Privacy Policy - CANADIAN WEBSITE
Last Revised: April 30 , 2007
Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) is committed to respecting the privacy rights of all visitors to our website. We also recognize that our visitors, and the parents of children visiting our site, need protection for any personally identifying information they choose to share with us. This privacy policy is intended to provide you with the information on how we collect, use, disclose and store the information that you provide to us through our websites so that you can make appropriate choices for sharing information with us. For additional information on our offline privacy policies, please call 1-800-345-SONY.
If you have any questions, complaints or comments regarding our privacy statement or policies, please contact our Privacy Officer at 1-800-345-SONY. Additional contact information is provided below.
Links
This policy applies only to sites maintained by SCEA. We may create links to the websites of our promotional partners, licensed software publishers or other entities whether or not they are owned or affiliated with SCEA. Although we will make every effort to link only to sites that meet similar standards for maintaining each individual's right to privacy, this policy does not apply to third party sites and we are not responsible for any content appearing on these sites. Third party sites may not contain pricing in Canadian dollars and may well not have French language content available. Please be sure to review the privacy policies for those sites before providing them with any of your personal information. Additionally, many other sites with which we are not associated and have not authorized may have links leading to one of our sites. We cannot control these links and are not responsible for any content appearing on these sites.
Collection of Personal Information through our Website
We do not require that visitors reveal any personally identifying information such as name, address, telephone number, email address and/or hardware/software information in order to access our website. However, visitors who do not wish to share personally identifying information may not be able to access certain areas or participate in certain activities (such as entering a promotion) that require registration.
Although information may be required to participate in certain promotions offered through our website, participants provide information on a voluntary basis only. Generally, we may wish to collect personal information about you in connection with the following services:
- Participation in online contests or other promotions
- Questions or comments sent through our website
- Inclusion in our email newsletter program
- Registration to become a registered user of our site and a member of the PlayStation Underground
Collection of Demographic Information
From time to time we will offer visitors the chance to answer questions about their favourite PlayStation products and other issues. This general and demographic information (e.g., gender, game and platform preferences, hobbies, recently purchased products and date of birth) is collected anonymously and will not be linked to any personally identifying information, through cookies or other methods, without the approval of the user. (To learn more about what "cookies" are and how we may use them, please see the section below titled "Cookies.")
PlayStation Underground members are also asked but are not required to provide demographic information that is connected to their personally identifying information to create their member profile. This is compiled so that we can create a site that better serves the needs and interests of our Underground members. For further information on our collection of information from Underground members, see the PlayStation Underground members section below.
How We Use Your Information
Personally identifying information, which we collect for a particular promotional purpose through our website, will be saved and used only for that purpose, unless the participant chooses to opt in to one of the programs discussed below or opt in to receive future communications from SCEA and/or other named third parties regarding product information, offers and promotions. If you opt in to receiving communications from the named third parties, we will share your personally identifying information with those third parties for the purposes to which you agreed.
When you have provided personally identifying information for a particular purpose, we may disclose your information to certain third parties that we have engaged to assist us in fulfilling your request and in maintaining our database records. This includes, but is not limited to, fulfillment houses and data management companies. These third parties are permitted to use the personally identifiable information only for the particular purpose for which they were asked to assist. SCEA may share information with appropriate third parties, including law enforcement or other similar entities, in connection with a criminal investigation, investigation of fraud, infringement of intellectual property rights or other activities that are suspected to be illegal or may expose you or SCEA to legal liability.
SCEA does not use or disclose personally identifying information for purposes other than the identified purpose for which it is collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required or permitted by law. We retain the personally identifying information only as long as necessary to fulfill the identified purposes.
PlayStation Underground Members
We offer all visitors to our website the opportunity to become a member of the PlayStation Underground. Consumers may also register for the PlayStation Underground outside of the website by mail.
Membership in the PlayStation Underground is free and grants the member certain rights that may include, but are not limited to, discount offers, game news, free demo discs, access to restricted areas of our website, the opportunity to be a registered user or subscriber of our website and more. Unless you opt out, we may also share information collected from PlayStation Underground members with other Sony companies, affiliates and subsidiaries whom we think will provide you with additional information you'll enjoy.
We will give PlayStation Underground members the opportunity to provide information about themselves on the registration materials and will from time to time send out optional surveys or questionnaires for members to provide additional information.
If you choose to download content from this site, you will be asked to consent to having information regarding these activities, from other internal sources and/or from other Sony related entities or affiliates connected with and added to your Underground profile. This will allow us to provide you with information about our products that best suits your interests and customizes your experience.
Additionally, we may also use your personal information for marketing and demographic studies using non-personally identifiable information. Such studies may be conducted by us or by an outside firm hired by us. These studies are for internal purposes only in order to help us improve our websites and products to better meet your needs. We may share non-personally identifying information and behavioural data for marketing purposes.
Third Parties
In limited circumstances, SCEA may collect personal information about third parties. For example, we may offer visitors the ability to send information (such as an e-Card) to a friend by e-mail. A visitor may provide us with his or her friend’s name and email address. We will use such information only for the specified purpose (i.e., to send the e-Card) and we will not contact the third party again unless or until the third party contacts us.
Policies for Children 12 Years Old and Under
We do not knowingly collect personally identifying information through our website from children 12 and under. If a child has already provided us with personally identifying information, his or her parent or guardian may contact us for the purpose of deleting this information (see the Contact Us section below). We encourage parents to take an active role to protect the privacy of their children and to prevent inappropriate uses of information about their children. Parents should instruct their children never to provide their real names or any other identifying information through the web without first getting permission.
Cookies
Cookies are bits of electronic information that a website can transfer to a visitor's hard drive to help tailor and keep records of his or her visit to the site. Cookies allow website operators to better tailor site visits to individual preferences. The use of cookies is standard on the Internet and many major websites use them.
We may use cookies in certain areas to improve your experience when visiting our website. They may be used to anonymously track interest and collect aggregate information on various parts of the sites. If you are a PlayStation Underground member, cookies will be used each time you visit in order to tell our website not to prompt you for your Underground number and password more than once per session.
Log Files
We may use log files to gather statistics about our users' browsing habits and to assess overall website activity, including how many "hits" a particular web page is getting. These entries are generated anonymously and enable us to track interest in specific promotions, troubleshoot technical concerns and provide you with content that is most interesting to you. We also use the log file entries for our internal marketing and demographic studies, so that we can constantly improve the online services we provide you. Log files are used internally only and are not associated with any particular user, computer or browser.
Accuracy & Security
We seek to maintain reasonable security measures in order to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of the personally identifying information under our control. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as perfect security. As a result, although we strive to protect your personally identifying information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us through or in connection with our website or that we store on our systems or that is stored on our service providers' systems.
Contact Us
For further information on our privacy policy, or for questions on information that we may have collected from you, or should you wish to have your name removed from the PlayStation Underground mailing list or any other mailing list, please contact us by either of the following methods and we will be happy to review, update or change your record status as appropriate:
By Phone at:
1-800-345-SONY
MON - SAT 6:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. PST
Sunday 7:00 a.m. 6:30 p.m
By Mail at:
Sony Computer Entertainment America
PO Box 5888
San Mateo, CA
94402-0888
By using this site, you signify your assent to SCEA’s Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our websites. We reserve the right to make changes to this policy. If we make a material change to this privacy policy, we will notify you by posting the change on our website or in this Privacy Policy and, if necessary, give you additional choices regarding such changes. Please check back from time to time to ensure that you are aware of these changes. Your continued use of our sites will signify your acceptance of these changes.