Privacy Statement
Astellas Pharma Canada ("Astellas”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is a Canadian pharmaceutical company based in Markham, Ontario. It is part of the Astellas global pharmaceutical business (“Astellas Group”), which is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
We at Astellas respect your right to privacy. This Privacy Statement explains how we collect, use, disclose or otherwise handle (“process”) personal information about you, and how you can exercise your privacy rights. This Privacy Statement applies in the following circumstances:
- when you access websites and other online resources (such as mobile applications, e-mail, and other downloadable tools) that are owned or administered by Astellas;
- when you provide your personal information to Astellas by other means, such as in-person, by mail, or over the phone; and/or
- when you otherwise interact with us.
When you take any of these actions, you are consenting to our use of your personal information for the purposes described at the time you provide it or in this Privacy Statement.
If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, then please contact us using the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Statement.
What is personal information?
Personal information is any information about an identifiable individual. This may include your name, address, email, telephone number, survey information, website registrations including usernames and passwords, or any other information which might reasonably be used to identify you individually.
Your consent for the collection and use of your personal information
We need to get your consent before collecting or using your personal information, or disclosing your personal information to anyone, unless otherwise permitted or required by applicable law. Your consent may be express or implied, depending on the circumstances and the sensitivity of the personal information in question. If you do not want your personal information collected, do not provide it to us. If you are submitting anyone else’s personal information, you are responsible for meeting any legal requirements to do so, including obtaining their consent when required. When you provide someone else’s personal information to us, we assume you have obtained their consent to do so.
You can withdraw your consent whenever you want, unless legal or practical requirements prevent this. Let us know if you do not want us to use your personal information in any particular way, including uses described in this Privacy Statement by contacting Astellas’ Privacy Officer at [email protected].
What personal information does Astellas collect and why?
The personal information collected by Astellas broadly falls into the following categories:
- Information that you provide voluntarily
We ask you to provide certain information voluntarily. The types of information we ask you to provide, and the reasons why we ask you to provide it, include:
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Types of personal information |
Why we collect it |
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Contact information, such as your name, mailing address, phone number and email |
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Professional information, such as your current position and employer, or other information that could be found on a curriculum vitae (CV) |
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Health information, including information that is relevant to the potential or actual use of an Astellas product |
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Financial information |
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We may also use some or all of the types of information listed above to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, internal analytics and business and communication process improvements, and to protect us both against error and fraud. We may also use your information to respond to a legitimate request from governmental, regulatory or other public bodies.
If we ask you to provide any other personal information not described above, then the personal information we will ask you to provide, and the reasons why we ask you to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we collect your personal information.
- Information that we collect automatically
We may also collect certain information automatically from your device.
Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include information like your IP address, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location) and other technical information. We may also collect information about how your device has interacted with our website, including the pages accessed and links clicked.
Collecting this information enables us to better understand the visitors who come to our website, where they come from, and what content on our website is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of our website to our visitors.
Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further above under the heading “Websites owned and administered by Astellas”.
- Information that we obtain from third party sources
From time to time, we may receive personal information about you from third party sources, including physicians who treat you, but only where we have checked that these third parties either have your consent or are otherwise legally permitted or required to disclose your personal information to us.
In general, we will use the personal information we collect from you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement or for purposes explained to you at the time we collect your personal information. However, we may also use your personal information for other purposes that are compatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable privacy laws.
Who does Astellas share my personal information with?
We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:
- to other members of the Astellas Group around the world, as part of operating our business. For example, we exchange information with other members of the Astellas Group regarding reported adverse events involving our products. We may also provide services to, or receive services from, other members of the Astellas Group. This can include providing other Astellas Group members with customer, patient, or study participant lists if necessary for one of the purposes we have identified above under “What personal information does Astellas collect and why?”;
- to third party services providers and partners who provide data processing services to us, or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Statement or notified to you when we collect your personal information. Astellas uses third party service providers to support its business operations, including to:
- provide customer service and patient support programs;
- store and protect our data;
- obtain advice from third party advisers, such as lawyers and accountants;
- conduct studies;
- assist with pharmaceutical compliance obligations, such as adverse event reporting;
- host, monitor and maintain an Astellas website; and
- promote our products and services, including through online advertising, newsletters and mailings;
- to any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
- to a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger, acquisition or other transaction involving of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Statement; and
- to any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
Websites owned or administered by Astellas
Any website owned or administered by Astellas in Canada is intended for Canadian residents only and is subject to all applicable Canadian laws.
Cookies
We use cookies and similar tracking technology to collect and use personal information about you and your online activity (including to serve interest-based advertising). We use these tools to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services. For further information about the types of Cookies we use, why, and how you can control Cookies, please click “Update cookie preferences” on our home page.
