Linde Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 1, 2023

Linde and its U.S. subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, “Company”) takes your privacy seriously. We want you to know how we collect, use, disclose, and retain your personal information.

Assistance For The Disabled

Alternative formats of this Privacy Policy are available to individuals with a disability. Please contact contactus@linde.com for assistance.

This Privacy Policy Explains:

1. What categories of personal information we collect

2. The categories of sources from which we collect this personal information

3. The purposes for which we use your personal information

4. How we may disclose your personal information

5. How long we keep your personal information

6. Information for California residents

7. Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to the personal information of individuals (“you”, “your”, or “yours”) collected by Company, including the personal information collected when you visit our website www.lindeus.com as it may be modified, relocated and/or redirected from time to time (the “Site”). This Privacy Policy does not apply to the personal information of individuals in their capacity as prospective, current, or former employees, contract workers, board members, or owners of the Company, or their emergency contacts, dependents, or beneficiaries.

“Personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular individual or household.
Other web sites

The Site may contain links to other web sites not operated or controlled by us (“Third Party Sites”). The policies and procedures we describe here do not apply to Third Party Sites. The links from the Site do not imply that we endorse or have reviewed the Third Party Sites. We suggest contacting those sites directly for information on their privacy policies.

Categories of Personal Information We Collect

• Identifiers, for example: real name, alias, telephone number, postal address, e-mail address, and signature.
• Commercial Information, for example: records of products or samples purchased or requested, and purchasing or consuming histories.
• Internet Activity Information, for example: information about your usage of the Site, such as the name of your Internet Service Provider, your IP address, your browser type, the date, duration, and time of your visit, the pages you viewed, extracted data and downloaded files, your referrer URL, your search term in case you were referred to our website by search engine, the services and features you used or interacted with; your browser type and details about any links or communications with which you interacted; internet protocol (IP); browser plug-in types and versions; and operating systems and platform.
• Professional Information, for example: business contact information and title.
• Financial Information, for example: payment card details, billing address, and shipping address.
• Sensory or Surveillance Data, for example: voicemails and recordings as described below in “User Content”.
• User Content, includes content you submit when you contact Company. This may include recordings you create, including audio recordings or voicemail you submit when you contact the Company.
• Communications Data, for example: during our communications with you, we collect the content of these communications as well as metadata about the communications, i.e., date and time of the call or text (SMS or MMS) message and phone numbers.
• Financial account access information, for example: payment card information with CCV and other information as needed to make online or over-the-phone purchases.
• Inferences, for example: Company might infer based on your purchase history that you would be interested in other products or services.

Note on Sensitive Personal Information: Company does not infer characteristics from sensitive personal information. Company only uses sensitive personal information as necessary to perform the services or provide the goods the average person would reasonably expect when requesting those goods or services, to ensure security and integrity, short term transient use, to maintain the quality of our products and services, or for other purposes permitted by the California Privacy Rights Act and implementing regulations (“CPRA”) without the right to opt out.

Yes. Cookies are small files that the Site or our service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser that enables the Site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. We use cookies to help us understand how users use the Site. For example, cookies gather information about how long you spend on a web page so that we can understand what web pages are of most interest to users.

If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off cookies by adjusting your browser settings. If you turn off your cookies, some of the features on the Site may not function properly.

Google Analytics

We use cookies provided by Google Analytics, a third-party service provider, to assist us in better understanding our Site visitors. These cookies collect data tied to a user’s IP address, such as the length of time a user spends on a page, the pages a user visits, and the websites a user visits before and after visiting the Site. Based on this information, Google Analytics compiles aggregate data about Site traffic and Site interactions, which we use to offer better Site experiences and tools in the future. Google Analytics does not collect any personal information (other than IP Address which may be considered personal information in some countries). For more information on Google Analytics, visit https://support.google.com/analytics.

Tracking Across Time and Different Sites

The Site tracks your online activities over time. The site does not track across websites or online services on an individually identifiable basis. We do not allow third parties to use our Site to track your activities over time or across other websites.

