What personal information does RS collect and how is it collected?
The types of personal information RS collects about you include:
- Information about yourself and the company you work for, when you register for an account with us. This may include your name and contact details, your company name and company details, information about your role in the company, and how you heard about the site.
- Transaction, billing and delivery information, if you make a purchase with us or contract for one of our solutions or services.
- Records of your interactions with us, e.g. if you send email feedback to our website, ask a technical question, report a problem or otherwise contact us. Please note that if you telephone us, we may record the call for compliance, quality and staff training purposes.
- If you respond to one of our customer surveys or enter into a competition.
- If you interact with one of our sales agents, for example at a trade counter, trade show or customer premises.
- We may also record certain details of how you use our website, such as the website you came from or are going to, your device's unique ID, your IP addresses and operating system, adverts you click on, products you search for, products you purchase, and information you download. Marketing emails we send you may also automatically detect whether you have received or opened the email or clicked on a link in our marketing materials. We use this information for our own performance measurement, but also so that we can tailor our promotional messages and advertising to you.
RS collects your personal information when you provide it to us directly, through your use of our website and services, from your representatives or colleagues, from third parties (e.g. those described under ‘With whom does RS share my personal information?’) and from publicly available information. Where you provide us with personal information about someone else you must have their consent to provide their personal information to us based on this privacy policy.
What does RS do with my personal information?
Depending on how you use RS Online, your interactions with us, and the permissions you give us, we collect, store, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:
- To fulfil your order and/or provide you with the services you have contracted for.
- To maintain your online account with us.
- To manage and respond to any queries or complaints to our customer service team.
- To personalise RS Online to you and show you content we think you will be most interested in, based on your account information, your purchase history and your browsing activity.
- To improve and maintain RS Online, and monitor its usage.
- For market research, e.g. we may contact you for feedback about our products and services.
- To send you marketing messages and show you targeted advertising, where we have your consent or are otherwise permitted to do so.
- For security purposes, to investigate fraud and where necessary to protect ourselves and third parties.
- To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- To facilitate any sale or potential sale of our business or assets.
To the extent permitted under data protection law, we may process your personal information:
- Because the processing is necessary to perform a contract with you, or take steps prior to entering into a contract with you (e.g. where you have made a purchase with us, we use your personal data to process the payment and fulfil your order).
- Because it is in the legitimate interests of RS and your company, where you are submitting orders on your company’s behalf.
- Because we have obtained your consent (e.g. where you contact us with a query, where you add optional information to your account profile, or if you consent to receive marketing from us).
- Because it is in RS’ legitimate interests as an e-commerce provider to maintain and promote our services. We are always seeking to understand more about our customers in order to offer the best products and customer experience. We use information about you to tailor your view of RS Online, to make it more interesting and relevant in respect of the products and offers on view.
With whom does RS share my personal information?
RS needs to share information with certain selected third parties in order to operate our business:
- Electrocomponents Group: RS Components Ltd is a member of a world-wide group of companies, of which Electrocomponents plc is the parent company. For full details of the Electrocomponents Group of companies, please visit www.electrocomponents.com. RS shares personal information with other members of the Electrocomponents Group as necessary to support our services and to improve our customer insights.
- Service Providers: We provide information to our service providers acting on our behalf (for example to companies that provide digital marketing services like product recommendation, statistical analysis, business & operational insight, website optimization), as well as to those third parties involved in the delivery chain (for example freight forwarders, couriers and delivery companies). On occasion, we also share personal information with our professional and legal advisors.
- Government Authorities: Where your order is due for delivery outside Australia, we may need to share information with customs authorities both in Australia and in the country of destination. We may also share personal information with law enforcement or other governmental authority, e.g. to report a fraud or in response to a lawful request.
- Credit & Fraud Checking: To the extent permitted by law, we may share information with credit reference agencies and with third parties engaged in fraud prevention and detection.
- Media: From time to time, we may release aggregated and anonymised marketing statistics to business partners, or may use these in press releases, advertising, or published reports. We would only personally identify you or any other customer in such press releases, advertising, or reports with your prior consent.
- Business or Asset Sale: In the event that we sell any business assets, the personal information of our customers may be disclosed to a potential buyer. In this event, we will make reasonable attempts to ensure the buyer will be bound by the terms of this privacy policy.
