Panasonic Privacy Notice
Panasonic treats your privacy and personal information with the utmost respect. We are compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
This Privacy Notice is intended to tell you how we use any information we collect about you (called "personal information", explained below). We've tried to explain what we do in enough detail to give you the information you need at a glance, with the option of following a link if you want to find out more. If you still can't find the information you need, you can email us at uk-aircon@eu.panasonic.com.
The Privacy Notice applies to devices, products, websites or applications that refer to or link to the Privacy Notice (collectively, our “Services”) and will apply whether you access our Services using a computer, mobile phone, tablet, TV, or other device.
1. Who are we?
I. Panasonic Ireland, a branch of Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH (“Panasonic”, “we”, “us” or “our”);
II. We are part of the Panasonic Corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture, Japan;
III. We have a number of Affiliates who can be found here http://www.panasonic.com/global/corporate/profile/group-companies.html#renketsu.
2. What is Personal Information?
For the purposes of this Privacy Notice "Personal Information" consists of any information that relates to you and/or information from which you can be identified, directly or indirectly. For example, information which identifies you may consist of your name, address, telephone number, photographs, payment details, a specific Panasonic product/device identification number, location data, an online identifier (e.g. cookies identifiers and your IP address) or to one or more factors specific to your physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity. When we combine other information (i.e. information that does not, on its own, identify you) with Personal Information, we treat the combined information as Personal Information.
3. What Personal Information does Panasonic collect about you?
A. Personal Information you provide directly
Some Services we offer enable you to give us Personal Information directly.
When you create a Panasonic account or profile
When you create an account or profile on a Panasonic website or application (such as when you register a product for warranty extension or sign up to be a Panasonic Partner), we ask you to provide certain Personal Information, including your name and email address. Any Panasonic account you create will be password-protected and we use your name to help verify your account when you contact our customer support representatives or contact us for other purposes.
When you communicate with Panasonic
When you contact us with a sales inquiry or interact with our customer support representatives via email, telephone or in person, we may collect Personal Information, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address and contact preferences; and we may also collect information about the Panasonic products or devices you own, such as their serial numbers and date of purchase. We also may create logs/reports that are useful in diagnosing product or application performance related issues, and capture information relating to the issue. We use this information to provide you with customer and product support. We may access your relevant Panasonic profile/account, in order to provide you with the necessary assistance or support you require or have requested. We may also record and review your conversations with our customer support representatives (e.g. when you contact us by telephone), for training and complaints handling, and also to review any information you have provided in response to a voluntary customer survey(s). We will only record and/or review your conversations with us where we are permitted to do so by applicable laws and we will always tell you we are doing so
B. Information about your use of the Services
We may collect information about your use of our Services through software on your Panasonic device/product and other means, or your use of our online applications. For example, we may collect:
I. Device/product information - such as your hardware model, device/product IMEI number, the MAC address of the device’s wireless network interface and the mobile phone number used by the device), mobile network information, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile browser you use, time zone setting, and other unique device identifiers, IP address, operating system details, and settings of the device you use to access the Services.
II. Log information - such as the time and duration of your use of the Service, search query terms you enter through the Services, and any information stored in cookies that we have set on your product/device or our application.
III. Location information - such as your product or device’s GPS signal or information about nearby WiFi access points and cell towers that may be transmitted to us when you use certain Services. Some of our location-enabled Services require your Personal Information for the feature to work. If you wish to use the particular feature, you will be asked to consent to your data being used for this purpose. You can withdraw your consent at any time by altering the settings in your device/product.
C. Personal Information from third party sources
We may receive Personal Information from third parties (i.e. other companies), for further details on this please see the following additional information:
Information from publicly available sources
We may receive Personal Information about you from publicly available sources, provided the receipt of such information is in accordance with applicable laws, which we may combine with other information we receive from or about you.
We also may receive information about you from social networking sites when you choose to connect with those sites.
