Privacy Notice
Privacy Notice
Effective Date: March 2022 (view archived versions)
This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) applies to any website operated by W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. and our brands and affiliated companies (“Gore”, “we”, “us", “our”) to which this Notice is linked. To the extent a Gore brand or affiliate’s privacy practices differ from those set forth in this Notice, those differences will be included in the brand or affiliate’s specific Privacy Notice posted on its home page.
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Information We Collect
Gore may collect personal information directly from you, such as when you register for news and information, contact us online or submit forms through our sites. W. L. Gore & Associates (555 Paper Mill Road, Newark, DE, 19711, USA) is the controller of your personal information and where the processing of personal information is also undertaken by other Gore entities (set out at the end of this Notice) they are joint controllers with W. L. Gore & Associates for your personal information. We may also collect personal information from third parties or automatically through your use of the sites.
For the purpose of this Notice, “personal information” means any information that identifies, relates to, describes or is capable of being associated with an individual person, including similar terms such as “personal data” or “personally identifiable information” and "sensitive personal information" means any personal information unauthorized disclosure or misuse of which may jeopardize the rights or property of, or is likely to damage the reputation or physical mental health or lead to discriminatory treatment of the individual concerned, or as otherwise defined under applicable law.
The following sections set forth the categories of personal information Gore has collected in the preceding 12 months and how Gore uses and shares such personal information.
Information Collected Directly
We collect information that you provide to us or share on the sites, including:
Registration Information and Requests
Many of our sites and other information available on our sites can be accessed without registering. However, you will be required to register in order to use or access some of our services. The information that we collect will vary depending upon the context of your request, but for general inquiries, we require your first and last name and contact information, such as address, telephone number and email address and other relevant information relating to your request. Generally, fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory for processing your inquiry or your registration, other details are optional.
Communications
When you email us, call us or contact us, we maintain records about our interactions and communications with you.
Customer Service and Support
We also maintain records related to customer support and customer service-related requests, including the nature of the request, in order to process questions or comments directed to our customer service team, or to settle complaints. For questions or comments directed to our customer service team relating to an order or invoice, or in the event of a product complaint, we may require additional information about the product, for example, product size, gender, time and place of purchase and additional information about previous inquiries.
Comments and Content
Some areas of the sites may allow you to comment, share or post other content. When you view this content, we keep a record of our content, and it may be viewable by other users of the sites. You may ask us to remove such content as set out below.
Marketing and Surveys
If you participate in our direct marketing activities, for example, if you fill out a participation or answer card or register for a Gore newsletter, we will process the personal information required for each of these. If you used our online store and a purchase process is not completed, we may send you a reminder email. If you have signed up to participate in a competition or similar advertising campaign, we may use the personal information provided by you to process your participation. For more information, please refer to the conditions of participation for the respective campaign. Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent prior to sending you any direct marketing. If you have given consent to receive direct marketing email communications Gore will use the personal information provided by you to further discuss your interest in the company or our products and services; and to send you information that may be of interest regarding the company, its affiliates, and its partners, such as information about special offers, events, e-commerce activities, market research, consumer or customer surveys, competitions and similar advertising campaigns.
E-Commerce
If you purchase products from us directly, for example from our online stores for GORE® Wear or ELIXIR® Strings, we will require additional information, such as billing and delivery address, and bank and/or credit card details. When you use our online store, we will use personal information to process contracts and orders that you have placed through our website, any inquiries relating to contracts and orders, as well as assess your creditworthiness when purchasing a product, for which we may contract a third-party service provider. When you purchase a product, we may contact you in order to ask you for your opinion on the purchase or the product.
Business Relationship Information
We work with external professionals, contractors, suppliers, experts, consultants and others in the operation of our business. For example, when we deliver our services and otherwise make our products and services available, we may engage with suppliers, contractors, consultants and others who provide services or products to us. We also engage with customers and partners related to the provision of our products and services. We may collect information through these third parties. We collect information such as business contact information, accounting and payment related information and other information related to our business relationship with a third party. We may also conduct due diligence and background checks subject to applicable law to ensure the reliability of third parties with whom we conduct business.
