Sony Privacy Policy
This privacy policy describes how Sony Group Corporation of 1-chome-7-1 Konan, Minato City, Tokyo 108-0075 Japan (“Sony”, “we”, “our” or “us”) collects and processes personal information about you in connection with the provision of the Sony Women in Technology Awards With Nature(“Awards”). It also sets out how we use and protect your personal information, and your rights in relation to this information. Sony is the controller of your personal information.
If you are a resident of California, please see our Supplemental California Privacy Statement, for our California-specific privacy disclosures that may apply to you.
- Personal information we use
Personal information is information, or a combination of pieces of information, that could reasonably allow you to be identified. Sony will collect the following categories of personal information from you, including through Submittable which hosts the application form used for the Awards.
(a) personal details including your name, region of residence, research abstract;
(b) contact details including your email address;
(c) the name of your academic/research institution;
(d) your information on any disability, if you choose to share and consent;
(e) profile photo and a short biography, if you were selected as the winner or shortlisted applicants;
(f) short report on how the prize was spent one year after the payment, if you were selected as the winner and
(g) personal data provided in interviews, presentations, talks and profile questions,
If you choose not to share, Sony do not process personal information about you that would be considered special category data. In addition, Sony do not automatically process your personal information to make decisions or conduct 'profiling' about you.
- How we use your personal information and the basis on which we use it
Sony rely on the following legal basis in order to process your personal information and for the following purposes:
Legal basis for processing | Purpose |
|---|---|
Legal basis for processing To fulfil our contractual obligations to you by selection winners of the Awards | Purpose
Failure to provide personal information may prevent or delay the fulfilment of these contractual obligations. |
Legal basis for processing To meet our legitimate interests | Purpose
When we process personal information to meet our legitimate interests, we put in place robust safeguards to ensure that your privacy is protected and to ensure that our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. |
Legal basis for processing Consent | Purpose
Where we ask for your consent to process your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details at the end of this privacy notice without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. |
- Your rights over your personal information
You have certain rights regarding your personal information, subject to local law. These include the following rights to:
- access your personal information;
- rectify the information we hold about you;
- erase your personal information;
- restrict our use of your personal information;
- object to our use of your personal information;
- opt-out of processing your personal information for the purposes of targeted advertising, sales, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects (you may have these rights though we do not engage in these types of processing);
- receive your personal information in a usable electronic format and transmit it to a third party (right to data portability); and
- lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
If you would like to discuss or exercise such rights, please contact us at the details below. We encourage you to contact us to update or correct your information if it changes or if the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate.
- Information Sharing
Sony may share your personal information with third parties under the following circumstances:
- Sony Group Companies. Sony work closely with other businesses and companies that fall under the Sony Group Corporation and may share certain information intra-group. A list of companies within Sony Group Corporation can be found here: https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/Subsidiaries/.
- Expert pane and Springer Nature. We will share your personal information with an expert panel and Springer Nature which include members outside of our staff to review all applications, select a shortlist of outstanding applications and choose winners from the shortlisted applicants.
- Law enforcement agency, court, regulator, government authority or similar third party. We will share your personal information with these parties where we believe this is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, or otherwise to protect our rights or the rights of any third party.
- Business Transfer. We may share your personal information with to service providers, advisors, potential transactional partners, or other third parties in connection with the consideration, negotiation, or completion of a corporate transaction in which we are acquired by or merged with another company or we sell, liquidate, or transfer all or a portion of our assets. Should such a transaction or transfer occur, we will use reasonable efforts to try to ensure that the entity to which we transfer your personal information uses it in a manner that is consistent with this privacy notice.
- Professional advisers. In individual instances, we may share your personal information with professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
Since we operate as part of a global business, the recipients referred to above may be located outside the jurisdiction in which you are located (or in which we provide the services). See the section on "International Data Transfer" below for more information.
- Information Security and Storage
Sony implements technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk to the personal information we process. These measures are aimed at ensuring the on-going integrity and confidentiality of personal information. We evaluate these measures on a regular basis to ensure the security of the processing.
