Privacy statement

Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG and Beckhoff Automation Ltd. (collectively, “Beckhoff”, "we", “our”, and “us”) take the protection of your (“you” or “your”) privacy and personal information very seriously. We collect, use and disclose your personal information with your consent or as permitted or required by Canadian privacy laws.

This privacy statement (“Privacy Statement”) is intended to inform you about our privacy practices, including how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. This Privacy Statement applies to all of our operations in Canada or operations in connection with Canada, unless we have provided you with a separate privacy statement for a particular product, service or activity.

Please review this Privacy Statement carefully. By submitting your personal information to us, by registering for or using any of the services we offer, by using our website, or by voluntarily interacting with us, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set out in this Privacy Statement, as revised from time to time.

This Privacy Statement covers the following topics:

• Personal information
• Your consent to collection, use and disclosure
• Information security
• International data transfer and storage of information
• How we use your personal information
• How we share your personal information
• Retention of personal information
• Personal information that we collect
  • Use of our website:
    • Information that we automatically collect
    • Use of cookies
    • Registration
    • Matomo
    • Privacy settings
  • Integration of third-party services
    • Google Maps
    • Vimeo
    • Podigee
    • Targeting and behavioural advertising
    • Webinars
    • Amazon Web Services
  • Job Applicant Portal
  • Communicating with us
    • Contact form
    • Newsletters
    • Social media
• Your rights and contacting us
  • Accessing and updating your personal information
  • Withdrawal of consent
  • How to contact us
• Additional information and changes
  • Links to third party websites and services
  • Changes to this Privacy Statement

“Personal information” means any information relating to an identifiable individual under Canadian privacy laws. This information may include (without limitation) your name, e-mail address, or postal address. Information that cannot be linked to your identity either directly or indirectly (such as statistical data, for example on the number of users of our website) is not considered to be personal information.

Personal information does not include any business contact information that is solely used to communicate with you in relation to your employment, business or profession, such as your name, position name or title, work address, work telephone number, work fax number or work electronic address.

Personal information also does not include information where there is no serious possibility that it can be used to identify an individual, whether on its own or in combination with other information, or that has been anonymized in accordance with applicable laws.

In general, you can use our website without providing your personal information to us. We may collect general information from you, or about your visit to and activities on our website. However, for certain services, personal information will be collected from you. In this case, we will only collect, use, or disclose (“process”) this information for purposes related to using our website or for those services. When collecting personal information, it is only essential that you enter the mandatory information. It may be possible to enter additional information, in which case you are doing so voluntarily. In each case, we indicate whether input fields are mandatory or voluntary.

When using our website, no automated decision is made on the basis of your personal information.

We collect, use and disclose your personal information with your consent or as permitted or required by Canadian privacy laws. How we obtain your consent (i.e., the form we use) will depend on the circumstances, as well as the sensitivity of the information collected. Subject to applicable laws, your consent may be express or implied, depending on the circumstances and the sensitivity of the personal information in question.

If you choose to provide personal information to us, we assume that you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of that personal information as outlined in this Privacy Statement.

If you wish to withdraw your consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information, please contact us using the contact information in the “How to Contact Us” section below. However, before we implement the withdrawal of consent, we may require proof of your identity. In some cases, withdrawal of your consent may mean that we will no longer be able to provide certain products or services.

If you provide personal information about another individual to us, it is your responsibility to obtain the consent of that individual to enable us to collect, use and disclose his or her information as described in this Privacy Statement.

We have implemented physical, organizational, contractual and technological security measures with a view to protecting your personal information from loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. For example, your personal information is transmitted in encrypted form over the Internet. We use TLS/SSL encryption (Transport Layer Security/Secure Socket Layer) for data transmission. We have also taken steps designed to ensure that the only personnel granted access to your personal information are those with a business ‘need-to-know’ or whose duties reasonably require such information.