How Astellas uses IP Addresses
The Astellas web server captures the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of each connection to its websites and the specific web pages visited during that connection. An IP address is a number assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider so you can access the internet and is generally considered to be non-personally identifiable information because in most cases it changes each time you connect to the internet. IP addresses may be used to diagnose problems with our server, report aggregate information, determine the fastest route for your computer to use in connecting to the website, and administer and improve the website. Although the IP address and related information collected is stored in the server log files, no individual is authorized to access those files for any purpose other than system maintenance or administration. We may also use this information to help improve our website and our services by better understanding our audience.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to better understand your use of our website. Google Analytics collects information on user behaviour on our website, which includes how many times a user visits our website, what pages they visit, and where they were referred from. Advertising identifiers for mobile devices are also collected. Google may use the data collected for its own purposes, including to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.
To learn more about how Google uses data when you visit websites using Google Analytics, click here. You can deactivate the Google Analytics function with a browser add-on, which you can download here.
Links to other websites.
Some Astellas websites contain links to third party websites and Astellas cannot represent or guarantee that these websites have privacy policies similar to Astellas. This Privacy Statement does not cover third party practices and Astellas disclaims all liability in relation to such third parties.
How does Astellas keep my personal information secure?
We take reasonable steps to protect your information from unauthorized access. For example, we may use encrypting measures when storing or transmitting data. You should keep in mind, however, that no internet transmission is ever 100% secure or error free. In particular, email sent to or from a website or online resource may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via email. Where you use user IDs and passwords to access our services, it is your responsibility to safeguard your access credentials. Please note that information collected by third parties may not have the same security protections as information you submit to us, and we are not responsible for protecting the security of such information.
International data transfers
We may transmit and store your information outside of your province or Canada. Astellas may transmit personal information about you among the other members of the Astellas Group worldwide.
We store personal information on servers located in the European Union, the United States and Japan, and our group companies and third-party service providers and partners operate around the world. This means that when we collect your personal information, we may process it in any of these countries.
When your information is transmitted outside of your home jurisdiction, it may be available to government authorities under laws applicable to the jurisdiction to which it is transmitted. These countries may have privacy laws that are different to the laws of Canada (and, in some cases, may not be as protective). All Astellas companies and service providers are required by contract to use safeguards to protect personal information. To obtain additional information regarding the basis for transfers and safeguards that Astellas has in place for cross-border transfers of personal information, please contact us using the contact information provided in this Privacy Statement.
Retention of personal information
Personal information will be retained only as long as reasonably necessary for the fulfilment of the purposes for which it was collected and for which consent was received, unless otherwise required by law. Personal information that is no longer required to fulfill the identified purposes will be destroyed, erased or made anonymous. Astellas has developed and implemented detailed retention policies, and will ensure destruction of personal information in a method that prevents improper access.
Automated decision-making
In some instances, our use of your personal information may result in automated decisions being taken (including profiling) that legally affect you or similarly significantly affect you.
Automated decisions mean that a decision concerning you is made automatically on the basis of a computer determination (using software algorithms), without our human review.
We will notify you when an automated decision may be made about you. When we make an automated decision about you, you have the right to contest the decision, to express your point of view, and to require a human review of the decision. You can exercise this right by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
Your rights
You have the following rights with respect to your personal information:
- You can request to access, correct, update, transfer, or delete your personal information at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below. We rely on you to provide us with your complete, accurate and current information. We may request certain personal information for the purposes of verifying the identity of an individual seeking access or correction to their personal information records.
- If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time, subject to any legal or practical restrictions. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
- You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their privacy rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Opting out of electronic communications
In the event that you no longer want to receive electronic communications from Astellas and www.astellas.ca, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email you receive from us. You can also contact us at [email protected] and request that your address be removed from the www.astellas.ca mailing list.
Use of an Astellas website by minors
Our websites or online services are not to be used by anyone under the age of 18. Astellas does not knowingly collect any personal information from children under 18 years old. However, if the parent or guardian of a child under 18 believes that the child has provided us with personal information, the parent or guardian of that child should contact us at [email protected] if they want this information deleted from our files.
Updates to this Privacy Statement
We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Statement, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Statement changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.
You can see when this Privacy Statement was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the bottom of this Privacy Statement.
How to contact us
If you have questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, you may contact Astellas’ Data Privacy Officer at [email protected] or you can write to us at:
Astellas Pharma Canada,
Attention : Data Privacy Officer
675 Cochrane Drive, bureau 650, West Tower
Markham (Ontario)
L3R 0B8
Changes to our privacy practices
We will review and update our policies and procedures as required to keep current with rules and regulations, new technologies, standards and customer concerns. Our Privacy Statement may therefore change from time to time. We will post any Privacy Statement changes on www.astellas.com/ca/en and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice.
Last Updated: February 2023.
