BMW Data Privacy.

The following BMW companies are covered by this policy in Republic of Ireland:

Short name: BMW Ireland, BMW FS Ireland
Full name: BMW Automotive (Ireland) Limited, BMW Financial Services (Ireland) DAC

Note: for ease of reading the companies are referred to throughout this policy by their Short name.

References in this policy to “BMW Group Ireland”, “we” or “us” are references to all of the companies above. These are all registered at this address:

Swift Square
Santry Demesne
Santry
Dublin
D09 R802

What the BMW Group Ireland companies do:

BMW Group Ireland provides services through a number of different parties in Ireland.

• BMW Ireland coordinates the BMW and MINI business in Ireland:
BMW Ireland is an importer and distributor of the BMW Group Ireland’s brands, of BMW and MINI motor cars and BMW motorcycles in Ireland. BMW Ireland operates under the following trading styles : BMW, MINI, BMWi and BMW Motorrad ( motorcycles)

• It is the Irish national sales and marketing company for BMW Group Ireland and:
- Appoints Retailers (BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad Centres) and agents;
- Deals with technical issues and provides support to Retailers; and
- Operates the BMW & MINI digital systems and services.

• BMW FS Ireland is a financial services company:

• BMW FS Ireland provides regulated and unregulated motor finance products, services, and associated general insurance products to customers in Ireland through Retailers of BMW Group Ireland’s products and non BMW Group Ireland’s motor dealerships and independent credit brokers. BMW FS operates under the following trading styles: BMW Financial Services, MINI Financial Services, Motorrad Financial Services and Alphera. BMW FS is authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

• Retailers or Retail Centres

• Unless stated otherwise, are independent businesses and not part of the BMW Group Ireland;
• They operate using the BMW brands under license to sell and/or service vehicles;
• They provide services to customers and support for technical issues;
• They undertake credit intermediary and insurance mediation activities; and
• They are not covered by this policy and are referenced here to provide additional clarity regarding your personal information.

BMW as Data Controllers and our responsibilities:

BMW Ireland is responsible for, and is the Data Controller of your personal information that it receives through all BMW websites (e.g. BMW.ie, MINI.ie), ClubBMW or ClubMINI accounts, ConnectedDrive and MINIConnected Services (Connected Services).

BMW FS Ireland is the Data Controller of the information which is used to grant and provide finance to you.
Ultimately, BMW AG is the parent company of BMW Group Ireland and provides much of the IT infrastructure through the above mentioned companies. BMW AG is generally a service provider or Data Processor to the above mentioned parties.

However, BMW AG is in addition the Data Controller for information received through the usage of the Connected App as well as a joint Data Controller for the technical provision of Connected Services.
For more information on our Connected Services visit:
• ConnectedDrive visit www.bmw-connecteddrive.ie or
• MINIConnected visit www.mini-connecteddrive.ie

Retail Centres

Although this Privacy Policy describes some of the uses of your information made by BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad Centres, they may collect other information relating to you. Each BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad Retail Centre is a Data Controller in relation to the information it processes for its own purposes. Their privacy policies will set out how they use your information. If you have any queries regarding the use of your information by BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad Centres please contact them directly or visit the privacy policy on their website.

Changes to this Privacy Policy:

We may modify or update this privacy policy from time to time.
If we change this privacy policy, we will notify you of the changes by publishing an updated policy on this website. Where changes to this privacy policy will have a fundamental impact on the nature of the processing or otherwise have a substantial impact on you, we will give you sufficient advance notice so that you have the opportunity to exercise any rights you may have (e.g. to object to the processing).

These are the main ways we collect your information.

• If you contact us directly via our websites or via our customer hotlines to request information about our products and services.
• If you buy a product or service directly from us (e.g. Lifestyle shops).
• If you reply to our direct marketing campaigns (e.g. filling out a response card).
• If your contact details are transferred from authorised centres or other third parties.
• If your vehicle data (incl. vehicle identification number) is transferred to BMW AG while you are having your vehicle serviced or repaired.
• If other BMW legal entities or business partners transfer your personal data to us.
• If we acquired your personal data from other sources, for example social media sites.
• When you apply for finance from BMW FS Ireland or from the retailers or credit intermediaries.