Do Not Track Setting

The Site currently does not respond to web browser “do not track” (DNT) signals or other mechanisms that indicate your preference for having information collected over time and across different web sites following your visit to our Site. DNT is a preference you can set in your browser’s settings to let the website you visit, including the Site, know that you do not want the websites collecting your personal identifiable information. You can also visit https://allaboutdnt.com/ to learn more.

The Categories of Sources from Which We Collect Your Personal Information

• You, for example, when you register with our Site or when you otherwise provide information directly to us.

The Purposes for Which We Use Your Personal Information

Providing Products and Services, including:

• To deliver our products.
• To communicate with you.
• To improve our products, develop new products, and conduct research on further improvements.
• To fulfill our contractual obligations.

Protecting Legitimate Interests:

• To measure and analyze pseudonymized user behavior to further improve our websites.

Support, including:

• For customer support.
• To respond to any requests, queries, suggestions, feedback, or comments you may have.
• To inform you of any changes to the services, your account (if applicable), this Privacy Policy, or any other policies or terms in relation thereto.
• To perform operations to maintain the services, including to conduct data analysis, testing, and research; and to monitor and analyze usage and activity trends.

Monitoring, Security, and Compliance, including:

• To administer and protect our business and our Site (including troubleshooting, analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data, and preventing fraud and abuse).
• To store, host, or backup (whether for disaster recovery or otherwise) our services or any data contained therein.
• To protect the rights, property, or safety of Company, you, or others.
• In connection with a corporate transaction, sale, or assignment of assets, merger, divestiture, or other changes of control or financial status of Company or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.
• To report suspected criminal conduct to law enforcement and cooperate in investigations.
• To exercise Company’s rights under applicable law and to support any claim, defense, or declaration in a case or before a jurisdictional and/or administrative authority, arbitration, or mediation panel.
• To ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulatory obligations.

Incidental Purposes: Any incidental purposes related to, or in connection with, the above.

Disclosures Generally

Company discloses personal information as necessary for the purposes described in section "The Purposes for Which We Use Your Personal Information" above to the following categories of external recipients:

• Service providers and contractors: Company discloses your personal information to service providers and contractors for the purposes above to assist us in meeting our business needs and contractual and legal obligations.
• Affiliated companies: Other companies within the Linde family of companies, for example, to provide you with our products and services.
• Third parties: For example, we might disclose personal information to internet service providers, marketing affiliates, software plug-ins, and lawyers to assist us with legal compliance or to business partners to assist us in providing services to you.
• Government or administrative agencies: For example, Company may report unlawful activity to law enforcement.
• Required Disclosures: We may be required to disclose personal information in a court proceeding, in response to a court order, subpoena, civil discovery request, other legal process, or as otherwise required by law.
• Legal Compliance and Protections: We may disclose personal information when we believe disclosure is necessary to comply with the law or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Company, our users, or others.
• Corporate Transactions: We reserve the right to disclose and transfer your personal information, including your personal information:

1. To a subsequent owner or co-owner.
2. In connection with a corporate merger, consolidation, bankruptcy, the sale of substantially all of our membership interests and/or assets or other corporate change, including to any prospective purchasers.

Disclosures for Business Purposes

Company has disclosed each of the categories of personal information listed in section "What Categories of Personal Information We Collect" above, for the following “business purposes”, as that term is defined under the CPRA, in the last 12 months:

• Service providers: For the business purpose of performing services on Company’s behalf and, in particular, for the specific purposes described in section "The Purposes for Which We Use Your Personal Information", above.
• Auditors, lawyers, consultants, and accountants engaged by Company: For the business purpose of auditing compliance with policies and applicable laws, in addition to performing services on Company’s behalf.
• Affiliated companies: To other companies within the Linde family of companies for the business purposes of (1) auditing compliance with policies and applicable laws, (2) helping to ensure security and integrity, (3) debugging, (4) short-term transient use, (5) performing services on behalf of Company, (6) internal research, and (7) activities to maintain or improve the quality or safety of a service or device.

