Acuity Brands, Inc. Privacy Statement
Miles Bondurant
Chief Privacy Officer and Senior Counsel Technology
privacyorg@acuitybrands.com
1-844-228-4899
(Updated June 2022)
Acuity Brands knows that you are concerned about your privacy. This Privacy Statement is designed to help you understand what information Acuity Brands and its affiliates collect and what we do with it.
In addition, we want you to know that there are two instances where this Privacy Statement will not apply:
First, if you share information via a forum, social media site, or similar channel, the information you are sharing is not subject to this Privacy Statement.
Second, Acuity Brands’ products and websites may direct you to sites managed by people other than Acuity Brands. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, Acuity Brands does not control, and is not responsible for, the content or the privacy practices employed by those sites. You should pay attention and, if you go to someone else’s site, you should read their privacy statements before you provide them with any information.
Finally, if you are interested in exercising your rights to control how Acuity Brands uses your information without context, jump down to “WHAT YOU CAN DO” below.
WHO WE ARE
Acuity Brands, Inc. is a market-leading industrial technology company. We use technology to solve problems in spaces and light. Through our two business segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls and the Intelligent Spaces Group, we design, manufacture, and bring to market products and services that make the world more brilliant, productive, and connected. We achieve growth through the development of innovative new products and services, including lighting, lighting controls, building management systems, and location-aware applications. Acuity Brands, Inc. is based in Atlanta, Georgia, with operations across North America, Europe, and Asia. To find out more about Acuity Brands and our affiliates, look under the “Who We Are” section of our website, www.acuitybrands.com.
Acuity Brands operates and sells products around the world. Acuity Brands’ headquarters and main technology centers, however, are in the United States of America. Therefore, if you are located outside the United States, Acuity Brands may hold or process your information outside the country where you live and by giving Acuity Brands that information you are agreeing to allow us to do so.
If you would like to opt out from promotional communications from Acuity Brands or inquire about, update, or delete the personal information that we maintain about you, please see the section “WHAT YOU CAN DO” below.
WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT
The specific information about you that we collect depends on how you interact with Acuity Brands. For example, if you visit our website, we may collect certain information. But if you use one of our software products, we may collect totally different information. In general, however, the information Acuity Brands collects falls into a few broad categories.
Information That You Give Directly to Us
Sometimes, you may provide us with information directly, such as when you provide information to us by filling out a form on a webpage or in a product. Additionally, you may provide us with information via feedback forms, employment applications, registration forms, order forms, information requests, online surveys, or contests. Or you may provide us with information when you call us for technical support or warranty services. The information you provide may include name, physical address, email address, phone and fax numbers, company name, title or job position, employment history, purchase history, and plans for future purchases.
Information About Your Technology
Through some of our technology products, we may automatically collect device-specific information like device model, operating system version, non-unique device identifiers, and network information. Likewise, when you visit our website, Acuity Brands may record information such as the web request that sent you there, your Internet Protocol address, your browser type and language settings, and the date and time of your visit. Our software products may also tell us what version of the software you are using.
Information About Your Usage
When using our technology products or visiting our website, we may record information about your experience. For example, details of how you used the product or website, what functions you utilized and how often, and information about crashes.
Like many websites, Acuity Brands may use "cookies" to recognize your computer on subsequent visits, either directly or through a web analytics tool. Cookies are small files created by websites that reside on the hard drive of the visitor’s computer and that store information about a visitor’s use of a particular web site.
Information About a Device’s Location
Some of Acuity Brands’ products can determine the physical location of your device via sensors using various technologies such as GPS, radio communication, and by reading light patterns using the camera in your device. While that location information is provided to Acuity Brands, Acuity Brands' products that do collect location information do not collect information that would allow Acuity Brands to correlate that location information to a specific individual.
For example, if Robert Jones installed a software apps that contains our technology on his phone, the app might assign his phone the name “#372A8DUF”. When Mr. Jones uses that app, the app will tell Acuity Brands that device 372A8DUF was at certain GPS coordinates at a certain time. However, Acuity Brands does not ever collect the name “Robert Jones” or any other unique identifier for Robert Jones and there is no way for Acuity Brands to trace those coordinates or 372A8DUF to Robert Jones as an individual.
