1.General

Hillewaere Group, Parklaan 46, 2300 Turnhout, and its subsidiaries, take the measures set out in this privacy policy to protect your privacy. We care about protecting the privacy of our customers, subscribers, readers, viewers, surfers, and users. With this privacy policy, we want to give you the best possible information about what data we collect, why we do it, and how you can control it.

By purchasing our products or services, or by using our services, websites and applications, you are deemed to be aware of, understand and agree to the terms and measures in this privacy policy. Hillewaere Group reserves the right to amend this privacy policy at any time, subject to notifying users via the website or email. The changes will take effect automatically after publication.

The processing of personal data within Hillewaere Group is subject to Belgian law.

2.Collecting personal data

Hillewaere Group collects, records and processes personal data of its customers, surfers and users of its services and applications, news sites, apps and web shops.

By ‘personal data’ we mean data that relates to an identifiable individual and is (i) given to us by yourself (ii) assigned to you by us for the use of our producer and services (iii) obtained by us through the use of our products and services (iv) received by us through third parties.

2.1.Explicitly communicated personal data:

Certain personal data must be explicitly communicated such as for taking out insurance, purchasing/renting a property, using some parts of a website or app, registering for an event, participating in a competition or promotion or creating a user account or registration. This data is deemed to have been provided to us voluntarily by you.

Depending on the service used, this may include the following categories of personal data:

  • Name, first name, address, gender, date of birth, language preference or age.
  • Postal address, postal code, city, email address, telephone number, mobile phone or mobile number.
  • Bank account number.
  • Professional data (profession, function, …) or data relating to studies or training if these may be relevant in view of the nature of the publication or service.
  • Any preferences or interests you express through registration forms, social media, promotions, mobile applications, competitions, etc.
  • Answers to requests for feedback regarding our products and/or services as part of satisfaction or market surveys.
  • Where relevant: financial data and data relating to your creditworthiness.

As required by law, we do not process sensitive data such as data about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, sexual preferences and health, among others.

You guarantee that the data you communicate is correct and complete. Communicating incorrect data or data belonging to third parties may result in the user being temporarily or permanently denied any access (in whole or in part) to Hillewaere Group products and services.

2.2.Personal data collected by automated means:

Other data is collected in an automated way when using our websites, apps or digital applications, through the use of cookies or other systems that record information such as IP address, device or device used, use of the site or application, language and type of browser, …. Some applications, websites or apps require you to identify / sign in before using the application.

Depending on the service or application used, this may include the following data:

  • If you log in to one of our websites or apps using your user account from a social networking site (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.), we may extract information from it – provided you have given your consent – for the profile created on our website.
  • When using digital applications (websites, tablet or smartphone applications, etc.), the following can be recorded:
    • Location data: this data allows us to determine (approximately) the location where you are.
    • Time, frequency and duration of use.
    • How you use our newsletters, websites or what articles, videos, photos, pages you view, read or share.
    • How you arrived at our website (via which referrer or keyword).
    • Whether you are a user of adblocker software when visiting our websites.
    • Which device, system software or browser you are using.

We use this data, among other things, to provide you, the customer, with a better and personalised experience and to customise and improve our offers and products.

3.Storage and access to personal data

Personal data thus expressly or automatically communicated or collected are included and processed in the database of Hillewaere Group NV, Parklaan 46, 2300 Turnhout.

Hillewaere Group is the controller of the processing of these personal data and controls the processing carried out by other parties at its request.

The data is also automatically accessible to other companies and subsidiaries of Hillewaere Group such as: Hillewaere Insurance and Hillewaere Real Estate. See the group structure at: http://www.hillewaere.be/over-ons.

Hillewaere Group will not retain your data for longer than is permitted by law and than is necessary for the purposes stated in this document.

4.Processing of personal data

The data collected as described above may be combined with each other to better tailor our offers, products and/or services to your personal needs. Your personal data may be enriched or supplemented with additional data, either publicly available or from external partners or data suppliers.

By ‘processing of data’ we mean any processing of personal data. The term “processing” covers, among other things, the collection, recording, organisation, storage, updating, alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, dissemination or making available by any means, alignment, combination, archiving, erasure or ultimate destruction of personal data.

We process personal data for various purposes, each time processing only the data necessary to fulfil the intended purpose.

We use personal data:

  • When we have obtained permission.
  • In connection with the preparation or performance of a contract or agreement.
  • To comply with legal or regulatory provisions to which we are subject.
  • When Hillewaere Group has a legitimate interest in doing so, in which case we always strive to strike a balance between that interest and respecting the privacy of the data subject..

In some cases, we use anonymous, aggregated data for commercial purposes or for external reporting. This data can never be traced back to a specific individual.

5.Purposes of processing personal data

Subject to consent, to the extent required, we collect and process personal data for the following specific purposes:

Providing products and services:

Managing customer records for the purpose of delivering products or providing services, drawing winners in competitions you have entered.

