PostNL Privacy Statement

Personal data are data that say something about you or which can link us with you. As soon as data can identify you as a person, they are called personal data. Examples of personal data include: your name and address, date of birth, etc. You share personal data with us in the following situations:

• You are a customer of ours;
• You have contact with us; 
• You make use of one or more PostNL services. 

If you visit our website or use our app? You share your personal data with us.

We process your personal data because we want to provide you with a personal service. We therefore use information that we have saved about you. In this way we can provide fast and efficient help if you have questions about a service. These processing operations comprise activities such as analysing, sending, editing, deleting, etc.

You can read below why we process personal data.

1. To provide our services. As PostNL we provide several services
   • Shipments
   • Storage service 
   • Digital postage stamp
   • Forwarding service
   • Funeral service 
   • Online shipment 
   • Moving service For these services, we need at least your name and your address. 
2. To provide information on the status of your shipment. Have you ordered something that is to be delivered by us? We keep you informed. We will send you an e-mail on the status of your order. We can also do this by sending you push messages via the PostNL App. Naturally, you can also follow the status of your shipment via our track & trace service. 
3. To make sure that the PostNL app works properly. With the PostNL app, you can follow your package or see which mail is on the way to you via MyMail. 
4. To ensure an optimal website experience. We analyse your activities on our website. In that way, we know you use our website and where we can make further improvements. 
5. To meet our legal obligation. Sometimes, we have to give personal data to the authorities, e.g. to an FPS, the police and to investigating services. Before we do so, we check whether such a request is lawful. 
6. To improve our service.We can improve our service by analysing and combining personal data. In conducting such analyses, we work as much as possible with anonymous data that we cannot link to you as a person. We do this in order to:
   • Improve pages and forms on our website
   • Deal with complaints more efficiently
   • Develop new products
   • Provide reports for other organizations. No names or addresses appear on these reports, which contain information about large groups of users. An example is the number of packages delivered in a certain region.
   • Market research. PostNL may share your personal data with third parties (such as market research and opinion polls institutions), specialized in research activities. This enables us to gauge satisfaction ratio for our products, services and communication which eventually results in service improvements. Your data will be kept safe during a period of 1 year by these third parties. You preserve the right to disengage at any given moment. 
7. To provide our services to you. We are more than happy to give you information about our services. To find out what is relevant for you, we analyse, for instance:
   • When and how often you use our website;
   • Which pages you view;
   • Which words you use for your searches.
     • If you have given your consent, a profile is created for you. We do this by using cookies. These cookies are stored on the device you use to visit our website. We also use profiling to divide our users into different groups. Business customers for instance are interested in other products than consumers. We ensure that we do not approach you with products which are not interesting for you. Furthermore, information from different data sources is combined when drawing up a customer profile. In this way, we can find out how many parcels you send per year, for instance, so that we can adapt our communication and advise you even better. Finally, we can use encrypted data, with your consent, to show you relevant adverts outside the PostNL website. 
8. To prevent abuse. We want to prevent and limit fraud. We therefore use personal data also if we think that someone is abusing our services. 
9. For the application process. Do you wish to apply for a job with us? You may want to send us your CV, for example. We store this CV and other personal notes and use them during a job interview. 
10. For personal services to our employees. We use the personal data of employees and former employees to pay salaries, for instance. The relevant legislation stipulates which personal data of employees we may or have to have.
11. For PostNL Verpakkingen. For the delivery of packaging ordered via the webshop postnl.be/verpakkingen and the preparation of invoices we need your personal data.

We keep personal data from everyone who has direct or indirect contact with us. An example of indirect contact: You order an item from a web shop, and then PostNL delivers it to your home. You need not give us your address personally; we get it from the web shop. 

We also have personal data of contact persons, representatives and suppliers with whom we have business contacts. 

We do not process personal data of minors. The products and services of PostNL are not geared to children and PostNL does not promote or market its services for children. If you think that we have inadvertently or unintentionally collected personal data relating to a minor and are using them without appropriate consent (by a person who is in a position and competent to give his consent), please inform us using the contact data below, so that we can remove them from our services and make other corrections as necessary.

The personal data we process if you use this service are indicated below: 

• Mail delivery. We process the following data:
  • Name
  • Address
  • Place of residence
  • Postal code
  • Document number of every letter or card.
• Parcel delivery. We process the following data:
  • Name
  • Address
  • Place of residence 
  • Postal code 
  • Document number of the parcel.
    
    You may be asked for your eID or other proof of identity. The barcode is then scanned by the employee of the PostNL Location. We record the following information manually or by scanning the barcode of your eID or proof of identity:
  • Type of proof of identity
  • Document number of the proof of identity. (We do not process your National Registration Number.)
    
