- Global - English - Market Research

Who are we?
How do we collect information about you?
What information about you do we collect?
For what purposes do we use information about you, and on what legal basis?
Who do we share your information with, and for what purposes?
Where might information about you be sent?
How do we protect information about you?
How long will information about you be kept?
What rights and options do you have?
Country-specific additional points
Who should you contact with questions?
Changes to this notice

Who are we?

We are a member of Philip Morris International. Our details (name, address, etc.) will have been given to you separately at the time of collection of information about you, for example, by the market research agency with which you are already in contact, or in a notice on an app or a website, or in an e-mail, containing a link to this notice.

  • PMI: Philip Morris International, a leading international tobacco group. It is made up of a number of companies or “affiliates”.
  • PMI affiliates: Each member of the Philip Morris International group of companies is a “PMI affiliate”. “We” (or “us” or “our”) refers to the PMI affiliate that first collected information about you.
  • PMI product: means a product of ours or of another PMI affiliate.

How do we collect information about you?

We may collect information about you that the market research agency shares with us, or which in certain circumstances we may collect directly from you ourselves. For example, you may take part in market research with an agency engaged by us, or by one of our affiliates, or in market research we conduct ourselves e.g., by completing an online survey. 

What information about you do we collect?

We may collect your responses to questions; and your image (video/photographs/audio etc.) while taking part in market research, which the market research agency may take (or which you may take yourself and share with the agency for these purposes) or which you may share directly with us.

If the market research concerns our smoke free products, we may also collect information about:

(i) any device that is used with the product (such as holder serial number, charger serial number, firmware version, device errors); and

(ii) your use of the device (such as battery use (including energy consumed), puff count, device life data (being the cumulative values and timestamps for each of the foregoing)). We may do this, for example, through your use of applications and websites made available to you.

If you download and use our applications (and/or websites where applicable), we will also collect information about:

(i) your mobile or desktop (such as operating system version, device brand and model, and mobile advertising identifier (MAID) or Android ID (SSAID));

(ii) how you use our application and website (such as when you first opened it, for how long you use it and how you interact with messages we send to you);

(iii) data derived from your use of the application and website (such as your age range, gender, interests and the location derived from your IP address); and

(iv) information about which other third-party websites you visit while using our application and/or website.

Third parties may collect information necessary to verify your age on our behalf, for example a copy of an identity document, but this information is never shared with PMI unless for the purpose of an audit to check that the third-party service provider complies with the contractual obligation to age verify market research participants.

For what purposes do we use information about you, and on what legal basis?

In this section, we describe the purposes for which we use your personal information. However, this is a global notice, and where the laws of a country restrict or prohibit certain activities described in this notice, we will not use information about you for those purposes in that country.

Subject to the above, we use information about you for the following purposes:

  • for market research, including:
    • to understand the behaviour of adult smokers, and of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke or use other nicotine products
    • to understand reactions of adult smokers, and of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke or use other nicotine products, to information about smoke-free products
    • to demonstrate fair practices in market research
  • to develop marketing strategies
  • to understand the perception of PMI as a company and its strategies and aims relating to tobacco harm reduction and alternatives to combustible tobacco products
  • to understand the perception of the overall industry in which PMI operates, related societal debate and the political, regulatory and fiscal landscape
  • to perform business analytics so we may make improvements, including improving PMI products and services (such as our applications and websites), and the information that we (or our affiliates) provide to our customers
  • to comply with legal and compliance requirements (such as monitoring and recording of adverse events and defence of legal claims)
  • for other purposes that we notify you of via supplemental transparency information, or will be clear from the context, at the point information about you is first collected.

The legal basis for our use of information about you is:

  • the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take steps at your request prior to entering such a contract
  • where processing for the performance of a contract does not apply, a legitimate business interest:
    • to understand the market for PMI products and other tobacco or nicotine containing products
    • to perform market research, develop marketing strategies, to improve our products, and to perform business analytics so we may make improvements, and
    • to demonstrate fair practices in market research
  • where such business interests are not overridden by interests, rights and freedoms you have to protect the information; or where those interests do not apply, or where law requires it
    • for legal and compliance purposes
    • your consent (which you will be asked for before your personal information is collected, processed and/or disclosed).

Who do we share your information with, and for what purposes?

We may share information about you with:

  • PMI affiliates
  • third parties who provide PMI affiliates or you with services
  • our or third parties’ services providers.

We share information about you with others only in accordance with applicable laws. Thus, where law requires your consent, you will have first been asked for it.

Sharing data with other PMI affiliates

  • Information about you will be shared with Philip Morris Products S.A. (based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland), which is the place of central administration of personal data processing for all PMI affiliates. Philip Morris Products S.A. processes the information about you for all the purposes described in this notice.
  • Information about you may be shared with the PMI affiliate that is responsible for the country in which you live (if it was not the PMI affiliate that first collected or received your personal information) for all the purposes described in this notice.

