The Global Partnership for Safe and Sustainable Agriculture

Terms and Conditions for the Use of the GLOBALG.A.P. Database

1. INTRODUCTION/SCOPE OF THE GLOBALG.A.P. DATABASE AND THESE TERMS

The GLOBALG.A.P. database is an Internet-based platform for worldwide certification management and related services. The database stores and connects the assessment and certification data of farms worldwide. GLOBALG.A.P. approved certification bodies use it to register and manage their clients’ certification data.

The GLOBALG.A.P. database is an important part of GLOBALG.A.P.’s Integrity Program and links certification information to other traceability data in the food chain.

These terms and conditions (“the “Agreement”) govern the use of the GLOBALG.A.P. database by a public or registered user (“the Customer”).

GLOBALG.A.P. reserves the right to deny registration and access to the GLOBALG.A.P. database.

2. GENERAL TERMS

Unless stipulated otherwise in the Agreement, the Customer shall not duplicate, distribute, sell, offer on a website or platform or similar to third parties, commercially exploit, create derivative works from, or otherwise make available any information obtained from the GLOBALG.A.P. database.

GLOBALG.A.P. may modify, update, or discontinue the GLOBALG.A.P. database at any time without liability to the Customer.

3. AVAILABILITY OF DATA

The GLOBALG.A.P. database will be generally accessible for use 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and shall be available at least 95 percent of that time on a yearly average. Downtimes in regular maintenance windows, downtimes that are required for the purpose of emergency fixes, and downtimes that are based on unscheduled outages shall not be considered within the calculation of the actual availability. GLOBALG.A.P. reserves the right to shut down parts or the whole of the GLOBALG.A.P. database without prior notice to resolve any technical issues that may arise at any time.

4. USE OF GLOBALG.A.P. API

4.1 If the Customer uses the functionalities of an API interface provided by GLOBALG.A.P. (“GLOBALG.A.P. API”), the following applies:

  1. (a) The Customer shall limit the number of requests sent in parallel. The number of requests processed simultaneously is limited per customer to avoid performance issues.
  2. (b) If internal errors are recurrently received, the Customer shall take action to stop sending requests resulting in errors.
  3. (c) Permanent breaches of the web application firewall are prohibited.
  4. (d) The Customer shall contact the GLOBALG.A.P. customer support to identify and solve the issues described in (b) and (c).
  5. (e) GLOBALG.A.P. offers a test system for GLOBALG.A.P. API’s implementation. The Customer shall use it to implement any GLOBALG.A.P. API connection. GLOBALG.A.P. Customer Support shall be contacted to get access to the test system.

4.2 If GLOBALG.A.P. provides an API that allows bookmarking of certain data (“Bookmarking API”), the following applies in addition to the provisions of section 4.1:

  1. (a) Each individual GGN shall, if possible, only be bookmarked once. If bookmarks are done on product level or additional information (e.g., article name or variety, GTIN, traceability codes such as SSCC, delivery date) is added to the individual bookmarks, GGNs may be bookmarked multiple times.
  2. (b) Implemented procedures that bookmark recurrently or query the necessary information and delete the bookmark afterwards are prohibited to avoid performance issues. They contradict the idea of bookmarking as described in the GLOBALG.A.P. database wiki (https://wiki.globalgap.org). This also includes recurrently creating and deleting bookmarking lists for this purpose.
  3. (c) Bookmarking lists with one bookmark each are prohibited, since querying them generates unnecessary workload and expenses and contradicts the idea of bookmarking.
  4. (d) In order to avoid performance issues, the number of GGNs per bookmarking list shall be as limited as possible and shall not be in excess of 500 GGNs.
  5. (f) The account used for the Bookmarking API shall be registered with the contact data of the responsible technical contact person (phone and e-mail).
  6. (g) The Customer may not modify, edit, revise, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or translate the GLOBALG.A.P. database or attempt in any other way to transform the database into source code, except in the cases permitted by statutory law (sections 69d, 69e German Copyright Act (UrhG)).
  7. (h) In case the Customer does not comply with this section 4, GLOBALG.A.P. is entitled to close the interface/account and terminate the agreement allowing the Customer to use the Bookmarking API for good cause.

5. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

The GLOBALG.A.P. database with all its functionalities shall remain the exclusive property of GLOBALG.A.P. and is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. The content data (e.g., master data, certificate status data) which are provided via the GLOBALG.A.P. database are proprietary to the data suppliers such as the producers/producer groups or certification bodies.