That being said, if you have separately granted an Acuity Brands business partner permission to correlate certain information (e.g., unique device identifiers and names or customer ID numbers), that partner may be able to discover your location by combining the information that you have provided them with the information held by Acuity Brands. For example, our software may be incorporated into that partner’s app and Mr. Jones may have given that partner permission to correlate his device name “372A8DUF” with his real name, “Robert Jones” – so that partner could use Acuity Brands’ connection between his location information and his device name and the partner’s connection between the device name and his real name to connect his location information and Robert Jones. However, Acuity Brands has no control over or access to that information and Acuity Brands requires all partners to contractually obligate themselves to comply with all laws, including all privacy laws, when using Acuity Brands’ location products.
Information Acuity Brands Does Not Want
Acuity Brands does not knowingly collect and does not want any information from children under the age of 16. We do not design our products or websites to appeal to children and request that children do not provide us information through our products or websites and that parents monitor and do not allow their children to provide us such information.
WHAT WE DO WITH THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Acuity Brands is committed to making sure that you understand what we are doing with the information you provide us. Acuity Brands only uses your information for legitimate business purposes such as:
To Provide and Improve Products Generally
Primarily, we use the information we collect from you to provide, maintain, and improve our existing products and services as well as to develop new ones. For example, unless we obtain a device name, there is no way for us to provide location information. And unless we know about what a user was doing when an app crashed, there is no way for us to perform maintenance on the code to prevent crashes in the future. Likewise, unless we receive user feedback, there is no way for us to improve the features of our existing products and services or know if there is a new product or service that we should develop to satisfy our users. By providing this kind of information, you agree that we can use it for these purposes and disclaim any ownership rights in anything that we may create as a result.
To Do Specific Things
Additionally, if we state that we are collecting information for a specific purpose, and you provide us with information, we will use it for that specific purpose. For example, if we tell you that you are submitting information to us for the purposes of applying for employment, then we will use that information to evaluate your candidacy for employment. Likewise, if you are submitting information to us for the purposes of a request for services under a warranty, then we will use that information to evaluate your request and fulfil our warranty obligations. However, there are some limited situations where we will use your information for additional reasons other than the specific purpose we identified. For example, the government requires that all companies of Acuity Brands’ size report certain information about our job applicants to ensure that we are obeying non-discrimination laws. And Acuity Brands may choose to share information about a warranty claim with your relationship manager so that he or she can follow up with you to ensure that the issue was resolved satisfactorily. By providing information that is identified as being collected for a specific purpose, you agree that we can use it for the identified specific purpose as well as other uses reasonably related to the specific purpose.
To Share with Others
Acuity Brands also may share your information with third parties so that they can do things on our behalf. For example, we may share your employment application with a company that performs background checks for us. Or our mobile apps may upload information to a third-party company that hosts our software products. In all cases, Acuity Brands will only provide these parties with your information after entering contracts with these third parties that are reasonably designed to protect the privacy and security of your information. By providing this kind of information, you agree that we can use it for these purposes under this restriction.
Acuity Brands also may share your information with specific parties or the public if we have taken steps to alter the information so that it becomes non-personally identifiable. That means that this information can no longer be used to identify you as an individual, either alone or through combination with readily available public information. For example, you may respond to a customer satisfaction survey where you provide information about yourself, your use of Acuity Brands’ products, and your satisfaction with those products. Acuity Brands may send out a public announcement about the results of that survey, including the information you provided us, so long as the information cannot be readily used to identify you as an individual.
Of course, Acuity Brands may share your information with third parties if you explicitly consent to us doing so or if it is required in order for us to perform the activity for which you provided us the information. Examples include:
- if you place an order with Acuity Brands, we may use your address so that we can send you that order.
- if you complete Acuity Brands training and you ask us to submit the results to specific certification organizations, Acuity Brands may do so.
- if you sign up for a contest offered by Acuity Brands, Acuity Brands may provide the information you supplied to a third party so that they can deliver awards to contest winners.