Details of PMI affiliates and the countries in which they are established are available at https://www.pmiprivacy/global/en/MarketResearch/affiliates.

Where might information about you be sent?

As with any multinational organisation, PMI affiliates transfer information globally. Accordingly, information about you may be transferred world-wide (for example, if you are in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), Switzerland or the UK, your information may be transferred outside the EEA Switzerland or the UK; if you are in Australia, you information may be transferred outside Australia).

When using information as described in this notice, information about you may be transferred either within or outside the country or territory where it was collected, including to a country or territory that may not have equivalent data protection standards.

For example, we and other PMI affiliates within the EU and EEA may transfer personal information to PMI affiliates, or to their service providers, outside the EU and EEA. In all such cases, the transfer will be:

  • only made with your explicit consent
  • on the basis of a European Commission, Swiss or UK adequacy decision;
  • subject to appropriate safeguards, for example the EU Model Contracts (or their UK equivalents); or
  • necessary to discharge obligations under a contract between you and us (or the implementation of pre-contractual measures taken at your request) or for the conclusion or performance of a contract made in your interest between us and a third-party, such as in relation to your travel arrangements.

In all cases, appropriate security measures for the protection of personal information will be applied in those countries or territories, in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Our service providers are located in many countries throughout the world, including, in particular, the EEA, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, Canada, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia.

How do we protect information about you?

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information that we hold from unauthorised disclosure, use, alteration or destruction. Where appropriate, we use encryption and other technologies that can assist in securing the information you provide or which we collect. We also require our service providers to comply with strict data privacy and security contractual requirements which you may be entitled to see a copy of. If you wish to see a copy of the contractual measures, put in place to protect your personal information, please contact at https://www.pmiprivacy/global/en/MarketResearch/affiliates.

How long will information about you be kept?

We will retain information about you for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected. For market research purposes that means we will actively process the information you give us directly in accordance with our retention policy, usually for no longer than one (1) year after it was collected. That period may vary depending on the exact nature of the purposes for which the information was collected which you will have been informed of by the agency or by us at the point of personal data collection. We will keep an archival copy of your personal data for longer to demonstrate fair practices in market research or where required for legal and compliance purposes. Unless strictly necessary to the research purpose, we only receive your de-identified information from a third-party agency. Note that in some circumstances, you have the right to ask us to delete the information.

Typically, we retain data based on the criteria described in the table below:

 

Type

Explanation/typical retention criteria

  • market research

When we collect your personal information directly from you we will retain it:

  • for the purposes of the individual item of market research for the period reasonably required (typically no longer than one (1) year);
  • for the purposes of demonstrating fair market research practices for so long as we need to be able to demonstrate that or where required for legal and compliance purposes, and we will regularly review whether that purpose has been achieved to determine whether ongoing retention is still required.

Where a third-party agency shares with us aggregated research reports and information that does not contain personal data, we may keep it indefinitely.

What rights and options do you have?

You may have some or all of the following rights in respect of information about you that we hold:

  • request us to give you access to it
  • request us to rectify it, update it, or erase it
  • request us to restrict our using it, in certain circumstances
  • object to our using it, in certain circumstances
  • withdraw your consent to our using it
  • data portability, in certain circumstances, and
  • lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your country (if there is one) or the country of operation of the PMI affiliate that commissioned the market research.

We offer you an easy way to exercise these rights by contacting us as indicated in the paragraph below entitled “who should you contact with questions?”

The rights you have depend on the laws of your country and/or the laws of the country of operation of the PMI affiliate which commissioned the market research. If you are in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the UK (the “EEA+ Countries”) or the PMI affiliate which commissioned the market research is, you will have the rights set out in the table below. If you are elsewhere, you can contact us (see the paragraph “who should you contact with questions?” at the end of this notice) to find out more.

Right in respect of the information about you that we hold if you or we are in the EEA+ Countries

Further detail (note: certain legal limits to all these rights apply particularly where we do not know which datasets relate to you because a third-party agency passed the information to us in a coded format)

  • to request us to give you access to it

This is confirmation of:

  • whether or not we process directly identifiable information about you
  • our name and contact details
  • the purpose of the processing
  • the categories of information concerned
  • the categories of persons with whom we share the information and, where any person is outside the EEA, Switzerland or the UK and does not benefit from a European Commission adequacy decision (or its Swiss or UK equivalents), the appropriate safeguards for protecting the information
  • (if we have it) the source of the information, if we did not collect it from you and we are able to identify which datasets relate to you, and
  • the criteria for determining the period for which we will store the information.

On your request we will provide you with a copy of the information that we can identify as relating to you that we use (provided this does not affect the rights and freedoms of others).