D. Other ways we may collect your Personal Information
We may collect your Personal Information in other ways, for further details on this please see the following additional information:
Message boards and forums
Some Panasonic websites and applications have message boards, forums, bulletin boards, chat functionality, blogs, and similar features ("Community Postings") through which you can post information, messages and other materials. When you disclose any Personal Information through such services we urge you to be very careful as this may become public information and be available to visitors to our websites and to the general public.
In order to participate in Community Postings we are required to collect certain Personal Information as part of the registration process, which includes your name, username, password, email address, date of birth and contact details (e.g. email address, telephone number).
Promotions, games, prize draws and competitions
If you enter into promotions, contests, online games, prize draws, competitions or similar promotion ("Activities"), we may use the Personal Information you provide to administer those Activities. To administer such Activities we may require you to provide certain Personal Information, which may include, your name, username, password, email address, date of birth and contact details (e.g. email address, telephone number).
To the extent that the terms and conditions of any such promotion regarding the treatment of Personal Information about you conflict with this Privacy Notice, the terms and conditions of the promotion will prevail and we advise you to review any Activity specific terms carefully.
Subscriptions and newsletters
Where you subscribe to our promotional communications and newsletters we may collect Personal Information from you in order to enable us to provide this service to you. The Personal Information required will include your email address and postcode. We will only provide such subscription services to you in accordance with applicable laws and where you have expressly requested us to do so.
When you upload Personal Information to a Panasonic website or online application
In addition to the above, we may collect such other Personal Information that you provide by uploading content (e.g. certification or photos) onto our websites or online applications. In such cases, the following Personal Information may be collected in order to publish the content on the our websites or online applications: your name, email address and any Personal Information in the content that you choose to upload. Where we collect such content we will only do so in accordance with applicable laws.
Website and campaign response activity
If you have opted-in to our tracking cookies, our Marketing automation systems will track your website and campaign response activities (such as trade shows attended or Newsletters clicked). We do this in order to understand our customers better and customise marketing communications for relevancy.
Panasonic Business Partner Portal
To become a Panasonic Partner, we will need to collect basic information on the company, the employee registering the company (name, email, phone) and what Panasonic Products the company is interested to promote.
Panasonic Training
The Panasonic Training tool is a learning platform used to train Panasonic business partners face-to-face or via e-learning. It will keep record of the training results for all the partner employees who participate. Personal information recorded will include name, email and training results.
4. How do we use your information?
We may use the Personal Information we collect for the following purposes:
I. Registering products/devices - to register you or your device or product for any of our Services;
II. Provide our Services - to provide our Services or any specific feature that you request, including to enable us to fulfil our obligations under any contract with you (such as, any product or device warranty);
III. Surveys – to ask for your opinions or comments on our Services and to conduct other surveys;
IV. Customised and Targeting Content - to provide customised content and make recommendations based on your past activities on our Services. We may use Personal Information to more effectively target our Services, content, recommendations, advertisements and communications (more information on this can be found in our Cookie Policy);
V. Advertising - for advertising, such as providing customised advertisements and sponsored content and sending you promotional communications;
VI. Analysis Purposes - for assessment and analysis of our market, customers, products, devices and other Services (including asking you for your opinions on our products and services and carrying out customer surveys);
VII. Statistics – to create anonymous, aggregated statistics about the use of our Services. This anonymised data may be shared with third parties;
VIII. Service Improvement – to develop and improve new and existing Panasonic products and Services, recommendations, advertisements and other communications and learn more about your preferences;
IX. Customer Support Services - to provide customer support services for your device or product, or to deal with any other support queries you may have (such as complaint handling);
X. Crime Prevention - for the prevention or detection of fraud or crime;
XI. Business Purposes - for business monitoring and internal record keeping;
XII. Publish your comments – where you upload product or device reviews, comments or content to our websites or applications, or where you have responded to a voluntary survey, we may link to, publish or publicise your comments including in our own advertisements;
XIII. Legal Obligations - to comply with our legal obligations;
XIV. Competitions and Promotions - to conduct prize draws, competitions and other promotions or offers, as permitted by law;
XV. Training – for staff training and quality assurance purposes, particularly in relation to our customer support representatives; and
XVI. Updates - to communicate with you, including communicating with you about your account, profiles or transactions with us, giving you important information about your products, devices, application or other Services, sending you notices about any material changes to our Privacy Notice, and, where permitted by you and applicable laws, marketing, sending you offers and promotions for our Services.
