Frequently asked questions and Glossary

What is privacy all about?

Privacy (which is also known as Personal Information Management or PIM) is the discipline of handling personal information in a strictly controlled manner, to meet the following objectives:

• To be transparent about any personal information that is collected and what it will be used for
• To protect the information from accidental or malicious loss, damage, unlawful processing or disclosure
• For legal compliance

Why should I care about privacy?

Your personal information is extremely important and there are a number of threats associated with the inappropriate disclosure and/or use of your information, including:

• Identity theft
• Fraud
• SPAM

According to the UK Fraud Prevention Service (CIFAS), nearly two thirds of all fraud is the direct result of account takeovers, impersonation and the misuse of personal details. To reduce the risks, you must treat your personal information with great care and only disclose it if you feel confident that it will be handled appropriately.

Is my personal information safe with Sony?

While the safety of your personal information can never be 100% guaranteed, we take privacy extremely seriously and adopt many measures to minimise the risks, including:

• We use industry standard technologies to protect our IT systems from accidental or intentional (malicious) mis-use
• We provide privacy training to our staff, to ensure that they understand their responsibilities when handling your personal information, and the correct processes to follow
• We perform risk assessments and privacy impact assessments when starting a new project and when hiring a 3rd party to process personal information on our behalf

What can I do to protect my personal information?

There are a number of measures that you can take to protect your personal information, including:

Use strong passwords for all your online accounts:

• Do not use trivial passwords (such as single dictionary words)
• Do not use the same password for multiple accounts
• Do use very long passwords (at least 10 characters, but preferably much longer)
• Do use passwords which contain a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters e.g. $%^& etc.
• Do keep passwords securely (never written down, or shared with anyone) and changed periodically

Don’t automatically trust every web site or email which asks you to provide your personal information. Take time to check that the request is valid, and that the personal information requested is absolutely necessary for the services that you are looking to use

Why has Sony Europe created a privacy portal?

The Sony Europe privacy portal aims to provide one place to find all the information you need about how we handle your personal information. There are a few key objectives:

• Transparency, to make it clear what personal information we collect and how we use it, what we do to protect it, and how you can contact us
• Ease of use, to make it easy for you to find the information that you are looking for

How can I sign up to receive Sony promotions and offers via email?

There are a number of ways to sign up for our exciting newsletters, including:

• Via the My Sony website
• When you enter one of our competitions
• Via our contact centres (see the contact details at the end of our privacy policy)

Note that other Sony group companies will have their own newsletters.

How can I stop Sony from sending me promotions and offers via email?

There are a number of ways to stop us sending you our newsletters, including:

• Via the My Sony website
• Clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of one of our emails
• Via our contact centres (see the contact details at the end of our privacy policy)

You should also note that:

• If you sign up to receive newsletters via more than one email address you will need to unsubscribe for each
• Other Sony group companies will have their own newsletters, for which Sony Europe B.V. is not responsible. To stop receiving their newsletters you will need to contact the company responsible

How do I know who is responsible for looking after my personal information?

The responsibility for your personal information should be made clear when any personal information is collected. If in doubt, contact us and ask.

Applicable Law

The legislation with which any personal information processing must comply.

Cookies

These are small pieces of data that are placed on your device. Cookies are used for a variety of purposes, including enabling features on a website, helping us to understand which parts of our websites are the most popular, where website visitors are going, and how much time they spend there.

Data Controller

A data controller is an organisation that determines how and why personal data is to be “processed” (this includes using, storing and deleting the data). The data controller is responsible for this personal data, and for ensuring that processing of the data fully satisfies the requirements of the applicable law.

Data Processor

A data processor is an organisation that has been contracted to process personal data on behalf of a data controller. Responsibility for the data remains with the data controller, but data processors have contractual obligations to ensure that the processing activities are performed to meet the requirements of the data controller.

Encryption

Encryption, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, is a system for protecting data, used when collecting or transferring sensitive data, such as credit card details or other personal information. Encryption is designed to make the data unreadable by anyone but the intended recipients.

My Sony

The Sony Europe website where you can register a Sony product and modify your newsletter preferences.

Personal Information

is any information about or relating to a uniquely identifiable individual, and includes:

• Information that can be used to identify a specific person
• Attributes of an already identified person
• Information or attributes that alone may not identify an individual but which can be tied together with other information in Sony’s or a Third Party’s possession, or public information, to identify a person
• Examples include name, address, phone number, email address, social security number, credit card number, driver’s license number or other government issued ID number, bank account number, race, physical traits, hobbies, usage patterns, family members, income, department and gender of employee when a department may only have one employee of a particular gender

Personal Information Management

Or PIM, is the set of processes and controls used to ensure that personal information is handled appropriately, to meet our internal and legal requirements.

Privacy Policy

Is a statement or a legal document that discloses how a company gathers, uses, discloses and manages the personal information provided by an individual (such as a customer, partner, employee or potential employee). While this is a legal document, a privacy policy aims to provide transparency about these information handling practices, so should ideally be written in clear and simple language.

Sony Europe B.V.

Sony Europe B.V. is the Sony group company responsible for Sony consumer electronics products and services, such as BRAVIA televisions, VAIO laptops and the Sony store online, in Europe. We are registered and have our head office in the United Kingdom.

Sony Group Companies

Sony group companies are Sony Corporation, and any entity, firm or corporation, the majority of whose shares or equity is owned or controlled directly or indirectly by Sony Corporation).

Unsubscribe Link

If you would like to unsubscribe from an email sent to you, follow the ‘unsubscribe’ link and/or instructions placed (typically) at the bottom of the mail. If you use more than one e-mail address to shop or contact us, you need to unsubscribe from each e-mail account that you use.

Web Beacons

Web beacons, also known as single pixel or clear gif technology, or action tags, tells us which visitors clicked on key elements (such as links or graphics) on a Sony web page or email.

3rd Parties

These are non-Sony companies contracted to perform functions on our behalf, such as fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mails, sending text messages (SMS), providing marketing assistance, etc.