No Sales and Sharing

We do not sell or share your personal information, where “share” means disclosing personal information to third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising. Without limiting the foregoing, we have not, and have no actual knowledge that we have, sold or “shared” the personal information of individuals of any age, including the personal information of children under 16, in the last 12 months.

Aggregated and De-identified Information

We may aggregate and/or de-identify information, use it internally, and disclose to third parties. Neither Aggregated Information nor De-identified Information (defined below) is personal information.

• “Aggregated Information” refers to information about a group of individuals from which the individually identifiable information has been removed. An example of Aggregated Information would be the statistic that 20 people used our website’s contact form on a given day.
• “De-identified Information” means information subjected to reasonable measures to ensure that the de-identified information cannot be associated with the individual. An example of de-identified information would be data point that an unidentified visitor first entered the Site through our main web page. We maintain de-identified information in a deidentified form and do not attempt to reidentify it, except that we may attempt to reidentify the information just to determine whether our de-identification processes function correctly. We prohibit vendors, by contract, from attempting to reidentify our de-identified information.

Company will retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain your personal information for the duration of any applicable statutory retention period and as necessary to resolve disputes and enforce our legal rights. In these cases, we are generally required to safeguard or store data for three to ten years, or in rare instance, e.g. in legal disputes for up to 30 years.

California Notice at Collection

Company collects the personal information identified in Section 1 for the purposes identified in Section 3 and retains is for the period described in Section 5. We do not sell your personal information or disclose it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We also do not collect or process sensitive personal information for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you. To the extent you provide Company with personal information about other California residents, you are responsible for providing this notice to them.

Your California Privacy Rights Subject to applicable law, California residents have the following rights:

• Right to Know: You have the right to submit a verifiable request for specific pieces of your personal information obtained from you and for information about Company’s collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information. Please note that the CPRA’s right to obtain “specific pieces” does not grant a right to the whole of any document that contains personal information, but only to copies of items of personal information. Moreover, California residents generally just have a right to know categories, for example, categories of third parties to which personal information is disclosed, but not the individual third parties.
• Right to Delete: You have the right to submit a verifiable request for the deletion of personal information that you have provided to Company.
• Right to Correct: You have the right to submit a verifiable request for the correction of inaccurate personal information maintained by Company, taking into account the nature of the personal information and the purposes of processing the personal information.

How to Exercise Your Rights Company will respond to request to know, delete, and correct in accordance with applicable law if it can verify the identity of the individual submitting the request. You can exercise these rights in the following ways:

• Call: 1-844-44LINDE (445-4633)
• Email: contactus@linde.com

How We Will Verify Your Request
We match personal data that you provide us against personal data we maintain in our files. The more risk entailed by the request (e.g., a request for specific pieces of personal data), the more items of personal data we may request to verify you. If we cannot verify your identity to a sufficient level of certainty to respond to your request, we will let you know promptly and explain why we cannot verify your identity.

Authorized Agents
If an authorized agent submits a request to know, correct, or delete on your behalf, the authorized agent must submit with the request either (a) a power of attorney that is valid under California law, or (b) document signed by you that authorizes the authorized agent to submit the request on your behalf. In addition, we may ask you to follow the applicable process described above for verifying your identity. You can obtain an “Authorized Agent Designation” form by contacting us at contactus@linde.com.

In the alternative, you can provide a power of attorney compliant with the California Probate Code.

Company’s Non-Discrimination Policy
Company will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights under the California Privacy Rights Act.

We do not collect information from anyone under 13 years of age. The products and/or services we provide, together with our Site, are all directed to individuals who are at least 13 years old. If you are under the age of 13, you are not authorized to use our services or the Site.

If we change this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on this page and update the Privacy Policy modification date above. If we materially change this Privacy Policy in a way that affects how we use or disclose your personal information, we will provide a prominent notice of such changes and the effective date of the changes before making them.

For questions or concerns about Company’s privacy policies and practices, please contact us at contactus@linde.com