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User privacy notice

EXFO Inc., including its affiliates, (collectively “EXFO” or “we”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This User Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice”) describes how and why EXFO collects and uses information about you (collectively “you” or “User”) when you visit or otherwise use the EXFO sites, products, and services, in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws.

“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Please read the following carefully to understand our personal data practices. It is important that you read this Privacy Notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions, when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information. If you do not agree with this Privacy Notice, do not provide EXFO with your personal data when requested.

By accessing and using the EXFO sites, products and services, you are accepting and agreeing to the privacy practices outlined in this Privacy Notice.

Should you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice, please refer to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice.

1- What Does This Privacy Notice Apply To

This Privacy Notice applies to the collection and use of information, including personal data, by EXFO, when a User (i) browses or uses content, features, technologies or functions offered on our website www.EXFO.com or other websites, domains and pages operated by EXFO; (ii) uses EXFO products, software or mobile applications or subscription-based services that link to this Privacy Notice and (iii) uses or accesses other services provided by EXFO both online and offline including our social media pages and newsletters; (hereinafter (i), (ii) and (iii) are collectively referred to as the “Services”). It does not, however, apply to any third-party content that may be linked or referenced in a Service.

2- The Information We Collect About You

We may collect, process and use the following information about you, your device and how you use it, and this information might include personal data:

  • Details of your visits to a site and your use of a Service, including but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, search activities as well as the page, content, software or resources that you access;
  • Information that you provide on a Service, which includes information provided when registering for a Service, subscribing to a Service, posting material, reporting a problem, requesting further services or when you enter a contest or promotion;
  • Your IP address, web addresses of the sites you arrive from and go to next and information about your connection, including your device's browser, operating system, platform type and Internet connection speed;
  • Details of transactions and orders, your history of correspondence with us, quote requests or inquiries or when you contact customer service or technical support; and
  • Information you provide in the blog, other online forums or through online surveys.

Registered User Profile. We keep a log of visitors to our sites, which contains information on our individual registered Users. The information we collect comes from you when you fill a form to access premium content or when you create an EXFO, My EXFO or Supplier profile and when you complete or update the “Your Profile” section. We also record details of your visits and of contributions you make to the Services.

E-Mail Tracking. Some e-mails that we send use tracking so that we can tell how much traffic those e-mails generate to our Services. We use this information to calculate the open and click rates of our e-mails to try to improve them. Sometimes we use this information to re-e-mail people who did not click the first time or to send additional e-mails at a later date. If you want to be sure that none of your e-mail activity is tracked, then you should “opt-out” of EXFO’s e-mails, which you can do via the form on our site, via the “Your Preferences” section as well as by using the “Unsubscribe” link in all our e-mails.

Surveys And Contests. From time to time our Services may request information from Users via surveys, contests or for a particular activity (e.g., newsletter). Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary, which means that the decision to disclose any personal data is left up to the User.

Blog And Forum Comments. To leave a comment in our public forums, you have to be logged-in as a User. If you use such forums, you should be aware, and hereby agree, that any personal data you submit can be read, collected or otherwise used by anyone who reads our forums. Once posted, you cannot change or remove any public postings made in our forums, other message areas or the feedback area. We are not responsible for third-party usage of publicly viewable personal data on our sites.

3- Information You Provide And Types Of Personal Data

We collect information that you provide us with your business card or other contact details or otherwise communicate to us. Some Services require that you log in or register and provide personal data. Information requested may include your name, title, company name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number. Some registration forms may ask for additional demographic or corporate information, your industry and market segment, work related records and reports, unique identifiers or may inquire about your preferences and interests. Some fields may be mandatory to obtain the Service requested, while others may be optional.

Should you choose not to complete the registration, you may be denied access to certain parts or content of the Services, which means that the Services may not function optimally as a result or EXFO might not be able to respond to your request.

4- Information Generated And Collected Automatically

We use web analytics tools to automatically store usage information, such as the origin, numbers and frequency of visitors to our sites and Services and how they use its contents and components. This data is only used in the analytics tool aggregate and helps us figure out how to provide an optimal experience to as many users as possible.
When a User provides us with information that identifies him, such as when you fill a form, we may store it in our marketing databases to personalize your relationship with EXFO. We do this to recognize you and to gather data relating to your use of the Services (please refer to EXFO Cookie Policy for more information).