    This data is processed by us on the basis of the legislation on registered mail. No copy of your eID or proof of identity will be made.
• Online shipping service .You can use this service to send parcels rapidly. We process the following data:
  • Name
  • Address 
  • Place of residence 
  • Postal code 
  • E-mail address
  • Telephone number 
  • Sex 
  • Date of birth 
  • Bank account number 
  • User name and password 
  • User’s log 
  • IP address of your computer, mobile telephone and tablet
• PostNL Verpakkingen: This webshop allows business owners to order packaging and accessories. We process the following data:
  • Name
  • Shipping adress:
    • Adress
    • City
    • Postal code
  • Billing adress:
    • Adress
    • City
    • Postal code
  • E-mail address
  • Telephone number
  • PostNL customer number
  • Gender
  • VAT number
  • Username and password
  • Company name

• PostNL website and app. If you visit our website or use our app we process personal data relating to you, namely:

• The IP address of your computer, mobile telephone or tablet.
• Data on your visit to the website or the app:
  • When you visited our pages
  • What you looked for 
  • Or whether you are logged in to PostNL 
• Your cookie settings 
• Information that we collect by means of cookies. In our cookie statement, we explain which sort of cookies we use and why and how you can change the cookie settings.

• PostNL app. The app of PostNL can use the following personal data:

• Your location data; for example, to find a post office in the vicinity. 
• Your address book, e.g. to send a card to a contact therein. 
• Your camera. For example, to upload a photo or to scan a code (for which you must give your express consent). We use these data only for these functions. We do not store them and we do not use them for other purposes. 

• Your reactions to PostNL and about PostNL on social media. Do you ask PostNL a question on social media? Or do you tag PostNL in your message on social media? We will store that message and your account name, so that we can react to your message and share information about PostNL. 
• Your PostNL account. If you have a PostNL account, you can use your personal data for several PostNL services. We keep track which services you use and how often, and store your ID account number for that purpose. 
• Customer service. You can phone and chat with our staff. If you chat, we will save that chat. If you phone, we make notes that are stored. This is easy if you still contact us. Sometimes, we hire another organization for customer service. In such a case, that organization stores your data on behalf of PostNL.
• If you apply for a job at PostNL. Are you applying for a job with us? We shall process all data contained in your CV. 
• If you work at PostNL. We store a number of personal data of staff and former staff. To find out which ones, contact the HR department.

In principle, we do not share your data with persons or organizations outside PostNL, except where necessary to provide our service that we are bound by contract with you to provide or if we are required to provide personal data, e.g. when reporting fraud. The following organizations are sometimes entitled to request data from us, according to the law: 

• The police 
• The justice department
• Supervisory authorities, e.g. the Data Protection Authority
• Inland Revenue

In principle, we store your data no longer than necessary. How long we store your data depends on the following: 

• What is the purpose for collecting your data 
• How long the law requires us to store these data

We want to proceed with your data as securely as possible in the following ways: 

• We spend a lot of time and money on the security of our systems with personal data. This falls under the responsibility of our cybersecurity department.
• If something goes wrong with our security, as a result of which people outside PostNL can see your personal data or the danger thereto arises, we record the incident and deal with it carefully. We report such incidents to the supervisory authority and if necessary, to you as well. 
• Only staff that need your personal data can view them. All our staff have signed a confidentiality statement. Former employees remain bound by this statement. 
• The Data Protection Authority (DPA) oversees how we process personal data and whether we comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. 
• The Data Protection Officer (DPO) checks whether we deal properly with personal data within PostNL. The law defines his or her tasks with precision. The DPO reports directly to management. If you have a question for the DPO, send an e-mail to privacy.be@postnl.be of dpo@postnl.be

You have the right to access your personal data that we process. In addition, you have the right to have the processing of your personal data: 

• Changed
• Limited
• Removed
• Raise objections to the processing thereof
• Receive data in such a way that you can give said data easily to others.

If you: 

• Want to access your personal data, 
• Change them, 
• Want to delete them or restrict the processing thereof, 
• Wish to object to the processing;
• Want to withdraw your consent or use data portability 

You can contact us via the details given below. 

If you wish to exercise these rights, please provide us with your address and a copy of the front of your eID. Please verify that at least the following information is clearly legible: your first name, your family name and thee ID card number. You may make the other information illegible. We use this information to verify your identity to prevent abuse such as identity theft.

We will send you an answer within 30 days. 

Do you have a PostNL account? Then you can see which data we have on you. You can change many data at once. 

If you do not get the expected answer to your request, you can file a complaint with the competent authority in Belgium: https://www.privacycommission.be/

If after reading this privacy statement you still have questions on how we use your personal data, contact us at:

Data Protection Team Belgium
Blarenberglaan 6
2800 Mechelen
Belgium

E-mail: privacy.be@postnl.be