Legal Information

Introduction

With this Data Privacy Declaration we, Forbo Holding Ltd., would like to describe how we handle personal data we or any of our subsidiaries (“Forbo”) collect, use and process through Forbo’s website and its sub-pages (“Website”) and the rights you as data subject have.

Forbo is committed to high standards of data privacy and the processing of personal data by Forbo will only be in line with applicable data protection legislation (in particular the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union, "GDPR"). While the use of this Website is generally possible without sharing any personal data, certain services on this Website can only be used if you do choose to share personal data with us.

Forbo has implemented numerous technical and organizational measures to ensure the protection of personal data processed through this Website. Web-based data transmissions, however, may be insecure and absolute protection of your personal data can accordingly not be ensured.

Information Forbo will collect

Forbo may collect general personal user data in various ways, for instance if you visit the Website, subscribe to a newsletter service or in conjunction with any other activities, services, functions or resources Forbo makes available on its Website.

While visiting this Website, so-called usage data such as browser types and versions used, the website from which our Website is accessed, date and time of access, Internet protocol address (which, however, is anonymized to the extent that it allows no inference on individual persons) and the Internet service provider of the accessing system is collected. Forbo only uses this data to deliver the content of our Website correctly, optimize the content of our Website as well as its advertisement, ensure the long-term viability of our information technology systems and website technology, and to provide law enforcement authorities with the information necessary for criminal prosecution in case of a cyber-attacks. Forbo will not use the data to draw any conclusions about the data subject. Data contained in server log files are stored separately from all personal data provided by a data subject.

Further data, such as your name, email address, telephone number or any other personal data is only collected if you share such data with Forbo voluntarily.

Subscription services and Contact forms

On this Website, users are given the opportunity to subscribe to newsletters and other publications of Forbo, to contact us via contact forms and to order services from Forbo. You can see from the respective input mask what personal data is transmitted. Apart from this data, we also store the IP address of the computer system assigned by the Internet service provider and used by the data subject at the time of the registration, as well as the date and time of the registration in order to protect us against potential misuse. If indicated in the form, we may also combine your usage data with the data transmitted in order to identify your preferences.

The personal data so collected will be used for the purpose you are sharing personal data with us, i.e. to send newsletters or any other publications you subscribed to, respond to your inquiries, or to process orders you have placed. Furthermore, we may use it to contact you with information on products relevant to you. You may terminate a subscription and withdraw your consent to the data processing at any time. You may either use the corresponding link which can be found in each newsletter or you can unsubscribe at any time by sending an E-Mail to siegling@forbo.com.

Cookies

In order to be able to offer you Forbo’s services, Forbo is using cookies on this Website.

You do have the option to prevent the storage or installation of cookies by adjusting your browser settings accordingly. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via your browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular browsers. However, Forbo does emphasize that in this case you may not be able to fully use all of the functions on this Website. More information about cookies can be found in the Cookies-Guidelines below.

Legal basis for the processing

For the purposes of and with respect to the GDPR (where such is applicable), we would like to outline the legal basis we rely on for our processing of personal data. Most processing operations in connection with our Website are based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR as the processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Forbo or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data. Article 6(1)(a) GDPR serves as the legal basis for processing operations for which we obtain consent for a specific processing purpose. If the processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, as is the case, for example, when processing operations are necessary for the supply of goods or to provide any other service, the processing is based on Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. The same applies to such processing operations which are necessary for carrying out pre-contractual measures, for example in the case of inquiries concerning our products or services. If Forbo is subject to a legal obligation by which processing of personal data is required, such as for the fulfillment of tax obligations or answering to public authorities, the processing is based on Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR.

Sharing of personal data

We will not transfer, sell or exchange personal data collected to any third parties unless we have informed you about such a transfer, sale or exchange and you have provided your express consent thereto. However, in the scope defined below, Forbo does reserve the right to share the collected data with third parties: (i) sharing with affiliated or controlled companies as well as sub-contractors, who are subject to this Data Privacy Declaration or who abide by principles that offer at a minimum the same protection as this Data Privacy Declaration; (ii) sharing with service providers who administrate the Website or provide other services, such as the monitoring of web traffic or the compilation of statistical analyses, whereas Forbo undertakes to disclose only generic data which does not make it possible to identify you; (iii) for the protection of Forbo and third parties, collected data may be shared with third parties if a pertinent legal mandate requires it or if such sharing is necessary to enforce the Terms of Use or to protect the rights of Forbo or those of third parties.

In above mentioned circumstances, your data may be transferred to countries outside Switzerland or the European Economic Area (“EEA”). Personal data is transferred outside the EEA on the basis of declarations of adequacy or other appropriate safeguards, in particular standard data protection clauses adopted by the European Commission.

Please contact us if you would like to request a copy of the specific safeguards applied to the export of your personal data (Article 13(1)(f) GDPR).

For how long will personal data be stored?

We will process and store personal data only as long as it is necessary to achieve the purpose for which personal data has been collected, but in any event for not less than required by applicable data retention provisions, and will routinely delete personal data thereafter.

What rights do I have as a data subject?

