MYAGDATA

Privacy Policy

Independent Data Management, Inc. (IDM) is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of any personal information and farm data received. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect information provided through MyAgData®. Personal information for purposes of this Policy means information that identifies you, such as your name, addresses, phone number, or email address. Farm Data means information that identifies your farm, fields, crops, practices, production or yield, including field boundaries, planting, input and tillage practice records, harvest and delivery records, and the carbon intensity and program documentation we prepare from that information. We handle information for USDA acreage and crop insurance reporting and for agricultural program documentation, including low carbon fuel, clean fuel tax credit, sustainability and identity preserved programs.

Independent Data Management, Inc. takes appropriate measures to provide security for your personal information and farm data. MyAgData is implemented in the Microsoft® Azure® cloud which has received FedRAMP certification to ensure secure cloud computing for the Government.

Data privacy and protection in agriculture is evolving. We annually review our privacy and security policies and adapt them as necessary to address new challenges.

If you have additional questions, please contact us at support@myagdata.com. This Policy is part of the MyAgData Terms of Use and uses the same defined terms. Where you or your buyer have a signed services agreement with us that restricts how information and data may be used or shared, that agreement controls.

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Policy Contents

Types of Information & Data We Collect
Where Information & Data Comes From
How We Use Information & Data (the “Purposes”)
What We Do Not Do with Your Data
De-Identified and Aggregated Data
Who We Share Information & Data With
Consent and Your Choices
How Long We Keep Information & Data
Where Information & Data Is Processed
Disclosure of your Information to Protect our Rights or if Required by Law
Changes to This Policy

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Types of Information & Data We Collect

MyAgData collects Personal Information and Farm Data. Personal Information is information that can be used to identify, locate or contact you. We collect contact information that allows us to identify and to communicate with you, such as your name, phone number, username, mailing address and email address.

We collect the following types of Farm Data:

Farm, Tract and Field information required to identify your farms to the USDA.
Crop Insurance Policy information required to tie your farm data to your policy units.
Farm data generated by, collected by, or stored in your farm equipment or any hardware or device interfacing with your equipment. This includes as applied and yield data used to complete USDA acreage reporting.
Field practice information used for program documentation, such as tillage, cover crop, nutrient and input application records.
Delivery and receipt records, such as scale tickets and bushel receipts from the elevators and facilities that receive your crop.
Program enrollment information, including the programs you enroll in and the acres and fields you enroll.
Electronic signatures and declarations you sign, including the signer’s name, the date and time of signing and the IP address used.
Evidence you upload to support a program claim, such as invoices and receipts.
Satellite imagery and public land data about your fields, including the USDA Cropland Data Layer and Crop Sequence Boundaries.
Business contact information for the elevators, plants and grain suppliers you work with.

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Where Information & Data Comes From

We receive information and data directly from you, and, with your consent or at your direction, from: the elevators, processing plants and grain buyers that receive your crop, including scale tickets and delivery records received through their intake systems; the farm equipment and farm management information system accounts you connect to MyAgData; and public and commercial sources such as satellite imagery and USDA land data.

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How We Use Information & Data (the “Purposes”)

MyAgData uses Personal Information and Farm Data for a variety of purposes, including:

Customer Support: To validate the caller is who they are in order to avoid disclosure of personal information to a third party.
Product Support: To answer your questions about the use of MyAgData for reporting.
Acreage Reporting: To complete the acreage reporting process by the service provider or the grower and to send only required data to the crop insurance company or the USDA.
Program Administration: To document enrolled acres, practices and deliveries for agricultural programs you or your buyer participate in, such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, Section 45Z of the Internal Revenue Code, the Canadian Clean Fuel Regulations, and private sustainability or identity preserved programs.
Carbon Intensity and Land Eligibility Analysis: To calculate carbon intensity scores, prepare mass balance records and perform land eligibility analysis used in program filings.
Verification Support: To provide documentation to the verifiers, certifying bodies and regulators designated for a program, so the program claim can be verified.
Electronic Signing and Filing: To prepare, sign and file program documents and declarations electronically, and to record the signature evidence that proves who signed and when.
Chain of Custody and Mass Balance: To trace enrolled bushels from field to facility, maintain mass balance records and attribute volumes to the correct pool or program claim.
Preventing Double Counting: To check that the same acres, bushels or practices are not claimed more than once across programs and buyers.
Program Outreach: To send program communications on behalf of the buyer or program administrator that invited you to enroll. You may opt out of these communications at any time, and doing so does not affect your enrollment or the documentation we prepare for you.
Security, Fraud Prevention and Audit Trail: To protect the services and your data, to detect and prevent fraudulent or duplicate claims, and to maintain an audit trail of activity that programs and verifiers require.

