Website and customer privacy statement

Watts EMEA Holding B.V. and its affiliates ("Watts Water", "we" or "us") respect your privacy and takes the protection of your privacy seriously. We will endeavour to protect and carefully keep all the personal data that you provide to us to use our services. The purpose of this Privacy Statement is to clearly explain how we use your personal data, our efforts to protect your personal data, the rights and options you have to control your data and the protection of your privacy. This Privacy Statement will give you information about:

We advise you to read this Privacy Statement carefully and to consult it on a regular basis when you use our website and services.

Which personal data Watts Water collects and uses

Personal data is all data that identifies you directly or in combination with other data. We collect personal data that you provide to us when you use our website and services, personal data that we collect automatically and personal data that we collect from other sources.

Personal data that you provide to us or that we collect automatically

The personal data that we collect include:

  • Contact details and data relating to projects and services, such as name (or business name), address, telephone number (or mobile telephone number), email address and other personal data that you voluntarily provide to us when you contact us or communicate with us or place a product or service order with us;
  • Automatically collected data, such as your IP address, type of browser and operating system, application version and geographical location. We also collect and generate data based on your use of the Watts Water website (www.watts.eu), such as the pages you have visited, the pages you visit before and after you visit the Watts Water website. We collect these data by placing functional and essential cookies.

You can yourself determine which data you provide to us. In some cases, however, we can only meet a request when we receive more data from you, e.g. your phone number. If so, we will inform you about this separately. Not providing these details may mean that we cannot process your question or request in part or at all or that you may not be able to use our services.

Personal data that we obtain from other sources

We use external sources to collect certain personal data. For example, the Chamber of Commerce to collect business data of contracting parties.

How Watts Water uses personal data

Watts Water uses your personal data for the following purposes:

  • Offering our services: we collect your personal data so that we can offer you our services. Our basis for doing so is the performance of the agreement we have with you;
  • Communication: we use your personal data to be able to communicate with you, e.g. when you contact us or when you want to exercise a right. We also use your personal data to contact you, for example, when we want to inform you about our products and services, changes to our services or general terms and conditions. We have a legitimate business interest in communicating with you and in answering your questions and requests;
  • Improving our website and services: we analyse information about the way in which you use our website and services in order to improve the user experience for all visitors to our website. This information comprises both research data and statistics. We have a legitimate business interest in analysing this information, e.g. to be able to resolve problems with our website;
  • Exercising our rights and fulfilling our obligations: we use your personal data to perform our legal obligations. For example, to fulfil our tax obligations. We also use your personal data to prevent and investigate fraud or other illegal or undesired activities. We can also use your personal data to protect or exercise our rights or the rights of third parties. We have a legitimate business interest in doing so;
  • Anonymising: we can anonymise your personal data to ensure that you are no longer identifiable either to us or to a third party. For example, we can coordinate our product development by developing statistics based on anonymised data. We have a legitimate business interest in doing so.

Our products and services are meant for adults. We do not intentionally collect personal data of minors (aged under 18 years) and we therefore request that minors do not provide us with personal data and do not use our products and services.

etracker

The provider of this website uses the services of etracker GmbH, Hamburg, Germany (www.etracker.com) to analyse usage data. We do not use cookies for web analysis by default. If we use analysis and optimisation cookies, we will obtain your explicit consent separately in advance. If this is the case and you agree, cookies are used to enable a statistical range analysis of this website, a measurement of the success of our online marketing measures and test procedures, e.g. to test and optimise different versions of our online offer or its components. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the Internet browser on the user's device. etracker cookies do not contain any information that could identify a user.

The data generated by etracker on behalf of the provider of this website is processed and stored by etracker solely in Germany by commission of the provider of this website and is thus subject to the strict German and European data protection laws and standards. In this regard, etracker was independently checked, certified and awarded with the ePrivacyseal data protection seal of approval.

The data processing is based on Art. 6 Section 1 lit f (legitimate interest) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Our legitimate interest is the optimisation of our online offer and our website. As the privacy of our visitors is very important to us, the data that may possibly allow a reference to an individual person, such as IP address, registration or device IDs, will be anonymised or pseudonymised as soon as possible. etracker does not use the data for any other purpose, combine it with other data or pass it on to third parties.