Every data subject has the right to access according to Article 15 GDPR, the right to rectification according to Article 16 GDPR, the right to erasure according to Article 17 GDPR, the right to restrict processing according to Article 18 GDPR, the right of object according to Article 21 GDPR, and if applicable – the right to data portability according to Article 20 GDPR. Furthermore, if applicable on you, there is also a right to lodge a complaint with an appropriate data privacy regulatory authority pursuant to Article 77 GDPR.

You can withdraw consent granted to us for the processing of personal data at any time. This also applies to withdrawing declarations of consent that were made to us before the GDPR came into force, i.e. before May 25, 2018. Such withdrawal, however, will not affect data processing that was carried out prior to your withdrawal of consent.

Google Analytics

This Website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service operated by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043-1351, United States (“Google”). Web analytics is the collection, gathering, and analysis of data regarding the behavior of visitors of websites. A web analysis service collects, inter alia, data about the website from which a person has come (the so-called referrer), which sub-pages were visited, or how often and for what duration a sub-page was viewed. Web analytics are mainly used for the optimization of a website and in order to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of Internet advertising.

For the web analytics through Google Analytics the controller uses the application "_gat. _anonymizeIp". By means of this application the IP address of the Internet connection of the data subject is abridged by Google and anonymized when accessing our Websites from a Member State of the European Union or another Contracting State to the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

The purpose of Google Analytics is to analyze the traffic on our Website. Google uses the collected data and information, inter alia, to evaluate the use of our Website and to provide online reports, which show the activities on our Website, and to provide other services concerning the use of our Internet site for us.

Google Analytics places a cookie on the information technology system of the data subject. With the setting of the cookie, Google is enabled to analyze the use of our Website. With each call-up to one of the individual pages of this Website, the web browser on the information technology system of the data subject will automatically submit data through the Google Analytics component for the purpose of online advertising and the settlement of commissions to Google. During the course of this technical procedure, the enterprise Google gains knowledge of personal data, such as the IP address of the data subject, which serves Google, inter alia, to understand the origin of visitors and clicks, and subsequently create commission settlements.

The cookie is used to store personal information, such as the access time, the location from which the access was made, and the frequency of visits of our Website by the data subject. With each visit to our Internet site, such personal data, including the IP address of the Internet access used by the data subject, will be transmitted to Google in the United States of America. This personal data is stored by Google in the United States of America. Google may pass such personal data through the technical procedure to third parties.

The data subject may, as stated above, prevent the setting of cookies through our Website at any time by means of a corresponding adjustment of the web browser used and thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. Such an adjustment to the web browser used would also prevent Google Analytics from setting a cookie on the information technology system of the data subject. In addition, cookies already in use by Google Analytics may be deleted at any time via a web browser or other software programs.

In addition, the data subject has the possibility of objecting to a collection of data generated by Google Analytics, which is related to the use of this Website, as well as the processing of this data by Google. For this purpose, the data subject must download a browser add-on under the link https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout and install it. This browser add-on tells Google Analytics through a JavaScript, that any data and information about the visits of Internet pages may not be transmitted to Google Analytics. The installation of the browser add-on is considered an objection by Google. If the information technology system of the data subject is deleted, formatted, or newly installed thereafter, then the data subject must reinstall the browser add-on to disable Google Analytics.

Further information and the applicable data protection provisions of Google may be retrieved under https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and under http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html. Google Analytics is further explained under the following link https://www.google.com/analytics/.

Social Bookmarks

Social bookmarks that are identified by the respective logo are being used on this Website. Users of certain social media platforms are able to use these social bookmarks to place links of selected Forbo sites into their profiles in order to mark them up or to share the respective page with their contacts. Whenever you click on social bookmarks, you are sending identifying data to the respective social media platform. If you do not want to do this, you should not activate the social bookmarks. To find out more about the collection of data or processing and use of the former by social media platforms, please refer to the data privacy policies of the individual social media platforms.

Security measures

Taking into account the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing as well as the risk of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of individual persons we make appropriate effort to protect personal data against accidental and illegal destruction and loss. We endeavor to ensure that personal data is used in a proper manner and to protect it from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We use a combination of process, technology and physical security controls to help protect personal data from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

Further, access to personal data is restricted to those employees, contractors, and agents who need to know such data to perform their assigned functions and develop or improve our products and services.

Modification of this Data Privacy Declaration

Forbo reserves the right to modify this Data Privacy Declaration at any time. Forbo recommends that you review this Data Privacy Declaration at regular intervals so that you will always be aware of Forbo’s latest approach to the protection of your personal data. When you visit the Website, you also acknowledge that it is your responsibility to review this Data Privacy Declaration periodically and to find out about any changes that may have been made.

Governing law

Any and all disputes arising from or in conjunction with the use of this Website shall be governed by Swiss Law and shall be settled only by the courts at the headquarters domicile of Forbo in Baar, Switzerland, subject to the exclusion of the colliding law provisions.

Contact us

If you have any questions related to this Data Privacy Declaration or related to the processing of personal data within Forbo, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time at the below address.

Forbo Siegling (UK) Ltd.
Unit 4, Fifth Avenue
Tameside Park
Dukinfield
GB-Cheshire SK16 4PP
Telephone: +44 161 330 65 21
Fax: +44 161 308 43 85
E-Mail: dataprivacy@forbo.com

June 2020