PRIVACY NOTICE

Welcome to the Vargas Partners Ltd. websites, together with any materials and services available therein, and any successor site(s) thereto (individually referred to as the “Site,” or collectively as the “Sites”), which are operated by Vargas Partners Ltd. (referred to as “Vargas Partners,” “we,” “our,” or “us”).

This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) describes how Vargas Partners may use and disclose information that we collect about users, including vendors, employers, and visitors, as well as candidates who use or view our Sites.

The Terms of Use (“Terms”) state the terms and conditions governing your use of and access to the Sites and constitute a legally binding contract between you and Vargas Partners. The Terms incorporate any additional terms and conditions posted by Vargas Partners through the Sites, or otherwise made available to you by us.

PLEASE REVIEW THESE TERMS AND NOTICE CAREFULLY. YOUR ACCESS TO AND/OR USE OF THE SITES CONSTITUTES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF, AND CONSENT TO BE BOUND BY, THESE TERMS AND NOTICE. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT AND CONSENT TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS AND NOTICE, THEN YOU MUST NOT USE OR ACCESS THE SITES.

We may change these Terms and/or this Notice from time to time by notifying you of such changes by any reasonable means, including by posting revised Terms or a revised Notice through the Sites. Any changes will not apply to any dispute between you and us arising prior to the date on which we posted the revised Terms or Notice, or otherwise notified you of such changes.

In the event of a conflict between these Terms and/or Notice, and any other applicable terms or agreement fully executed by you and Vargas Partners (“Other Terms”), the Other Terms shall control.

The “Last Updated” legend above indicates when the Notice was last changed. We may, at any time and without liability, modify or discontinue all or part of the Sites, or offer opportunities to some or all Site users. Any changes become effective when we post the revised Notice on the Sites. Your use of the Sites following these changes means that you accept the revised Notice.

1. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

1. Users (Including Vendors, Employers, and General Visitors)

We may collect certain information about you if you interact with our Site, whether you are a visitor, a prospective or current vendor, or a prospective or current employer (collectively “Users”). Below are the categories of Personal Information we may collect:

• Identifiers, such as your name, business phone number, email address, and, if relevant, company name or department.
• Internet or other electronic activity information, such as browsing history on the Site, IP address (which may reveal approximate geolocation), search history on the Site, pages visited, installed plug-ins, and certain browser information (cookies, JavaScript objects, etc.).
• Professional or employment-related information, such as your job title or the name of your organization (for Employers or vendors).
• Information protected against security breaches, such as bank and payment information if relevant to fulfilling contracts (e.g., paying vendors or receiving payments from Employers).

2. Candidates

If you inquire about job opportunities through the Site (by clicking on an email or WhatsApp link or otherwise contacting us), you are considered a Candidate. We may collect the following Personal Information about Candidates:

• Identifiers, such as your name, email address, phone number, or any other contact details you voluntarily provide.
• Professional or career-related information, such as your current or past job positions, work experience, educational history, or any other details you choose to share about your background.
• Other information included in communications you send us (e.g., if you share a resume or matters list via email or attach further personal details).

We only share Candidates’ Personal Information with potential Employers with the Candidate’s consent, except that we may from time to time share publicly available information about a Candidate with Employers in order to inform them of potential or prospective skill sets.

2. VARGAS PARTNERS’ BUSINESS AND COMMERCIAL PURPOSES FOR USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use Personal Information for the following business and commercial purposes:

• Providing Services: To register you with the Sites, to provide you with information regarding job opportunities, and to manage our relationship with you (including any vendor or Employer relationships).
• Communications and Marketing: To develop and carry out marketing activities; to send you automated email messages or marketing materials about our services or employment information (with an “unsubscribe” link provided in all marketing emails).
• Analytics and Improvement: For our business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, protecting the Sites from misuse or abuse, and improving our services.
• Legal and Compliance: To comply with applicable laws and protect our rights or the rights of third parties.
• Global Data Transfers (including the US): We are based in the British Virgin Islands, and our servers are located in the United States. Therefore, your Personal Information may be transferred to, and processed in, the United States or other jurisdictions that may have data protection laws that differ from those where you reside. We rely on legally approved mechanisms (e.g., Standard Contractual Clauses or consent) to lawfully conduct these transfers where required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We may also combine the information you submit to us with information we receive from third parties or collect automatically to improve the Site’s overall accuracy and completeness.

3. SALES OR SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do not “sell” your Personal Information to third parties (as “sell” is defined under certain privacy laws), and we do not share your information for cross-context behavioral advertising without your consent.

If, at any point, we engage in practices that might be considered a sale or sharing under applicable law, we will update this Notice and provide you with any required rights or opt-out mechanisms.

Note for California Residents: For more information on your rights to opt out of any possible sharing of your data, see the California Residents section below.

4. DISCLOSURES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

For our business and commercial purposes described above, Vargas Partners may disclose your Personal Information to:

• Service Providers: We share information with third parties that perform services on our behalf (e.g., hosting, IT infrastructure, analytics, email delivery). In particular, we use Fluid Mind Ltd. and its subsidiaries to assist with candidate database services and general IT solutions.
• Employers: If you are a Candidate, we may share your relevant Personal Information that we have collected directly from you with potential or existing Employers with your consent so that they may evaluate your credentials and skills. We may also share publicly available Candidate information with Employers to apprise them of potentially relevant skill sets.
• Legal and Compliance: We may disclose Personal Information (a) if required to do so by law or legal process; (b) to law enforcement authorities or other government officials; or (c) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss, or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity.
• Business Transfers: We may disclose or transfer Personal Information as part of, or during negotiations of, any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business or assets.

5. GDPR COMPLIANCE

1. Lawful Bases for Processing

Where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, we process your Personal Information under one or more of the lawful bases recognized by the GDPR, which may include:

• Your Consent (e.g., when you provide us with consent to share your information with Employers or send you marketing emails).
• Performance of a Contract (e.g., processing necessary to fulfill an agreement with you, such as paying a Candidate or paying a vendor).
• Legitimate Interests (e.g., improving our Site, ensuring security, or facilitating potential employer–candidate introductions, in ways that do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms).
• Compliance with Legal Obligations (e.g., responding to lawful requests from public authorities).

2. Your Rights Under the GDPR

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the UK, you have the right (subject to certain limitations) to:

• Access the Personal Information we hold about you.
• Rectify inaccurate or incomplete Personal Information.
• Erase your Personal Information (the “right to be forgotten”).
• Restrict our processing of your Personal Information.
• Object to our processing of your Personal Information.
• Data Portability, i.e., to receive a copy of the data we process based on your consent or a contract with you, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
• Withdraw Consent at any time, if we rely on consent as our legal basis for processing.
• Lodge a Complaint with your local supervisory authority if you believe our processing of your Personal Information is unlawful.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights above, please see Section 14 (Exercising Your Privacy Rights) or contact us using the information in Section 16 (Contact Us).

3. Cross-Border Transfers

Your Personal Information may be transferred to and processed in countries that may not provide the same level of data protection as your home country. We rely on lawful mechanisms (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) or your consent where applicable.

6. COLLECTION AND USE OF OTHER INFORMATION

“Other Information” is any information that does not reveal your specific identity or does not directly relate to an identifiable individual. We and our third-party service providers may collect Other Information in a variety of ways, including:

• Browser or Device Information: Such as your device type, operating system, browser type, screen resolution, language, and other technical data automatically collected.
• Pixel Tags and Similar Technologies: Used to track the actions of Site users or email recipients, measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about Site usage.
• Analytics: We use third-party analytics providers (e.g., Google Analytics) on the Sites. Google Analytics may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your usage of the Sites. For more information, visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ or install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

We may use and disclose Other Information for any legitimate business purpose, except where applicable law requires otherwise.

7. RETARGETING

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads regarding our services when you access and use other websites, based on information relating to your use of the Sites. If you would like more information about opting out of retargeted advertising in desktop or mobile browsers on the device you are accessing this Notice from, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp and http://www.aboutads.info/.

8. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

This Notice does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including third parties operating any site or service to which the Sites link, or any device through which you access the Sites.

9. SECURITY

We use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures designed to protect Personal Information within our organization. No data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with Section 16 (Contact Us), below.

10. CHOICES RELATING TO RECEIVING EMAIL FROM US

If you no longer wish to receive marketing-related emails from us, simply click on the “unsubscribe” link that appears in each such email. We do not maintain a separate unsubscribe form, and we do not send SMS marketing messages.

11. DATA RETENTION

We keep your Personal Information for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained, including (i) for as long as we have an ongoing relationship with you; (ii) as required by a legal obligation to which we are subject; or (iii) as advisable in light of our legal position (e.g., applicable statutes of limitations, litigation, or regulatory investigations).

We may delete Personal Information from our database at any time, subject to any applicable legal or regulatory obligations, without providing any reason.

12. USE OF THE SITES BY CHILDREN

We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 16 years old, and we do not “sell” or “share” the Personal Information of children under 16 years old. If we become aware that we have received Personal Information about a child under 16 years old, we will delete it as soon as reasonably practicable.

13. JURISDICTIONAL ISSUES

The Sites are controlled and operated by us primarily from the British Virgin Islands, and your Personal Information may be processed on servers located in the United States. We do not intend to subject ourselves to the laws or jurisdiction of any state, country, or territory other than those specified in our Terms of Use and this Notice.

14. EXERCISING YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have certain rights regarding your Personal Information (e.g., GDPR rights set forth in Section 5.2 or the California rights set forth in Section 15). To exercise any applicable privacy rights:

• Email us at legal@vargaspartners.com with “Privacy Request” in the subject line, or
• Contact us as described in Section 16 below.

We will verify your identity or authority to make the request in a reasonable manner. If you authorize an agent to make a request on your behalf, we may require additional information to confirm the agent’s authority.

15. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

If you are a California resident, you have certain rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and other applicable laws and regulations, including:

• The right to know the categories and specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected, the categories of sources from which it was collected, our business or commercial purpose for collecting or sharing it, and the categories of third parties with whom we disclose Personal Information.
• The right to request deletion of your Personal Information, subject to certain exceptions.
• The right to correct inaccurate Personal Information.
• The right to limit our use of your sensitive Personal Information if applicable.
• The right to know about the Personal Information we disclose for a business purpose.
• The right to opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” (as defined under CCPA/CPRA) of your Personal Information, if applicable. We do not sell your Personal Information. If at any time we were to share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, you would have the right to opt out.
• The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising any of these rights.

If you would like to exercise any of your California rights, please see Section 14 (Exercising Your Privacy Rights). We will request certain information from you to verify your identity, such as your name, email, state of residence, and relationship with Vargas Partners.

California “Shine the Light” law

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 (“Shine the Light”), California residents can request certain information about our disclosure (if any) of personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and would like to request such information, please contact us using Section 16 below.

16. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or complaints about these Terms or this Notice, or if you would like to update any Personal Information you have provided to us, please contact us at:

Mailing Address:
Vargas Partners Ltd.
Intershore Chambers
Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Email Address:
legal@vargaspartners.com

Please note that email communications will not necessarily be secure; accordingly, you should not include highly sensitive information in your email correspondence with us.