Despite the measures outlined above, no method of information transmission or information storage is 100% secure or error-free, so we unfortunately cannot guarantee absolute security. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any information that you provided to us has been compromised), please contact us immediately using the contact information in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

We may transfer your personal information outside Canada, including to our service providers. Other jurisdictions may have different data protection rules than Canada. While your personal information is outside of Canada, it is subject to the laws of the country in which it is located. Those laws may require disclosure of your personal information to authorities in that country. For written information about our policies and practices regarding service providers outside of Canada, please see below and/or contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information provided in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

We may use your personal information for purposes such as:

• providing you with our products and services and supporting your use of our products and services;
• contacting you relating to our products and services;
• monitoring the usage of our products and services to support their proper functioning and further improvement;
• analyzing the needs and activities of our customers to help us better serve them;
• generating de-identified data to conduct research and analysis related to our business, products and services;
• responding to inquiries and other requests;
• collecting opinions and comments about our products and services;
• providing you with information that we think may interest you, including information about our products and services (e.g., through our newsletter, advertisements, or other communications);
• if you visit our premises, to ensure your safety and security (which may include video surveillance); and
• investigating legal claims and protecting our rights, operations or property.

We may use your personal information for purposes for which we have obtained your consent, and for such other purposes as may be permitted or required by applicable Canadian privacy laws.

We do not use the information we collect to advertise third party products and services or targeted advertising of Beckhoff products and services across third party websites or service offerings.

In general, we only use your personal information to provide the services you request. We rely on third party service providers to perform a variety of services on our behalf, such as (without limitation) hosting data storage.

If we provide your information to service providers, then we require that the service providers keep your personal information secure, and only process it for the limited purposes of providing services to us. We do not authorize the service providers to disclose your personal information to unauthorized parties or to use your personal information for their direct marketing purposes. If you would like more information about our service providers, please contact us using the contact information in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

Additionally, we may use and disclose your information when we believe such use or disclosure is permitted or required: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce the terms of the agreements for our products and services; (e) to protect our rights, operations or property; or (f) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. In addition, we may transfer your personal information and other information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, brands, affiliates, subsidiaries or other assets.

If we otherwise intend to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will identify that third party and the purpose for the disclosure, and obtain your consent.

We will use, disclose or retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which that personal information was collected and as permitted or required by Canadian privacy laws.

Use of our website

Information that we automatically collect

Every time you visit our website we automatically collect the following information about your device regardless of whether or not you have registered with us: the IP address of your computer, the request from your browser, as well as the time of this request. In addition, the status and amount of data transferred as part of this request is also recorded. We also collect product and version information about the browser used and the device's operating system. Furthermore, we record the website from which our website was accessed.

We use this data to operate our website, in particular to identify and resolve errors, to determine the utilization of our website, and to make modifications or improvements.

Use of cookies

As with many other websites, we may use cookies for our website or we may enlist third party services which use cookies to track your preferences and activities on our website. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer, which save specific settings and data for exchange with our website via your browser. A cookie generally contains the name of the domain from which the cookie file was sent as well as information on the age of the cookie and an alphanumeric identifier.

Cookies allow us to identify your computer and make any default settings available immediately.

Generally, we use session cookies, which are automatically erased at the end of the browser session. In limited cases, we may also use cookies with a longer storage duration, so that your default settings and preferences can be taken into account the next time you visit our website.

Most browsers are set up to accept cookies automatically. However, you can disable the storage of cookies or set your browser to notify you as soon as cookies are sent. It is also possible to manually delete previously saved cookies via the browser settings. See your browser’s help files for more information. Please note that if you refuse to allow storage of cookies or delete required cookies, then some of the services available on our website may not work properly or at all.

If cookies are not required for our website, we request that you consent to the use of cookies the first time you access our website.

Registration

You can register for a customer account in order to use certain features on our website, under “myBeckhoff”. You are required to provide the personal information that we may reasonably request during the registration process, including (without limitation) name, address, and e-mail address. In addition, we collect the date and time of registration and your IP address. As part of the registration process, we obtain your consent to use the personal information.

