Privacy Statement
Last updated: March 2025
This Privacy Statement (the “Statement”) explains how Benchmade Knife Co., Inc. (“Benchmade,” “us,” “our,” or “we”) collects, stores, uses, and discloses personal information, including when you visit Benchmade’s websites, purchase products online or in our store, engage with us on social media, apply for a job with us, or attend our events. This Statement addresses specific disclosure requirements from various privacy laws and also serves as our ‘notice at collection.’
Please read this Statement to understand how we process your information and how to exercise your rights. If you have any questions about this Statement or our privacy practices, please contact us at privacy@benchmade.com.
To focus on our mission and vision, we engage service providers and third parties to provide us with information technology, professional services, and other assistance in a variety of business functions, from marketing and operations to recruiting and sales. To learn more, please review When We Disclose Personal Information and Cookies and Similar Technologies.
Contents
Personal Information We Process
How We Use Personal Information
When We Disclose Personal Information
Your Privacy Rights and Control of Your Information
Cookies and Similar Technology
How We Protect and Store Your Information
Updates to the Privacy Statement
Personal Information We Process
Benchmade collects information about you in a number of ways. First, we collect information directly from you, such as when you:
- Purchase our products,
- Send us an email or contact us through the website,
- Create an online account,
- Register your knife,
- Share content with us, such as product reviews or photos,
- Sign up for promotional email or opt-in to receive text (or SMS) messages,
- Participate in our sweepstakes, contests, or promotions,
- Become a dealer for our products,
- Send us your resume, or
- Engage with us on social media platforms or in-person, at events or in our stores.
Next, from time to time, we collect information about you from others, such as our dealers, public sources, or from data brokers. Finally, we collect information automatically from you using Cookies and Similar Technologies when you visit our websites and engage with our emails.
We may create data about you, such as inferences about your interests, hobbies, or the knives that may suit you best.
This personal information we collect and process includes:
- Identifiers, such as your full name, account name, alias, username, home address, business address, shipping address, billing address, unique personal identifier, unique online identifier, IP address, email address, phone number, driver’s license number, or other similar identifiers.
- Account information, including your name and favorite knives.
- Demographic information, such as your general market area, zip code, age range, or information about your gender or occupation.
- Professional, educational, and employment-related information, such as your current employer, occupation, and academic qualifications.
- Commercial information, including data about your knife purchases, including date of purchase, store name and city, your purpose for purchasing the knife, and similar information. If you are a dealer, we may collect other commercial information about your business and our interactions.
- Geolocation information, such as your precise and general geolocation. For example, when you use the Find a Dealer feature on our website, you may provide your precise or general geolocation depending on your settings and the information you provide.
- Financial account information, such as the payment card information you provide to complete a purchase; if you shop online, such information is handled by our e-commerce and payment processors.
- Your preferences, interests, and affiliations, such as those we infer based on your activity on our website or those you share, such as when you attend our events, send us a message, or favorite a knife on our website.
- Content, such as the text or photos you share when you post reviews of our knives or your experiences with us.
- Communications, such as the content of the email, direct message, or text message you send to us.
- Audio, video, images, or similar information, including voicemail recordings you leave us, photos you share with us on social media platforms, and video we capture at our events or in our facilities.
- Device data, including information about the device you use to access our website, such as the hardware model, operating system version, and device identifiers.
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Internet and electronic network activity, such as search queries on our website or the information we automatically collect about your interactions on our website or with our emails using Cookies and Similar Technologies. Such information may include:
- Wireless network and connection information, including your IP address,
- Date and time of your visit to our website and duration of your visit,
- Your interactions with our website, such as the pages you viewed, the features you engaged with, your clickstreams, and the knives you added to your digital shopping bag,
- The website from which you linked to our website and the website you navigated to next,
- Your input into any search box on our website or Chat Bot on our websites,
- The general location from which you access the website, and
- Other similar information about your use of our websites or engagement with our emails.
Personal information we collect may be considered ‘sensitive’ under certain privacy and data protection laws. For example, when you make a purchase, we process your payment card information. When you engage with us online or submit a review, you may choose to share information that reveals your race, health conditions, union membership, or religious or philosophical beliefs. Benchmade uses such information to complete your transaction, provide our digital services, or for other legitimate purposes.
Benchmade may process de-identified personal information. Data in this state cannot be used to infer information about, or otherwise be linked to, a particular individual. In those instances, and unless allowed under applicable law, we will maintain such information in a de-identified state and will not try to re-identify the individual.
