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PRIVACY & COOKIE POLICY

Version November 2023

 

WHO WE ARE

This privacy and cookie policy explains the data protection practices of Sony Music Entertainment Netherlands B.V. Sony Music Entertainment Netherlands B.V. is a company registered in The Netherlands under (Chamber of Commerce) company number 32037174 with its registered office at Overhoeksplein 29, 1031 KS Amsterdam. Where we refer to “Sony Music”, “Sony Music Entertainment” “us” or “we”, we mean Sony Music Entertainment Netherlands B.V. (or any Sony Music Entertainment entity using your data in accordance with this policy).

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and the following sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed. Please read the text carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

 

KEY POINTS

We use personal data to allow you to use the features in the content, to process your registration, and to provide you with requested content related to our music and other offerings.

Our main and artist websites provide interactive features that engage with social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. If you use these features, these sites will send us personal data about you.

Most of our content is not designed for children. We do not knowingly collect personal information of children under the age of 13 and may ask for your age before you can sign up to newsletters or to use our content.

If you give us permission, we will send you news and promotional material about Sony Music, including our artists. You can change your mind about this at any time and ask us not to process your personal data for direct marketing purposes, including profiling related to direct marketing. This policy also explains when we process personal data, for our legitimate interests. You can ask us to stop processing this data.

We disclose your personal data publicly when you post content via our sites or apps. We disclose personal data when you agree that we can share data with business partners or other Sony group companies. We also share data with artists where you consent to marketing and third parties we engage to process data on our behalf or when such sharing is required by law, or in certain other situations.

We may transfer certain personal data to the United States and to other countries outside the EEA.

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to personalize content and advertising and to make our content function better.

 

MINORS

You must be 16 years of age or older to register on our website. You can not subscribe if you are younger than 16 years. If you are between 13 and 16 years old, you can only register if your parents have agreed.

 

A SPECIAL NOTE TO PARENTS

Although we prohibit minors under the age of 16 from registration, you can allow your child to register if your child is over the age of 13 but has not yet reached the age of 16.

Parents should supervise their children’s online activities and consider using parental control tools available from online services and software manufacturers that help provide a child-friendly online environment. These tools can also prevent children from disclosing online their name, address, and other personal information without parental permission.

 

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

We may collect and process personal data relating to you by you providing such personal data by filling in forms on our site or by you contacting us. This includes, but is not limited to, information provided at the time of registering to use (or become a member of) our site, subscribing to any services (e.g. newsletters), purchasing downloads, posting material or requesting further services.

In addition, we use technology on our website to collect information that helps us to enhance your online experience, measure our audience and provide you with tailored advertising. We refer to this technology as “cookies” throughout this policy but this is intended to cover all similar technologies including web beacons, log files, pixel tags, gifs (also described below). We use our own and third party cookies to collect the information we require. For more information see, “cookies and other tracking technologies” below.

Sometimes, we receive information about you from third parties. For example, if you use a “like” or a “share” button for a feature on our sites or apps, then the third party will share information with us. If you participate in activities on other sites or apps – such as participating in a Facebook application – you may allow us to have access to personal data held by Facebook, or other site or app owners.

If we provide online services to a child where we need parental consent for this, we may ask for a parent’s email address, in order to ask for consent.

 

HOW WE USE YOUR DATA

We use personal data collected via our content:

  • To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract;
  • To process your registration on one of our websites or apps, or entry to any competition we run.
  • To send you information about changes to our terms or policies.
  • Where this is necessary for purposes which are in our, or third parties, legitimate interests. These interests are:
  • To provide you with access to content and features in the sites and apps.
  • To send you information you have requested.
  • To ensure the security of our sites and apps, by trying to prevent unauthorised or malicious activities.
  • To enforce compliance with our terms of use and other policies and to help other organisations (such as copyright owners) to enforce their rights.
  • To tailor content, advertisements and offers for you.
  • Where you give us consent:
  • Where you ask us to send marketing information to you via a medium where we ask for your consent (for example, email marketing)
  • Where you allow us to share your data with third parties so they can send you marketing, such as artists.
  • Where you give us consent to place cookies and to use similar technologies.
  • On other occasions where we ask you for consent, for a purpose which we explain at that time.
  • For purposes which are required by law:
  • Where we need parental consent to provide online services to children under 16, or the relevant age below which parental consent is required. However, our sites and apps are not generally designed for children under 16.
  • Implementation of legislation.
  • In response to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.

