Online privacy policy

(Online) privacy policy

This privacy notice only applies to your use of this website. To see how we process other types of data, including the data used in our products and services, please see the Transparency Statements, which are also available at the bottom of the home page.

The protection of your personal information is of paramount importance to us. We will use data that you do choose to provide or that is being collected through your use of the website and which can identify you, only in line with the provisions of this Online Privacy Statement and in accordance with applicable data protection regulations.

This Online Privacy Statement sets out the type, scope and purpose of collecting, processing and using personal information you do choose to provide when visiting and /or which may be transmitted via the Creditsafe website (www.creditsafe.com/be/en.html )  (hereinafter "our website”). Please note that the use of our website does not require you to provide any personal information.  

Personal identifiable information means any information on the basis of which an individual (the data subject) can be identified such as e.g. name, email address, phone number or the like. For more information on your rights of access, rectification and erasure of any personal data that we may hold about you, how to exercise these rights, and our contact details, please click here.

For the purpose of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018  (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Data Protection Laws”), the data controller is Creditsafe Belgium NV, Steenweg op Zellik 12 1082 Brussels, Belgium (hereinafter “Creditsafe“ or “we“, “us“).

Our supervisory authority for data protection purposes is Data Protection Authority (the “Data Protection Authority”) Rue de la Presse - Drukpersstraat 35 - 1000 Brussels - Belgium (www.gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be/ (Dutch) -  www.autoriteprotectiondonnees.be/ (French) -
www.dataprotectionauthority.be/ (English)).

If you believe that we have processed your personal data in breach of this Online Privacy Statement or the relevant laws and regulations, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority.

This Online Privacy Statement does not cover other websites with their own Online Privacy Statements. We encourage you to read the Online Privacy Statement on the other websites you visit.

By visiting our website you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. 

 

1.     Information collected through the use of our website and use of this information

a.     Contact Forms

Our website gives you the opportunity to provide information to us by filling in a contact form for example to register for a free trial or demo, request a quote or information on our services, register for a webinar or indicate your interest in a job opportunity at Creditsafe. The information you give to us may include your name, address, email address and phone number, employer information and information about your role.

We only collect the data that is necessary to:

Processing Purpose

Lawful basis for processing (Article 6 of the GDPR)

To provide you with the information, products and services that you request

Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract;

To provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those you have already purchased or enquired about.

The processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller, which are to be able to market its products and services, unless you have told us not to provide such information to you;

To provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about goods or services we feel may interest you on the basis of the consent you have granted

The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes

To personalise your experience on our website and ensure that our website is displayed in the most effective manner for you and your computer (please review our Transparency Statement)

The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes

b.    Log information

When you visit our website we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, such as:

-       Date and time of your visit;

-       type and version of the browser you use;

-       operating system;

-       your Internet Protocol (IP) address

-       the full URL clickstream to, through and from our website (e.g. websites that you have visited and products viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction (such as scrolling, clicks and mouse-overs) and methods used to browse away from the page);

-       time zone setting; and

-       plug in types and version for system administration.

We have a legitimate interest in this anonymous data since it enables us to further develop and enhance our website. We do not make any attempt to find your identity as a result of your visit to our website. We will not associate any data collected in this way with any personally identifying information from any other source in order to identify you.

c.     Newsletter and Business updates

Our website offers you the opportunity to download and/or subscribe to business updates we provide or to our 'watchdog' newsletter (hereinafter “newsletter”). To subscribe to this information, we require a valid email address.  When subscribing to our business updates or our newsletter, we will store your IP address as well as the date and time. This serves to protect us in the event a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your email address to subscribe to our business updates /newsletter. We will not collect any other data. The data thereby collected is used solely for the purpose of sending you our business updates or newsletter. No data is transferred to third parties, nor is any of this information matched to any information that other components of our website may collect. If you download the business updates or newsletter, we use onpage tracking within Google Analytics (see below). You may cancel your subscription to the business updates / newsletter at any time. You will find additional details in the email confirming your subscription as well as in each business update / newsletter.