How We Use Personal Information
We use your information for a variety of purposes, depending on our interactions, including to market and sell our products, operate our websites, and to conduct our business. We’ve provided the chart below to describe the specific categories of personal information we commonly use.
|
Use |
Personal Information Types Used |
|
Provide, protect, and improve our websites. For example, we use personal information we collect to: · Provide certain website functionality, such as keeping you signed in or remembering what’s in your digital shopping bag. · Detect performance issues, bugs, or broken links. · Respond to your searches or queries you perform on our website; or · Customize the digital content you see. For example, if you use the Knife Finder feature on our website, we use information you provide to make product recommendations and display content on our website we think you’ll value.
|
- Identifiers - Account Information - Demographic information - Geolocation information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Content - Communications - Device Data - Internet and electronic network activity |
|
Fulfill your online order, complete an in-person transaction, or provide support. We process your information to complete transactions, which includes customizing the products you order, preventing and detecting fraud, and providing you support when you need it, including when we service your knife. |
- Identifiers - Account Information - Demographic information - Commercial information - Financial account information - Communications - Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information - Internet and electronic network activity |
|
Administer sweepstakes, contests, or other promotions. We may use your information, for example, to share information with you about the promotion, determine your eligibility, and share outcomes as necessary, such as when we contact winners. |
- Identifiers - Account information - Demographic information - Commercial information - Content - Communications |
|
Send promotional emails and text messages. We keep you in the know on our new arrivals, discounts, and more by sending you promotional communications via email or text (SMS) messages. Some content may be personalized based on information we process from prior interactions. For example, we may send you a text message or email to remind you of the knifes you added to your digital shopping bag on our website. |
- Identifiers - Account Information - Demographic information - Commercial information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Communications - Internet and electronic network activity |
|
Market and advertise our products, including through the use of online advertising and social media platforms. For example, we analyze our digital interactions to develop marketing ideas, measure the effectiveness of our ad campaigns, and understand who buys our products. We may display a review or photo you shared on our website to help others learn about our products. |
- Identifiers - Demographic information - Commercial information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Communications - Audio, video, and images - Device Data - Internet and electronic network activity |
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Listen and respond. For example, we may engage with you through email, over the phone, or through digital messaging features where we interact. We may analyze our messages to understand common questions or product needs so that we can improve. |
- Identifiers - Demographic information - Commercial information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Content - Communications - Audio, video, and images - Device Data - Internet and electronic network activity |
|
Notify you about important information related to your account, your orders, or our products. For example, we may send you an email to provide you an update on your order or service request. |
- Identifiers - Commercial information - Communications - Audio, video, and images
|
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Develop new or improved products and content, including by conducting research, surveys, and interviews, and by analyzing personal information. For example, we may gather feedback about our products through surveys which may lead to new releases. |
- Identifiers - Account information - Demographic information - Commercial information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Content - Communications - Audio, video, and images - Device data - Internet and electronic network activity |
|
Consider you for employment. If you want to join our team, we’ll use your information to determine if you qualified for positions within our organization. |
- Identifiers - Professional, educational, and employment-related information - Your preferences, interests, and affiliations - Communications - Internet and electronic network activity |
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Protect our rights and property, as well as those of our guests, customers, dealers, and partners; detect, prevent, and respond to fraud, theft, or violations of the law, our terms, or our policies. For example, we may use security cameras in our facilities to collect video which we use for various purposes, including to respond to incidents. |
We will use all categories of personal information, as necessary, for these purposes. |
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Comply with laws and regulations or meet other requirements or obligations. For example, we may process your information to remember your contact preferences, cookie choices, and honor our warranty. |
In carrying out these purposes, we combine information we collect from different contexts and sources to provide you a more seamless and personalized experience, to make informed business decisions, and for other legitimate business purposes. For example, we may use information we gathered about your interactions on our website, such as the knives you favorited or added to your digital shopping bag, to inform the content of a message we send you via email or text (SMS) message.
As described above, depending on our interactions, some of the information we collect may qualify as “sensitive” under certain privacy laws, such as payment card information. From time to time, we may process sensitive categories of data incidentally or if you choose to share it. For example, if you apply for a job or sign-up for our events, we may learn about your disability status to provide accommodations.
