Privacy Policy | In-Store Shopper Analytics

Privacy Notice for Prodco Analytics

Last Updated: October 08, 2020

We have updated our Privacy Notice to address the new GDRP privacy laws in Europe that came into effect on May 25, 2018. The following notice explains how we capture, use, and share retail analytics data for both our video-based people counting and our passive Wi-Fi tracking technologies. We, at Prodco Analytics Inc. respect your privacy. This privacy notice (“Privacy Notice”) explains who we are and how we collect, use and share any data we capture with our services (“Services”), for the purposes of providing visitor analytics. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us. This Privacy Notice does not cover any information collected by us through other means, such as through our websites, sales and marketing activities or otherwise during the operation of the business. Please see our general Website Privacy Policy for further information.

Who We Are

At Prodco we highlight where opportunities for improvement exist using visit counting technology to help retail stores reach their real potential. Our retail performance solution delivers real-time analytics and shopper behavior insights that help increase sales and provide a better shopping experience.

What Information We Collect and How We Collect It

Information we collect automatically includes shopper behavior analytics using video-based people counting and Wi-Fi visit tracking technology.

Video-Based People Counting Services

When you enter one of our partners’ retail locations, our people counting solutions will count objects (people) which pass a counting line as you enter and exit the store. The video-based people counters are mounted on the ceiling looking directly down over the entrance. The technology will not allow us to capture any biometric or other personal information. Our camera-based counting solution can automatically blur people from the images (when requested). For clarity, this information is automatically collected when you enter and exit a client’s store. The video-based people counting service is also capable of video streaming and recording video of people crossing the count line(s) (video streaming and recording is only initiated when requested by our clients to validate accuracy of the solution). Most validations are performed during the initial installation of the solution via video streaming (typically 15-30 minutes) but on occasion, we must record video to perform the count accuracy validation. Typical recordings are 15-30 minutes long. All recorded videos are stored on our secure cloud servers and access is restricted to our direct support personnel who are tasked to perform count validation reports. Recorded videos may also be shared with our clients when requested. All recorded videos are deleted immediately after the count validation report is completed unless we are asked to retain them for future reference by our clients.

Passive Wi-Fi Visit Tracking Services

When you are near a location’s Wi-Fi network with a Wi-Fi enabled mobile device, the Wi-Fi access points (i.e. the hardware device that allows a Wi-Fi enabled mobile device to connect to a Wi-Fi network) may automatically detect the presence of your mobile device and its “MAC Address” (meaning the number that your mobile device automatically broadcasts if the Wi-Fi feature is turned on to help it connect to Wi-Fi Access points). We irreversibly hash (encrypt) the “MAC Address” using a proprietary destructive algorithm technology similar to MD5 that makes it impossible to identify the original “MAC Address” from the encrypted string. Each time the same mobile device visits our clients’ retail stores, the algorithm will always re-hash to the same encrypted string. Because we never store your “MAC Address”, we never capture any personal information and we only may know that a mobile device was captured. We refer to this information as “General Visit Information”.

General Visit Information is collected as your mobile device moves across different locations that use our technology.

For clarity, this information is automatically collected if your device’s Wi-Fi is enabled – even if you do not actually “connect” to the location’s Wi-Fi network.
Important Note: As the service is used across many different Locations for different clients, we combine General Visit Information from each location. For example, if you bring your mobile device to your favorite clothing store today that is a location – and then to another store location a few days later that is also a location – we may know that a mobile device was in both locations based on seeing the same MAC Address.

How We Use Your Information

General Visit Information: The General Visit Information is used to help Prodco Analytics and its clients better understand how large groups of people behave. We do this by providing clients with reports and other analytics products generated from such data. We aggregate and combine your General Visit Information with the General Visit Information of many people across our network. Clients use the reports and other analytics products for a variety of purposes, such as to:

Improve customer service
Improve operation of their facilities
Determine timing for promotions and sales
Measure the effects of advertising
Plan and execute marketing and advertising campaigns
Set staffing levels
Set store hours
Other business and operational purposes, such as financial and product planning and execution

Who We Share Your Information With

We share the captured information with our clients (and service providers acting on their behalf) for the purposes described in the “How We Use Your Information” section above.
Protection of Prodco Analytics and Others: We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our terms of use; detect and handle payment fraud, or otherwise to protect the rights, property, or safety of Prodco Analytics, our employees, our users, or others.