RS may also disclose personal information in cases where we believe the disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property or personal safety of RS, our customers, employees or the public, or where we are otherwise legally permitted to do so.
Where does RS store and send my personal information, and how long for?
The Electrocomponents Group is a global group of companies (see locations here), and RS also uses service providers based around the world and may store your personal information on servers located in Hong Kong. Consequently, your personal information may be processed in countries outside of Australia, including in countries where you may have fewer legal rights in respect of your information than you do under Australian law, and you may not be able to seek redress in those countries under Australian law. If we transfer personal data outside Australia we will, as required by applicable law, ensure that your privacy rights are adequately protected by appropriate safeguards. Please contact us if you would like more information about these safeguards.
We keep your personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes set out above, and so this period will vary depending on your interactions with us. For example, where you have made a purchase with us, we will keep a record of your purchase for the period necessary for invoicing, tax and warranty purposes. We may also keep a record of correspondence with you (for example if you have made a complaint about a product) for as long as is necessary to protect us from a legal claim. For more information about the duration of cookies please refer to the cookie policy.
Where we no longer have a need to keep your information, we will delete it. Please note that where you unsubscribe from our marketing communications, we will keep a record of your email address to ensure we do not send you marketing emails in future.
What does RS do to protect my personal information?
RS always aims to deliver the highest level of service and security to our customers and the website has been specifically designed with security in mind. We also implement strong security measures in respect of personal information held in physical form and held by our service providers.
In order to ensure the security and protection of your personal details whenever you submit any details we use the following security methods:
- The latest technology to encode and protect your data for a safe and secure transaction.
- To the extent possible, when you submit information this will be held in an encrypted format. This means that your information is protected and safe to submit.
- Your RS online account information and RS online personal profile are password-protected so that you and only you have access to this personal information. You may edit your RS online account information and RS online profile by using your RS online username and password.
How does RS use my personal information for marketing?
Unless you opted-out during your account registration and purchase, RS may send you emails, call or text you regarding RS products and services. In addition, we may occasionally send you direct mail about products that we feel may be of interest to you.
It is likely that some or all of these marketing messages may be tailored to you, based on what we know about you and/or your company, for example from your Online Personal Profile, your previous searches and browsing history on RS Online, and your purchase activity. If you no longer want to hear from us, at any time you can:
- Edit your preferences in the 'My Profile Update Details' area of My Account, which you can access anytime through the link in the navigation bar.
- Unsubscribe from emails by clicking on the link in each email
- Email us at: SupportAU@rs.rsgroup.com
You may also see adverts for RS on third party websites, including on social media. These adverts may be tailored to you using cookies (which track your web activity, to enable us to serve adverts to customers who have visited RS Online). Where you see an ad on social media, this may be because we have engaged the social network to show adverts to our customers, or users who match the demographic profile of our customers. In some cases, this may involve sharing your email address with the social network. If you no longer want to see tailored ads you can change your cookie and privacy settings on your browser and these third party websites.
How can I access, update, correct or delete my personal information?
You can view and edit your Personal Profile information at any time by clicking on the 'My Profile -Update Details' section in My Account, which you can access anytime through the link in the navigation bar.
If you have forgotten your password, or have any other problems accessing RS Online, please contact RS Customer Services on 1300 656 636.
If you have a query regarding your personal information which you cannot resolve via your Online Personal Profile, please contact us using the details below. Under Australian privacy law, you have the right to access and correct your personal data, and RS will comply with any requests to exercise these rights in accordance with applicable law. We may need to verify your identity and may ask for your request in writing. Please be aware that there are a number of limitations to these rights, and there may be circumstances where we are not able to comply with your request. We will provide our reasons if we deny any request for access to or correction of personal information. Where we refuse to make a correction you request, you can ask us to make a note of your requested correction with the information.
Contact Us
For questions regarding this privacy notice or how we use your personal data, please email SupportAU@rs.rsgroup.com.
If you raise a complaint about how we have used your personal data, we may need to engage or consult with other parties in order to investigate and deal with the matter. We will keep records of your complaint and any resolution. You are also entitled to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if you have any questions or concerns regarding your personal information.
Updates to this Privacy Policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect changes in the law, regulatory guidance or our data privacy practices in compliance with the law. When this happens and where required by law, we will provide you with a new or an updated notice detailing how the use of your personal information is changing and, if necessary, obtain your consent for further processing.
This Privacy Policy was last updated in February 2022.