Revision as of 16:47, 21 February 2018

Disclaimer

This Wiki and associated tools are an apparatus that cannot make business decisions on behalf of the user. It is the responsibility of the end user to interpret the information as an indication of a particular result of a ‘what if’ case scenario. Based on historical data, the results cannot guarantee future success, but rather potentially point the user in the right direction to making better informed decisions. The PrimeFish project takes no responsibility for the results of actions taken by the user when using this data information.

Confidentiality Policy PrimeDSS

1. Introduction

PrimeDSS is an information technology platform, developed by the PrimeFish project (www.primefish.eu), which is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 research programme. The platform is being developed and initially operated by Syntesa sp/f with a view for it to be transferred after the end of the project to a single named party (jointly referred to as “Operator”) as an online service, that enables participants to provide and receive information, in particular related to the competitiveness of the fishery sector in Europe.

Since PrimeDSS necessarily collects confidential information from its participants in order to fulfil its functions, strict importance is placed on maintaining the confidentiality of such information.  Access to participant information, and to data derived from that information, is only enabled for those people or groups that have previously been authorised by the provider of the information.

Furthermore, PrimeDSS collects information that could potentially be used anti-competitively if this information were to be made available to the wrong company or group of companies for the wrong reasons or purpose. To avoid this risk, further restrictions are applied to the way in which certain data is grouped and shared to ensure compliance with relevant competition/anti-trust laws.

Wherever reasonably possible, the enforcement of the confidentiality policy is achieved automatically through the manner of operation of the platform.

2. Governing principles

The fundamental purpose of PrimeDSS is to provide information to a company in the seafood sector to improve its competitive position. However, it is not the purpose of PrimeDSS to provide information about a company’s direct competitors on the platform.

Information will not be provided via PrimeDSS that assists companies to:

• Obtain details about competitors
• Learn about their competitors’ competitive position or strategy

3. Definition of confidentiality

All information provided to the platform is considered de facto confidential, unless it is public.

Some information is public in one context but confidential in another. In particular, information that is essentially public (e.g. annual research spending) is considered confidential when it can be associated with a particular company, but not confidential otherwise.

Data derived and aggregated from confidential information, is not considered confidential if no individual information element is visible and if no individual company can be identified.

4. Information ownership and control

The ownership of information does not change when it is entered or uploaded to PrimeDSS.

However, information ownership is not necessarily determined by who provides the data to PrimeDSS. Information might belong to a third party, and the Operator will obtain assurance from the party providing the data that it has adequate permission from the original owner of the confidential information or, in the case that the third party is a PrimeDSS participant, will obtain any necessary permission for re-use directly from that third party.

Data collections that are derived and aggregated from information entered or uploaded to PrimeDSS will belong to the Operator, who may sell or license such data collections to other participants or third parties, but without limiting the rights of the owner of original data entered. Participants who have, with due permission, received information via PrimeDSS, will have ownership of any reports or derived works of their own.

5. Information provided to PrimeDSS

PrimeDSS is a platform that will continue to evolve to meet the needs of its participants and details of information collected on the platform will change with time – in agreement with the providers of the information.

Certain information that is provided by participants, termed here “Class A Data”, is subject to the greatest control on use and is never provided to any other participant.  This includes:

• Names and financial information of a participant
• User activity on the platform, in particular that which might be related to a future company strategy

A second group of information, termed here “Class B Data”, is visible to the participants, when the provider of the data agrees to publish it. This includes at this stage:

• Success or failure stories

6. Derived data provided from PrimeDSS

Every participant on PrimeDSS who submits data to the platform is entitled to receive reports back that potentially help in improving the competitiveness of the participant’s operation. Such reports are based on

• Original or existing research by PrimeFish participants
• Models and algorithms developed by PrimeFish participants
• Available data from either public sources or sources for which the Operator has the corresponding rights
• Data from other companies as filtered by search conditions

The PrimeDSS platform will ensure that data is never attributable to a single company.

During the project lifetime, the PrimeDSS platform will be provided free of charge to its participants. After transfer to a named party after the end of the project, it will become part of the commercial offering of that party.

Details of the reports provided to users are given in the PrimeDSS functional specification, that is available on request from legal@syntesa.fo. The exact form of output is subject to change and new forms of aggregated and statistical data will be developed.

