Privacy & Cookies Policy

Shurgard Privacy Policy

This policy provides you with details about the personal information we collect from you, how we use this information and your rights relating to the personal information we hold about you.

It applies as from 25 May 2018.

1. Who we are

Shurgard Europe VOF (“Shurgard” or “we”) is a company having its registered office at Breedveld 29, 1702 Dilbeek, Belgium and registered in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises under registration number 0884.371.665.

As data controller, we respect your right to privacy and will only process personal information you provide to us in accordance with applicable data protection laws and as described in this policy. (Applicable data protection laws include (i) the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679) (“GDPR”); and (ii) all other existing or new applicable laws relating to or impacting on the processing of information of a living person and privacy).

If you have any questions about how we collect, store and use your personal information, or if you have any other privacy-related questions, please email us at dataprotection@shurgard.eu.

2. The personal information we collect about you

We collect personal information about you (such as your name, postal address, email address, phone numbers, date of birth, payment details) when you sign up to participate in or receive a service from us, such as request for a “call me back”, getting a quote or reserve a unit online or face to face if you come to our storage facility to sign an agreement.

We also collect personal information when you contact us, send us feedback, complete customer surveys.

Our website also uses cookies (see “Use of cookies” section below) and collects IP addresses (which means a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other device on the internet).

We also gather personal information about you via our websites. If you visit our storage facility, some personal data may be collected from monitoring devices and systems such as closed-circuit TV (CCTV) and door entry systems at our storage facilities.

We may monitor and record communications with you (such as telephone conversations and emails). We do this to check the quality of our customer service and for training purposes of our operational teams.

3. How we may store and use your information

We or third party data processors acting on our behalf (for further information on data processors acting on our behalf, see below under point 4) may collect, store and use your personal information listed above for the following purposes:

to identify you (including to verify your identity and ensure you are not subject to any sanctions regime) and manage any account you hold with us;
to contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for or to provide information you have requested;
to deal with payment for our services;
to resolve disputes or collect overdue payments;
to make our website and its content available to you;
to perform any reservations for storage units you may submit through our website;
to respond to your online queries and provide you with services that you may request;
where and insofar you have given us your explicit consent, to provide you with promotional content (via mail, e-mail, or SMS/MMS messages) or to include you in our promotional campaigns and offers relating to our products and services;
to conduct market studies;
to better understand patterns relating to our website usage, through cookies, so that we may further improve upon our products, services and website offering. For further information on the cookies we deploy on our website, see “Use of cookies” section below;
to detect and prevent potential fraud and /or other possible misdemeanours that could take place at our storage facilities;
to comply with our legal obligations, such as anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements;
to provide training and allow internal monitoring activities for the purpose of improving the quality of our services;
to provide evidence of transactions or contracts that may have taken place in the course of those communications.

We process your personal information for the purposes mentioned above

insofar you have given consent to the processing (under 3(h) and for those cookies that require consent under 3(i)); OR
insofar the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (under 3 (a) till and included 3 (g); OR
insofar the processing is necessary for the realization of the legitimate interests of Shurgard to conduct its business properly (under 3(k), 3(l) and 3(n)) and to further improve (the quality of) our product and service offering (under 3(i), 3(m) and for those cookies that do not require consent under 3(j)). To this end, we strive to maintain a fair balance between the need to process personal data and the preservation of your rights and freedoms, including the protection of your privacy.

4. How we share your personal information and who we share it with

4.1 Principle

We will not sell, rent or otherwise disclose your personal data to any third party, except as described in this policy.

4.2 Subsidiaries/ affiliated companies and third party processors

We may provide your personal information to Shurgard subsidiaries/affiliated companies and to third party processors to process personal information on our behalf for the purposes set out above. These parties are required to process such information based on our instructions and in accordance with the Shurgard Privacy Policy.
The third party providers to whom we may disclose your personal data are:

service providers under contract with us to support our business operations, such as technology services, identification and authentication services, fraud prevention, debt collection;
our insurers and insurance brokers if you take out insurance coverage through us;
any person who you have named as a person we can contact to discuss your account;
any person who is your agent or representative, such as the holder of a power of attorney, a legal guardian or person administering a will;
any person who we are negotiating with as a potential buyer of our business or property or if we are proposing to merge our business with another business.

4.3 Compliance with laws and legal proceedings

We may disclose your personal information where:

we are required to do so by applicable law, by a governmental body or by a law enforcement agency in connection with any investigation to help prevent or detect unlawful activities;
to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims;
to investigate, prevent or take actions against illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.

4.4 Other

If a third party acquires all (or substantially all) of our business and/or assets, we may disclose your personal information to that third party in connection with the acquisition.

5. Retention periods

We will hold your personal data in our system for as long as may be necessary for us to manage the service(s) you have signed up for, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and/or enforce our agreements.

Concretely this will entail that:

For your personal data contained or recorded in connection with the management of our buildings and facilities:

The data stored in our visitor registers will be kept for six (6) months from the date of the visit.
CCTV/video recordings are kept for one (1) month from the moment they are made, except where they can contribute to proving an infraction, damage or misbehavior. In that case, said recordings may be kept until the file/litigation for said infraction, damage or misbehaviour is definitely closed.
Security incident reports are kept for ten (10) years from the time they are closed, or for twenty (20) years from the time of the incident, whichever is longer.

