Privacy statement

We may use the information that you have shared with us through this website and relevant Services (other than sensitive information, which is discussed separately below) for the following purposes:

• to respond to your requests
• to provide the services or information you request
• to allow you to register certain products or services, or enhance their functionality
• to improve and maintain our website content and performance, through website analytics
• to resolve and track the status of any consumer and/or product or service issues
• to manage our relationship with you and facilitate any necessary follow up (e.g. by storing relevant information and preferences for a reasonable amount of time)
• to enter into, or perform a contract with you (e.g. in case you wish to order products or services from us)
• to enable you to participate in our online communities, including social media and blogs
• to contact you with information that might be of interest to you – see further the Marketing and Education section below
• In other ways to which you consent

Medtronic may also use your personal information to the extent necessary to achieve the following legitimate interests, so long as compatible with your rights and expectations of privacy:

• for analytical purposes to research, develop and improve programs, products, services and content
• to anonymize your information by removing any personal identifiers (your name, e-mail address, social security number, etc.) so that it may be used for other purposes. In this case, the anonymized information would no longer identify you and may be treated like other non-personal information. For more details please see the relevant section below.
• to enforce this Privacy Statement and other rules about your use of this website
• to protect our rights or property

Medtronic also has legal grounds to use your personal information:

• as necessary to protect someone's health, safety or welfare; and
• in order to comply with a law or regulation, court order or other legal process

Where required by law, we will ask you to "opt-in" or affirmatively consent to the processing of your personal data for a particular purpose. For example, where the law so requires, we will only send you newsletters if you have subscribed to them. 

Some types of personal information are sensitive information. Sensitive information is personal information revealing or relating to your health (such as your device serial number, or the date of an implant), genetic or biometric data, your racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation, political opinions or trade union membership.

Medtronic will only collect and process your sensitive information:

• in ways for which you have given your explicit consent
• to protect the vital interests of you or another person, in cases where your explicit consent cannot be given or reasonably requested
• according to applicable laws which include suitable and specific measures to safeguard your fundamental rights and interests
• where the processing is necessary for medical purposes and we are, under the circumstances, under a duty of confidentiality equivalent to the duty of confidentiality of a health professional
• to establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim

For example:

• We may collect sensitive information directly from you, when you voluntarily provide it to us for a particular purpose (e.g. when you contact us with a question or suggestion about our products and services);
• We may also collect sensitive information about patients through healthcare professionals who we work with to provide therapy or technical support for our products or services to you;
• We may collect sensitive information as required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European, and other governmental authorities in order to assure safe and effective use of our products and services;
• We may collect sensitive information about participants who have explicitly consented to participate in clinical trials, studies, and other research initiatives.

Non-personal information is information that cannot identify you or be tied to you in any way. Therefore the non-personal information that we collect through this website does not identify you as an individual person, and will not be linked to you. It may include information such as the following:

• the type of web browser software you use (for example, Internet Explorer)
• the name of the domain from which you access the Internet
• the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our website
• the date and time you access our website
• which pages you have visited on our website 
• the search terms you use
• the links on which you click

If you visit our website to read or download information, such as information about a health condition or about one of our products, we may collect certain non-personal information from your computer. This information is collected from your computer's web browser. If you only read or simply click to download information on our website, we do not collect or learn your name, e-mail address, home address, or any other personal information about you. For more information about how we use cookies to collect information about visitors to our website, please click here.

From time to time, we may invite you to participate in a survey to determine customer satisfaction levels, identify areas of potential improvement or to carry out market research. We may send you a specific invite to participate in such a survey on the basis of our legitimate interests in conducting the survey, or on the basis of your prior “opt-in” consent to receive such communications, in accordance with applicable laws. You may opt-out of receiving any such future communications in the manner detailed in the section above.

The personal data that is collected for the purpose of the survey may include your email address (including country location), phone number, professional role & specialization, survey results, and any free-text message you may have written in the survey.

We process your personal information as part of the survey for carefully considered and specific business purposes which are in our legitimate interests and which we believe also often benefit you, based on our assessment that our legitimate interests do not override your freedom and data protection rights.

The business purpose of collecting your data is to reply to survey feedback you may have provided, specifically:

• Should you have indicated an issue which we need to take action to resolve
•  In order to gain further insight to the experience you have described
• To inform you of any action we might take internally to resolve your issue or enhance your experience

Medtronic will not share your personal information  with a third-party except as described in this Privacy Statement.

In the ordinary course of business, we may share some personal information with Medtronic affiliates or third party companies that we hire to perform services or functions on our behalf.

