what we think you may want or need. This is how we then decide which of our products and/or services may be relevant or of interest to you (our marketing communications).
You may receive marketing communications from us (which may consist of newsletters, industry and legislative updates, mailshots, publications and/or information about our events, seminars and webinars) where:
Where the above does not apply to you, we will only send you our marketing communications if you have expressly consented to receive them from us.
Third-Party Marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your Personal data with any third parties (including our affiliated entities) for marketing purposes.
Opting out
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications (unsubscribe) at any time by following the opt-out (unsubscribe) links on any marketing communication sent to you.
Cookies
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when the Website sets or accesses cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the Website may become inaccessible or not function properly.
Change of purpose
We will only use your Personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose, or we are obliged to process your data by applicable laws or court / enforceable orders.
If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at privacy@vault.ist
If we need to use your Personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your Personal data without the need to obtain your consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
We may have to grant access to, disclose or share your Personal data with the parties set out below (which may be in or outside your jurisdiction) for the purposes set out in the table in Clause 5 above:
We require all affiliated entities and third-party service providers to respect the security of your Personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow them to use your Personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your Personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our documented instructions. Our service providers currently store your Personal data in Germany. We will update this Privacy Policy if their data storage location changes.
We do not generally transfer your Personal data to outside the European Economic Area (EEA) except
as may be necessary to: (i) process your transactions, subscriptions, purchases, and/or trading activity, (ii) provide the requested services, (iii) fulfill our contractual obligations to you, (iv) exercise and enforce our contractual rights and terms of services, (v) comply with our legal and/or regulatory obligations or (vi) assert, file or exercise a legal claim.
Where we do need to transfer your Personal data to outside the EEA (whether for these stated purposes or any other purpose listed in Clause 5 above), we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to that Personal data by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards applies or is otherwise implemented:
Please contact us at privacy@vault.ist if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your Personal data out of the EEA.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed (i.e. to safeguard its integrity and confidentiality). We also regularly review and, where practicable, improve upon these security measures.
We also limit access to your Personal data to strictly those employees, agents, contractors, and third parties that have a professional need-to-know. They will only process your Personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. All our employees and agents have received appropriate training on data protection.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Please note that we consider our relationship with customers to be an ongoing and continuous customer relationship, until such time that either we or the customer terminates it in accordance with our Terms of Use.
We will only retain your Personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it (see Section 5 above) and, thereafter:
By and large, our retention of your Personal data shall not exceed the period of six (6) years from the termination of your customer relationship with us (which would typically arise from the closure or termination of your customer account). This retention period enables us to make use of your Personal data for any applicable AML retention and reporting obligations and for the filing, exercise or defense of possible future legal claims (taking into account applicable prescriptive periods and statutes of limitation). In certain cases, we may need to retain your Personal data for a period of up to ten (10) years in order to comply with applicable accounting and tax laws (this will primarily consist of your Transaction Data). There may also be instances where the need to retain Personal Data for longer periods, as dictated by the nature of the products and services provided.
In some circumstances, you can ask us to delete your data. See Request erasure below for further information.
Kindly contact us at privacy@vault.ist for further details about the retention periods that we apply.
Data Minimization
To the extent possible, we may anonymize the data which we hold about you when it is no longer necessary to identify you from the data which we hold about you. In some circumstances, we may even pseudonymize your Personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your Personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at privacy@vault.ist
No fee is usually charged
You will not have to pay a fee to access your Personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may simply refuse to comply with your request in such circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your Personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that Personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within a period of one month from the date of receiving your request. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
You have the right to:
You may send an email to privacy@vault.ist requesting information as the Personal data which we process. You shall receive one copy free of charge via email of the Personal data which is undergoing processing. Any further copies of the information processed shall incur a charge of €10.00.
Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. These may include instances where the retention of your Personal data is necessary to:
In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your personal information that override your rights and freedoms.
Kindly note that none of these data subject rights are absolute, and must generally be weighed against our own legal obligations and legitimate interests. If a decision is taken to override your data subject request, you will be informed of this by our data protection team along with the reasons for our decision.
Complaints
You have the right to lodge a complaint at any time to a competent supervisory authority on data protection matters, such as (in particular) the supervisory authority in the place of your habitual residence or your place of work.
We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach the supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance at privacy@vault.ist
We reserve the right to make changes to this Policy in the future, which will be duly notified to you. If you have any questions regarding this Policy, or if you would like to send us your comments, please contact us today or alternatively write to our data protection team using the details indicated in this Policy.