 

HOW WE SHARE YOUR DATA

Subject to the other terms of this policy, we may share your personal data with the following:

  • Group companies

We may share your personal data with our affiliated or group companies worldwide for the purposes listed above. Where you give your permission via the registration process, we will also share your personal data with other Sony affiliates for them to use for direct marketing.

  • Artists

Where you have consented to direct marketing, we may also share your personal data with those artists (and their management companies) that you have expressed an interest in, who may then use your data to keep you updated with information about them.

  • Other third parties

We may transfer, assign personal data, to third parties in connection with the sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of substantial assets, reorganisation or liquidation of Sony Music, or any part of it.

We may share with others, at our discretion, certain aggregate statistical data about purchases and the use of our content, which data may include demographic data such as the age range and/or geographic location of groups of users. No personal data (such as names or email addresses) will be identifiable from such statistics.

  • In special circumstances

We may disclose personal data in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this data is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference (either intentionally or unintentionally) with the rights or property of those described above in paragraph (a) or (b). Personal data may be shared with government authorities and/or law enforcement officials if required for the purposes above, if mandated by law or if required for the legal protection of our legitimate interests in compliance with applicable laws.

If you submit content to a site or app this will be disclosed publicly.

  • Suppliers

If you register for a promotion, such as a competition, prize draw or contest, which is administered by a third party, your personal data will be disclosed to the organiser for them to administer the promotion. This may also mean that your personal data will be included in a winners list.

We share data with third parties who perform functions on our behalf, such as hosting or operating our site and apps, sending e-mails, and carrying out data analysis.

 

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER

The data that we collect may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination within the United States or some other country outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), for instance if any of our, or any of our EEA based service provider’s, servers from time to time are located outside the EEA or if one of our service providers or suppliers is themselves located in a country outside the EEA or if we share your data (in accordance with the ‘With whom we share your data’ section below).

Where information is transferred outside the EEA, and where this is to a stakeholder or vendor in a country that is not subject to an adequacy decision by the EU Commission, data is adequately protected by EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses, an appropriate Privacy Shield certification or a vendor’s Processor Binding Corporate Rules.

 

COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES

What is a cookie?

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device.

 

Why do we use cookies?

Cookies help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service, for instance by storing information about your preferences and allowing us to recognise you when you return to our site. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating settings on your internet browser. However, please note that if you select such settings certain parts of our site may not work properly.

The information we collect may include IP-addresses, browser version, number of visits, which pages you access and your viewing preferences. Information on the duration of the cookies that we use can be found here:

http://tools.sonymusiccreative.com/privacy/SME_UK_CookieGrid.pdf

 

We use the following categories of cookies on our website:

Category 1: Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like any shopping basket items cannot be provided. We don’t use these cookies to gather information about you that could be used for profiling, advertising or remembering where you’ve been on the internet.

Category 2: Performance Cookies

These cookies collect information on how visitors use our website. For example, which pages visitors go to most often, and if you get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies you as a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.

Category 3: Functionality Cookies

These cookies remember choices you make such as the country you visit our website from, language or the region you are in. These can then be used to provide you with an experience more appropriate to your selections and to make the visits more tailored and pleasant. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Category 4: Targeting cookies or advertising cookies

These cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advert as well as help measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.  The cookies are usually placed by third party advertising networks with the website operator’s permission.  They remember the websites you visit and that information is shared with other parties such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

Category 5: Social Media Cookies

These cookies allow you to share what you’ve been doing on the website on social media such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. These cookies are not within our control.  This information may be linked to targeting/advertising activities. Please refer to the respective social media’s privacy policies for how their cookies work.

Cookies within the above Categories may include those shown on the table (http://tools.sonymusiccreative.com/privacy/SME_UK_CookieGrid.pdf) together with their respective website locations showing you how to opt-out of them.

 

Use of Web Beacons

Some of our web pages may contain electronic images known as web beacons, among other things, that allow us to count users who have visited these pages. Web beacons collect only limited information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the web page resides. We may also carry web beacons placed by third party advertisers. These beacons do not carry any personally identifiable information and are only used to track the effectiveness of a particular campaign.

Consent to Cookies

In order to place cookies on your device, we require your consent. If you don’t want to receive cookies at all, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether.

Please note that if you continue to browse the site, you will be considered to have agreed to our use of cookies.