The law allows us to use the Personal Information as set out above on the basis that we are acting in our "legitimate interests".
Product recall – in the highly unlikely circumstance that Panasonic needs to recall any product, including for safety purposes, your information is used to contact you with instructions on how to return your product.
Marketing communications
Panasonic may use your Personal Information to provide you with newsletters and other communications by post, email, telephone and/or text message (SMS), only if you have provided your consent or we are otherwise permitted to do so under applicable law. For further information on this, see the 'Your Choices' section of this Privacy Notice.
Combining Personal Information
We may combined the Personal Information that we collect from you (including information received from other Panasonic Affiliates) to the extent permitted by applicable law. For example, we may combine various different databases that contain your Personal Information to allow us to provide better support services and more personalised content (such as, marketing and advertisements).
5. To whom do we disclose your information?
We will not disclose your Personal Information to third parties for their own independent marketing or business purposes. However, we may disclose your information to the following entities:
I. Panasonic Affiliates
We may need to transfer your Personal Information to other Panasonic Affiliates to provide the Services you require or any other services/assistance you request. All Panasonic Affiliates are required to follow the privacy practices set forth in this Privacy Notice, or such other privacy policy that they may notify to you.
II. Service Providers
We use third party service providers to help us to administer certain activities and services on our behalf, such as call centre providers used by Panasonic to service our customers, data supply, data cleaning, fulfilling your purchases and delivering products, processing credit card payments, sending postal mail and emails, sending text messages (SMS), providing advertisements, analysing usage of our Services, tracking effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, allowing users to connect to their social network, providing fraud checking services and customer support services. We may share Personal Information about you with such third party service providers solely for the purpose of enabling them to perform services on our behalf and they will operate only in accordance with our instructions. Here are examples of third-party service providers we use:
a. Email Service Providers – Cloud services from Marketo and Oracle Marketing Cloud are used to assist us in sending emails to you in accordance with your marketing preferences;
b. Analytics Service Providers – analytics providers are used to assist us in understanding the usage of our products/devices and other Services, to enable us to improve our Services. The analytics providers we currently use are Google Analytics, Marketo and Oracle Marketing Cloud For further information see our Cookie Policy.
III. Social Network Providers
We may provide your Personal Information, such as your email address, to certain social networking providers so that they can help us display advertisements about our Services on your social network pages. We will only share your Personal Information with social networking providers in accordance with your marketing preferences and any applicable laws.
IV. Third parties when required by Law or to Protect our Services
We will disclose your Personal Information to comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies; to protect our customers (e.g. to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of our Services); to operate and maintain the security of our Services (e.g. to prevent or stop an attack on our systems or networks); or to protect the rights or property of Panasonic, including enforcing any terms or agreements governing the use of our Services.
V. Anonymous statistics
We prepare and develop anonymous, aggregate or generic data and statistics for various reasons (as indicated in this Privacy Notice). As this data is anonymous (i.e. you cannot be identified from it) we do not consider this information to be Personal Information. As such, we may share it with any third party (such as our Affiliates, partners, advertisers or otherwise).
VI. Other Parties in Connection With Corporate Transactions
We may disclose your Personal Information to a third party (or other Panasonic Affiliate) as part of a reorganisation, merger, transfer, sale, joint venture, assignment or other disposition of all or any portion of Panasonic's business, assets or stock, including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceeding.