When We Disclose Personal Information
We disclose personal information to others for legitimate business purposes and in a variety of circumstances. For example, to focus on our mission and vision, we engage service providers and third parties to provide us with technology, tools, and assistance in a variety of business functions, from marketing to recruiting. Please review the chart below to learn about specific instances where your information may be accessed by or available to others, including our service providers, our dealers, and law enforcement.
|
Category of Recipient or Circumstance of the Disclosure |
Personal Information Types Transferred |
Purpose |
|
Others, with your consent, or at your direction |
Any personal information categories |
We transfer your personal information with your consent, or at your direction, to complete your transaction or facilitate a request you have authorized. For example:
|
|
Service Providers |
Any personal information categories
|
We hire other companies and individuals to perform business functions on our behalf which may involve the processing of personal information. For example, we may contract with: · Information technology vendors to provide essential, common services like cloud hosting, digital fraud detection, and network security. · Marketing vendors and advertising agencies for assistance with ad campaigns, sweepstakes, and promotional communications; in order to perform the services for which they’ve been hired, such vendors and agencies may process a variety of personal information, including identifiers, geographic information, data related to your preferences, interests, and affiliations, and our communications. · Other professionals, such as consultants and accountants, who provide various services and are often subject to professional duties of confidentiality, and · Staffing agencies or other firms, who provide functions such as customer service.
These service providers only have access to the personal information needed to perform their functions. They have agreed to protect the information from disclosure and to only use the personal information as necessary to carry out their services.
Service providers may collect your information on our websites, as described below in Cookies and Similar Technology. |
|
Analytics, marketing, and digital advertising vendors |
· Identifiers · Demographic information · Commercial information · Your preferences, interests, and affiliations · Content · Communications · Audio, video, images, or similar information · Device data · Internet and electronic network activity |
Subject to your cookie preferences, device settings, and privacy preferences, we share information with analytics, marketing, and digital advertising vendors who process your personal information to carry out the services they provide to us. They may also use such personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies. To learn more, please see Cookies and Similar Technology. |
|
Merger, Acquisition, or Sale |
Any personal information categories |
We might transfer your information to a third party, if a sale or transfer of assets or other disposition of all or any part of our business. |
|
Law enforcement, government agencies, or other officials |
Any personal information categories |
We might disclose your information to any third party, without your consent and without notice to you, if we believe: · We are legally obligated to do so, · Disclosure is necessary to protect, establish, or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims, or · Disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, property, and safety, and those of others. |
Your Privacy Rights and Control of Your Information
Data privacy laws provide individuals with specific rights regarding their personal information. Depending on where you live, you may have all or some of the following rights and choices regarding your information.
- The right to opt-out. You may have the right to limit our use of your personal information or to opt-out of certain processing of personal information. To the extent the use of cookies and similar technologies on our websites, as described above, is deemed a “sale” or “sharing” under data privacy laws, or enables certain personalized advertising, you can opt-out as described in the below, including by using our website’s cookie consent manager.
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The right to be informed or to know. You may have the right to be informed of how we process your information. For example, you may have the right to be informed or to know:
- The categories of personal information we collect and process about you.
- The categories of sources of the personal information we collect and process about you.
- The purposes for collecting or processing that personal information.
- The categories of personal information shared or disclosed to third parties, the categories or names of those third parties, as well as the purposes of such sharing or disclosure.
- The right to access. You may have the right to access, view, and in some cases, obtain a copy of the personal information we process about you.
- The right to correct and delete. You have the right to request we correct any of your personal information or delete it. If we receive a verifiable request to delete, we will delete (and notify any relevant third parties or service providers to delete) your personal information, unless an exception applies.
- The right to not be subject to certain automated processing. We do not engage in ‘profiling’ or automated decision making which has legal or significant effects.
- Right to not be discriminated against for exercising your rights. If you exercise your rights, we will not discriminate against you.
You can exercise your rights, as well as make choices about Benchmade’s collection and processing of your information, several ways. For example:
- Cookie Consent Manager. You can indicate your privacy preferences using the cookie consent manager you can access from the bottom of pages on our website.
- Unsubscribe. You may opt out of receiving promotional communications using the unsubscribe mechanism indicated in our messages or by contacting us at privacy@benchmade.com. If you opt-out, we may continue to contact you for other purposes.
- Benchmade Account. You can request that we delete account information by contacting us at privacy@benchmade.com.
- Other Privacy Controls. Our websites honor the Global Privacy Control signal. You can learn more about the signal and how to enable it here: https://globalprivacycontrol.org/.
You can also use the privacy controls, including cookie settings, provided on your device, as part of your operating system, or available as settings in your browser.
You can also submit your request to exercise your privacy rights by sending an email to Privacy@benchmade.com or by writing to the following address:
Benchmade Knife Company, Inc.
Attn: Privacy Team
300 Beavercreek Road
Oregon City, OR 97045
In your request, please specify the rights that you (or if you are an authorized agent, the data subject) wish to exercise and include full name, phone number, email address, and residential address.