If you give information on behalf of someone else you must ensure that you have their permission and that they have been provided with this Privacy Policy before doing so.
If you are under 16 please do not provide us with any of your information unless you have the permission of your parent or guardian.

Please help us to keep your information up to date by informing us of any changes to your contact details or privacy preferences. You may change or review your preferences by clicking here.

The following types of personal information about you may be collected:
• Contact Details
    • Name
    • Address
    • Phone numbers
    • Email address
• Interests
    • Information you provide us about your interests
    • Including the type of vehicles you are interested in.
• Website and Communication Usage
    • How you use our website and whether you open or forward our communications, including information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies (our Cookies Policy).
• Sales and Services Information
    • Relating to purchases and services, including complaints and claims.
• Credit and Anti-Fraud Information (BMW FS Ireland only)
    • Which establishes your identity, such as driving licences, passports and utility bills
    • Information about transactions, requests for credit and non-payment of debts with us and third parties and credit ratings from credit reference agencies
    • Fraud, offences, suspicious transactions, politically exposed person and sanctions lists where your details are included.
    • Employment history
    • Bank details
    • BMW FS Ireland may also ask you to provide information about your health if it becomes aware of a condition that might affect your ability to repay the finance without difficulty.
• Device and Service Usage
    • How you use your device (mobile or vehicle) and services offered on the device.
• Vehicle Configuration Details
    • Information about the features and current settings of your vehicle (identified by the Vehicle Identification Number).
• Vehicle Technical Information
    • About how the engine and systems within the vehicle perform.
• Vehicle / Device Location Information
    • Your vehicle’s or mobile device’s location.

Use of personal information under Irish data protection laws must be justified under one of a number of legal grounds and we are required to set out the grounds in respect of each use in this policy. 

The main uses of your information are:

Customer Support and Marketing - to respond to enquiries and to bring you news and offers.

BMW Ireland and BMW FS use your personal data for customer care and for personalised communications of BMW Group Ireland product and service information, with your consent where necessary. For these purposes, BMW Ireland and BMW FS may transmit this data to authorised Retailers and within BMW Group Ireland companies. 
 

In order to ensure that you receive relevant and personalised communications, we will use some of your data to create an individual customer profile and we may share your personal data between BMW Group Ireland companies, authorised BMW or MINI Retailers, BMW i agents and other suppliers of BMW or MINI branded products and services where relevant. This may include data you have provided to these companies, or which is generated by your use of BMW or MINI products, for example contact details, preferences, customer history, vehicle data, app usage and online behaviour.

If you have a finance agreement with BMW FS they may pass on your agreement details (term, monthly payment, rate, mileage, final payment, and agreement number and vehicle details) to the retailer who sold your vehicle to you to discuss your end of contract options, and if you agree, to discuss any future financing with BMW FS. They may also provide BMW Ireland with your contact details and the start and end dates of your agreement so they can send you news on products and services which may interest you.

Vehicle Sales & Service – to process your sale, configure and service your vehicleBMW, MINI & BMW Motorrad Centres will obtain Contact Details, Vehicle Configuration Details, Vehicle Technical Information and Sales and Services Information when you purchase, service or repair a vehicle from or with them as part of the sale or service and will use it to provide the services you request and notify you of issues in relation to your vehicle. This information may be accessed by BMW Ireland, BMW (UK), BMW FS (UK) and BMW AG to troubleshoot technical or other issues relating to the delivery of these services.

The above mentioned controllers may also receive limited Vehicle Location Information during the repair process which will be used only in accordance with Location Information Safeguards.

