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CopyMinder Privacy Policy and GDPR notice for end users
Introduction
Microcosm takes your privacy very seriously.
To combat software piracy, the developer of the software product you are using has chosen to use our CopyMinder protection system. This ensures that they get paid for their software but with much less inconvenience to their legitimate customers (you) than older copy protection systems. CopyMinder is able to achieve this by occasional access to the CopyMinder web site.
We are totally open about the information that is sent to us from your machine. The data sent to us from your machine falls into two categories:
Registration Data
The Software Developer may have requested certain information from you (such as name, address etc.) when you first installed the software. Some items may have been flagged as being required items, i.e. items of information that the Software Developer insists on receiving before allowing you to use the software. Other items are optional. This Registration information is sent to the CopyMinder web site and can only be accessed by the Software Developer and Microcosm. Microcosm will never divulge this information to anybody else (unless required to do so by law) or use it themselves for any purpose whatsoever. The only email or other communication you will receive from Microcosm is an email with a verification link, if the Software Developer requires that users have verified email addresses.
Protection Data
We send a small amount of data from your machine to the CopyMinder web site to enable us to check its legality. It will typically look like this:
Language=0&DID=C&ProductKey=ABC-DEFG-HIJK-LM&ProgName=spcalc.exe& Version=2&UpdateNum=41783536&Time=1082471534&Execs=0&Cause=0&Mx=0c44931
The information is solely concerned with the protection of the software you have purchased. It will not tell us anything else about you or what software or data is on your machine.
Openness
We want to be as open as possible about what data is sent to us so we have included an option to log every item of data sent to us. By default, this option is enabled but you can stop the logging if you wish (see www.copyminder.com/logging.php). The log file is called ProgramName.cm.log (for example, Program1.exe.cm.log). Notice that it is not sent using TLS so that you can see exactly what we are sending. If you are familiar with tools to monitor TCP/IP communications such as Wireshark, you can monitor this transaction and confirm exactly what we are sending.
A two-way process
Of course, we also send data to your machine in response to the data sent to us. We will never send data to your machine other than in direct response to your protected program sending information to us.
Usually, this data is quite small consisting of some un-encrypted data (error codes etc.) and an encrypted block of data. The encrypted data contains authorisation to your program to continue running. Occasionally, there will be a larger download of data to your machine. This will occur when we have a newer, better version of the CopyMinder file (ProgramName.cm). CopyMinder can update itself so that any problems can be quickly resolved automatically.
Microcosm does not put any 'Cookies', 'Web Beacons', advertisements or 'Pop-Ups' on your machine.
Personal data and the EU GDPR
If you are an individual rather than a business, your registration data that is collected could be personal data under the terms of the EU General Data Protection Regulations. If so, please see the following regarding GDPR.
The data controller for your data is our customer (the Software Developer that uses the CopyMinder system with their software), who is also a data processor. Microcosm Ltd is a third party data processor acting on their behalf.
Lawful basis for processing
The lawful basis for our processing is that of a contract between Microcosm Ltd and our customer, the Software Developer.
Extent of your data stored on the CopyMinder servers
Registration information (name, address, telephone number, email address). We collect and store none, some or all of these, as specified by our customer.
How your data is used
To confirm the email address you provide, if this is requested by our customer. We provide a facility for our customers to email you through our platform. Other than that we do not process your data, only store it. We provide tools so that our customers can view, update and download your data while logged in to their own accounts on our servers.
Data sharing
Your data is accessible to the CopyMinder team at Microcosm. Our customers have access to your data, and the means to update it without reference to us. We do not share any of your data with third parties unless required by law.
Data breaches
In the event of a data breach we will notify all CopyMinder customers promptly using the email address associated with their account. Data breaches will be investigated thoroughly and once details are known they will, if necessary, be passed on to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Data security
Access to your data requires the customer to be logged in to their account on our servers using a password and, optionally, two factor authentication. New passwords are only sent to the email address registered with us.
Access to your data by Microcosm requires appropriate passwords which are only provided to those employees with a legitimate need.
Retention
Your data is retained while the customer continues to use the CopyMinder service, unless the customer deletes it before then.
Deletion
The customer can delete your data while logged in to our servers.
Comments/Complaints
If you have any questions or complaints relating to privacy with CopyMinder, please address them to privacy@copyminder.com
Definitions
"Customer" refers to individuals or organisations, normally software developers, that have CopyMinder accounts on our servers as they have either purchased the full version, or are using a trial version of the CopyMinder software.
"End users", "you", "your" are the customers of our customers that use software including the CopyMinder system and provide registration information as detailed below when they install the software sold by our customers.
"We", "Us", "Our" is Microcosm Ltd who provides the CopyMinder service to our customers.
Updated 14th May 2018 for the EU General Data Protection Regulations