The information requested as mandatory fields during the registration process is required for the performance or initiation of a contract with us for specific services using myBeckhoff. However, you are not under any obligation to register. It is also possible to conclude a contract without registering.

When you register, a customer account is created for you. We store your personal information in the customer account for as long as an active customer relationship exists. If it is not possible to identify any activity for a period of three years, the status of the customer relationship is set to inactive. You can request that your customer account be erased at any time.

Matomo

We use the open source software Matomo (formerly Piwik) to statistically analyze the use of our website. This is a web analytics service. The data collected by Matomo is stored in a database for the purpose of analyzing usage, which serves to optimize our website. The data collected includes the abbreviated IP address, the time, the web pages accessed, the website from which you came to ours (referrer URL), the browser used, the duration of your visit to our website, and the frequency of your visits.

The evaluations generated with Matomo are anonymized and cannot be used to identify individual persons. The data stored by Matomo is not linked to any other data sources nor is it shared with third parties. You can opt out of analysis of your data by Matomo by following this link.

Privacy settings

You can edit your privacy and cookie settings here.

Integration of third-party services

Certain features of our website are provided by third-party services. These services are primarily optional features that you need to explicitly select or use.

Google Maps

We use Google Maps to generate directions and display the locations of branches on maps. This is a service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (hereinafter referred to as “Google”).

If you access Google Maps when visiting our website, Google stores a cookie on your device via your browser. Your personal information is processed by Google to display the location and to generate directions. Google may use servers in the U.S. for this purpose.

Google can use the data transmitted to it to identify the website from which your request has been sent and the IP address to which the directions are to be transmitted.

If you do not agree to the storage and processing of your personal information, you have to prevent the installation of cookies by using the appropriate settings in your browser for instructions on how to do so, see the “Use of cookies” section above.

Use of Google Maps is subject to the Google Terms of Service as well as other applicable Google terms and conditions. You can find the Google Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy

Vimeo

We use Vimeo to show videos on our website (Vimeo LLC, 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA, hereinafter referred to as "Vimeo").

In some cases, user data is processed on Vimeo servers in the U.S.

If you give your consent to embed Vimeo videos, a connection is established to Vimeo servers in the U.S. in order to display the video. Your IP address is therefore transmitted and processed by Vimeo for technical reasons. In addition, the date and time of your visit to the relevant page is recorded.

If you are logged in to Vimeo when you visit one of our websites on which a Vimeo video is embedded, Vimeo assigns the collected user data to your personal user account. To prevent this from happening, you must either log out of Vimeo before visiting our websites or configure the account settings in Vimeo accordingly.

Vimeo uses Google Analytics for web analytics purposes. Google Analytics stores cookies on your device via your browser and sends information on the use of our websites, in which a Vimeo video is embedded, to Google. Google may store and process the information on servers in the U.S.

If you do not agree to the storage and processing of your personal information, you have to prevent the installation of cookies by using the appropriate settings in your browser. For instructions on how to do so, see the “Use of cookies” section above.

More information on the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information by Vimeo as well as on your rights and options for protecting privacy can be found at https://vimeo.com/privacy

Podigee

Our website embeds various forms of podcast content. This content is embedded via the “Podigee” service provided by Podigee GmbH, Schlesische Straße 20, 10997 Berlin, Germany. If you visit a subpage with embedded podcast content, a connection to the Podigee servers is established. When you play the podcast, Podigee processes your IP address and other device information to enable playback and determine statistical data. Before the data is saved, it is anonymized or pseudonymized if it is not required in order to provide the podcast.

More information about data protection on Podigee can be found here: https://www-podigee-com.sandbox.hs-sites.com/en/about/privacy

Targeting and behavioural advertising

Behavioural advertising refers to technologies that collect your preferences and interests through cookies or similar technologies as you browse the Internet across third-party websites and use such preferences and interests to provide you with advertising and marketing materials that are relevant to you, based on those preferences and interests.

