Privacy and Cookie Notice
1. Who is responsible for processing of your personal data?
This Digital Channels Privacy and Cookie Notice ("Notice") applies to the ABB Group of companies, which means ABB Ltd, Switzerland and each entity in which ABB Ltd, Switzerland, directly or indirectly, has a majority holding or owns or controls the majority of voting rights. The ABB company that is communicating with you or to which you are providing goods or services (referred to as "ABB" or "we"), is responsible for the processing of your personal data and other information related to you (such as cookies) and controls how it is used, in accordance with this Notice.
Other subsidiary companies of ABB may also receive and process your personal data, either in the capacity of controller or processor and this Notice applies equally to them.
2. The types of information we collect and use?
We collect and use personal data that concerns you in connection with use of our Digital Channels [website, application, intranet]. We may collect the following categories of personal data and other information related to you (such as cookies):
- Identification data and business contact information, you share with us such as first name, last name, job/position/title, business email address, business address, telephone number, mobile telephone number, telefax number, private telephone number, gender, date of birth, login credentials.
- Additional information you provide to us in the course of your use of the platform, register for an account and providing the service requested such as interests in ABB products, subscription preferences, personal preferences, webinars, profile information (cv), posts on Digital Channels, comments, opinions, images and videos, credit card and other payment information.
- Electronic identification data and information collected by the communications systems, IT applications and website browser such as information technology usage (system access, IT and internet usage), device identifier (mobile device ID, IP address, browser type, browser settings, time and URL accessed, cookies), registration and login credentials, login data and log files, analytics ID, searches, website registration and sound recordings (e.g. voice mail/phone recordings, Skype recordings).
In case you would like to be provided with information about a specific personal data processing activity, you can request that by submitting a request at www.abb.com/privacy.
3. Why we use your personal data?
We may use your personal data and other information as described above for the following purposes:
- to understand your interests and preferences in relation to the ABB Digital Channels;
- to register an account, grant you access to and authenticate you on ABB's Digital Channels;
- to monitor access to Digital Channels or downloads;
- to subscribe and in the course of the subscription to follow comments, posts, articles, authors, webinars, news and updates about ABB products and services;
- in the course of creation of and publishing media and press releases, to create brochures, news, media assets (such as images, videos), newsletters etc.;
- in order to create articles that will be published on ABB’s internal and external Digital Channels;
- to provide you the possibility to create your profile on ABB Digital Channels for example to create posts, make comments, follow posts and discussions and sign-up for newsletters etc.;
- to allow you making posts, comments, upload content, participate quizzes and publishing opinions on ABB Digital Channels;
- in the course of sharing job adds on ABB's Digital Channels;
- to provide customer support and process, evaluate and respond to requests and inquiries;
- to collect your image and your personal data in the course of an event to show impressions of an event;
- to register and organize webinars.
We only collect the personal data from you that we need for the above purposes. For statistical purposes, improvement of our services and testing of our IT systems we use as much as reasonably possible anonymized data. This means that these data can no longer (in)directly identify you or single you out as an individual.
We offer certain digital channels where you can post information on the site which will then be available to other visitors of the site. Examples are discussion forums and comments on blogs. When you post, basic information identifying you as the poster will be made available to other visitors together with your posted information. This information includes your name or alias, and where relevant, may include other information such as your country or the name of the company or organization you work for. You have control over this data in your user profile and can control what will be shown in your posts.
We may also display statistical, reputational and other similar information related to your user account. Examples are the number of forum posts you have posted or a rating showing how useful other visitors have rated your posts. For details, please see the help pages for each service.
4. What happens if you do not provide us with the information we had asked you for or if you ask us to stop processing your information
Where it concerns processing operations related to ABB Digital Channels (as described above), ABB will not be able to adequately establish, conduct or terminate a business relationship with you or your company and generally perform the purposes described above without certain personal data. Although we cannot obligate you to share your personal data with us, please note that this then may have consequences which could affect the use of the platform in a negative manner, such as not being able to provide the requested service, take requested pre-contractual measures to enter into a contract with you or to establish and continue the business.
5. The legal basis we rely on
We use your personal data and other information related to you for the purposes described in this notice based on one of the following legal bases, as applicable:
- We may process your personal data for the fulfilment of contractual obligations resulting from contracts with you or your company, or as part of pre-contractual measures we take;
- We will ask your consent for the activities described in this privacy notice when required by applicable law, for example when we process your data for carrying out analytics by the use of first and third party cookies; or
- In some cases, we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal data insofar as this is not overridden by your own privacy interests. Such interests may include:
- Better understand users’ behavior to further improve our offerings
- Purposes of ensuring network and information security (for example to prevent malicious use such as hacking and denial of service attacks)
- Offering a personalized service and communications
- Analytics and profiling for business intelligence
- Allowing interaction on products and services offered by ABB
You may obtain a copy of our assessment of why we may process your personal data for these interests by submitting a request at www.abb.com/privacy.
