Privacy Policy Statement

Last modified: January 16, 2025

  1. Introduction

Bell Laboratories, Inc., a Wisconsin corporation, (“Company” or “We”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy.

This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.belllabs.com (our “Website“) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information we collect:

  • On this Website.
  • In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.

It does not apply to information collected by:

  • Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Company or any third party; or
  • Any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or through the Website.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Section 10). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

  1. Children Under the Age of 13

Our Website is not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.  If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this Website or through any of its features, register on the Website, or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@belllabs.com.

  1. Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect, use, store and transfer several types of information from and about users of our Website from which you may be personally identified, including information:

  • Which relates to your identity, such as your first name and last name (“Identity Information”)
  • By which you may be contacted, such as your email address, home address, telephone number and any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline (“Contact Information”)
  • In relation to technology you use, including your internet connection, IP address, browser type and version, the equipment you use to access our Website and other technology on the equipment you use to access our Website (“Technical Information”); and
  • In relation to your preferences in receiving marketing from us, any third parties we use and your communication preferences (“Marketing and Communications Information”).

The above information we collect, use, store and transfer is referred to collectively as “personal information”.

We collect this information:

  • Directly from you when you provide it to us.
  • Automatically as you navigate through the Website. Information collected automatically may include information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies (please refer to our Cookie Policy regarding information collected through cookies).

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

  • Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of subscribing to our mailing list.
  • Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies 

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.

The information we collect automatically does include personal information, or we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

  • Cookies (or browser cookies). Please refer to our Cookie Policy for further information.
  • Web Beacons. Pages of our Website may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
  1. How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

  • To present our Website and its contents to you
  • To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us or which may be related to those products
  • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it
  • To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it
  • In any other way we may describe when you provide the information
  • For any other purpose with your consent. If you live in the UK or the EU, please refer to Section 8 for details of the legal bases we use to collect such personal information.
  1. Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

  • To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it
  • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information
  • With your consent

We may also disclose your personal information:

  • To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request
  • To enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes
  • If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Bell Laboratories, Inc., our customers, or others; or
  • To protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Website.
  1. Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

Please do not submit information that you do not want to be collected, used or disclosed as described in this policy.

You may also request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us by contacting privacy@belllabs.com.  We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

If you live in the USA, residents of certain states may have additional personal information rights and choices – please see Section 7 for more information.

If you live in the UK or the EU, this Section does not apply to you. Please instead refer to Section 8 for your legal rights in relation to your personal information.

  1. If You Are Based in the USA, the Following Provisions Apply to You:

Your State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information.

For example, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia provide (now or in the future) their state residents with rights to:

  • Confirm whether we process their personal information.
  • Access and delete certain personal information.
  • Correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information’s nature processing purpose (excluding Iowa and Utah).
  • Data portability.
  • Opt-out of personal data processing for:
    • targeted advertising (excluding Iowa);
    • sales; or
    • profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects (excluding Iowa and Utah).
  • Either limit (opt-out of) or require consent to process sensitive personal data.

The exact scope of these rights may vary by state. To exercise any of these rights please contact privacy@belllabs.com. To appeal a decision regarding a consumer rights request please contact privacy@belllabs.com within ten (10) days of the decision.

Nevada provides its residents with a limited right to opt-out of certain personal information sales. However, please know we do not currently sell data triggering that statute’s opt-out requirements.

  1. If You Are Based in the UK or the European Union, the Following Provisions Apply to You:
  • Representatives

Our UK-based representative is:

 

Bell Laboratories UK Limited

The Balance, 7th Floor

2 Pinfold Street

Sheffield

S1 2GU

United Kingdom

and our EU-based representative is:

 

Bell Laboratories Netherlands B.V.

De Cuserstraat 93

1081 CN Amsterdam

Netherlands

Phone: +31208949140

  • How We Use Your Personal Information

The law requires that we have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal information. We rely on one or more of the following bases:

  • Performance of a Contract: This is where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • Legitimate Interests: This is where we may use your personal information where it is necessary to conduct our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience or for marketing purposes. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights before we process your personal information for our legitimate interests.
  • Legal Obligation: This is where we may use your personal information where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject. We will identify the relevant legal obligation where we rely on this legal basis.
  • Consent: This is where we rely on consent that we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal information for a specified purpose, for example, if you subscribe to our mailing list.

A description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal information and the legal bases upon which we rely to do so are as follows:

  • To manage our relationship with you, which includes notifying you about changes to our terms of use and privacy policy and dealing with your requests, complaints and queries. This will include Identity, Contact and Marketing and Communications Information and the legal bases we use are: (a) in relation to performance of a contract with you, (b) as necessary to comply with a legal obligation and/or (c) as necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and manage our relationship with you).
  • To administer and protect our business and our Website, which includes troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting). This will include the use of Identity, Contact and Technical Information and the legal bases we use are: (a) as necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, the provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganization or group restructuring exercise) and (b) as necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
  • To use data analytics to improve our Website and to measure the effectiveness of our communications and marketing.
  • International Transfers

We share your personal information within our Company group. This may involve transferring your information outside the UK or the EU (depending on where you are based) to our other offices including those in the USA. Whenever we transfer your personal information out of the UK or the EU (as applicable) to countries that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK or EU (as applicable) law, we always ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that we use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK or the EU (as applicable) which give the transferred personal information the same protection as it has in the UK or the EU (as applicable).

  • How Long We Will Use Your Personal Information

We will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal information for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your personal information: see Paragraph (e) below for further information.

  • Legal Rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal information.

You have the right to:

  • Subject Access Request: Request access to your personal information (this is known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Correction: Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate personal information we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new information you provide to us.
  • Erasure: Request erasure of your personal information in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it.

You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have successfully exercised your right to object to the processing (please see Objection below), where we may have processed your personal information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal information to comply with local law. Please note that we may not always be able to comply with your request for erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

  • Objection: Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your personal information. We may be able to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
  • Marketing: Object at any time to the processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Transfer to a Third Party: Request the transfer of your personal information to you or a third party. We will provide to you (or the third party you have chosen) your personal information in a structured, commonly used machine-readable format. This only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we have used the personal information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
  • Restriction: Request restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information in one of the following scenarios: (1) you want us to establish the accuracy of the person information; (2) where our use of the personal information is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (3) where you need us to hold the personal information even if we no longer require it as you need to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (4) you have objected to our use of your personal information but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or exercise any of your other rights). However, we can charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we can refuse to comply with your request if it is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive.

We may need specific information from you in order for us to confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). We do this so that your personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We aim to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. It may occasionally take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. Where this is the case, we will notify you and keep you updated with our response time.

  • Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint at any time:

  • if you are based in the UK, to the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), the UK regulator for data protection issues; or
  • if you are based in the EU, to the national data protection authority of your country. You can find the details of the national data protection authority of your country here: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en.

We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with you concerns before you approach any of the above, so please contact us in the first instance.

  1. Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

  1. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page with a notice that the privacy policy has been updated on the Website home page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the policy.

  1. Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

 

Bell Laboratories, Inc.
6551 North Towne Road

Windsor, Wisconsin 53598

privacy@belllabs.com

You can also reach us by telephone at 1-800-323-6628.