IPS is a group of affiliated design, engineering, and manufacturing companies focused on low-power wireless telecommunications, payment processing systems, parking technologies, parking enforcement and management SaaS software. IPS is headquartered in the United States and operates globally, with affiliate companies in other countries including Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland. This privacy statement applies to IPS, Inc. and its affiliates below indicated (“IPS,” “we” or “us”). IPS is responsible for the processing of personal information – information about you that can directly or indirectly identify you personally – that you provide when you interact with any IPS company on its web sites (“Sites and Services”), mobile applications, other technologies described in this Privacy statement and any other sites or services under our control where this Privacy Statement is displayed. The data controller of ipsgroupinc.com and data collected by IPS through its web sites and business operations is IPS Group, Inc. This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, receive, use, store, share, transfer, and process your personal information, as well as your rights in determining what we do with this information.

Note that IPS also collects and uses personal information on behalf of its public and private organisation customers as it provides them services. In these cases, IPS operates only on directions of these customers and the privacy statements of those organisations apply.

For example, we sell parking meters to cities, universities, and other public and private parking site operators. We also provide on-going services to assist these organisations in parking payment processing, payment refunds, and parking enforcement and tracking. In these cases, we are the service provider to these organisations and collect and use end user personal information at their direction for the limited purpose of providing the service for which our client has engaged IPS.

IPS may collect information from and about you when you visit our web sites, set up an account with IPS or use our mobile applications, or interact with us. The following are brief descriptions of the information we may collect and how we use it.

Many of IPS services are offered to business and governmental customers, in which case IPS is a service provider to those customers and this privacy statement does not apply. However, if you register for one of our mobile applications that we offer directly to end users like you, such as ParkSmarter and MyParkingReceipts, either through a web site or on your mobile device, IPS is the controller of the data and this privacy statement applies. Through your registration and our application(s) we may collect your name, email address, telephone number, username and password, vehicle information such as: make, model, colour, year, licence plate number, and state, and for payment processing we collect payment and credit card information. As you use these services we may also log and maintain your usage and transaction data, and we collect and process your payment information. We use these data to fulfill and improve your service, respond to your requests, and with legitimate business interest, to understand and enhance our products and services. We may use your personal information to fulfill legal obligations and protect our legal interests. With your consent, we may also use your name and contact information to market to you.

If you request services that require geolocation, such as functionality to find available parking spots near you, we will ask for your explicit consent to turn on GPS geolocation for our application during the consent process provided by your device. We only use this information to provide your requested service, and you can withdraw your consent at any time through your mobile phone location service settings.

In an effort to improve our products and services, and help ensure accuracy of sensors and equipment, from time to time in the United States we perform camera audits of our parking meter activities for our legitimate business interests. These camera audits involve taking photos of parking spots at regular intervals to validate parking meter accuracy involving parking spot vacancy status. These photos may capture vehicles and/or people when those vehicles or people occupy a parking spot being audited. We only use this information to validate accuracy of our equipment and do not log license plate numbers outside of the photo itself.

We process personal information about you that we collect either directly, through forms or data entry fields on our website that you would voluntarily fill out, through log files that show us how you use our websites and applications, or through passive collection by cookies and other data collection technologies. We use this information to fulfil your requests, provide service, improve our business and operations, and with your consent may market to you. For our legitimate business interests pertaining to security and fraud prevention, we may also collect and use information provided through cookies and other data collection technologies.

The types of personal data we process in each of these contexts is further explained in the following categories:

We (and service providers on our behalf) use cookies and similar technologies to:

We use browser session cookies, which are temporary cookies that are erased from your device’s memory when you close your Internet browser or turn your computer off, and persistent cookies, which are stored on your device until they expire, unless you delete them before that time. In some countries, such as countries in the European Union, we provide a mechanism through which you can manage your cookie preferences – our “Cookie Preferences” manager. If this Cookie Preferences manager is available in your geography, you can select your preferences by clicking on the Cookie Preferences link at the bottom of the browser web page. If it is not available in your geography, you can opt out of cookies through your browser privacy settings.

Generally, our cookies fall within one of three categories:

Software development kits: Our mobile applications contain software development kits (SDKs) that may collect and transmit information back to us or third-party partners about your usage of that mobile application or other applications on your device.

Flash cookies: Videos and other features on our site use Flash cookies to collect and store your preferences, such as volume. Flash cookies are different from browser cookies because of the amount of, type of, and way that data is stored. Cookie management tools provided by your browser will not remove Flash cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for Flash cookies click here. Some cookies may be placed by third party service providers who perform some of these functions for us.

Server log files: We automatically gather server log file information when you visit our web sites. This includes IP address, browser type, referring and exit web pages, and your operating system. We use this information to manage security and prevent fraud and manage and improve our web sites and applications.

Cookie Preference Manager: As described in this Privacy Notice, IPS and third parties on our digital propert(ies) may use cookies and similar tracking technologies to collect information and infer your interests for interest-based advertising purposes. If you would prefer to not receive personalized ads based on your browser or device usage, you may generally express your opt-out preference to no longer receive tailored advertisements. Please note that you will continue to see advertisements, but they will no longer be tailored to your interests.