Vehicle Finance – to assess your eligibility for finance to comply with legal
obligations and for legitimate interests. For example to ensure that BMW FS offers the most appropriate offers of finance to you, to ensure that the services function correctly, to prevent fraud and money laundering and to ensure that your records are accurate and up to date

When you apply for finance from BMW FS you must provide certain personal information. BMW FS may share the information with Credit Reference Agencies to help them decide whether to offer you finance. Using information about you in this way is necessary for BMW FS to make this decision and if you do not provide it to BMW FS Ireland they may not be able to offer you finance. Your information will be used by BMW FS Ireland and these agencies as follows:
    • BMW FS Ireland will check records about you and others held by them and by Credit Reference agencies, for example to assess your application for credit and verify identities to prevent and detect crime and money laundering. The Credit Reference Agencies will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders. They will supply public information (for example information held on the electoral register) as well as shared credit and fraud prevention information..
    • If you are making a joint application or if you advise BMW FS Ireland of a director or that you have a spouse or financial associate, they will link your records together so you must be sure that you have their agreement to disclose information about them. Credit Reference Agencies also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such a time as you, a director or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the Credit Reference Agencies to break that link.
    • If you give BMW FS Ireland false or inaccurate information or BMW FS Ireland suspect or identifies fraud, they will record this and may also pass on the information to organisations involved in crime prevention. Law enforcement agencies may also access and use this information. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance or employment.
    • BMW FS Ireland and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by Fraud Prevention Agencies, which may be publicly-available sources.
    • Your data may also be used for other purposes for which you give your permission or, in limited circumstances, when required by law or where permitted under the terms of relevant data protection and privacy law.
Please review Irish Credit Bureau’s Fair Processing Notice which is available at http://www.icb.ie/policy_privacy.php. It documents who they are, what they do, details of their Data Protection Officer, how they get the data, why they take it, what personal data they hold, what they do with it, how long they retain it, who they share it with, what entitles them to process the data (legitimate interests), what happens if your data is inaccurate and your rights i.e. right to information, right of access, right to complain, right to object, right to restrict, right to request erasure and right to request correction of your personal information.
BMW FS Ireland uses automated decision-making tools to help it to decide whether to offer you finance. Based on the information you provide us, we will compare this against different metrics to determine whether you meet the eligibility criteria for finance or to determine whether you will be able to make repayments on a vehicle without difficulty. If your application for finance is rejected using automated means alone, you will be given the opportunity to ask for the decision to be reviewed manually. This does not mean that the decision will be changed.
BMW FS Ireland does not share credit and anti-fraud information with Retail Centres, BMW Ireland or BMW AG.
BMW FS Ireland will also use your personal information to manage its contractual obligations and to enforce its rights under the finance agreement. For example, if you fall into arrears or break any other term of the agreement, BMW FS Ireland may pass on your details to a debt collection agency for the purpose of collecting the debt or to a vehicle recovery agent to repossess the vehicle or to solicitors to issue court proceedings against you. BMW FS Ireland may also activate your GPS tracker or review publicly available information to trace your whereabouts. For full details of how BMW FS processes your personal information please refer to the “Use of Your Information” clause in your finance agreement.

ConnectedDrive – to provide digital services in the vehicle
BMW Ireland and BMW AG receive information from these digital services, such as:
Contact Details, Vehicle Location Information as well as Device and Service Usage information which they use in accordance with the detailed service descriptions for each element of the services set out in the ConnectedDrive policy.
    • Further information is available in ConnectedDrive Privacy Policy, click here.

Connected App – to provide digital services relating to the vehicle through a mobile device
BMW AG will obtain Contact Details, Device and Vehicle Location Information as well as Device and Service Usage information through the provision of the BMW Connected App which it uses in accordance with the BMW Connected App privacy policy and Location Information Safeguards.
    • For more information on the BMW Connected privacy policy click here
    • For more information on Vehicle Location Information safeguards click here.

Where you use a third party application within the BMW Connected App, for example Amazon Echo, you will be presented with their terms of service and privacy policy before you are able to use that application. The operator of that third party application will be the data controller of any of your information that is accessed or input through that application. It will set out how it uses your information in its privacy policy and other notices as well as consents that it provides or obtains through the application. We are not responsible for that use.

Quality Assurance, Research and Development – to improve our products and services
BMW AG may use any of the information that it receives through the provision of services to BMW Ireland, centres (including Location Information) for product and service quality assurance and development purposes. Before any such use is undertaken your information will be de-personalised so it cannot be directly linked back to you.