We use third party software and services for our email communications and we track user activity to ensure we are sending relevant content and providing a positive user experience.

d.    Use of registered user customer service area

When accessing the customer service area on our website which is reserved for registered users, you have to register using your unique user name and password. This information will be used to verify that you are an authorized user and not for any other purposes. In addition we will record information about the services you have accessed through the registered user area for accounting purposes, to comply with our statutory obligations under applicable Data Protection Laws (e.g. to document your legitimate interest for accessing data), for our internal statistical and analytical purposes.

e.     Cookies

Our website makes use of Cookies, Pixel Tags, Local Shared Objects (also called "Flash Cookies") and similar technologies when you are browsing our website to enable certain functionalities of our website and to help us analyse user behaviour on the website in order to improve the customer experience.

For more information about the cookies we use and how they work, please visit our cookies policy click here.

You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

f.      Use of Google Analytics IP anonymization feature

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA (hereinafter “Google“). Google Analytics employs so-called “cookies“, text files that are stored to your computer in order to facilitate an analysis of your use of our website. The information generated by these cookies, such as time, place and frequency of your visits to our website, including your IP address, is transmitted to Google’s location in the US and stored there.

Google states that the IP address submitted by your browser will never be associated with other data held by Google.

We use Google Analytics with an IP anonymization feature on our website. In doing so, Google abbreviates and thereby anonymizes your IP address before transferring it from member states of the European Union or signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

Google will use this information on our behalf to evaluate your usage of our site, to compile reports on your activity on our website for us, and to provide us with other services related to website- and internet usage. We use that information for statistical purposes. Google may also transfer this information to third parties if this is required by law or to the extent this data is processed by third parties on Google´s behalf.

We use Google Analytics including the Universal Analytics function. Universal Analytics allows us to analyse activities on our website across various devices (e.g. if you access our website via your laptop and later via your tablet). This is achieved by allocating a pseudonym user-ID to each user. Such allocation is undertaken, when you register for a user account or when you log on with your unique username and password. No personal information will be passed on to Google. The addition of further functionalities to Google Analytics through Universal Analytics, does not diminish or devaluate measures taken to protect personal data like IP-Masking or Browser-Add-ons.

You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

Google offers a disabling option for the most common browsers, thus providing you with greater control over the data which is collected and processed by Google. If you enable this option, no information regarding your website visit is transmitted to Google Analytics. However, the activation does not prevent the transmission of information to us or to any other web analytics services we may use. For more information about the disabling option provided by Google, and how to enable this option, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

You can also deactivate personalized marketing via the following link (https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en&ref_topic=7048998).

More information on terms of use and data protection at Google can be found under http://www.google.com/analytics/terms.

g.    Use of Remarketing

This website uses the remarketing function of Google Inc. (see the address of Google Inc. in point f. above). This feature is designed to show interest-based ads to visitors to the site through the Google ad network. The browser of the website visitor saves Cookies that allow the visitor to be recognized when they visit websites that belong to the Google ad network. On these pages, visitors can then be presented with ads that relate to content that the visitor previously visited on websites that use Google's remarketing feature. According to Google’s own statements, Google does not collect any personal data during this process. However, if you still do not want Google's Remarketing feature, you can always disable it by making the appropriate settings at http://www.google.com/settings/ads. Alternatively, you can disable the use of cookies for interest-based advertising through the Advertising Network Initiative by following the instructions at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

h.    Digital Marketing for Creditsafe.com online

At Creditsafe we engage in online advertising to keep you up to date with our product range and to keep you informed of any promotional offers we are running.

Like many companies, we target Creditsafe adverts and banners when you are visiting other websites that may not be linked to Creditsafe. We use a range of digital marketing networks and ad exchanges along with technologies such as pixels, ad tags, cookies, web beacons and mobile identifiers as well as services offered by particular sites and social networks such as Facebook’s Custom Audience service. 

The banners and adverts you will see are used to enhance the advertising experience we offer you and will based on the data we hold on you such as your previous use of Creditsafe or content or adverts you have interacted with in the past.

i.    Use of Hotjar

To improve the user experience on our websites, we use the services and software of Hotjar Ltd. (Level 2, St Julian's Business Center, 3, Elia Zammit Street, St Julian's STJ 1000, Malta, http://www.hotjar.com). By means of Hotjar we can measure and evaluate the user behaviour on our internet pages. This is to give our web visitors a better experience, recognize preferences, diagnose technical issues, analyse trends, and generally help improve our website. For this purposes, Hotjar places cookies on visitors' devices to obtain non-personal information about your device and browser (such as IP address of the device in anonymized format, screen resolution, type of device, operating system and browser type, country from which website is accessed, language setting), user interactions (such as mouse movements, clicks, keyboard input, scroll height, etc.) and log data (such as visited pages, time spent on the page, referring URL and domain, date and time of access, etc.) to collect. Hotjar may store such data of users in anonymous form. For more information about Hotjar's privacy practices, visit https://www.hotjar.com/privacy.