VII. Third party competition providers
We may disclose your Personal Information to third party sponsors of sweepstakes, contests, free prize draws, competitions and similar promotions. These third party providers will be identified to you prior to when you enter into any competition, sweepstake, prize draw or similar promotion.
VIII. Other Parties With Your Consent or At Your Direction
We may share Personal Information about you with third parties when you consent to or request such sharing.
A number of Panasonic's Services give you the option and ability to upload and share certain Personal Information, such as, messages, photos, videos and other content. Any Personal Information that you choose to upload and share on a publicly accessible profile may be viewed and accessed by others. As such, you should always exercise caution when using such Panasonic Services.
6. What do we do to keep your information secure?
Panasonic have put in place rigorous physical and technical measures to safeguard the Personal Information we collect in connection with our Services. However, please note that although we take rigorous steps to protect your Personal Information, no website, product, device, online application or transmission of data, computer system or wireless connection is completely secure and therefore we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information.
Location of Personal Data
The Personal Information that we collect from you is stored and processed in the European Economic Area ("EEA").
Encryption
All Personal Information you provide to us is captured, transmitted and stored using encryption. Data is stored in highly secure data centres.
Other security measures
Information security, including the protection of Personal Information is organized in a global Panasonic Program called “Information Security Management” (ISM). The aim, standards and implementation measures are organized in a globally valid Policy, standards and guidelines. All central European IT systems are externally assessed and fall under the regulation of ISO 27001 certification. The program and all its parts follow a strong yearly PDCA approach to secure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all data for the whole information lifecycle from collection to destruction of such information.
Using social media and forum features
Certain Services include social networking, chat room or forum features. You should ensure that when using these features that you do not submit any personal Information that you do not want to be seen, collected or used by other users.
7. Accessing your Personal Information and other rights you have
Panasonic will collect, store and process your Personal Information in accordance with your rights under any applicable data protection laws.
Your rights under applicable data protection laws include, the right to access a copy of your Personal Information, the right to request the deletion or updating of any inaccurate Personal Information and the right to object, in some cases, to our processing of your Personal Information. Right to Withdraw Consent – where you have consented to our processing of your Personal Information, you have the right to withdraw such consent at any time. In the event you wish to withdraw your consent to processing, please contact us using the details given at the end of this Privacy Notice.
Enforcing your rights
If you wish to enforce any of your rights under applicable data protection laws, then please contact us using the details given at the end of this Privacy Notice. We will respond to your request without undue delay and by no later than one month from receipt of any such request, unless a longer period is permitted by applicable data protection laws, and we may charge a reasonable fee for dealing with your request which we will notify to you. Please note that we will only charge a fee where we are permitted to do so by applicable data protection laws.
Complaints
If you are concerned that we have not complied with your legal rights under applicable data protection laws, you may contact the Information Commissioner's Office (www.ico.gov.uk) which is the data protection regulator in the UK which is where Panasonic UK and Ireland a branch of Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH is located. Alternatively, if you are based outside the UK, you may contact your local data protection supervisory authority.
8. Data Retention – How long we will store/keep your Personal Information
We will retain your Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for which your Personal Information has been collected.
In particular, we classify Personal Information into the following specific categories with different retention periods:
• Competition entrants - 1 year.
• Marketing opt-ins - Will remain as an opt-in until you unsubscribe at which point your information will be retained on a suppression list in order to ensure that we comply with your request.
• Contact us sales forms or inbound telephone sales inquiries - 1 year.
• Warranty registrations and customer service calls - 5 years. We may need to contact you in case of product recalls (health and safety).
• Customers and partners - 6 years from the last time we engage with you (email, meeting, telephone call).
Please note: If your Personal Information belongs to more than one category, the longest retention period will prevail.When your Personal Information is no longer required for the purpose it was collected or as required by applicable law, it will be deleted and/or returned to you in accordance with applicable law.