Automatically Collected Information
When you visit the sites, some data is automatically transferred from your browser to our server, in order to offer you a better service with personalized information and to make it easier for you to use our sites. We use cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, and similar technologies to automatically collect information when users access or use the sites unless you update your tracking preferences through our cookie banner, which can be found here. This data is collected and processed by us or by external service providers on our behalf and includes: information about you collected through your use of our services, including log files, IP address, app and device identifier, advertising ID, location info, email address, browser type and operating system, device type, domain name, the website that led you to our services, the website to which you go after leaving our services, the dates and times you access our services, and the links you click and your other activities within the services.
Monitoring of Communications
With your consent and subject to applicable laws we may monitor and record your calls, emails, and other communications with us. We do this for a variety of purposes which include the following: to maintain the security of our communications systems and procedures, for quality control and staff training purposes, fraud detection and prevention, and when We need to review our communications to provide you with a better customer service experience.
Use of Personal Information
In the course of conducting our business, we use (with your consent where required by applicable law) personal information to provide and improve our services, to process employment inquiries, to provide information about our products and services, to respond to requests and to otherwise communicate with you and others.
Providing Support and Services
to provide and operate our services and the sites, communicate with you about your use of the sites, respond to your inquiries, provide troubleshooting, fulfill your orders and requests, process your payments, and complaints and inquiries, provide technical support, and for other customer service and support purposes.
Operating our Business
we may use your information to identify usage trends in the use of our sites and analyze the effectiveness of our communications; to detect, prevent, investigate fraud and including (cyber) security monitoring and prevention; to validate your ability to access or use certain products or services; to operate and expand our business activities; where necessary to the administration of our general business, accounting, record keeping and legal functions; and as part of our routine business administration, such as training, compliance auditing and similar internal activities.
Research, Development and Reporting
we may use information to develop, enhance, improve or modify our products and services; to better understand how our products and services impact you and those for whom you care; to track and respond to concerns, including engaging in regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations related to adverse events, product complaints and patient safety, or to conduct data analysis and audits.
Personalization
to tailor content we send or display on the sites in order to offer location customization and personalized help and instructions, and to otherwise personalize your experiences.
Analytics and Improvement
to better understand how users access and use the sites and other products and services, and for other research and analytical purposes, such as to evaluate and improve our services and business operations and to develop additional products, services and features.
Evaluating and Engaging With Third Parties
to identify, evaluate and engage with third parties such as contractors, suppliers and business partners; to conduct due diligence, such as background checks on contractors and suppliers in accordance with applicable law.
General Business Operations
where necessary for the administration of our general business, accounting, record keeping and legal functions.
Anonymous and De-identified Information
We may de-identify information and create anonymous and aggregated data sets and reports in order to assess, improve and develop our business, products and services, prepare benchmarking reports on our industry, and for other research and analytics purposes.
Marketing, Surveys and Promotions
for direct marketing and promotional purposes, to send you newsletters, special offers or promotions, and contact you about our products or services, or information we think may interest you. If you are located in a jurisdiction that requires opt-in consent to receive electronic marketing messages, we will only send you such messages if you opt-in to receive them.
Protect Our Rights
to protect the sites and our business operations; to prevent and detect fraud, unauthorized activities and access, and other misuse; where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety or legal rights of any person or third party, or violations of our Terms of Use or this Notice.
Legally Required
to comply with the law or legal proceedings, such as subpoenas, court orders, and other lawful requests by regulators and law enforcement, including responding to national security or law enforcement disclosure requirements.
We will, where required by applicable law, obtain consent from you if we wish to use your personal information for purposes other than those stated in this Notice.
Disclosure of Information
Gore is a global enterprise that consists of numerous and various entities worldwide. To facilitate Gore’s global operations, personal information may need to be shared with and transferred between Gore affiliates. Gore affiliates may access and use your personal information as described in this Notice. In general, we disclose the personal information we collect as follows:
Gore Affiliates
As a global company, your personal information may be shared amongst our affiliated and subsidiary companies, who are subject to this Notice when processing your personal information.
