Last updated 1 September 2026 · Operated by HANS INFORMATION (HK) LIMITED
This Privacy Policy explains how the Polartrade website and the trade information, market intelligence, commodity research, supply chain analytics and related data services provided through it collect, use, store and protect the personal information of visitors and clients. The services described on this site are developed and operated by the developer HansInfo, acting for HANS INFORMATION (HK) LIMITED, a company registered in Hong Kong at Rm D07 8/F KAI TAK FTY BLDG, 99 KING FUK ST, Kowloon City, Hong Kong (HK).
Polartrade takes the confidentiality of trade data and personal details seriously. We review this policy regularly to keep it accurate and to reflect changes in law and in the services we offer. By using the website, submitting an enquiry, or engaging our research desk, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree with any part of this policy, you should stop using the website and contact us to request removal of any information you have already shared.
Nothing in this policy grants any rights beyond those that you hold under the applicable data protection law of your home jurisdiction, including the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union where it applies to you. Where there is a difference between this policy and a legal requirement, the law prevails.
The operator of this website is HANS INFORMATION (HK) LIMITED, with the contact address Rm D07 8/F KAI TAK FTY BLDG, 99 KING FUK ST, Kowloon City, Hong Kong (HK). The company provides professional computer systems design, business research and trade information services under the brand Polartrade. Within the company, the role of data controller is held by the management team, and enquiries about privacy should be directed to the contact address and email provided in section 19 of this policy.
We employ analysts, data engineers and compliance specialists who process trade records on behalf of clients. These staff members are bound by confidentiality agreements and receive regular training on data protection, secure handling and the ethical use of business intelligence. Access to personal information is limited to personnel who need it to perform their duties, and every access is recorded.
Because we operate across multiple markets, some processing may be carried out by carefully selected partners. Any partner that processes personal information on our behalf does so under a written agreement that requires an equivalent standard of protection and prohibits the use of the data for any purpose other than the one we authorise.
We collect only the information needed to respond to enquiries, deliver a contracted research service, send you material you have requested, or meet a legal obligation. The categories of information we may process include the following.
This includes your full name, the name of your organisation, your job title, your email address, your telephone number and your postal address when you provide them through the website form, by email, by telephone, or in the course of an engagement.
When you request a research project or a verification report, we may collect details about the products, corridors, counterparties and commodities involved. We treat this commercially sensitive information with the same confidentiality as your personal data.
When you visit the website, our servers record standard technical details such as your internet protocol address, browser type, operating system, referring page of our own site and the approximate time of your visit. We use this information to protect the site and to understand broad patterns of use.
For partner verification and market research services, we may collect information from public company registries, customs databases, trade directories and official publications. This information is gathered from sources that are lawfully available to the public.
We collect information in several ways. First, you provide it directly when you fill in the contact form, send us an email, call our telephone line, request a proposal or complete a survey. Second, we collect technical information automatically when you browse the site, as described in section 9 of this policy. Third, we receive information from third-party partners and public sources when you ask us to verify a business or to research a market.
We do not buy personal data from data brokers, nor do we spy on the private communications of individuals. Our collection is limited, purposeful and proportionate to the service we provide. When a request requires information we do not hold, we will ask you for it or explain how to obtain it through an appropriate authority.
In every case, we collect the least amount of information that allows us to perform the task. We will not request a national identification number, financial account detail or any similar sensitive record unless it is genuinely necessary for a specific, lawful purpose and you have agreed to it beforehand.
We use your information only for the following purposes, and we do not reuse it for unrelated reasons without a fresh basis.
Where we carry out partner verification or market research, we process trade and registry data to prepare a report that we deliver to you. The report itself is the product of our service. The underlying personal data, where any appears, is presented only to the extent required for the verification you requested.
Where data protection law requires a defined legal basis for processing, we rely on the following grounds. When you enquire about a service, we process your contact details to take steps at your request before entering a contract. When we deliver a paid engagement, we process the data necessary to perform that contract.
Where we send marketing material, we rely on your consent, which you may withdraw at any time by contacting us or using the unsubscribe facility. Where we protect the website or prevent fraud, we rely on our legitimate interest in maintaining a secure and reliable service, and we balance that interest against your rights and freedoms.
Where we are required by law to retain records, we process data on the basis of a legal obligation. We will tell you which ground applies in a particular case if you write to us and ask, unless doing so would breach a legal duty of confidence.
We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purpose for which it was collected, or for as long as we are required to keep it by law. Enquiry correspondence is normally retained for two years after the last contact, after which it is securely deleted. Records associated with a paid engagement are retained for the period required by applicable commercial and tax law, which, depending on the jurisdiction, may be several years.
Technical logs that help us secure the website are kept for a short operational period, usually no longer than twelve months, and are then anonymised or deleted. When we delete information, we do so in a manner that prevents reconstruction, using secure deletion methods for electronic records and shredding for paper records.
If you ask us to delete information earlier, we will honour the request subject to any legal requirement that overrides it, such as a statutory retention period or an ongoing investigation.
We apply technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. The site is served over an encrypted connection, our storage is access-controlled, and our staff use multi-factor authentication when they work with sensitive systems.