We will confirm receipt of your request promptly. If we need more information to verify your identity or the authorized representative’s authority to act on your behalf, we will let you know. Please allow 45 days for a response to your request. If we cannot honor your request for any reason within that 45-day period, we will notify you.
Please note that with regard to all these rights, we reserve the right to: (a) verify your identity in order to process the request or request further information for this purpose; (b) refuse your request based on the exemptions set out in any applicable data protection laws; and (c) charge you a reasonable administrative fee for any repetitive, manifestly unfounded, or excessive requests. If we deny your request to access your rights, you may appeal by contacting us privacy@benchmade.com (please put ‘Appeals’ in the subject line). Depending on where you live, you may have the right to contact your state attorney general to raise a concern.
Cookies and Similar Technology
We use cookies and similar technologies, like web beacons and pixels, to collect information about our digital interactions, which we use for a variety of business purposes. For example, we use these technologies in connection with our websites, digital content, and promotional email to:
- Ensure our websites are functioning properly,
- Keep you signed in and remember what you put in your digital shopping bag,
- Learn how you use our websites or engage with our emails,
- Detect fraud, security issues, or violations of our terms,
- Measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns or the size of our digital audience, and
- Provide you a personalized, more seamless experience.
We permit third parties, including service providers and analytics, marketing, and digital advertising vendors, to use cookies and similar technologies on our websites and emails to gather information which they use to provide us insights about your digital experience and our interactions.
In some cases, the third parties may also use the information they collect on our websites or emails for their own purposes in accordance with their own respective privacy policies.
To the extent permitting third parties to collect personal information is deemed a “sale” or “sharing” under applicable data privacy laws, or enables certain personalized or targeted advertising, you can opt-out as described in the section below, including by using our cookie consent manager. The third parties processing personal information from cookies and similar technologies on our website can include:
- Analytics service providers, like Heatmap.
- Marketing automation platforms.
- Social media and digital advertising platform operators, such as:
- Google. To opt-out of Google Analytics, go to tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. To adjust your Google advertising and privacy settings, visit adssettings.google.com or myaccount.google.com/data-and-privacy.
- Meta. To review your privacy choices, visit the Meta Privacy Center.
- E-commerce platform providers and payment processors.
- Network security, cybersecurity, and fraud detection vendors,
- Consent management platform providers, like Osano and Dataships.
- Chatbot developers, and
- Enterprise talent and recruiting service providers.
Our websites honor the Global Privacy Control which you can learn more about at https://globalprivacycontrol.org/.
Children’s Information
We do not solicit or knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child has provided us personal information, please contact us at privacy@benchmade.com and we will delete such personal information.
How We Protect and Store Your Information
We use appropriate and reasonable physical, electronic, and administrative measures to protect your personal information against loss and unauthorized access, alteration, and use. Unfortunately, no measures can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, we cannot guarantee the security of your information.
We consider the following factors when determining how long we retain your information:
- Our legal obligations,
- The purpose for which your information was collected or processed,
- Your requests to delete the information,
- Retention periods in applicable laws and regulation, and
- Our legitimate business purposes. For example, we may retain your data to the extent it is necessary to honor our commitments and legal obligations, prevent fraudulent activity, protect ourselves against liability, enforce our rights, and protect our property.
Benchmade processes personal information in the United States and any other jurisdiction where do business.
Links to Third-Party Services
This Statement applies only to the personal information Benchmade processes. Our website or our emails may link to others’ websites, or provide integrations with third-party services, which operate beyond our control. For example, our websites might enable social media sharing features and our emails may contain links to videos on third-party platforms. We are not responsible for and have not reviewed the privacy practices of others’ websites and services, though we encourage you to do so.
Updates to the Privacy Statement
We may need to update or revise this Statement from time-to-time to enhance transparency, as well as in response to changing legal, technical, or business developments. We will post any new or revised Statement here, and you should review this page regularly to make sure that you are aware of our processing of personal information and your rights. You can figure out if this Statement has been revised by referring to the last updated date at the top of this page. If there are material changes to the Statement, or if we intend to use earlier-collected personal information in accordance with the terms of the revised Statement and doing so would result in processing of personal information that is not consistent with the purpose for which the information was originally collected, we will notify you by prominently posting a notice of such changes before they take effect or by directly notifying you, and if required, we may request your consent.
How to Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, our processing of your information, or your privacy rights, please contact us at:
Benchmade Knife Company, Inc.
Attn: Privacy Team
300 Beavercreek Road
Oregon City, OR 97045
Thank you!