You can prevent this data processing by Hotjar by deactivating the use of cookies in the settings of your web browser and delete already active cookies. You can also object to the collection and storage of your data via Hotjar at https://www.hotjar.com/opt-out.

 

2.     Storage and transfer of information to third parties

We will store your information on our secure servers and may share your personal information with members of our group (which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006) and third party service providers who assist us in targeting certain audience types, tailoring advertising, improving, and optimizing our website.

We may transfer the personal information that we collect from you to a destination outside of the UK and, in some cases, outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) if necessary for the processing purposes we have described above (including where we transfer your personal information to third parties). In these cases, staff operating outside of the EEA who work for us or one of our suppliers may process your personal information.

By submitting your personal information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.

We will ensure, where your personal information is transferred to third parties or outside of the EEA, that appropriate measures are in place to protect your personal information and ensure that it is processed in accordance with the Data Protection Laws at all times.

 

3.     Duration of data storage

We store your personal data only for as long as it is necessary to achieve the purposes described above. Personal data will be deleted as and when it is no longer required for the purpose or after expiration of existing legal retention periods.

 

4.     Links to other websites

This Online Privacy Statement does not cover the links within our website linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

 

5.     Changes and amendments to our Online Privacy Statement

Creditsafe may change and amend this Online Privacy Statement from time to time. Changes will be communicated through updates on our website. We recommend that you regularly access our website to ensure that you agree with any changes or amendments.

 

6.     Your rights - Access to your personal information / Right of rectification and erasure

Pursuant to Art. 15 GDPR you have the right to request details of personal information that we hold about you.

In case the information we hold about you is outdated or incorrect you have the right pursuant to Art. 16 GDPR to request an update and correction of the relevant data.

You may also have a right pursuant to Art 17 GDPR to request the erasure of personal data we hold about you provided that we do not have a statutory obligation or an outweighing legitimate interest to keep such data.

Under the conditions set out in Art. 18 GDPR, you have the right to restrict processing.


Right to object according to Art GDPR:

1.             Right to object on grounds relating to the particular situation:

According to Art. 21 (1) GDPR you have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of your personal data.

If you object we will no longer process your personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms (e.g. to assert or defend ourselves against legal claims)

2.             Right to object against marketing:

In addition, pursuant to Art. 21 (2) GDPR , you may also object against the use of your data for direct marketing purposes. In this case, we will no longer use your personal information for advertising purposes.

An objection does not require a particular form and should be directed to the address stipulated in section 7 below.

               

In addition, you can contact our supervisory authority, the Data Protection Authority

As far as the processing of personal data is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw such consent to the processing of personal data at any time, i.e. regardless of whether it was granted prior to the entry into force of the GDPR. The withdrawal of the consent does not affect the legality of the processing activities carried out until the withdrawal.

 

7.     Contact Address of the Controller

If you have any comments or questions regarding this Online Privacy Statement or our use of your personal information, or would like to make a request, please contact us at:

Creditsafe Belgium NV
Steenweg op Zellik 12
1082 Brussels - Belgium

T: +32 2 481 88 60
E: [email protected]
W: www.creditsafe.com/be

 

8.     Contact Address of the EU Representative

In accordance with Article 27 of the GDPR we have appointed an EU representative. The contact information is as follows:

Creditsafe Ireland Limited
Block B Joyce’s Court,
Talbot Street,
DUBLIN 1


E-Mail:  [email protected]
Website: https://www.creditsafe.com/ie/en.html
Telephone: 01 898 3200

 

9.     More Information on Creditsafe

Creditsafe Business Solutions Limited is a credit reference agency which collects, records and uses personal data and company information and transfers such data to third parties. The purpose of transferring such data to third parties is to enable them to make decisions about entering into or maintaining existing contractual relationships with their customers on the basis of the customer’s ability to pay. In addition, Creditsafe collects, records, transfers and uses company information including information on the representatives of the companies for marketing purposes.