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What We Do Not Do with Your Data

We do not use your data beyond what we are contractually obligated to do for you including:

We do not sell your Personal Information or Farm Data.
We will not transfer your information to any third-party without your expressed permission.
We will not allow any third-party access to your information other than is required to provide to you the services for which MyAgData is obligated to provide contractually.

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De-Identified and Aggregated Data

We may create de-identified and aggregated data from the information we hold, and we may use and share that data. De-identified data has had your name, contact information, account identifiers, field boundaries, farm and tract numbers, policy numbers and any other details that could reasonably identify you, your farm or your fields removed, and aggregated data combines information from many growers so that no individual grower, farm or field can be identified. We use this data to operate, improve and secure our services, to develop and validate models and methodologies, to produce benchmarks, research and industry reporting, and to describe our services to customers, partners and regulators. We do not sell your Personal Information or Farm Data, we do not share information that identifies you or your farm without your consent, and we do not attempt to re-identify de-identified data or permit others to do so. Where our agreement with your buyer or program administrator restricts this use, that agreement controls.

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Who We Share Information & Data With

We share your information only as needed to deliver the services you or your buyer have asked us to provide, and only with your consent where consent is required. Depending on the program, recipients may include: the USDA and your crop insurance provider for acreage reporting; the grain elevator, processor, ethanol plant or other buyer administering the program you enrolled in; the third-party verifiers, certifying bodies and auditors for that program; regulators administering the program; and your authorized technology provider, agronomic advisor or service provider where you have directed us to do so. Verifiers and certifying bodies for a program may be given direct access to the program records in our system, and may contact you to arrange sampling, field visits or follow-up questions as part of their verification. We also use an electronic signature provider to deliver, capture and store the documents you sign, and that provider receives the information needed to do so, including your name, email address and signature record. We also use service providers, such as cloud hosting, that process data on our behalf under contract and may not use it for their own purposes.

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Consent and Your Choices

Participation in a program is voluntary, and we collect your consent before connecting to your equipment or software accounts and before sharing your farm data for a program. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us, and we will stop collecting and sharing your data going forward. Withdrawing consent does not affect documentation already delivered for a completed program year, and program administrators and regulators may require that records already submitted be retained. You may request access to the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, subject to the retention rules below.

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How Long We Keep Information & Data

We keep information and data for as long as needed to provide the services and to meet the recordkeeping periods that apply to the programs it supports. Program records, including carbon intensity documentation and supporting practice and delivery records, are generally retained for the audit and verification period required by the applicable program, regulator or customer agreement. Where more than one program applies to the same records, we keep them for the longest of the periods required by the applicable authorities, which may include the Internal Revenue Service, the California Air Resources Board, Environment and Climate Change Canada and the European Union Deforestation Regulation. Signature records and audit trail entries are kept for the same period as the documents they support. After that, we delete or de-identify the data, except for copies held in routine backups until deleted in the ordinary course.

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Where Information & Data Is Processed

We store information on servers located in the United States. Our personnel and service providers may access that information from outside the United States, including from Canada, in the course of operating and supporting our services. Personnel and service providers who access information from any location are bound by the same confidentiality and security obligations described in this Policy, and we do not transfer control of your information to them. Where a program involves feedstock grown in Canada or another country, information needed for that program may be transferred to and processed in the United States and shared with the program administrator, verifier or regulator for that program. Information stored in or accessed from a country may be subject to the laws of that country, including lawful access requests by its authorities.

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Disclosure of your Information to Protect our Rights or if Required by Law

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Independent Data Management, Inc. reserves the right to share or disclose your personal information when Independent Data Management, Inc. determines, in its sole discretion that the disclosure of such information is necessary or appropriate:

To enforce our rights against you or in connection with a breach by you of this Privacy Policy or the MyAgData Terms of Use;
To prevent prohibited or illegal activities; or
When required by any applicable law, rule regulation, subpoena or other legal process.

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Changes to This Policy

We review this Policy at least annually and may update it as programs, regulations and our services change. We will post the updated Policy with a revised date, and material changes take effect thirty (30) days after posting. If a change would materially expand how we use or share information that identifies you or your farm, we will seek your consent before applying it to data we already hold.