(direct) marketing:

Contacting you for marketing purposes and informing you about (new) products, services, competitions, promotions and offers from us and other companies within Hillewaere Group.

Personalisation and targeting.

  • Matching our website(s), newsletters, digital applications and in particular advertisements to your preferences or profile.
  • To send you targeted offers and promotions, matching your preferences or profile, or to avoid sending you the same message multiple times through different channels.

To combat fraud and/or misuse of our digital platforms and applications.

Market research and analysis.

We may use your data and consumer profile to evaluate our products and services.

To comply with our legal obligations.

  • We may be required by law to retain and/or disclose certain personal data about you to government agencies. In the context of a police or judicial investigation, we may be required to communicate certain data to the necessary authorities in a confidential manner.
  • To track studies, tests and statistics, for market studies, among others.
  • We may use anonymous, aggregated data to, for example, report internally and externally on the use of our services, such as how much use was made of certain websites, apps or digital services. The data used in this process cannot be reduced to the level of an identifiable individual. We use the information obtained from these analyses to evaluate our current product and service portfolio and processes, and to adapt them based on new developments.
  • New purposes.
  • We may use your data for new purposes not yet provided for in our privacy policy. In that case, we will contact you by e-mail or via the website before using your data for these new purposes, to inform you of the changes to our privacy rules and to give you the opportunity to refuse your consent to do so.

6.Minors

Hillewaere Group is careful to protect minors’ privacy and encourages parents to be actively involved in their children’s online activities.

Hillewaere Group will not knowingly or intentionally collect personal data from minors.

Hillewaere Group encourages minors, if they visit a Hillewaere Group website, to inform their parents about their online activity and seek their opinion before transmitting any personal data to Hillewaere Group.

Hillewaere Group encourages minors, if they wish to create an account, to carefully read Hillewaere Group’s privacy policy with their parents beforehand.

Parental consent is also required to apply for products and services offered by Hillewaere Group.

7.Security of your personal data

Hillewaere Group takes appropriate and necessary organisational and technical security measures to protect your personal data and privacy in order to prevent the loss, unlawful use or alteration of information we receive. This is a means commitment and not a result commitment.

The number of employees of our company with access to your personal information is limited and carefully selected. These employees are granted access to your personal information to the extent they need it to properly perform their duties.

Our websites sometimes include links to third-party sites (for example: social media, organisers of events we sponsor) whose terms of use are not within the scope of this privacy policy. Read carefully their policy on the protection of your personal data.

Regarding the international transfer of personal data, we protect your data in accordance with the level of protection required by European regulations.

8.Transmission of personal data

We do not sell or transfer personal data to third parties or commercial partners unless:

  • To our legal successors and other companies within Hillewaere Group (such as subsidiaries and sister companies) for the same purposes as those stated in this privacy policy.
  • The transmission of your data is necessary for our services: indeed, for some aspects of our products and services, we cooperate with third parties or engage subcontractors. The transmission of your data is done only for the same purposes as at Hillewaere Group itself. We ensure that these third parties, like us, manage your data securely, respectfully and with due diligence.
  • Your data may be transferred to our partners, including Skarabee.com NV (Nijverheidskaai 3/0021, 8500 Kortrijk) and Brio Portima (Terhulpsesteenweg 150, 1170 Brussels) so that they or other companies can also provide you with personalised offers – possibly based on your marketing profile – or conduct market surveys. In this context, your data will also be used to validate, correct or link data already present in the database of these companies. If you do not wish your data to be transferred to our partners, you can object as further indicated in this privacy policy.
  • There is a legal obligation to transfer data or at the request of judicial authorities or police forces.
  • You give us permission to do so.

If Hillewaere Group were to transfer personal data to third parties other than those mentioned above, this will be done with an explicit communication, explaining to you the third party, the purposes of the transfer and the processing. Where legally required, we obtain your explicit consent. You also always have an option to resist.

9.Right of access and correction

You can access and make changes to the following data yourself via our websites:

  • For consulting your insurance portfolio, via MyBroker, https://app.mybroker.be/cs/home/index/77484.
  • In your registered personal data: through your registration/account on Hillewaere Group websites and digital applications.

You also have the right to access, correct, delete and object free of charge to the processing and forwarding of your data at any time. You can contact us for this purpose by e-mail: info@hillewaere.be or by post at: Hillewaere Group (Privacy Office), Parklaan 46, 2300 Turnhout.

To exercise your right of access, and to prevent any unauthorised disclosure of your personal data, you must provide us with proof of your identity. We therefore ask you to attach a copy of the front of your identity card to your written request by e-mail or post when exercising your right of access.

Hillewaere Group has 45 days to respond to your request. Please note that this period only starts when Hillewaere Group has received your application in writing and has all the required information to comply with your application.