Service Providers
We may share your information with third party service providers, whose services we use for data storage and analytics, for web hosting, data analysis, IT technology, infrastructure, and security, including without limitation with third parties whose services we use to provide customer services, for example for communicating with you by email or phone, for market research, carrying out surveys, handling payment transfers, advisory services, maintenance, and other similar services. We take steps to confirm that our service providers are capable of providing appropriate security and protection and will agree to adequate privacy and security contractual terms.
Third-Party Advertising and Marketing
Third-party companies that we work with to display advertising and conduct direct marketing that is more relevant may collect cookie IDs, IP address and other identifiers as well as information about the pages you visit on our sites and other websites, to enable them to display and offer direct advertising such as mailings for products and services that may be of interest to you when you visit our website or other websites.
Business Transfers
We may disclose or transfer information, including personal information, as part of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including without limitation in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings), including related to due diligence conducted prior to such event were permitted by law.
Legally Required
We may disclose your information if we are required to do so by the law (e.g., to law enforcement, courts, or others, e.g., in response to a subpoena or court order) of any jurisdiction.
Protect our Rights
We may disclose information where we believe it necessary to respond to claims asserted against us or, comply with legal process (e.g., subpoenas or warrants), enforce or administer our agreements and terms, for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, and protect the rights, property or safety of Gore, our customers, or others.
Anonymized and Aggregated Data
We may share aggregate or de-identified information with third parties for research, marketing, analytics, and other purposes, provided such information does not identify a particular individual.
The categories of personal information we have shared with these parties for business purposes in the preceding 12 months, where applicable, are set forth above in the section addressing Information We Collect.
Interest-Based Advertising
On some of our sites, we may work with third party ad networks, analytics companies, measurement services and others (collectively “ad companies”) to display advertising on our sites, and to manage our advertising on third party sites, mobile apps and online services.
You may also obtain more information about targeted or “interest-based advertising” and opt out of many ad networks at the industry websites below:
Canada: youradchoices.ca
U.S.: www.aboutads.info
Direct Marketing
From time to time, we may send periodic promotional content that we think may be of interest to you, including newsletters, catalogs, special offers, or promotions.
We may also share your name and email address with other entities within Gore so that we or they may send you information that may be of interest regarding them and their special offers, events, e-commerce activities, market research, consumer or customer surveys, competitions and similar promotional campaigns. You may opt-out of these communications at any time, and where required by law we will obtain your prior consent to send you such communications.
We may engage service providers to combine your information with other sources of information to provide you with relevant promotional content via direct mail.
If you would like to opt-out of receiving further communication from Gore, and/or wish to stop Gore from disclosing your personal information for marketing purposes you may opt-out of such communications by following the opt-out instructions contained in the communication, or you can contact us to withdraw your consent. If you opt-out of receiving communications about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still communicate information relating to your account or any services you have requested or received from us.
International Transfers
As a global company, we may transfer your personal information to, access or store it in in which we (or our service providers) operate. Some of these jurisdictions, may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your jurisdiction. We will take steps to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection comparable to the protection under applicable law in the jurisdiction from which we collect such personal information, including through appropriate written data processing terms and/or data transfer agreements.
Security
We have implemented specific organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect personal information under our control from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure, including, as appropriate, encryption of personal information (and in particular, sensitive personal information), privacy and security impact assessments, and secure access controls among other things. While the security safeguards we have put in place are routinely reviewed and updated, the security of any data transmissions and data storage systems cannot be completely guaranteed.
Retention
As a general rule, we will retain your personal information as long as needed to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Notice, and as otherwise necessary to fulfill our legal obligations, resolve disputes, maintain appropriate business records, enforce our agreements or for such longer period as required by applicable law. The retention period depends on the information and the reason for which we have collected it. For example, we generally retain personal data records related to technical support and customer service requests for seven years, unless a longer or shorter retention period is required by law, is necessary in the course of legal obligations, to resolve disputes, maintain appropriate business records, and enforce our agreements proceedings or is otherwise needed for a particular purpose under applicable law.