We use technologies of this type to place advertisements on the Internet. We use third-party providers to place the advertisements. We use services from Google, among others, to display ads for products and services based on user preferences and interests. More information about this technology can be found in the Google Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy. The installation of cookies for Google remarketing and Google AdWords conversion tracking can be prevented by configuring the settings in the relevant browser by accessing the following website: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/, and changing the corresponding settings.

Webinars

You can use various links on our website to take part in webinars that we host online. If you wish to take part in a webinar, we may collect, use and disclose the personal information that you enter in a registration form, including (without limitation) your name, e-mail address, and company or organization. We collect, use and disclose personal information transferred via the registration form exclusively for the purpose of hosting the webinar, contacting you in relation to the event, and providing you with further information in relation to the webinar.

Our webinars are hosted on the GoToWebinar platform. The GoToWebinar platform is managed by GoTo Technologies Ireland Unlimited Company, The Reflector, 10 Hanover Quay, Dublin 2, D02R573, Ireland. We have no influence on the data processed by GoToWebinar. You will find further information on the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by GoToWebinar at https://www.goto.com/company/legal and https://www.goto.com/company/legal/privacy.

Amazon Web Services

We use Amazon Web Services to save the personal information collected by us. This is a web hosting service of Amazon Web Services, Inc., 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle WA 98109, USA.

We use this service to save our data on Amazon servers. If you transmit data to us or if data is lawfully collected from you, this data is stored in the cloud.

Further information about data processing can be found in the Amazon Privacy Notice at https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/.

Applicant portal

You can apply for positions at our company via the applicant portal. This gives you the opportunity to fill out an applicant survey and submit the information and documents required for the application to us via document upload. Use of the applicant portal is voluntary. You can also send us your application in other ways, including (without limitation) via e-mail or post.

When you submit your application via the applicant portal, your documents are sent electronically to the responsible employee(s) in our company. The personal information that you provide in your application may be used, disclosed or retained only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which the personal information was collected and as permitted or required by Canadian laws. You can request that your application be erased at any time, provided that we may nonetheless retain you application to comply with legal requirements. If your application is successful, the transmitted data will be saved for the purposes of processing the employment relationship, taking account of applicable legal requirements.

Communicating with us

You can contact us in a variety of ways, including via the contact form and social media.

Contact form

If you wish to contact our Sales, Technical Support, or Service teams directly, you can use the online contact form. If you wish to use the contact form, we record the personal information that you enter in the contact form, particularly your name and e-mail address. We also save the IP address and the date and time of the request. We process the data transmitted via the contact form solely for the purposes of responding to your request or concern.

Once we have processed the matter, the personal information will initially be saved in case there are any subsequent queries. You can request that the personal information be erased at any time, otherwise we will erase the data once the matter has been fully resolved, or as permitted or required by applicable Canadian privacy laws.

Newsletter

When you subscribe to our newsletter, your e-mail address will be used for our own marketing purposes until you unsubscribe. You will regularly receive information via e-mail in this regard on current topics as well as e-mails for specific events and special promotions. The e-mails may be personalized and customized based on your personal information.

We record the opening of the newsletter and any links that it may contain. In addition, we collect, use and disclose the following personal information in relation to use of the newsletter: the e-mail program you are using, your operating system, the time of access, and your abbreviated IP address.

In accordance with applicable law, you may receive our newsletter from us without your express consent, for example because you have ordered goods or services from us, we have received your e-mail address in this context, and you have not opted out of receiving information by e-mail.

Should you no longer wish to receive newsletters from us, you can withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future or decline to continue receiving the newsletter. You may opt out by using the unsubscribe link contained in any newsletter or by contacting us directly using the contact information in the “How to contact us” section below.

We will respond to your opt-out request in accordance with applicable laws. Please note that if you opt out from receiving marketing-related e-mails, we may still need to send you communications about your use of our products or services, or other matters.

Social media

In addition to our website, we use various social media channels for information transmission and communication. You will find links to these channels on our website, and links to our website on these channels. Specifically, we use the social networks Facebook and Instagram, the career network LinkedIn, as well as the YouTube and Vimeo platforms. The links can be identified by the relevant provider logo.