Data Storage and Retention

We will retain General Visit Information, including people counting visitor data, recorded video and Wi-Fi visit data for as long as we deem reasonably necessary to continue to provide services. The count validation videos are permanently deleted after a count validation report is completed, unless we are requested to store the video for later use by our clients.

How We Keep the Visit Data and People Count Video Secure

We use appropriate administrative, organizational, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the count validation videos and hashed encrypted strings we collect. The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing the count validation reports and the hashed encrypted string and, to help ensure that the data is safe, secure, and only made available to our clients. Specific measures we use include using secure socket layer protection.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. This Privacy Notice applies to information we collect while that notice is in effect. If there are new material Privacy Notice changes – they apply to information collected after the new Privacy Notice comes into effect (unless we get your consent to have it retroactively applied). The date of the latest version of this Privacy Notice is listed at the top of this notice.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message to Prodco Analytics Inc. (ATTN: Privacy), 9408 boul. Du Golf, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H1J 3A1. Please write the following in the subject heading: “Privacy Notice Inquiry”.

For EEA Residents, and for the purposes of EU data protection legislation, the “data controller” of your hashed encrypted string is Prodco Analytics Inc.

Website Cookie Policy

Your privacy is important to us. We hope the following statement will help you understand how Prodco Analytics collects, uses and safeguards personal information provided to us on our web site.

The Information We Collect and How We Use It

We are committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to this site. Accordingly, at this site, we do not collect personally identifying information from users unless they provide it to us voluntarily and knowingly. When you visit our site, your browser automatically sends us an IP (Internet Protocol) address and certain other information, including the type of browser you use. We may use this IP address and other information to give you access to the site and otherwise administer the site. In certain parts of the site, we may ask you to provide us with your name, title, street address, company, telephone and fax numbers and certain other personal information so that we can provide you with information you request. You are under no obligation to provide us with this information but, without it, we cannot provide you the information you request. The site also may include certain features that allow you to communicate with us by electronic mail or otherwise. If an electronic mail feature is provided and you choose to use it, you will provide us with your e-mail address and some or all of the information described above. We do not solicit any other personally identifying information, so you are responsible if you choose to use these communication features to provide additional personally identifying information to us. When you provide any personally identifying information to us, you communicate that you are knowingly and voluntarily providing us the information. We try to make sure that the personally identifying information you provide us remains private. We will not sell, rent, trade or otherwise disclose the personally identifying information you provide to anyone outside of Prodco Analytics, its parent, subsidiaries and affiliated companies, and our respective contractors providing services to us (but in that case, information is disclosed only for purposes of providing those services) unless we are required by law or have a good faith basis that you are in violation of the terms of service of our site or federal, state or local laws. We will use the personally identifying information to respond to your requests. When you use the site, you consent to the transmission of your personally identifying information to us and to its use as described herein. We will not use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us via this site in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses. We may release information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with law or to protect our rights. In the event that Prodco Analytics or substantially all of its assets were sold or otherwise transferred or acquired, various forms of information may be included among the transferred assets.

The Mobile Information We Collect and How We Use It

No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All other categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

Cookies and Usage Information

Like many companies, we use “cookie” technology on our site. These cookies may tell us whether you have visited our site before or are a new visitor and what material on our site you have viewed. The cookies we use do not collect any personally identifying information about you or provide us with any way to contact you, and the cookies do not extract any information from your computer. The “help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission provides useful information about online privacy on its own Web site, Site Seeing on the Internet. You should also be aware that we collect certain usage information about our site, such as the number and frequency of visitors to certain parts of the site. We may use this information for research or to improve our site. This data is used only in the aggregate and does not include any personally identifying information.

Conditions of Use and Changes to This Policy

If you choose to visit our web site, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, including limitations on damages and application of the laws of the province of Quebec, Canada. If you have any concern about privacy at Prodco Analytics, please send a thorough description to Prodco Analytics inc., 9408 Boul. du Golf, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H1J-3A1, and we will try to resolve it. We reserve the right to update and make changes to this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service and to materially change our practices in handling information, including personally identifiable information. If we do make such changes, we will post notice of those changes either at this location on our web site or elsewhere on the web site in a prominent location. Our use of information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of use. You may request a copy of the Privacy Policy we posted prior to the web updates made to this document. Please note that this Privacy Policy applies to this site only, and not to other sites.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please email us at info@prodcotech.com