Access to client databases is limited on a need-to-know basis, and we conduct periodic audits of access logs. We also maintain procedures for detecting and responding to a suspected breach, including notification to affected parties and authorities where the law requires it.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. While we work hard to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. You can help by keeping any passwords and account details confidential and by reporting suspicious activity to our desk promptly.
To improve the website, we may work with analytics that aggregate technical information such as pages viewed, time on site and broad geographic regions. These analytics aggregate data so it cannot identify you as an individual. We use the summaries to decide which sections of the site are helpful and where visitors need clearer guidance.
We may also use anonymised, aggregated trade statistics to build the market insights we publish or deliver to clients. Aggregation ensures individual transactions and identities cannot be recovered from the summary. If we ever produce a report that could expose a specific individual or a specific commercial party, we remove or generalise the identifiers before release.
Because Polartrade serves clients across more than forty markets, information you provide may be stored and processed outside the country where you are located. HANS INFORMATION (HK) LIMITED is registered in Hong Kong, and our hosting and service partners may be located in other jurisdictions.
Where personal information is transferred across borders, we rely on appropriate safeguards, including standard contractual clauses set by recognised regulators, or on an adequacy decision where one applies. These safeguards are designed to ensure that your information continues to be protected to a standard substantially similar to the protection it enjoys in your home jurisdiction.
We will provide copies of the relevant safeguards to you on request, subject to protecting the confidentiality of our arrangements. If you have concerns about a transfer, contact us using the details in section 19.
We use a small number of third-party services to operate the website, including web hosting, email delivery, form processing and analytics. These providers process information only on our instructions and do not use it for their own purposes. Each provider is selected for its security practices and its compliance with data protection law.
If we share information with a third-party processor, we bind that processor by a contract that includes confidentiality, security, purpose limitation and a duty to delete or return the data at the end of the arrangement. Our processing partners cannot sell the data and cannot combine it with data from other clients in a way that would identify you.
When our site links to an external website, that website is outside our control and is governed by its own privacy policy. We encourage you to review the policy of any outside site before you provide it with information.
The Polartrade website and its services are intended for adults who have a business or research purpose, and they are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of sixteen. Our services concern trade data, market research and commercial verification, which are not offered to children.
If you believe that a child has provided personal information to us through our website or through any enquiry, please write to us using the contact details in section 19 so that we can review and remove the information. When we become aware of such data, we delete it unless we are required by law to retain it. We also review our data collection practices regularly to make certain that no accidental children data is captured through the site forms.
Subject to the law of your jurisdiction, you hold a number of rights over your personal information. These include the right to access a copy of the data we hold about you, the right to request correction of inaccurate information, and the right to request deletion of data that we no longer have a lawful basis to keep.
You may also have the right to restrict or object to certain processing, the right to request portability of the data in a structured, machine-readable form, and the right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. Where a decision is made without human involvement in a way that materially affects you, you may have the right to request human review.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us with a written request and proof of identity so we can confirm that the request comes from you. We aim to respond within thirty days. In most cases our response is free of charge, although we may charge a reasonable fee where a request is manifestly unfounded, excessive or repetitive.
You control how much information you give us. The website can be browsed without providing personal details, and you may contact us or not as you wish. If you provide an email address for a marketing list, you can withdraw at any time by using the unsubscribe link in the message or by writing to our desk.
If you choose not to provide information required for an enquiry, such as an email address, we may be unable to respond to you, but you will always be free to use the telephone line instead. We will never require information that is not genuinely needed for the task you request.
The Polartrade site may include links to external websites, such as public registries, market reports or professional directories that are relevant to the intelligence we provide. When you follow such a link, you leave the Polartrade site and the external site operates under its own rules.
We do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external sites. The presence of a link does not imply an endorsement of the linked organisation. We recommend that you review the privacy policy of any external site before you provide it with personal information, and note that any information you give there is subject to that site policy rather than to this one.
If you have a question about this policy, need to exercise a right, or wish to lodge a complaint about how your information has been handled, please contact us at the following address and details.
HANS INFORMATION (HK) LIMITED, Rm D07 8/F KAI TAK FTY BLDG, 99 KING FUK ST, Kowloon City, Hong Kong (HK). Email support@polartrade.buzz. Telephone +18027366792.
We will acknowledge your message and aim to resolve any concern within thirty days. If you are not satisfied with our response, and the law of your jurisdiction provides an avenue, you may also raise the matter with the privacy or data protection authority where you are located. We will cooperate with any legitimate authority in the resolution of a complaint.
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, the law or operational practice. When we make a material change, we will revise the last updated date at the top of this page and place a notice on the homepage for a reasonable period. In the case of significant changes, we may also contact existing clients by email if we hold a legitimate address for them.
The most recent version of the policy always appears on this page, so we encourage you to review it whenever you use the site. Your continued use of the website after a revision is posted constitutes acceptance of that revision. If you do not accept a revised policy, you should stop using the site and contact us about any information we hold.
We will not apply a materially less protective version of this policy to information we already hold without first telling you and, where required, seeking your consent.