  • to request us to rectify or update it

This applies if the information we hold is inaccurate or incomplete.

  • to request us to erase it

This applies if:

  • the information we hold is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which we use it
  • we use the information on the basis of your consent, and you withdraw your consent (in this case, we will remember not to contact you again)
  • we use the information on the basis of legitimate interest, and we find that, following your objection, we do not have an overriding interest in continuing to use it, or
  • the information was unlawfully obtained or used.

 

  • to request us to restrict our processing of it

This right applies, temporarily while we look into your case, if you:

  • contest the accuracy of the information we use, or
  • have objected to our using the information on the basis of our legitimate interest.

(If you make use of your right in these cases, we will tell you before we use the information again).

This right applies also if:

  • our use is unlawful, and you oppose the erasure of the data, or
  • we no longer need the data, but you require it to establish a legal case.
  • to object to our processing it

If we use the information about you on the basis of legitimate interest for purposes other than direct marketing, you can object to our using it for those purposes, giving an explanation of your particular situation, and we will consider your objection.

  • to withdraw your consent to our using it

This applies if the legal basis on which we use the information about you is consent. These cases will be clear from the context.

  • to data portability

If:

(i)   you have provided data to us, and

(ii) we use that data, by automated means, and on the basis either of your consent, or on the basis of discharging our contractual obligations to you,

then you have the right to receive the data back from us in a commonly used format, and the right to require us to transmit the data to someone else if it is technically feasible for us to do so.

  • to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your country

Each European Economic Area country, Switzerland and the UK must provide for one or more public authorities for this purpose.

You can find their contact details here:

For other countries please consult the website of your country’s authority.

Country-specific additional points

According to which country you are in, you may have some additional rights.

If you are in Australia, find out more…

If you are in Australia, the following additional information applies to you:

  • if you do not provide your personal information to us, we may not be able to (as applicable) provide you with the information, products or services that you request; and
  • our Privacy Policy (available here) explains: (i) how you may access and correct the personal information that we hold about you; (ii) how you can lodge a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information; and (iii) how we will handle any complaint.

If you are in France, find out more…

If you are in France, you have the right to give us instructions regarding information we hold about you in the event of your death (specifically, whether we should store or delete it, and whether others should have the right to see it). You may:

  • issue general instructions to a digital service provider registered with the French data protection supervisory authority (called “CNIL”) (these instructions apply to all use of information about you); or
  • give us specific instructions that apply only to our use of information about you.

Your instructions may require us to transfer information about you to a third party (but where the information contains information about others, our obligation to respect also their privacy rights might mean that we cannot follow your instructions to the letter). You may appoint a third party to be responsible for ensuring your instructions are followed. If you do not appoint a third party in that way, your successors will (unless you specify otherwise in your instructions) be entitled to exercise your rights over information about you after your death:

  • in order to administer your estate (in which case your successors will be able to access information about you to identify and obtain information that could be useful to administer your estate, including any digital goods or data that could be considered a family memory that is transferable to your successors); and
  • to ensure that parties using information about you take into account your death (such as closing your account, and restricting the use of, or updating, information about you).

You may amend or revoke your instructions at any time. For further information on the processing of information about you in the event of your death, see Article 40-1 of the law 78-17 dated 6 January 1978. When you die, by default, you will stop using your account and we will delete information about you in accordance with our retention policies (see the paragraph “How long will information about you be kept?” for details).

If you are in the Philippines, find out more…

If you are in the Philippines, you may have rights in addition to those set out in this notice in accordance with the Philippine Data Privacy Act and its implementing rules and regulations, including the National Privacy Commission’s Privacy Policy Office Advisory Opinion No. 2018-031.

Who should you contact with questions?

In the majority of market research projects that PMI commissions a third-party agency to undertake, we do not know the names or identities of the research participants. Therefore, if you contact us, we may be unable to help you because we will not know if we are processing your personal data because the security measures the agency implements protects your real-world identity. Therefore, we encourage you to contact any agency which undertook the research in the first instance. They will be better placed to help you and will liaise with us as necessary. If you have any questions, or wish to seek to exercise any of your rights against us, you can find contact details for the relevant PMI affiliate, and if applicable data protection officer, at https://www.pmiprivacy.com/en/MarketResearch/affiliates. Contact details will also be given in any communications that a PMI affiliate sends you.

If your country has a data protection authority, you have a right to contact it with any questions or concerns. You also have the right to seek judicial remedy before a national court. Prior to complaining to your country’s data protection authority or lodging a complaint with a court we ask you to contact us and seek to allow us to resolve your concern in the first instance. 

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice (and any supplemental privacy notice), from time to time. Where the law requires it, we will notify you of the changes; further, where the law requires it, we will also obtain your consent to the changes.

Last modified: March 2023