For your personal data collected for training and quality monitoring purposes:

Phone recordings pertaining to inbound and outbound communications between you and Shurgard will be kept for one (1) month before being anonymised and further kept for a maximum of ninety (90) days as from the date of the recording after which all phone recordings will be permanently deleted.
Emails you send to Shurgard in connection with any of your questions or queries will be stored for a maximum period of twelve (12) months as from the sending date, before being deleted. In this regard, Shurgard will further keep anonymised data as well as analysis documents pertaining to email volume, content and service levels for an additional twelve (12) months maximum before deleting them.

For your personal data collected to manage customer relationships for commercial and customer identification purposes:

All data and documents pertaining to Shurgard’s transactions that need to be accounted for in financial statements (for example identification documents obtained at the moment of the contract signing, storage contracts, insurance contracts, reminder letters and evidence of sending them, bank statements, purchase orders, delivery notes for goods and services provided by vendors, support for cash and product returns (receipts), minutes of exchanges and emails) will be kept for a maximum of ten (10) years from the end of the relationship.
Claims and litigation related documents (such as pictures, damage reports, price offers, unit inventories (damaged items), letters/e-mails (evidence of any communication) will be kept until the end of the procedure in relation thereto.

For your personal data we collect when you use our website:

any data we process during your visit to our website in order to make the website available and to enable its functions, will only be stored by us for the duration of your visit to our website. If this is necessary for individual functions, we also store your data for a longer period.
The retention periods of the cookies set on our website can be found below in Clause 7.

6. International transfers

In connection with the abovementioned purposes, we try to avoid as much as possible the transfer of personal information that we collect from you to third party data processors located outside the European Economic Area.
When we transfer personal information that we collect from you to third party data processors located in countries that are outside of the European Economic Area and which do not offer an adequate level of protection, we ensure the use of appropriate data transfer tools such as the entering into of the standard contractual clauses issued by the European Commission.

7. Cookies

Technologies such as cookies, tags and scripts are used by us and our partners, affiliates, or analytics or service providers. These technologies are used in analysing trends, administering our website, tracking users’ movements around our website and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an aggregated basis.

We use cookies, for example, to remember users’ settings (e.g., language preference). Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our website, but your ability to use some features or areas of our website may be limited.

Please note that blocking cookies may lead to a less complete web-browsing experience, as in that case we cannot guarantee its full functionality.
For more information about how we use cookies and what information is collected using cookies, see “Use of cookies” section below.

8. Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard the personal information that you provide to us against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental destruction, loss or damage, for example:

we store your personal data on secure servers; and
payment details are encrypted on the secure server.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to keep your personal data safe, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that is transferred from you or to you via the internet. If you have any particular concerns about your information, please contact us (see ‘How can you contact us?’ below).

9. Third party websites

Shurgard website contains links to other websites operated by third parties. The Shurgard Privacy Policy applies only to the personal information that we collect through our website and it does not apply to other websites to which our website may be linked, with or without our permission. We cannot be responsible for personal information that third parties may collect, store and use through their website. You should always carefully read the privacy policy of each website you visit.

10. What are your rights?

As a data subject, you have the following rights:

the right to access to personal information that we hold about you;
the right to ask us to update or correct any out-of-date or incorrect personal information that we hold about you;
where the processing is based on your consent, the right to withdraw consent at any given time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal;
the right to erasure where the conditions of article 17 of the GDPR have been met;
the right to restriction of processing where the conditions of article 18 of the GDPR have been met;
the right to data portability insofar the conditions of article 20 GDPR apply to you;
the right to object to processing of personal data concerning you, insofar the conditions under article 21 GDPR have been met;
the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority; and
the right to opt out of any direct marketing communications that we (with your consent) may send you.

(With the exception of section 10(h) of this policy), you can exercise these rights at any given time by emailing us at dataprotection@shurgard.eu.

11. Updates to the Shurgard Privacy Policy

This policy may be updated periodically to reflect changes in our personal data practices. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure that you are aware of the most recent version.

12. How to contact us

If you have any question about this privacy policy and/or how we collect, store and use your personal information, you can email us at dataprotection@shurgard.eu.

Use of Cookies

Shurgard uses cookies relating to your access to the Website, personalized settings and browsing behaviour, for example, to remember users’ settings (e.g. language preference). Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our website, but your ability to use some features or areas of our website may be limited.

1. What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files which are stored on your computer by the server of our website you are visiting. They contain certain information including the website name, the "lifetime" of the cookie and some digits and numbers.

2. How Shurgard uses cookies

We use cookies on our website:

to improve the functionality of our website;
to help us recognize you as a unique visitor when you return to our website and to allow us to tailor content to match your preferences; and
to allow us to tailor advertisements to match your preferred interests or to avoid showing you the same adverts repeatedly; and
to compile anonymous, aggregated statistics that allow us to understand how users use our website and to help us improve the structure of our website.

Cookies are not harmful to your computer. However if you prefer, you can set your internet browser to accept or to refuse cookies. Note that if cookies are disabled, you may not be able to use all the interactive features of our website. More information regarding the disabling of cookies can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org.

If you don’t want to receive certain categories of cookies on our website, you can change your permission settings at any time in your browser settings. This only affects future cookies. To remove cookies that were placed in the past, delete them from your browser's cache.

Below are all cookies we and third parties use on our website: