Privacy policy

Who we are and how to contact us

proudtek.com is the website of Proud Tek Co., Limited (“Proud Tek”), a manufacturer of RFID and NFC cards, tags, labels and wristbands, and a supplier of RFID readers, based in Shenzhen, China. Proud Tek decides how and why the personal data described in this policy is used, which makes us the controller under data protection laws such as the GDPR.

Email

info@proudtek.com

Phone

+86 186 6582 0632

WhatsApp

+86 186 6582 0632

Address

A2109, Zhantao Building, #1079, Minzhi Rd, Longhua, Shenzhen, China

For any question about this policy or your personal data, email us at the address above.

Inquiries and comments

What we receive

The inquiry form on our Contact and FAQ pages asks for your work email address and your requirements. You can also give a product, the type of request, an estimated quantity, a delivery country, a target date, your name and your company. Blog comment forms ask for your comment, your name and your email address, and optionally your website.

An inquiry also includes some context added by the page:

• the product, application or product category you came from, and the page on our site that linked to the form;
• the first page you opened on proudtek.com in the current browser tab (the landing page);
• the host name of the website that referred you, such as www.google.com, but never the full address of the page you came from.

The landing page and the referring host name are kept in your browser's session storage for the current tab (see Cookies and browser storage). The site does not save anything you type into a form in your browser.

How the forms are delivered

Both forms are sent through Web3Forms, a form delivery service operated by Web3Creative, which forwards each submission to our email inbox. Web3Forms receives everything in the form together with technical data from your browser, such as your IP address. Its data processing agreement says that it acts as a processor for the websites that use it. Its privacy policy says that submitters' IP addresses and email addresses may be sent to spam-prevention services. See the Web3Forms privacy policy and data processing agreement.

Our business email service provider hosts our inbox, so it also receives and stores every inquiry and comment for us.

Comments reach us by email in the same way. The site does not display comments: your comment, name, email address and website are not published on it.

Why we use it, and the legal basis

We use this information to answer your inquiry or comment, prepare the quotation, samples or compatibility check you ask for, and handle any order that follows. The landing page and referring host name help us understand which pages lead to inquiries.

Where the GDPR or a similar law applies, for inquiries we rely on taking steps at your request before a possible contract (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) and on our legitimate interest in answering business inquiries and understanding how buyers find us (Article 6(1)(f)). For comments, we rely on our legitimate interest in reading and answering what readers send us about our articles (Article 6(1)(f)).

You do not have to use the forms: you can also email us. We need a way to reach you and your message in order to reply. Fields that are not marked as required are optional.

Website analytics with Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4, a Google service, to understand how visitors find and use the site: which pages are viewed, which websites refer visits, and whether inquiries are started and sent.

What Google receives

• For each page view, the address of the page on proudtek.com without any query text, and only the home address (origin) of the referring website.
• Events about the inquiry process and contact links: clicks on an inquiry link, the start of an inquiry, form errors (as a category such as a validation or connection error), a sent inquiry or comment, and clicks on email, phone or WhatsApp links. These events can include the product, application, category and type of request involved, or the contact channel. These events of ours never include your email address, name, company, message, quantity or the address of a link.
• Technical information from your browser, such as your IP address, your user agent (which identifies the browser and device type) and your screen resolution. Google states that Google Analytics 4 uses IP addresses to estimate location and does not log or store them.
• Depending on the settings of our Google Analytics property, approximate location such as the city, more detailed device information, and some interactions recorded automatically, such as scrolling, and clicks on links to other websites together with the address of the link.

When analytics cookies are allowed, Google Analytics stores the _ga and _ga_… cookies on proudtek.com to recognise your browser across page views and visits. Advertising features are switched off: our Google tag turns off Google signals and ad personalisation signals, whatever the settings of our Google Analytics property, and always sets ad storage, ad user data and ad personalisation to denied.

Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland

If we locate you in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the Google Analytics code (the Google tag) is not loaded, and nothing is sent to Google Analytics, until you accept analytics cookies in the banner at the bottom of the page. If you choose Not now, nothing is loaded and the banner asks again on the next page. We do the same when we cannot tell where you are, including when the country lookup fails or takes more than a few seconds. We estimate your country with Cloudflare from your IP address (see Hosting, security and Cloudflare Web Analytics), so it can be wrong, for example when you use a VPN.

If you decline, the Google tag is not loaded on later pages. On a page where it is already running, it is told to stop using cookies and to stop recording and sending data, and the _ga cookies stored on this site are deleted. Events it recorded just before you declined can still be sent a few seconds later.

Elsewhere, the Google tag loads when you open a page and Google Analytics uses its cookies by default, and you can decline them at any time. If your browser does not let the site store data, the Google tag does not load unless you accept analytics cookies under Cookie settings, because we could not remember a decline. Google makes its own estimate of your location. If it places you in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland although Cloudflare does not, the Google tag runs without cookies until you accept: it still sends Google Analytics the page views and events described under What Google receives, including the page address, event details, your IP address, user agent and screen resolution, but without cookies or device or user identifiers. You can stop all Google Analytics measurement by declining under Cookie settings, or by blocking Google Analytics with a browser setting or extension.

Changing your choice

Use Cookie settings in the footer of any page to accept or decline analytics cookies. A choice applies from then on, including in other open tabs of this site. If your browser does not let the site store data, a choice applies only to the page where you make it. Declining stops Google Analytics as described above and deletes the _ga cookies stored on this site. You can also delete cookies and site data in your browser settings.