You can object to the outlined data processing at any time. Your objection has no disadvantageous consequences.

Further information on data protection with etracker can be found here.

With which parties Watts Water shares personal data

Watts Water handles your personal data carefully and confidentially. Your personal data are only available to Watts Water employees to the extent this is necessary to provide our services or if we have a legal basis for doing so.

Watts Water only shares personal data with third parties that Watts Water trusts. They are our:

  • Group companies: Watts Water is part of Watts Water Technologies Inc. For internal reports and security and to optimise our services, we share certain personal data with our group companies;
  • Service providers: we share your personal data with our service providers to the extent this is relevant. For example, to collect payments, to investigate and prevent fraud, to distribute marketing communications, to show personalised adverts, to optimise our services or to analyse data;
  • Authorities: we share your personal data with authorities to the extent this is relevant. For example, with supervisory authorities, courts and public bodies, to the extent this is necessary to fulfil a legal obligation or to prosecute criminal offences and fraud. We may also transfer personal data to authorities to protect our rights and property, or the rights and property of third parties;
  • Professional consultants: we share your personal data with our professional consultants to the extent this is relevant. For example, with our lawyers if we need legal advice.

How Watts Water transfers personal data internationally

Watts Water provides your personal data to third parties that are located outside the EU. For example, with our headquarter Watts Water Technologies Inc. in the US. We will only provide your personal data to recipients that handle your personal data confidentially and provide appropriate protection in line with European standards, so that your personal data is protected appropriately (e.g. by concluding EU Model Contracts for the international transfer of personal data as approved by the European Commission).

If you have questions about the international transfer of your personal data or the appropriate safeguards that Watts Water has taken to protect your personal data, please send an email to the Director of Legal & Compliance Europe at [email protected]

How Watts Water protects and stores personal data

Watts Water has implemented physical, technical and organisational security measures to protect your personal data. These measures are aimed at ensuring the on-going integrity and confidentiality of your personal data, for instance by ensuring that only authorised employees have access to your personal data. We evaluate and update these measures on a regular basis. However, no information system is 100% secure, so we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your personal data.

We will retain your personal data for the duration of our relationship, unless a shorter retention period is required by law or the data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which the data was obtained. Once our relationship with you has come to an end, we will retain your personal data for the period of time that enables us to:

  • fulfil our legal obligations, including legal retention periods;
  • investigate or defend legal claims;
  • dispose of your questions, requests or complaints; and
  • keep our records for analysis and audit purposes.

How to exercise your rights

Depending on your location, you are entitled to access or change your personal data, have them removed, restricted or transfer them. Also, depending on your location, you may restrict or object to Watts Water processing them. For example, you may object to our use of your personal data for marketing purposes.

If you have given your consent to us using your personal data, you may at all times withdraw that consent.

In order to protect your privacy, the security and the confidentiality of your personal data, we ask you to send a copy of a valid ID along with your request, on which only your name is visible and with the other data redacted.

You can contact us at any time if you have questions or complaints about this Privacy Statement or about the processing of your personal data by sending an email to the Director of Legal & Compliance Europe at [email protected]. We are committed to handling your queries and complaints as best we can. If you are of the opinion that we have been unable to help you with your complaint, you can file a complaint with your local EU data protection authority.

Links to other websites

Our website contains several links to other websites. Watts Water is not responsible for the way in which these third parties handle your personal data. We advise you to read the privacy statement of the third party when you visit its website in order to understand how this third party collects and uses your personal data.

How to contact Watts Water

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or complaints about this Privacy Statement or the way in which we use your personal data, please contact us by sending an email to the Director of Legal & Compliance Europe at [email protected] or contact us via our postal address:

Watts EMEA Holding B.V.
Director of Legal & Compliance
365 rue du lieutenant putier
71530 Virey le Grand
France

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Statement. The date below shows when the most recent changes were made. We advise you to consult this Privacy Statement on a regular basis so that you are aware of any changes. We will take reasonable steps to inform you of changes that will have a substantial impact on your rights.

Most recent change: April 2020