Privacy Policy

I. When you create a Panasonic account on our websites or applications

When you create a Panasonic account on a Panasonic website or application (such as 'My Panasonic' or “Panasonic Direct”, “Panasonic Partner Shop”, “Lumix G Experience”, “The Ideas Kitchen”, “Focus on the Future”, “Ex-Demo”), we ask you to provide certain Personal Information, such as your gender, first name, last name, email address, date of birth and country of residence. The required specific information may vary on the service you have chosen. Where you are creating a Panasonic Direct or other account to purchase Panasonic products we will ask you to provide your mailing address billing address and payment details in order to process your order. You will use your email address and your password to login to your account.

When you buy Panasonic products or devices on a Panasonic website or via our Customer Services Team by telephone or chat function

If you purchase a product or device on a Panasonic website, or via our customer Services Team by telephone or via a chat function, then we will collect Personal Information from you, such as your name, mailing address and telephone number, so that we can process and fulfil your order. We do not view and store your payment card information. A third party, Worldpay (UK) Ltd., Worldpay Limited, Worldpay AP Ltd. and Worldpay BV, will process your payment card information when you use a payment card to make a purchase. We recommend you read Worldpay’s Privacy Notice http://www.worldpay.com/uk/privacy-policy to understand how they will use your Personal Information.

II. When you register a product or device with Panasonic

If you choose to register the relevant product or device with us in order to enable certain features or benefit from any extended warranty or promotion. In order to register your product or device we may collect Personal Information, such as your name, address, phone number, email address and information about the Panasonic product or device you own, such as its serial numbers (or other product/device identifier) and the date of purchase.

III. When you communicate with Panasonic

When you contact us or interact with our customer support representatives via email, chat, messaging services (for example WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), 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 'My Panasonic' Account, or other relevant Panasonic accounts, 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 tell you that we are doing so at the start of the conversation at the latest.

IV. 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 recommend 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 collect certain Personal Information, which includes your name, username, password, email address, date of birth and contact details (e.g. email address, telephone number) and in certain cases product information such as model and serial number and any other information that you decide to communicate on such Community Postings.

V. Promotions, games, prize draws and competitions

If you enter into sweepstakes, contests, online games, prize draws, competitions or online promotions, e.g. cash back ("Activities"), we may use the Personal Information you provide to administer the Activities which includes, your first name, last name, address, email address, date of birth and country of residence .

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 and conditions carefully.

VI. Subscriptions and newsletters

Where you subscribe to our promotional communications and newsletters we will collect Personal Information from you including your email address, first name, last name and gender. We will only provide such subscription services to you in accordance with applicable laws and where you have expressly requested us to do so.

VII. 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. videos 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, invoicing details as proof of evidence (e. g. for some online promotions) 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 and site specific terms of use.

I. Device/product information - such as your hardware model, the MAC address of the device’s wireless network interface and the mobile phone number used by the device in case you contact the Panasonic customer service, 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 device (such as your pc, mobile phone or tablet) 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 at the time of data collection. You can withdraw your consent at any time by altering the settings in your device/product.

IV. Voice information - such as recordings of your voice that we make and may store on our servers when you use voice commands.

V. Other information - about your use of the Services, such as the online applications you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content offered through our Services.

I. 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.

II. When you login to account with your social media credentials

We also may receive information about you from social networking sites when you choose to connect with those sites.

We may allow you to sign up and log in using your social media accounts. If you do so, you allow your social media network to share certain Personal Information from your account with us. This Personal Information includes your name, gender, general location, a link to your profile, your time zone, your date of birth and your profile picture. This Personal Information is collected by the social network, as data controller, and is provided to us and becomes subject to this Privacy Notice.

We recommend that you become familiar with the functioning of the social networks you use so that you know how you can control your Personal Information and its sharing with us using any privacy setting in your account.

III. Information from Retailers and Service Centres

We may receive Personal Information about you from a retailer and/or service centre in relation to a product that you have purchased in order for us to carry out support and warranty services. We recommend that you check with your chosen retailer and/or service centre if you have any questions or concerns about what Personal Information about you they will share. We can confirm that we will only use the Personal Information received from retailers and/or service centres for the legitimate purposes explained here. 