As per the “Links to third party websites and services” section below, clicking the links opens the relevant social media websites, which are generally subject to the terms and conditions and privacy policies of the relevant providers. We have provided links to the policies from each provider below:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Vimeo

If we process your personal information in connection with your visit to one of our social media accounts, the explanations in this Privacy Statement apply without restriction. Your personal information is processed by the provider of the social media platform at the same time due to the integration of the account with such social media platform provider’s services. For example, when you access one of our social media accounts, the provider of the social media platform may record data such as your IP address as well as other information that may be saved on the device that you are using or in the relevant browser in the form of cookies. Therefore, your visit to one of our social media accounts will also be subject to the privacy practices and privacy policies of such third party social media platform.

The social media platforms may provide us with information it has generated itself, which is subject to its own privacy practices and privacy policies (e.g., personal information or statistical data regarding your use of the social media platform through tools such as Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, YouTube Analytics, and Vimeo Analytics). We use this information from each social media platform to optimize our content and use of our social media accounts. Our further processing of this information will be subject to this Privacy Statement.

We may also process the information that you enter on each social media platform, particularly your user name and the content published on your account, to the extent that we may link your posts or reply to these posts or create our own posts that reference your account. We may also like, comment on, or share your posts, in addition to contacting you or otherwise interacting with you on each platform. In this way, the information freely published and distributed by you on such social media platform is integrated by us into our offering and made accessible to our followers.

Should you require more detailed information or want to exercise your rights under applicable Canadian privacy laws, you can contact us at any time, using the contact information in the “How to contact us” section below, so that we can take care of your request.

Accessing and updating your personal information

You have rights available to you in relation to your personal information that we hold.

We expect you, from time to time, to supply us with updates to your personal information, when required. We will not routinely update your personal information, unless such a process is necessary.

You may make a written request to request to review any personal information about you that we hold, and we will provide you with access to any such personal information to the extent required by applicable laws. You may also challenge the accuracy or completeness of your personal information in our records, and can request to have your personal information corrected. If you successfully demonstrate that your personal information in our records is inaccurate or incomplete, we will amend the personal information as required.

We may require that you provide sufficient identification to fulfill your request to access or correct your personal information. Any such identifying information will be used only for this purpose.

If you object to how we handle your request, you may have the right to make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the applicable provincial privacy commissioner.

If you would like to assert one of your rights and/or receive more detailed information in this regard, please contact us using the contact information in the “How to contact us” section below.

Withdrawal of consent

You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use, or disclosure of your personal information subject to legal and contractual restrictions. In some cases, withdrawal of your consent may mean that we will no longer be able to provide certain products or services.

How to contact us

We have appointed a Privacy Officer to support us in relation to privacy issues and whom you can contact directly. Our Privacy Officer is available if you have any questions about how we handle personal information or if you require more information on privacy issues. All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your personal information or our privacy practices should be sent to our Privacy Officer as follows:

Data privacy contact
Address: Huelshorstweg 20, 33415 Verl, Germany
E-mail: datenschutz@beckhoff.de

Links to third party websites and services

Our website may contain links to third party websites. These links are generally identified as such. This Privacy Statement does not extend to any websites, products or services provided by third parties. We have no influence on the extent to which applicable privacy laws are observed by such third parties, and we do not assume responsibility for the privacy practices of such third parties. We therefore recommend that you also familiarize yourself with all third party privacy policies prior to using the third party websites, products or services.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement is current as of the version date indicated below. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Statement from time to time. When changes are made to this Privacy Statement they will become immediately effective when published in a revised Privacy Statement posted on our website unless otherwise noted. We may also communicate the changes through our services or by other means. Changes may arise especially in the case of technical modifications to the website or revisions to applicable privacy laws. The current version of the Privacy Statement can be accessed directly via our website at all times. We recommend that you inform yourself regularly of any changes to this Privacy Statement.

Version of Privacy Statement: May 2024