10.Right to object to the use of your data for direct marketing or

commercial purposes

You always have the right, without giving any reason, to object to the use of your personal data for direct marketing purposes, and to the transfer to third parties.

If you inform us of your postal address:

  • Can you receive periodic mailings from us in the future, with information on products, services and events.
  • You may receive mailings from commercial partners offering products or services that might interest you.

If you do not wish this, contact us at info@hillewaere.be, please include your exact name and address.

If you no longer wish to receive letters or mailings from any company, you can subscribe to the Robinson list: www.robinsonlist.be. As a member of the Belgian Direct Marketing association, Hillewaere Group takes this into account when approaching non-customers.

If you provide us with your telephone or mobile phone number:

  • Can you get phone calls or SMS from us, with information about products, services.

If you do not wish this, contact us at info@hillewaere.be.

If you no longer wish to receive telephone calls from any company, contact d the do-not-call-me list:www.bel-me-niet-meer.be.

If you tell us your e-mail address:

  • Can you receive emails from us, with information on products, services and events.

You can unsubscribe from further commercial or promotional emails via the unsubscribe link provided in each email campaign (at the bottom of the email). Editorial newsletters also include an unsubscribe link each time.

If you wish to unsubscribe from all possible commercial or promotional e-mails from Hillewaere Group, contact us at info@hillewaere.be.

Please note that we reserve the right to contact you by electronic means as part of the performance of your contract or if required by law.

11. Hillewaere Group’s surfing and cookie policy

When you visit an internet website or use a Hillewaere Group digital application or app, cookies, files and technologies may be used that store information on your end devices (PC, laptop, smart phone, tablet etc.) or access information already stored on your end devices.

Visitors to our websites, apps or applications accept our company’s use of these cookies, files and technologies. If cookies are disabled in your browser, we cannot ensure optimal operation of the site.

These files and technologies may include cookies, web beacons or pixel tags, log files, settings and information on your end devices and the like:

  • Cookies are small files that are placed and/or read on your device’s end devices when you visit and use our website.
  • Web beacons or pixel tags are (invisible) graphic files embedded in a web page or an e-mail. They are used to understand visitors’ behaviour when browsing our website and opening and reading our information sent by e-mail. Web beacons are part of third-party technology that we use to map visitor activity on our website. Web beacons allow us to track from which computer certain parts of the website have been visited, when this happened and from which location (country/city).
  • Among other things, log files can collect information about your web browser’s activities.
  • Your PC, laptop, smart phone and tablet, and the applications present on them, may contain information about the type of device, the settings of an application, etc. These settings can be read.

We ensure that the files and technologies used by Hillewaere Group do not contain viruses or other harmful applications. These files and technologies are sometimes temporary (session cookies, which are deleted when you close the browser), sometimes permanent (persistent cookies, which remain until they expire or until you delete them) or sometimes both.

Some of these cookies, files and technologies are set and managed by third parties and are required, among other things, to share information via social media and/or enable certain applications on our applications. Where third parties use such files and technologies through a Hillewaere Group website to collect, process and potentially enrich automated data, Hillewaere Group is not responsible for them.

Some of the files and technologies used and described here contain data that may directly or indirectly identify you. For more information and your rights regarding the processing of personal data, please refer to our privacy policy.

The use of these cookies, files and technologies allows us:

Making our sites more user-friendly, for example:

  • By easily recognising you as a customer, it avoids having to re-enter username and password every time.
  • By saving your browsing preferences so you don’t have to enter them every time: your language, your region or location, your subscription, your preferred themes, search preferences, …
  • Allow you to navigate our website smoothly and or interact with our websites.
  • Understanding how the website is used, which parts of the website are visited and with what frequency. This information is used, among other things, as part of the CIM Internet Study, or for traffic and profile analysis, in order to further tailor the service offering to users’ needs.
  • Customise the content of sites, applications and advertisements according to your profile (e.g. your age, gender, region….) and/or your previous browsing behaviour, whether or not combined with information from third-party sources.
  • Optimising the operation of the site or application, detecting errors or misuse: making web pages load faster, ensuring security, testing the website or users, detecting misuse and detecting age requirement. For example: by load balancing, detection of the number of login attempts, automatic logout function, A/B testing.
  • To detect whether you are using adblock technologies.

Data collected by automated means, including through cookies and other systems/applications that collect information, may be shared without specific consent.

The retention period varies from cookie to cookie, generally the cookie is kept until the user deletes their cookies.

You may disable cookies, web beacons, log files and other files and technologies used by Hillewaere Group and/or third parties to the extent and as described below. Deleting and/or rejecting cookies, web beacons, log files, ad block detection and other files and technologies may prevent you from using the website to its full potential.

How this is done varies by browser. If necessary, please consult the help function of your browser: Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera.

If you want to disable cookies from specific parties, you can do so via http://www.youronlinechoices.com/be-nl/. Bear in mind that after deleting cookies on some websites, you may not be able to make full use of all features.