Compliance with legal requests for your information – to comply with our legal obligations to law enforcement, regulators and the court service
We may be legally required to provide your information to law enforcement agencies, regulators, courts and third party litigants in connection with civil or criminal proceedings or investigations anywhere in the world. Where permitted, we will direct any such request to you or we may notify you before responding unless to do so would prejudice the prevention or detection of a crime.

Legal grounds for processing of your personal information
The use of your information set out above is permitted under Irish data protection law on the basis of these principal legal grounds:
• Where you have consented to the use (you will have been presented with a consent form in relation to any such use and may withdraw your consent at any time through the BMW Customer Service
    • on 1890 719421 (calls are free of charge plus your phone company's access charge)
    • or sending an email to customerservices@bmw.ie or customerservicesie@mini.ie
    • or by writing to us at:
    BMW Customer Service
    FAO – Customer Service Manager
    Swift Square
    Santry Demesne
    Dublin 9
    D09 R802
• Where necessary to enter into or perform our contract with you
• Where we need to use it to comply with our legal obligations
• Where we use it to achieve a legitimate interest and our reasons for using it outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights (our legitimate interests include promoting the BMW Group Ireland business and tailoring news and offers to your profile, research and development of vehicle related products and services, assessing your credit-worthiness, detecting fraud and criminal activities).

There may be uses that are permitted on the basis of other grounds; where this is the case we will use reasonable endeavours to identify the ground and communicate it you as soon as possible after becoming aware of the new basis.

We use technical and organisational security measures including encryption and authentication tools to protect your personal information, against manipulation, loss, destruction, and access by third parties.

Although data transmission over the Internet or website cannot be guaranteed to be secure, we and our business partners work hard to maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your information in accordance with applicable data protection requirements. Our main security measures are:

    • Tightly restricted access to your data on a “need to know” basis and for the communicated purpose only
    • Transferred collected data only in encrypted form
    • Highly confidential data stored only in encrypted form - e.g. credit card information
    • Firewalled IT systems to prohibit unauthorised access e.g. from hackers
    • Permanently monitored access to IT systems to detect and stop misuse of personal data.

If you have a personal password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites or any other portal, app or service we operate, do not forget your responsibility for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

We retain your information only as long as is necessary and only for the purpose for which we obtained them. We restrict access to your information to only those persons who need to use it for the relevant purpose.

Our retention periods are based on business needs and your information that is no longer needed is either irreversibly anonymised or destroyed securely.

Use for marketing:
    • We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary, but only for the relevant purpose that we collected it for. For example, if you have obtained finance for the purchase of a vehicle through BMW FS Ireland, we will retain your personal data for the life of your finance product, so that towards the end of that period we can get in touch with you about your options at the end of the finance term.

Use to perform a contract:
    • In relation to your information used to perform any contractual obligation with you we may retain that data whilst the contract remains in force plus seven years to deal with any queries or claims thereafter.

ConnectedDrive and Connected App:
    • We set out how long we retain Vehicle Location Information [and Device Information] in relation to each service in the relevant service descriptions.

Where claims are contemplated:
    • In relation to any information where we reasonably believe it will be necessary to defend or prosecute or make a claim against you, us or a third party, we may retain that data for as long as that claim could be pursued.

Personal information which we collect may be transferred to or accessed by third parties on our behalf, with your consent where necessary.

The types of third parties apart from the BMW companies already stated are:
    • Marketing and research companies who run and manage marketing and research campaigns
    • Event companies who run and manage sponsored events
    • BMW Customer Interaction Centre who provide customer support
    • Retailers and Retail Centres who provide services to you
    • IT providers who provide us systems and services for customer support
    • Card Payment Services providers who operate payment platforms
    • Logistics and courier companies who transport our products to you
    • Companies who provide transport to you or offer you mobility services (e.g. chauffeurs)
    • Law firms who provide legal advice to us (e.g. where there is a customer dispute).
    • BMW (UK) Limited who provide systems and support to help us deliver service of sales and technical support
    • BMW Financial Services (UK) Limited who provide systems to support the delivery of our services

This is only shared in a secure manner, using a consistent security protocol. When we share with other parties we ensure that they only use your personal data for the purpose it was collected and do not allow them to abuse this agreement.