Third-Party Sites
This Notice does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of any third parties. The inclusion of a link on the website does not imply endorsement of the linked site by us or by our affiliates. In some cases, we may permit you to use third-party payment services to make payments. If you wish to make a payment using a payment service, you will be directed to a webpage that is hosted by the payment service and not by us. Any information that you provide through this page will be subject to the applicable payment service’s privacy policy, rather than this Notice. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, any payment service’s use of information collected through any payment service page.
Use of Website by Children
Our sites are not directed towards children and we do not encourage children to participate in providing us with any personal information. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of thirteen (13) without verifiable parental consent. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13, without a parent or guardian's consent, has provided personal information to us through the sites, please contact us at DataPrivacyOffice@wlgore.com. We will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible should we learn that we have collected the personal information of a child without first receiving verifiable parental consent.
Minors under 18 years of age may have the personal information that they provide to us deleted by sending an email to DataPrivacyOffice@wlgore.com requesting deletion. Please note that, while we make reasonable efforts to comply with such requests, deletion of your personal information does not ensure complete and comprehensive removal of that data from all systems.
Your Privacy Rights
Gore takes reasonable steps to keep your personal information accurate, up to date and complete. under certain circumstances and subject to applicable law You may have a right to request access to, correction of, and deletion of your personal information. Subject to applicable law, you may also have the right to withdraw your consent or change your scope of consent. If you wish to exercise these rights, please contact us at DataPrivacyOffice@wlgore.com. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with us and with a supervisory authority if you consider that the processing of your personal information infringes applicable law.
To the extent required by applicable law, you may be able to request that we inform you about the personal information we maintain about you and, where appropriate, request that we update, correct and/or suppress personal information about you that we maintain in our active database. We will make all required updates and changes within the time specified by applicable law and, where permitted by law, may charge an appropriate fee to cover the costs of responding to the request. In addition, in some circumstances based on applicable law, you may request that we cease using or sharing personal information about you with our business partners or Gore Affiliates, by contacting us as explained below We will seek to honor those requests consistently with applicable law.
Additional information for California
This Privacy Notice describes how we may share your information for marketing purposes, as described above. California residents are entitled to request and obtain from us once per calendar year information about any of your personal information shared with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, including the categories of information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we have shared such information. To request this information and for any other questions about our privacy practices and compliance with California law, please contact us as explained below.
If you are a California resident, California law also provides you with the following rights with respect to your personal information:
The right to know what personal information we have collected, used, disclosed and sold about you. To submit a request to know, you may call us at +1 888 914 4673 or visit https://www.gore.com/privacy/contact. You also may designate an authorized agent to make a request for access on your behalf on our website at https://www.gore.com/privacy/contact.
The right to request that we delete any personal information we have collected about you. To submit a request for deletion, you may call us at +1 888 914 4673 or visit https://www.gore.com/privacy/contact. You also may designate an authorized agent to make a request for deletion on your behalf on our website at https://www.gore.com/privacy/contact.
When you exercise these rights and submit a request to us, we will verify your identity by asking you to log in to your account if you have one with us. If you do not have an account with us, we may ask for your email address, order numbers of previous orders of our products and services, the date of your last purchase from us, or other similar data elements to verify your identity. We also may use a third-party verification provider to verify your identity. Your exercise of these rights will have no adverse effect on the price and quality of our goods or services.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Notice from time to time to reflect changes and will indicate changes by updating the Notice (and effective date) on this page. We encourage you to periodically review this website and our Notice to understand how Gore protects your personal information.
Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Notice or complaints regarding the processing of your personal information, please contact the Gore Privacy Office at DataPrivacyOffice@wlgore.com.
Gore Entities
The following Gore entities may process your personal information as joint controllers:
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. 555 Paper Mill Road, Newark, DE 19711, USA
W. L. Gore & Associates (Hong Kong) Ltd., Unit 1101-09 & 16-18, Level 11, Tower 1, Kowloon Commerce Centre, No. 51 Kwai Cheong Road, Kwai Chung, Hong Kong
W. L. Gore & Associates G.K. (Nihon Gore Godo Kaisha), W Building, 1-8-15 Konan, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 1080075 Japan
In addition, if you engage directly with one of our other Gore companies (see list here: www.gore.com/affiliates) they will also be joint controllers of your personal information.