6. Parties we share your personal data with (in and outside the EU and EEA or outside the country where the ABB company that controls your data is located)
We only share your personal data with other ABB affiliates or third parties as necessary for the purposes described in the table below. In certain services we offer, your group membership and user profile may be visible to other users in the same group and such user data is also visible to you. Where we share your personal data with an affiliate or third party so that it is transferred to or becomes accessible from outside the European Union (“EU”) and the European Economic Area ("EEA") or outside the country where the ABB company that controls your data is located, we always put adequate safeguards in place to protect your personal data. Examples of these safeguards are an adequacy decision of the European Commission, Standard Contractual Clauses. We have taken additional measures for the transfer of data from within to outside the EU, EEA and outside the country where the ABB company that controls your data is located to protect your personal data. If you would like an overview of the safeguards, which are in place, please submit a request at www.abb.com/privacy.
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Recipient category
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Recipient location
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Purpose
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ABB affiliates and subsidiaries
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See the list of ABB subsidiaries
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The purposes described in this privacy notice
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ABB business partners, distributors, and agents
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EU/EEA and non-EU/EEA (global)
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The purposes described in this privacy notice
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Service providers such as IT services and independent agents working on ABB’s behalf
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EU/EEA and non-EU/EEA (global)
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The purposes described in this privacy notice
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Potential or actual acquirers of ABB businesses or assets
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EU/EEA and non-EU/EEA (global)
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For the evaluation of the business or assets in question or executing the transformation/merger of the companies or for the purposes described in section 4.
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Recipients as required by applicable law or legal process, to law enforcement or government authorities, etc.
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EU/EEA and non-EU/EEA (global)
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Where required by applicable law or a legitimate request by government authorities, or a valid legal requirement
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7. How long we keep your personal data
Based on mandatory legislation, ABB must keep certain personal data for a minimum period of time. We only keep your personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this privacy notice. After this time, we will securely delete your personal data, unless we are required to keep it in order to meet legal or regulatory obligations, or to resolve potential disputes. Note, ABB will to the extent necessary delete posts, articles, press releases or destroy brochures, where your image was used; and will remove it from all databases to avoid further usage.
At the same time, applicable data protection laws require that we do not keep personal data in an identifiable form for any longer than is necessary for the purpose for which the personal data is being processed. Through the setting of IT applications and policies we ensure that our keeping of your personal data is deleted when we no longer need it.
For more information regarding specific retention periods that apply to your personal data, please submit a request at www.abb.com/privacy.
8. Your data privacy rights
Depending on the jurisdiction in which you are located and in which your personal data is processed, you may have the following rights:
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Data privacy rights
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What it means
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The right to access your data
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You are entitled to ask ABB for an overview of or to obtain a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
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The right to have your data corrected
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You may request immediate correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.
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The right to have your data erased
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You may request personal data to be erased when it is no longer needed, where applicable law obliges us to delete the data or the processing of it is unlawful.
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The right to restrict data processing
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You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data in specific circumstances.
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The right to data portability
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You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format for your own purposes, or to request us to transfer it to a third party.
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The right to object to data processing
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You have the right to object at any time for reasons arising from your particular situation to the processing of your personal data, which is based on a legitimate interest.
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The right to withdraw consent
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Where ABB has asked for your consent to process personal data, you may withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
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Please note that the rights described above are not absolute, and that your request cannot always be met entirely. For example, sometimes we cannot delete or restrict the processing of your personal data as we may have legal obligations or contractual obligations to keep certain personal data.
You may request to enforce your data privacy rights at www.abb.com/privacy.
9. Contact and further information
If you want to access your personal data, make use of any of your other rights mentioned above or if you have any questions or concerns about how ABB processes your personal data, please contact our Group Data Protection Officer at privacy@abb.com, or submit your complaint at www.abb.com/privacy.
Should you not be satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data against the law, you may also have the right to file a complaint with the Data Privacy Authority in your country of residence or work, or seek a remedy through the courts where you believe an infringement of data privacy laws may have taken place.
