Take a look at our best-in-class online hearing screener. This Web Privacy & Cookie Policy (“Policy”) has been implemented to inform you how Sonova AG, as data controller, which its registered address is Laubisruetistrasse 28, 8712 Stäfa, Switzerland, and its subsidiaries (“Sonova” or “we” or “us”) process your Personal Data during your visit to this website, and which cookies and other similar technologies Sonova uses. Alpaca Audiology is part of the Sonova Audiological Care family, which is lead by Sonova AG.
Certain services provided by this website may require the collection and processing of your
Personal Data. If you do not wish to provide your Personal Data, you may not be able to access certain parts of the website, or we may not be able to respond to your request.
A. PERSONAL DATA PROCESSED AND PURPOSES
During your visit to this website, Sonova may collect the following Personal Data:
- Your title, first name, last name, email address, postal address, telephone number
- Sensitive data such as health data
The three legal bases for which we are collecting your Personal data is your consent, our legitime interest and our legal requirement.
Those Personal Data may be collected for the following purposes:
- Based on your consent: for the creation of your account, to contact us via the contact form, for Sonova to respond to users, to take an online hearing test
- Based on our legitimate interest: to analyze the website performance, to improve our services and our website functionality
- To meet legal requirements (i.e. to respond to legal investigations)
B. PERSONAL DATA DISCLOSURE
We will not sell, share or otherwise distribute your Personal Data to third parties except as providing in this Policy. Sonova may share your Personal Data with the following third parties: subsidiaries and other group entities of Sonova; to our partners, co-contractors and subcontractors to ensure the proper execution of the website and services; to public or governmental authorities if required by law.
C. PERSONAL DATA TRANSER
The third parties to whom we may transfer Personal Data may be located outside the country in which we process your Personal Data. If this is the case, and if the importing third party is located in a country that is not considered to offer an adequate level of protection for Personal Data according to EU data protection law or other applicable data protection law, then we will implement appropriate procedures and measures to ensure an adequate level of protection.
These measures may vary from country to country, in accordance with applicable law. If you would like to know more about legal safeguards and mechanisms in place, please contact us at the address provided in the “Contact us” section.
D. PERSONAL DATA RETENTION
Personal Data will not be kept longer than necessary for the above-mentioned purposes. This means that Personal Data will be deleted as soon as the purpose of the processing of Personal Data has been achieved. However, Sonova may retain Personal Data longer if this is necessary to comply with applicable law requirement, or if it is necessary to protect or exercise our rights.
E. PERSONAL DATA SECURITY
Sonova implements a variety of security measures in order to protect Personal Data from security incidents or unauthorized disclosure. These security measures are based on appropriate industry security standards and include, inter alia, access controls, password, encryption and regular security assessments.
F. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS
As may be relevant according to applicable data protection law, you may request access, to be informed, rectification, deletion, portability of your Personal Data, limitation or opposition to the processing of your Personal Data or withdraw your consent. You have also a right in relation to automated decision making and profiling. Please note that the exercise of such rights is not absolute and is subject to legal limitations.
If you have any concern about your Personal Data or want to exercise your rights, please contact us.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority or the competent regulator if you consider that the processing of your Personal Data infringes applicable law.
G. COOKIE POLICY
G.1 WHAT ARE COOKIES?
Cookies are small files stored by most internet browsers to track visitor information and enable Sonova to make its web-offering more relevant to you. During your visit to our website, Sonova uses four kind of cookies. Their retention period depends on each country and the relevant application law, but we will store it for a minimum of six months according to the French data protection authority guidelines.
G.2 HOW DO WE USE THEM?
We use cookies in order to:
- Obtain information about your browser settings, domain name, internet service provider, your operating system, the date and time of access, location, type of device used to access the website to access our website and conduct system administration
- Get information about other websites you have visited or the type of searches you perform to refine your experience
- Prevent fraudulent activity and improve security
- Know and analyze your browsing preferences and the products you are interested in
- Associate your previous website behavior once you have registered with your details on a Sonova website to business and technical purposes
Some of the cookies used by our websites are set by us, and some are set by third parties on Sonova’s behalf. Our use of cookies from third parties enables tailored advertising, meaning that you may see advertisement for Sonova on other websites that you visit.