Change cookie settings

Legal basis

In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland we ask for your consent before using Google Analytics and its cookies, and rely on that consent (GDPR Article 6(1)(a) where the GDPR applies). You can withdraw it at any time; this does not affect use before you withdrew it. Where Google Analytics runs without asking, including the cookieless measurement described above, we rely on our legitimate interest in measuring and improving the website (Article 6(1)(f)).

Google explains how it uses information from websites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Hosting, security and Cloudflare Web Analytics

The site is hosted on Cloudflare's network. To deliver pages and protect the site from abuse, Cloudflare receives technical data about each request, such as your IP address, the page requested, the time and your browser's user agent. We rely on our legitimate interest in running a secure and reliable website (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). The site's fonts are hosted on proudtek.com; no font service is contacted.

Country lookup for the cookie banner

While you have not made a cookie choice, the banner script requests a Cloudflare address on our own domain, /cdn-cgi/trace. Cloudflare's answer includes the country it associates with your IP address. The script reads only that country code, keeps it in your browser's session storage as proudtek.loc for the current tab, and does not send it anywhere. We rely on our legitimate interest in asking for consent to analytics cookies where we need it, without showing the banner to every visitor (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)).

Cloudflare Web Analytics

Cloudflare also adds its Cloudflare Web Analytics script, loaded from static.cloudflareinsights.com, to our pages. Cloudflare states that this product uses no cookies or local storage and does not fingerprint visitors by IP address or user agent. It reports page load timing and page views with the country, host, page path, referring website, device type, browser and operating system, without query text. It runs regardless of your choice in the cookie banner. We rely on our legitimate interest in measuring how well the website performs (Article 6(1)(f)).

Embedded content and links

Google Maps

The map on our Contact page loads only after you click Show map. Your browser then loads the map from Google Maps, and Google receives your IP address and the address of our Contact page, and may set or read cookies. We load the map only when you ask for it, and rely on our legitimate interest in showing you where to find us (Article 6(1)(f)). The Open in Google Maps link takes you to Google's own site.

YouTube

Our 125 kHz RFID card page contains a YouTube video in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, loaded from youtube-nocookie.com. The player loads only after you click Play video. Your browser then connects to YouTube, a Google service, which receives your IP address and may set or read cookies or similar storage. YouTube says that a view in privacy-enhanced mode is not used to personalise your YouTube browsing, that any ads shown in the player are non-personalised, and that the view is not used to personalise advertising shown to you outside our site. We load the player only when you ask for it, and rely on our legitimate interest in showing our products on video (Article 6(1)(f)).

WhatsApp, email and phone links

WhatsApp links (wa.me) open a chat with us in WhatsApp. Nothing is sent to WhatsApp until you click one. After that, WhatsApp's own terms and privacy policy apply, and the messages you send reach us through WhatsApp. Email and phone links open the apps on your own device. Our own Google Analytics event records only which kind of link you clicked: email, phone or WhatsApp. If automatic outbound-click measurement is on in our Google Analytics property, Google Analytics also records the address of links to other websites that you click, such as our wa.me link.

Links to other websites

Our pages link to other websites, such as chip manufacturers and standards bodies. We do not control those websites; their own privacy policies apply once you follow a link.

Cookies and browser storage

The site stores the following items in your browser. None of them holds anything you type into a form. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, only the Google Analytics cookies wait for your choice in the cookie banner. The site's own items are stored as described below, without asking you first.

The Google Analytics lifetimes are Google's defaults, which our Google tag does not change: see Google's Google Analytics cookie usage page. Google Maps and YouTube may set their own cookies once you load them (see Embedded content and links). Cloudflare Web Analytics sets none.

International transfers

Proud Tek is based in China, so we receive and handle the information you send us in China. Our business email service provider stores it for us. Our other service providers also work across borders:

• Cloudflare and Google are headquartered in the United States. They may process data in the United States and in other countries where they or their subprocessors operate.
• Web3Forms is operated from India. Its data processing agreement lists subprocessors including Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, Hetzner in Germany and Finland, and spam-filtering services in the United States and elsewhere. Web3Forms states that it uses standard contractual clauses, with the UK Addendum where applicable, for these transfers.

These countries may not offer the same level of data protection as the country where you live.

How long data is kept

• Inquiries and comments: how long we keep an inquiry or comment email depends on what follows it: the reply, any quotation, samples or order, and the records we must keep for legal and accounting purposes.
• Web3Forms: its data processing agreement says that stored submission data is deleted automatically after three years.
• Google Analytics: user-level and event-level data used in explorations and funnel reports is kept for the retention period set in our Google Analytics property, where Google offers 2 or 14 months. If the property is set to reset user data on new activity, the period for your browser's identifier starts again each time you return. These settings do not affect standard aggregated reports.
• Your browser: session storage ends when you close the tab. Your cookie choice stays until you change it or clear your browser's site data. For the Google Analytics cookies, see the table above.
• Other services: Cloudflare, Google Maps, YouTube and WhatsApp keep data under their own policies.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, and in particular under the GDPR, the UK GDPR and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, you have the right to:

• ask whether we hold personal data about you, and receive a copy of it;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have your data erased;
• ask us to restrict how we use it;
• object to uses based on our legitimate interests;
• receive the data you gave us in a portable format;
• withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting use before you withdrew it. For analytics cookies, use Cookie settings in the footer;
• complain to us about how we handle your personal data;
• complain to a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the country where you live or work or where you believe the law was broken. In the United Kingdom this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO); in Switzerland, the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

To use any of these rights, email info@proudtek.com. We may ask for information to confirm your identity.

We do not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you based solely on automated processing. The spam filters that Web3Forms uses may block a form submission automatically; if you do not hear back from us, email us directly.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the website, our service providers or the law change. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last updated.