You can withdraw your consent to our use of cookies at any time. If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which have been set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. You can also use your browser settings to delete cookies that have already been set.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers. However, please note that if you select such settings you may be unable to access certain parts of our site or certain content or functionality may not be available.

If you’d like to opt out of other third party cookies relating to behavioural advertising, please go to www.youronlinechoices.eu. Opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the company or companies from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and usage patterns.

 

YOUR RIGHTS

Wherever we rely on your consent, you will always be able to withdraw that consent, although we may have other legal grounds for processing your data for other purposes, such as those set out above. In some cases, we are able to send you direct marketing without your consent, where we rely on our legitimate interests.  You have an absolute right to opt-out of direct marketing, or profiling we carry out for direct marketing, at any time. You can do this by following the instructions in the communication where this is an electronic message, or by sending an email to [email protected] or contact us at the correspondence address below.

You have the right to ask us for a copy of your personal data; to correct, delete or restrict (stop any active) processing of your personal data; and to obtain the personal data you provide to us for a contract or with your consent in a structured, machine readable format.

In addition, you can object to the processing of your personal data in some circumstances (in particular, where we don’t have to process the data to meet a contractual or other legal requirement, or where we are using the data for direct marketing).

These rights may be limited, for example if fulfilling your request would reveal personal data about another person, where it would infringe the rights of a third party (including our rights)  or if you ask us to delete information which we are required by law to keep or have compelling legitimate interests in keeping. Relevant exemptions are included in both the GDPR and in the Data Protection Act 2018. We will inform you of relevant exemptions we rely upon when responding to any request you make.

To exercise any of these rights, you can get in touch with us using the details set out below. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to complain to an EU data protection authority where you live, work or where you believe a breach may have occurred.

Data that is mandatory is indicated on relevant forms that you complete. Where provision of data is mandatory, if relevant data is not provided, then we will not be able to fulfil your requests to register, enter a competition or otherwise engage with Sony Music or its artists. All other provision of your information is optional.

If you find violations regarding the processing of your personal data, you have the right to make a complaint with the Personal Data Authority (“AP” https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/).

 

HOW DO I GET IN TOUCH?

We hope that we can satisfy queries you may have about the way we process your data. If you have any concerns about how we process your data, or would like to opt out of direct marketing, you can get in touch via [email protected]

You can also address your question to our Information Technology (IT) department responsible for cookies. You can contact them via the following e-mail address: [email protected].

 

HOW LONG IS MY DATA STORED?

Where we process data in connection with your registration to use our sites, we do this for as long as you remain an active user of our sites.

Where we process personal data for marketing purposes or with your consent, we process the data until you ask us to stop and for a short period after this (to allow us to implement your requests). We also keep a record of the fact that you have asked us not to send you direct marketing or to process your data indefinitely so that we can respect your request in future.

Where we process personal data in connection with performing a contract or for a competition, we keep the data for as long as required under relevant country laws pertaining to the type of data and instance that the data has been collected.

We use the following retention periods:

  • Subscription data: email addresses that have not subscribed to a mailing list within the past 18 months and have not received a marketing email within the past 60 months will be unsubscribed form all SME mailing lists.
  • User accounts: user accounts that have no active subscriptions and are not associated with a form response or e-commerce transaction in the past 60 months will be deleted.
  • Marketing lists: marketing lists that have not been used in the past 36 months will be deleted.
  • Business or legal reason: personal information will be deleted if necessary to fulfill a business or legal purpose.

We will retain your information until when you are no longer an active visitor to our website [normally after one year of inactivity] or when you decide to cancel your subscription.

 

OTHER WEBSITES

Our website may contain links to other websites which are outside our control and are not covered by this privacy and cookie policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect and process information from you in a way which is different to how we do so.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY AND COOKIE POLICY

We may modify, alter or otherwise update this privacy and cookie policy at any time. We will indicate any changes by updating the date at the top of the policy and contacting you as appropriate. We encourage you to review this policy from time to time.

 

DATA SECURITY

We take the necessary measures to protect your data from unauthorized access and prevent illegal processing, loss, destruction, or damage. Your data will be stored on a specialized server within a secure data configuration. However, experience shows that perfect or impenetrable security parameters do not exist. You can help us keep your data secure by keeping your password, being the password, you have chosen yourself or the password we have given to you that allows you to access our services or certain parts of our website, confidential and not sharing it with others.