For example, we may:

• use different vendors or suppliers to ship you products that you order on our website. In these cases, we provide the vendor with information to process your order such as your name and mailing address.
• use a service provider to administer certain newsletter or informational mailings that you have signed up for, and provide access to your email address for this purpose.
• use a third-party application or platform to allow us to manage and keep track of our communications with you.
• use our company affiliates to provide services relating to your personal information e.g. we may store your information on a secure server based at our affiliate’s site in Europe or the United States. For more information on the circumstances in which we may transfer your information to other countries, please see the relevant section below.
• use a third-party application or platform to conduct surveys, which can include storage of the survey feedback.

In all cases we will not share more information than is necessary, and we will not authorize any third parties to keep, disclose or use your information except to provide the requested services in line with the purposes set out above.

Please note that subject to applicable laws, we may disclose your personal information if we believe we are required to do so to comply with any law, regulation, court order, legal or government request. In the unlikely event that all or part of our business is acquired by a third party, your information may be transferred to the new corporate owner insofar as relevant to the business in question and subject to appropriate safeguards being in place.

In addition, we may use and disclose your personal information to third parties if necessary to:

• enforce this Privacy Statement and the other rules about your use of this website
• protect our rights or property
• protect someone's health, safety or welfare
• comply with a law or regulation, court order or other legal process
• investigate or take action in cases of suspected fraud or illegal activities

In addition, please keep in mind that certain areas of our website may be interactive in nature, and allow you to post information that other users can see. If you do not wish to have information viewed publicly, please do not use those sections of the website.

In certain cases Medtronic may transmit personal information collected on this website to our affiliates or third party service providers in other countries, but only in furtherance of the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement. In cases where personal information is transmitted outside the jurisdiction where the you are located to other countries we will ensure that such transfer is done on the basis of approved legal mechanisms under applicable data protection laws, and with regulatory approval in circumstances where required by applicable data protection laws. For more information on the safeguards implemented by Medtronic please contact rs.privacyeurope@medtronic.com.

We will only keep your personal information for so long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we are allowed to use them, as set out in this Privacy Statement. For example, if you tell us that you no longer wish to receive a newsletter from us, we will immediately delete your email address from our mailing list. In case you participate in a program via our website we will delete the personal information provided as part of that program within a reasonable time after its completion (e.g. six months after completion will normally be considered reasonable unless we have lawful grounds to retain some of the information for longer (e.g. if necessary for validation or to comply with recordkeeping obligations)).

This Privacy Statement is published on July 19th, 2021. We recognize that data protection is an ongoing responsibility, so we will update this Privacy Statement in case we undertake new processing practices with your personal information or adopt new privacy policies. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement each time you visit the website.

This website may contain links to other websites. Some of those websites may be operated by Medtronic affiliates, and some may be operated by third parties. This Privacy Statement does not apply to other websites, even other Medtronic websites. Therefore, whenever you leave this website we recommend that you review the privacy practices that apply to information you provide on other websites. We provide the links for your convenience, but we do not review, control, or monitor the privacy practices of websites operated by others. Neither are we are responsible for websites operated by third parties or your business dealings with them. 

We care about protecting the online privacy of children. We will not intentionally collect any personal information (such as a child's name or e-mail address) from children under the age of 16 without the consent of someone holding parental responsibility. If you think that we have otherwise collected personal information from someone under the age of 16, please Contact Us.

Security is very important to us. We also understand that security is important to you. We use industry standard measures to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However no website or email transmission is 100% secure and we encourage you to therefore take special care in deciding what information you send or request via email, and take appropriate precautions such as keeping any usernames and passwords you use confidential.

Subject to applicable law, you may have the right to:

• Request access to the personal information we have concerning you
• Request rectification, erasure, or restriction of the processing of your personal information.
• Object, based on your particular situation, to any use or processing of your personal information which we have based on our legitimate interests;
• Request your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format (data portability)
• If we use your personal information based on your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue the relevant data processing activities. Note that this does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before your withdrawal.

Please note that we may keep using aggregated data (statistics, trends), even after you request deletion of your personal information or withdraw your consent, as there may be no technical means available to isolate or identify the data elements to exclude.

You may also at any time, free of charge and without having to provide any justification, opt-out of any direct marketing campaigns and request to no longer receive any promotional material as described above.

Please note that the above rights are generally applicable to the Services offered to our customers in Europe but may be limited in some other jurisdictions according to applicable law. To exercise these rights, or for more information, please send an email to rs.privacyeurope@medtronic.com

Please note that in accordance with applicable laws, we may ask you to provide some proof of identity (such as a copy of your ID card or passport) before we can process your request.

In case you are not satisfied with our handling of your request you may contact the applicable Data Protection Authority. 

The Services are facilitated and carried out by the Medtronic entity identified in contractual documentation or other documentation provided in connection with the Services. If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Statement, please Contact us through our website or via the contact details listed in the Your Rights section above.