7. Access of Operator personnel to data

Only qualified personnel at the Operator may be given access to confidential information on PrimeDSS in order to ensure correct system operation and to provide support to users.  The number of such personnel is limited to those necessary to carry out such functions and every such person is a signatory to a confidential agreement at least as strict as the Operator’s confidentiality obligations to PrimeDSS participants.  These confidentiality agreements bind the personnel during and after their employment with Operator.

8. Concerns or grievances

Any participant who has concerns about the way in which their confidential information is being handled by Operator or any other party should raise the issue by addressing an email to legal@syntesa.fo. The issue will be treated seriously and with due process by the Operator, who will take any steps in its power to correct an identified problem and will report back on its conclusions, and any action taken, to the participant who raised the issue.

9. Updates to the Confidentiality Policy

This Confidentiality Policy will be updated from time to time by the Operator, giving at least three months’ notice to participants (unless a serious issue is identified that must be addressed immediately). No update to the policy will reduce restrictions on the disclosure of confidential information that has already been entered.

All PrimeDSS participants and industry stakeholders are invited to provide their input to this Confidentiality Policy.  Please send suggestions to legal@syntesa.fo.

Intellectual Property Rights Policy

1. Introduction  

PrimeDSS and PrimeDSF are information technology platforms, developed by the PrimeFish project (www.primefish.eu), which is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 research programme.

The platforms are being developed and operated by Syntesa sp/f with a view for them to be transferred partially or completely after the end of the project to a single named party (hereaftore called “Operator“) as an online service, that enables participants to provide and receive information, related to the competitiveness of the fishery sector in Europe.

As a part of determining competitiveness in the fishery sector, beneficiary organisations and individuals (jointly referred to as the “Parties”) will be contributing their intellectual capacity, tools and data collections to develop the means by which the tools will be able to support decision making processes to improve fishery industry competitiveness.

The project places strict importance on protecting the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the Parties to ensure that innovation and creativity is encouraged and flourishes.

Consideration must be given therefore to how IPR will be transferred to prospective commercial Operators post project for commercial exploitation. This commercial exploitation should be based on a license agreement. Parties will have the right to negotiate with Operators to determine the details of such license agreement.

2. Definition of IPR

For the purposes of the PrimeFish project, a definition of IPR has been created based on those of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

In the context of the PrimeFish project, IPR is defined as:

Any intellectual input that has gone towards data collection, writings, models, software or any other physical input that has helped define the workings and output of the PrimeDSF and/or PrimeDSS tools for the PrimeFish project.

3. Governing principles

PrimeDSF will be a tool in the public domain and therefore no IPR will be associated with it or otherwise the Parties will grant an unlimited license to the operators of PrimeDSF for any information contained in the PrimeDSF.

On the other hand, PrimeDSS is meant to provide information to a company in the seafood sector to improve its competitive position through an online service. The underyling information of that service is derived from information collected through surveys, questionnaires and other public data. The data can be processed per the models or software developed by the Parties.

It is expected that Parties working in the project will generate IPR in the following areas relevant for PrimeDSS and PrimeDSF:

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Models utilised that will process data to provide insights into factors affecting the competiveness of seafood operations
• The development of any software necessary to process data

IPR will be non-transferable for commercial use without prior consent by the Parties directly involved with the generation of that IPR, unless the Parties individually or collectively rescind the IPR by making it public.

Pre-existing IPR (“background”) is not affected by this document.

4. Intellectual Property Right ownership and control

For the lifetime of the PrimeFish project and in the context of PrimeDSF and PrimeDSS, Syntesa will be considered the caretakers of IPR and the data collected on said platforms. When the PrimeDSS is transferred to a commercial Operator at the completion of the project, Syntesa’s caretaker responsibility will be rescinded and transferred to that Operator who will commercially exploit the tool.

The commercial Operator will be required to engage in a license agreement with all Parties that declare to have made a substantial contribution to the PrimeDSS tool and/or with those Parties that hold IPR on underlying software required for the continued operation of PrimeDSS. The Operator is free to engage in such agreements on a collective or individual level.

For the purpose of this document, “substantial contribution” shall mean a contribution to a PrimeDSS tool that has been necessary for its development and is instrumental for the output provided.

Beneficiaries will have to make known if they claim to have made a significant contribution; the PrimeFish Project Steering Group will decide whether to accept that claim.