6. LIABILITY

All data in the GLOBALG.A.P. database is provided by third parties and not controlled by GLOBALG.A.P. GLOBALG.A.P. makes no warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, correctness, reliability, or otherwise with respect to such data.

Apart from that, GLOBALG.A.P. shall be liable for the full extent of any damage in the event of intentional conduct (“Vorsatz”) or gross negligence (“grobe Fahrlässigkeit”) and in the case of culpable injury to life, body, and health and in the event of liability under the German Product Liability Act (“Produkthaftungsgesetz”). In the case of a culpable breach of essential contractual obligations, i.e., principal obligations which enable the proper execution of the Agreement and upon which the Customer therefore relies and may rely, GLOBALG.A.P. assumes liability on the merits. In such case GLOBALG.A.P.’s liability shall be limited to damage which is typical for the Agreement and which can be reasonably foreseen. Any further liability of GLOBALG.A.P. shall be excluded. This limitation of liability shall apply also in favor of GLOBALG.A.P.’s statutory representatives, executives (“leitende Angestellte”), and vicarious agents (“Erfüllungsgehilfen”).

7. UPDATES OF SERVICES

GLOBALG.A.P. will provide reasonable notice of any substantial modifications of the GLOBALG.A.P. database by e-mail to the Customer which is a registered user. These changes shall be subject to the Agreement, and shall not materially alter use of the GLOBALG.A.P. database in an adverse manner.

8. USE OF THE DATA FROM THE GLOBALG.A.P. DATABASE

The Customer shall use the data from the GLOBALG.A.P. database for the internal operation of their organization only. If registered, all accounts of a Customer must be assigned to a specific person and may be used by such person only (named user). The Customer may access and use the GLOBAL.G.A.P. database through the GLOBALG.A.P. web interface or through the XML/SOAP interface.

9. DATA PROTECTION

The Customer shall bring GLOBALG.A.P.’s privacy policy (see Link) to the attention of each of its employees who is being granted access to the GLOBALG.A.P. database and inform them about the processing of their personal data by GLOBALG.A.P.

10. ASSIGNMENT OF RIGHTS

The Customer shall not be entitled to assign any rights or obligations under the Agreement to any third parties without GLOBALG.A.P.’s prior written consent.

11. CONFIDENTIALITY

The Customer is obliged to treat as strictly confidential all confidential matters and business secrets of GLOBALG.A.P. or undertakings associated with GLOBALG.A.P., including in particular the data of the GLOBALG.A.P. database, of which the Customer obtains knowledge during exercise of its duties for GLOBALG.A.P. or which are designated as confidential by GLOBALG.A.P.

The confidentiality obligation shall not apply to information and documents

  1. (a) which are already known to or in the possession of the Customer prior to receipt of such information from GLOBALG.A.P.;
  2. (b) which are legally received by the Customer from a third party without breach of any confidentiality obligation;
  3. (c) which are in the public domain or enter the public domain through no wrongful act of the Customer;
  4. (d) which can be proven by the Customer to have been developed independently by the Customer;
  5. (e) to the extent and in the manner approved in writing by GLOBALG.A.P.; and
  6. (f) which the Customer is required to disclose by applicable law, regulation, or legal process.

12. GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION

The Agreement is exclusively governed by and construed in accordance with German law.

In case of any disputes, the courts of Cologne, Germany, shall have exclusive jurisdiction if the Customer is a merchant, a legal person under public law, or has no general venue in Germany.

13. MISCELLANEOUS

The Agreement sets out the entire agreement and understanding between the parties relating to the matters addressed herein and supersedes all other agreements, whether verbal or written, previously made between the parties concerning such matters.

If any of the provisions of the Agreement are unenforceable or invalid for any reason whatsoever, such unenforceability or invalidity does not nullify the Agreement in total. In such event, the Agreement is to be interpreted so as to achieve the intended economic purpose of the unenforceable or invalid provision. The same applies if, during the course of the execution of the Agreement, an omission requiring rectification arises.

A waiver of any breach or default under the Agreement by either party does not constitute a waiver of any other or subsequent breach or default. The failure by either party to enforce compliance with any term or condition of the Agreement does not constitute a waiver of any such term or condition unless such term or condition is expressly waived in writing.