5- Why We Collect Information

EXFO needs to keep and process information about you for normal business relationship purposes. We will keep and use it to enable us to run the business and manage our relationship with you effectively, lawfully and appropriately, this includes using information to enable us to (i) perform a contractual obligation; (ii) comply with any legal requirements; and (iii) pursue the legitimate business interests of EXFO. We will never process your personal data where these interests are overridden by your own interests and fundamental rights. Some of the above listed grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal data. Specifically, the information, including personal data, we collect from you and about you is needed to:

  • Ensure that content from our Services is presented as optimally as possible for you regardless of the device you are using;
  • Enable the features you are using, provide the Services you request or complete a subscription;
  • Measure and improve our sites and Services’ performance and usability, their contents, and features as well as to personalize your overall experience and to regionalize certain contents of our sites;
  • Send you information based on your business relationship or transactions with us, notify you about changes to our products or services, terms and conditions, and provide customer support and respond to your inquiries;
  • Provide you with information on events, news, products or services we feel may interest you, when you have consented to be contacted for such purposes;
  • Fulfil our contractual obligations with you, process e-commerce transactions and generally provide you with our products and services;
  • Allow you to participate in the interactive features of our Services, when you choose to do so;
  • Carry out any other activity which is compatible with the purpose for which the information was collected, as permitted by applicable law.

6- Information Protection And Disclosure

We neither loan nor sell your personal data to anyone. As a global organization, we may provide information about you to our affiliates and to carefully screened third-party providers that work on our behalf, such as our sales channel partners, distributors or service partners. EXFO is the party responsible for the management of the jointly-used personal data. All our third-party service providers and other entities in the EXFO group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in line with EXFO personal data practices. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. They may only process your personal data on our instructions for specified business purposes and they are subject to confidentiality obligations. We or they may occasionally contact you by e-mail, mail or telephone to provide you with information about products and services that may be of interest to you. If you are dissatisfied or have questions about the use of your information by one of our third-party providers, please refer to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice.

We may be forced to disclose or share your personal data in the following situations:

  • To comply with legal or regulatory obligations or to respond to public and government authorities;
  • To enforce or apply our Terms of Use or other terms and conditions pertaining to the supply of products, services and/or information and other agreements;
  • To protect the rights, property or safety of our employees, customers or third-party providers;
  • When selling one or more of our businesses or to anyone to whom we may transfer our rights under any customer agreement we have with you.

You should be aware that the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of the data transmitted to our sites, the transmission is at your own risk. We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

7- About E-mail Communications

When filling a form, you have the opportunity to opt-in or out of e-mail communications. If you opt-in, we may occasionally send promotional material or notifications related to our products and services to the e-mail address you provided upon registration or in your account. To help make this promotional material more relevant to you, we may cross-reference it with the personal data and other information we collect.

These e-mails may contain information on EXFO, including relevant resources, product information, promotions and upcoming events, which will be based on your profile or preferences. You may also receive e-mails from some of our approved third-party providers concerning EXFO’s products and services.

If at any time, you no longer want to receive promotional e-mails from us, you can “Unsubscribe” or “Change your preferences” on our sites and Services or use the links available at the bottom of each e-mail. You can also opt-out of being contacted by us at any time by refer to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice.

When you are a registered User, there are certain service notification e-mails that you cannot opt-out of, such as renewal notices and change notices applicable to our products, services or policies.

We may give you the opportunity to opt-in for additional newsletters or alerts. You will be added to these lists only if you register for them via a form or checkbox on the EXFO sites and Services, or by doing so in an offline paper form. If you no longer want to receive such communications by e-mail, you may opt-out by following the instructions included in each communication or by referring to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice.

8- About Your Password

You are responsible for keeping passwords that enable you to access certain parts of our sites and Services confidential, when applicable. Never share your EXFO password with a third party. In doing so, you may lose substantial control over your personal data and may be subject to legally binding actions taken on your behalf. You can change your password at any time, and if your password has been compromised for any reason, you should immediately change it by visiting “Your Account” in the “Your Profile” section.

9- Data Retention

EXFO will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances we may anonymize your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer registered User, we will retain and securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. EXFO has a Data Retention Policy and Users are invited to contact EXFO by referring to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice for further details on data retention.

10- Location and Transfer Of Personal Data

The files containing your personal data will be stored at EXFO’s offices or on our servers and those of our third-party service providers acting on our behalf, which may be located in Canada, the European Union, the U.S. or other countries which may not have a level of data protection and privacy laws equivalent to that of your country. By accessing or using our Services or otherwise providing personal data to us, you consent to the processing and transfer of such personal data in and to Canada, the European Union, the U.S. and other countries in the manner and for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.

11- Your Rights

You have the right, exercisable at any time, to information regarding the processing and use of your personal data as well as the right to have this data updated, corrected or deleted. These rights are exercisable by referring to the contact information in article 12 of the Privacy Notice. We may retain certain information as required by law or as necessary for our legitimate business purposes.

12- How To Contact Us For More Information

For the purposes of personal data protection, the EXFO group can be reached at one of the following contact information:

Data protection Committee

EXFO Solutions SAS
Z.A.C. Airlande – 2 rue Jacqueline Auriol
Saint Jacques de la Lande
CS 69 123 - 35 091 Rennes cedex 9
France
data.privacy@exfo.com

Person in charge of the protection of personal information (Quebec)

Philippe Morin
Chief Executive Officer
EXFO Inc.
400 Godin Avenue
Quebec, QC, G1M 2K2
Canada
data.privacy@exfo.com
1-800-663-3936

Version 2023-01-27