BMW Group Ireland may also transfer your personal information to a third party without your consent if it is in its legitimate interest or if there is a contractual obligation to do so. For example, BMW FS Ireland may pass on your personal details to a third party debt recovery agent if you fail to make the payments due under your finance agreement or to a vehicle recovery agent to collect the vehicle at the end of your finance agreement. For full details of how BMW FS Ireland uses and shares your personal information please refer to the “Use of Your Information” clause in the finance agreement.

BMW is a global company. Your personal information may be accessed by our staff, agents or contractors from a country outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for any of the purposes set out in this policy. These countries may have in place data protection laws which may be of a lower standard than in the EEA. We will ensure that any of your information that is accessible outside the EEA is handled subject to appropriate safeguards. 

Certain countries outside the EEA, such as Canada and Switzerland, have been approved by the European Commission as providing essentially equivalent protection to EEA data protection laws and therefore no additional legal safeguards are required. In countries which have not had such approval, we will either ask for your consent to the transfer or transfer it subject to European Commission approved contractual terms that impose equivalent data protection obligations directly on the recipient unless we are permitted under applicable data protection law to make such transfers without such formalities. 

BMW FS Ireland will not share your contract information with other Group Companies other than as specifically mentioned in this Privacy Policy or the Use of Information clause on the finance agreement.

Please contact us click here if you would like to see a copy of the specific safeguards applied to the export of your information.

You can change your marketing privacy preferences, or withdraw your consent in relation to how BMW Ireland, BMW FS Ireland or BMW AG use your personal information in one of the following ways:

    • You can make individual changes directly in your ConnectedDrive account or the Connected App, where applicable.
    • You are also able to request information about your data stored at BMW Ireland as well as request the correction, deletion or restriction of your personal data for analytics and/or marketing use.
    • By contacting BMW Customer Service on 1890 719421 *
    • Or by sending an email to customerservices@bmw.ie or customerservicesie@mini.ie
    • Or by writing to us at:
    BMW Customer Service
    FAO: Customer Service Manager
    Swift Square
    Santry Demesne
    Dublin 9
    D09 R802

* Calls are free of charge plus your phone company's access charge.

If you have any questions in relation to our use of your information you should first contact the BMW Customer Service in one of the following ways:

    • Call BMW Customer Service on 1890 719421 (calls are free of charge plus your phone company's access charge).
    • Or by sending an email to customerservices@bmw.ie or customerservicesie@mini.ie
    • Or by writing to us at:
    BMW Customer Service
    FAO: Customer Service Manager
    Swift Square
    Santry Demesne
    Dublin 9
    D09 R802

Under certain conditions you have the right to require us to:

• Provide you with further detail on the use we make of your information
• Provide you with a copy of your information
• Update any inaccuracies in the information we hold about you
• Delete any information about you that we no longer have a lawful ground to use
• Remove you from any direct marketing lists when you object or withdraw your consent
• Provide you with your personal information in a usable electronic format and transmit it to a third party (right to data portability)
• Restrict our use of your personal information
• Cease carrying out certain processing activities based on the legitimate interests ground unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights (click here for more information).
Your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (e.g. the prevention or detection of crime), our interests (e.g. the maintenance of legal privilege) and the rights of third parties.
If you are dissatisfied with our use of your information or our response to any exercise of these rights you have the right to complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner which regulates the processing of personal data in Ireland (click here for more information).

Data Privacy Manager Contact Details

If you have questions in relation to our use of your personal information you should contact the relevant Data Privacy Manager:

BMWAutomotive (Ireland) Limited

DataPrivacy Officer

dataprivacyofficer@bmwfin.com

Tel: +44 370 5050 150

BMW Financial Services (Ireland) DAC

Data Privacy Officer

DataPrivacyOfficer@bmw.co.uk