We will only retain your personal information after this time if we are required to do so to comply with the law, or if there are outstanding claims or complaints that will reasonably require your personal information to be retained.
- International Data Transfer
Your personal information may be processed, stored, and transferred for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy from your country to countries which may not be regarded as providing the same level of data protection as your country.
We will put in place appropriate safeguards (such as contractual commitments) to ensure that your data is adequately protected, and transfers of your personal information meet the requirements of any applicable data protection legislation such as the EU standard contractual clauses. For more information on the appropriate safeguards in place, please contact us at the details below.
- Contact Us
Sony is the controller responsible for the personal information we collect and process.
dregarding the way in which your personal information has been used or if you wish to exercise any legal right you have in respect of your personal information, please contact sgc-wit-award@sony.com.
We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you have the right to make a complaint to a local data protection authority.
- Changes to the Policy
We may modify or update this privacy notice from time to time.
If we change this privacy notice, we will notify you of the changes. Where changes to this privacy notice will have a fundamental impact on the nature of the processing or otherwise have a substantial impact on you, we will give you sufficient advance notice so that you have the opportunity to exercise your rights (e.g., to object to the processing).
[March 2024]
Supplemental California Privacy Statement
This Supplemental California Privacy Statement (“Statement”) contains disclosures about our information practices that relate specifically to California residents. If you are a California resident, please review this Statement in addition to the privacy policy.
Personal Information We Collect
In the last 12 months, we have collected the categories of personal information that identify you or your household listed below.
- Information we collect directly from you:
- Identifiers, such as your name, address, phone number, email address, or other similar identifiers;
- Commercial information, such as the name of your organization; and
- Internet/Network Information, such as your IP address, or browser or device information; and
- Sensitive Personal Information, including your account log-in information.
Use & Disclosure of Personal Information
We use the personal information collected for the business purposes described in the How We Use Your Personal Information and the Basis on Which We Use It section of our privacy policy.
In the last 12 months, we have disclosed the personal information collected from California residents to other entities within Sony Group Corporation and to third-party service providers for a business purpose, as described in the Information Sharing section of our privacy policy.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) considers certain disclosures of personal information to third parties “sales” even when no money is exchanged. The CCPA also defines disclosures of personal information to third parties for cross-contextual behavioural advertising purposes as “sharing,” We do not sell or share your personal information as that term is defined in the CCPA and do not have actual knowledge that we sell the personal information of any individual under 16 years of age.
We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for marketing. We use such information only for purposes expressly permitted under the CCPA.
We will keep your personal information for the period of time necessary to satisfy the different purposes described in our Privacy Notice, except in such cases where the law permits or requires a longer period of retention.
Your California Privacy Rights
- Right to access personal information. You may be entitled to receive the specific pieces of your personal information we have about you.
- Right to correct. You may be entitled to correct inaccurate personal information that we have about you.
- Right to disclosure. You may be entitled to certain information related to personal information about you, such as the categories of personal information we collected, the sources from which we collected personal information, the purposes for which we collected and shared personal information, and the categories of personal information that we disclosed for a business purpose in the 12 months preceding your request.
- Right to deletion. You may be entitled to request that we delete the personal information that we have collected from you. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to honor your request, in compliance with applicable laws. Please note, however, that we may need or be required to keep such information, such as for certain legitimate business purposes or to comply with applicable law.
- Right to non-discrimination. You have the right to not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising these rights.
To exercise your California Privacy Rights, you can submit your request using the contact details described in the Contact Us section of our privacy policy.
We will need to verify your request to exercise your California Privacy Rights. We generally are able to verify such requests by matching the information you provide with information we have collected about you. However, you may be asked to provide additional personal information for verification purposes. We may be unable to fully process your rights if we are unable to verify your request to a reasonable or reasonably high degree of certainty.
You are permitted to use an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf if we can verify the authorized agent’s authority to act on your behalf (such as pursuant to a power of attorney valid under the laws of California or if you have separately verified your identify or the relevant authorization with us).
This Supplemental California Privacy Statement was last updated: [March 2024]