G.3 WHAT TYPES OF COOKIES DO WE USE?
- Strictly necessary cookies: these cookies are necessary for us to provide you with the basics functionalities of our website and cannot be switched off in our systems.
- Performance and analytical cookies: these cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources in order to measure and improve the performance of our website.
- Functional cookies: these cookies are used to provide enhanced functionality and personalization during your visit.
- Targeting or advertising cookies: these cookies may be set through our website by our advertising partners to build a profile of your interests and propose you relevant adverts.
Our websites also may use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics also uses Cookies to help the website analyze how users use the site across multiple devices. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website will be transmitted to and stored by Google, including transfers to the United States. To learn more about Google Analytics click here. You can opt-out from being tracked by Google Analytics with effect for the future by downloading and installing Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add on for your current web browser.
G.4 HOW TO MANAGE COOKIES?
Each type of cookies reflects a specific purpose, on our website you can easily consent specifically to each purpose. By accepting all cookies, you will have a fully personalized web experience. We allow you to choose which types of cookies you accept or block, but it may impact your experience on the website and the services we offer (as mentioned above). Nevertheless, you can use the service even in case of refusal to consent some cookies, except for strictly necessary cookies. At any time, you can withdraw or modify your
consent by going on the “Cookie Preferences” page.
The way to give your consent specifically to each purpose, or to accept all cookies will depend on the applicable law concerning cookies in your country and be easily find and explain in the cookie banner.
If you are not interested in the advantages of our Cookies, the “Help “function of your browser can provide instructions on how to prevent Cookies or delete existing Cookies. Also, you can learn how to block all new Cookies on your browser and which configuration steps are required to receive a notification about new Cookies.
Very helpful information on Cookies in general can be accessed on these websites:
http://www.allaboutcookies.org/ or https://cookiepedia.co.uk.
H. SOCIAL MEDIA PLUG INS
Social media plugins are a part of certain web pages of Sonova, and exist for social media providers (“Provider”); that is to say Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Youtube. When you visit a page by clicking such a plugin your browser will connect to the respective social media server. At the same time, the Provider will know that you visited our website prior to landing on the social media site. If you are registered and have logged in with the relevant Provider, your visit can also be linked to your user account. The Providers in general do not provide specific information about which data are transmitted in the use of their social plugins. We, therefore have no definitive ability to verify the content and scope of the transmitted data or its use by such Providers. For further information about this, please consult the data protection stipulations of the relevant Provider. If you do not wish a Provider to collect data on you through our website, please deactivate the plugins in your web browser. If you wish to avoid a link to any existing user account, you must log out of the social media web page before your visit to our website.
I. THIRD PARTY LINKS
This Policy applies solely to the use of this website. We may provide you with links to third party websites that may be of interest to you. However, please be aware that Sonova is not responsible for the content and availability of such websites and cannot guarantee the privacy practices of such websites.
J. CONTACT US
For any questions, comments, or concerns about this Policy, or in order to exercise your privacy rights permitted by applicable law related to Personal Data, please contact our Data Protection Officer at the following e-mail address: privacy@sonova.com.
| Rule Name: | Web Privacy and Cookie Policy |
| Effective Date: | 01/02/2022 |
| Level in Rules Hierarchy: | Policy level 2 |
| Scope and target group: | All Sonova employees, worldwide |
| MB Designation: | Compliance Officer |
| Rule Owner: | Head of Global Compliance & Data Privacy |
References to further applicable documents:
| TQM Code | Name | Location |
| NA | Web Privacy and Cookie Policy | OneSonova |
Version control
| Version | Description of change/content | Written by/on | Approved by/on | Released by Owner on |
| 1.00 | Original release | Privacy Team May 2021 | Compliance Committee November 2021 | Deepa Vijayan, February 2022 |