I. we have obtained your prior unambiguous consent;

II. the processing is necessary to perform our contractual obligations towards you or to take pre-contractual steps at your request;

III. the processing is necessary to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations;

IV. the processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another natural person; or

V. the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests except where they are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. Examples of such ‘legitimate interests’ include:

      I. to benefit from cost-effective services (e.g. we may opt to use certain platforms offered by suppliers);

      II. to protect the security of our IT systems, architecture and networks; and

      III. to meet our corporate and social responsibility objectives.

I. Create an Account/Log in on our Websites or Applications – to enable you to create a profile on our websites or applications and to enable you to log in to such websites or applications;

II. Registering products/devices - to register you or your device or product for any of our Services;

III. Online Purchases – to facilitate online purchase of our Services through our online shop(s) website or other application, and to provide any checkout assistance that you may require, for example, to complete your purchase if you were suffering from technical difficulties;

IV. 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);

V. Surveys – to ask for your opinions or comments on our Services and to conduct other surveys;

VI. 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);

VII. Marketing activities - 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.

VIII. Profiling – to make predictions about your interests and provide you with direct marketing on that basis;

IX. Advertising - for advertising, such as providing customised advertisements and sponsored content and sending you promotional communications;

X. 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);

XI. Statistics – to create anonymous, aggregated statistics about the use of our Services. This anonymised data may be shared with third parties;

XII. Service Improvement – to develop and improve new and existing Panasonic products and Services, recommendations, advertisements and other communications and learn more about your preferences;

XIII. 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);

XIV. Business Purposes - for business monitoring and internal record keeping;

XV. 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;

XVI. Security – 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;

XVII. Legal Obligations - to comply with our legal obligations under UK law or under European Union law;

XVIII. Competitions and Promotions - to conduct Activities and record your participation thereto, as permitted by law as well as to provide your Personal Information to our partners and sponsors of such Activities;

XIX. Training – for staff training and quality assurance purposes, particularly in relation to our customer support representatives;

XX. 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;

XXI. Corporate Transaction – to manage corporate transactions involving our company including 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.

A. Third party recipients of the Personal Information

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.

II. Selected Partners
We may share your Personal Information with our carefully selected business partners, including wireless carriers. These partners may use your Personal Information to provide you with Services you request (including, but not limited to , video content or extended warranties), make predictions about your interests and may provide you with promotional materials, advertisements and other materials.

III. Other third Parties and Service Providers
We use third parties and service providers to help us to administer certain activities and services on our behalf, such as general product support and warranty repairs, fulfilling your purchases and delivering products, administering Activities eg: processing entries, redemptions and claims, processing credit card, or other type of card, payments, sending postal mail and emails, sending text messages (SMS), providing advertisements, analysing usage of our systems and 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 parties and service providers solely for the purpose of enabling them to perform these functions  and they will operate only in accordance with our instructions. Here are examples of third-parties and service providers we use:
     a. Email Service Providers – Cloud services [e.g. Eloqua by Oracle] are used to assist us in sending emails to you in accordance with your marketing preferences;
     b. Analytics Service Providers  – we may work with analytics providers to assist us  in achieving specific purposes from time to time. This includes utilising services which can provide insight into how our products/devices/systems are used and interacted with by our customers and for other service improvement activities.. For further information see our Cookie Policy.
     c. Review Management Providers – we use review management platform ‘Power Reviews’ to collect, moderate, display and syndicate reviews that you provide.

IV. 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.

V. 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.

VI. 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).

VII. 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.

Please note: 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.

B. International Transfer of Data

The Personal Information that we collect from you may be stored and processed in your region, or transferred to, stored at or otherwise processed inside or outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). The Personal data that we collect from you may be stored in countries who have been deemed to have adequate data protection laws by the European Commission including, but not limited to, UK, Canada and Japan. In addition, the Personal Information that we collect from you may be stored and processed in a country which does not offer an adequate level of data protection as recognised by the European Commission and additionally where Panasonic or its Affiliates, subsidiaries or service providers maintain facilities.

Where we transfer your Personal Information outside your region, we will ensure that suitable safeguards such as appropriate agreements and mechanisms are in place to help ensure that our third party service providers provide an adequate level of protection to your Personal Information.

You may request additional information in this respect and obtain a copy of the relevant safeguards upon request through sending a request to the contact indicated in the Contact Us/Further Information section of this Privacy Notice, below.

A. General

These measures take into account:

I.   the state of the art of the technology;
II.   the costs of its implementation;
III.   the nature of the data; and
IV.   the risk of the processing.

The purpose thereof is to protect against accidental or unlawful destruction or alteration, accidental loss, unauthorized disclosure or access and against other unlawful forms of processing.

However, please note that although we take appropriate 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.

B. Encryption

All Personal Information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions carried out by us or our chosen third-party provider of payment processing services, WorldPay Ltd will be encrypted using Secured Sockets Layer technology. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that enables you to access certain Services, such as you My Panasonic Profile or your eShop account, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and we ask you not to share your password with anyone.

C. Other security measures

Information security, including the protection of Personal Information is organized in a global Panasonic Program called “Information Security Management” (ISM). The related aim, standards and implementation measures are organized in globally valid policy, standards and guidelines. All central European IT systems are externally assessed and fall under the information security management rules applicable under the ISO 27001 certification. The program in all its parts follow a strong yearly PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) approach to secure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all data (including your Personal Data) for the whole information lifecycle from collection to destruction of such data.

D. 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.