9. Third-Party Links and Products on Our Services
Our websites, applications and products may contain links to other third party websites that are not operated by Panasonic, and our websites or your product and devices may contain applications that you can download from third parties. These linked sites and applications are not under Panasonic's control and as such, we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any linked websites and online applications. If you choose to use any third party websites or applications, any Personal Information collected by the third party’s website or application will be controlled by the privacy policy of that third party. We strongly recommend that you take the time to review the privacy policies of any third parties to which you provide Personal Information.
10. Cookies
What are cookies?
Panasonic, as well as certain other third parties that provide content, advertising, or other functionality on our Services, may use cookies and other technologies in certain areas of our Services. Cookies are small text files that can be read by a web server in the domain that put the cookie on your hard drive. We may use cookies to store your preferences and settings, help you with signing in, provide targeted ads, and analyse site operations.
Further information on cookies
For further information on what cookies are, how Panasonic and other third parties use them, and for details of how cookies can be disabled, please see our Cookie Policy.
11. Your Choices (e.g. marketing related emails or otherwise)
We and other Panasonic Affiliates may use your Personal Information (such as your contact details (e.g. name, address, email address, telephone number)) to send you marketing-related correspondence by post, email, telephone and/or text message (SMS) related to Panasonic products, devices and other Services in accordance with your email and contact preferences in your PRO Club Account.
When you purchase Panasonic products or device, contact our customer support representatives, create an account or profile for one of our Services, or subscribe to one of our Services, you may be given the opportunity to opt-in to (or where permitted by applicable law, opt-out of) the receiving of such marketing-related correspondence.
We do not share Personal Information with third parties for the third parties’ marketing purposes.
We may also use your Personal Information to personalize and to target more effectively our marketing communications to ensure, to the extent possible, that any marketing-related correspondence is relevant to you.
To opt out of receiving marketing-related correspondence from Panasonic, please update your email and contact preferences in your PRO Club Account or click "Unsubscribe" from any marketing or promotional email or text message (SMS) you receive from us.
12. Children's Personal Information
I. Who is a child?
Panasonic considers a child to by anyone under the age of 16, or such younger age as may be specified by applicable data protection laws.
II. Do we collect Personal Information from children?
We do not knowingly collect or try to collect Personal Information from or about children without the consent of a parent or guardian. Where we do collect Personal Information from children, we will always use reasonable efforts to verify that consent has been given or authorised by the child's parent or guardian.
III. What do we do when children submit Personal information to us?
If we become aware that Personal Information that has been submitted to us relates to a child without the consent of a parent or guardian, we will use reasonable efforts to:
• delete that Personal Information as soon as possible; or
• if deletion is not possible, we will ensure that this Personal Information is not used for any purpose, nor disclosed further to any third party.
IV. Parent or guardian queries
If you are a parent or guardian and you have queries regarding Panasonic's processing of your child's Personal Information, please contact us using the details provided in the “Further Information” section below.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
It also is important that you check back often for updates to the Privacy Notice, as we may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. The “Date last updated” legend at the bottom of this page states when the policy was last updated and any changes will become effective upon our posting of the revised Privacy Notice.
We will provide notice to you if these changes are material and, where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent. We will provide this notice by email or by posting notice of the changes on the Panasonic website or through any relevant Services.
13. Contact Us / Further Information
If you have any questions regarding the collection, processing, or use of your Personal Information or if you wish to correct, block, rectify, object, access, revoke your consent to any applicable aspect of this Privacy Notice or delete any of your Personal Information, please contact us:
By mail:
Panasonic Ireland, a branch of Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH
Maxis 2,
Western Road,
Bracknell,
Berkshire,
RG12 1RT,
Registered No. BR015033]
By email:
uk-aircon@eu.panasonic.com
By telephone:
01344 85 3182. (Monday to Friday, 9am – 5.30pm)