10. Links
The external sites linked to from the ABB web sites are developed by people over whom ABB exercises no control. These other sites may place their own cookies on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information. Please refer to the privacy notice on each site for more information.
11. Cookies and tracking technologies
A cookie is a small piece of data stored on a user’s device by the web browser when visiting a website. Cookies may be used for various purposes and the purposes we use them for are described in the table below. In some cases cookies are used to share visitor data with service providers we work with.
| Purpose |
Description |
Data processors |
Third party services data is shared with |
| Technical |
- Control electronic communication channels and traffic load, guard against information security threats and malicious use, authenticate logged in users, etc
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- Amazon Web Services
- Microsoft Azure
- Google reCAPTCHA
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None |
| Preferences |
- Remember your settings and preferences across visits, personalize your experience based on the history of your visit, etc.
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None |
None |
| Embedded content |
- Third party social network sites that we embed content from use their own cookies for purposes such as analytics. These cookies and the way they are used are not controlled by us but rather by the respective social networks that we embed content from.
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| Analytics |
- Measure traffic and usage patterns of our website, test improvements, measure the efficiency of our advertising, etc.
- The data is collected in a way in which individuals cannot be identified.
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- Google Analytics
- Crazy Egg
- Hotjar
- Salesforce
- Marketo
- Prelytix
- Leadinfo
- BrightEdge
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| Advertising and tracking |
- Your browsing behavior is shared with third party advertising providers and social networking sites. They may build a profile of your online activity and use it for purposes such as serving targeted advertising or showing you more relevant content on their sites.
- Based on what you viewed on our website, related advertising can be displayed on other websites which are participating in the advertising networks of our advertising partners.
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A detailed list of the cookies that may be set when you visit our website can be found below.
| Cooke domain |
Cookie name |
First or third party |
Lifespan |
Purpose |
Description |
| new.abb.com |
csSelectedCountry |
First |
1 day |
Technical |
Identify your country in order to show the content that is valid (e.g. products available in your country) |
| .abb.com, new.abb.com |
_ga, _gid, _gat* |
First |
Up to 2 years |
Analytics |
Google Analytics: Distinguish users |
| .abb.com |
_gcl_au |
First |
3 months |
Advertising and tracking |
Google Adsense: Track conversions |
| new.abb.com, campaign.abb.com |
visitor_id* |
First |
10 years |
Analytics |
Salesforce Pardot: Distinguish users |
| .abb.com |
_mkto_trk
|
First |
2 years |
Analytics |
Marketo: Distinguish users |
| new.abb.com, global.abb |
consent, consentCountry |
First |
3 months |
Preferences |
Cookie consent and privacy settings |
| global.abb, .abb.com |
ApplicationGatewayAffinity, ApplicationGatewayAffinityCORS, ak_bmsc, bm_cookie, bm_sv, cebs
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First |
Session |
Technical |
Traffic control, security, bot protection |
| ads.linkedin.com |
lang |
Third |
Session |
Advertising and tracking |
LinkedIn: Language preference |
| linkedin.com |
lidc, bcookie, AnalyticsSyncHistory, UserMatchHistory, bscookie |
Third |
Up to 2 years |
Advertising and tracking |
LinkedIn: User tracking |
| new.abb.com |
sf-prs-* |
First |
Session |
Technical |
Session management |
| new.abb.com |
_li_id.xxxx |
First |
Session |
Analytics |
Determine whether the visitor is new or has visited the site before |
| new.abb.com |
_li_ses.xxxx |
First |
Up to 2 years |
Analytics |
Determine which pages were consulted during a session |
We may provide links to third party sites. Third party sites are websites or platforms that are linked with our site to provide you with additional functionality, tools, or services such as a direction. You acknowledge and agree we are not responsible for the availability of such sites or resources and do not endorse and are not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, goods, services or other materials on, available through, or provided by such sites or resources. We are not responsible for the privacy or other practices of such sites and cannot guarantee the security of any of your personal information that you provide or is collected by such sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies and terms and conditions on those linked sites.
How to manage cookies
You will find a link for changing your privacy settings in the footer of our website. You can choose which of the optional cookie types you allow us to send to your device. You can also use your browser settings or plug-ins to refuse cookies. However, some features or services on our sites may not function properly without cookies.
Updates to this document
This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time as a result of required developments. In case of such updates, we will undertake necessary actions to inform you about them depending on the importance of changes done. If and where required by applicable laws we will also ask for your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes describing our up-to-date practices.
Please check the “date of publication” to see when this Privacy Notice was updated.
Date of publication: June 3, 2021