To Respond to Exceptional Circumstances
Finally, there are also some exceptional reasons why Acuity Brands might disclose your information. Examples of these situations include the following: to protect the security of Acuity Brands’ products and websites as well as the information provided to us by other users, to respond to claims by third parties that information provided by you violates their rights, to comply with laws or regulations applicable to Acuity Brands, including responding to subpoenas or other judicial process, or as required or beneficial in connection with the purchase or sale of any of Acuity Brands' lines of businesses or corporate assets.
So far, we have provided you with an overview of how we collect various types of personal information and how we might use such information. We have provided it in this general format to make it easier to follow. However, we understand that you may be interested in more detailed information. To see a chart that identifies the various processes for which we collect and use specific categories of information, broken down based upon whether it is collected from Customers, Prospective Customers, Contractors, Employees, Prospective Employees, Agents, or Distributors, click here.
This comprehensive list may, by its nature, be overinclusive. Because different jurisdictions define personal information differently, a category of information may or may not be considered personal information in a particular jurisdiction based on how Acuity Brands can reasonably use it depending on a particular use scenario. In addition, Acuity Brands may not collect the same categories of information for every individual in a given situation, as circumstances can vary. Therefore, just because a category of information appears on the chart, this does not mean that it is truly personal information or that Acuity Brands actually collects that information about you. If you want to know what information Acuity Brands actually has about you, you can exercise your rights as described in the section “WHAT YOU CAN DO” below.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
At the bottom of every Acuity Brands website (e.g., www.acuitybrands.com) there are two links that you can use to make sure that Acuity Brands uses your information in accordance with your preferences.
- “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” – By following this link and providing us the requested information, you can let us know that you do not want us to use your information, or share your information with third parties, for marketing purposes. This is only necessary if you have previously opted in and allowed us to use your information for these purposes. Acuity Brands does not sell personal information or use information for marketing purposes without consent.
- “Exercise My Rights” – Various privacy laws grant you certain rights with regards to your personal information. By following this link, going through the identity verification process, and providing us the requested information, you can let us know that you wish to exercise the personal information rights available to you. While they vary greatly among jurisdictions, these rights generally include the right to know what types of personal information that Acuity Brands holds about you, the right to correct any incorrect personal information that Acuity Brands holds, and the right to have Acuity Brands delete personal information that Acuity Brands holds. You should understand that these rights do have exceptions and limitations (e.g., information necessary to carry out an existing business transaction with you, information that a government agency requires us to collect and maintain), the scope of which varies by jurisdiction. Acuity Brands has engaged a third party, LexisNexis, to verify the identity of every person making a request, and Acuity Brands never sees the questions or answers used to verify your identity. After validation of your request, Acuity Brands will investigate the extent to which we hold your personal information, if any, and respond to your request within thirty days to the e-mail address you provide.
If you would prefer, you can also exercise your rights by calling +1-844-228-4899.
Acuity Brands will respond to such requests, including deleting the requested information if Acuity Brands no longer has a legitimate business purpose for holding it. As noted previously, your information may persist in data backups that we maintain as part of our regular business, but we will not use that information for any purpose other than restoring our systems.
If you exercise your privacy rights through the privacy portal of a business partner for whom Acuity Brands holds data, those business partners can forward your request to Acuity Brands through an interface set up by Acuity Brands. If Acuity Brands receives your request in this manner, Acuity Brands will comply with the request as if you had requested it directly as noted above with two exceptions. First, the business partner will verify your identity prior to forwarding your request to Acuity Brands. And second, rather than responding directly to you, Acuity Brands will respond to the business partner to whom you submitted your request, who in turn is responsible for responding to you.
OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Acuity Brands will take commercially and technologically reasonable precautions to protect your information while it is in our possession. However, due to the nature of the Internet and current technology, no computer system is completely safe, and we cannot guarantee the security of your information. This Privacy Statement describes what information Acuity Brands collects and what we do with it so that you can make an informed decision when you share information with us, given these inherent risks.
Privacy is not a “one size fits all” situation. Some people are happy to share information so long as it provides them with some benefit. Others prefer to forgo some benefits to maintain a greater amount of privacy. If you prefer to limit your disclosure of information, you may wish to set your browser to block cookies or set your computer to delete all cookies on a periodic basis (for more information about how Acuity Brands uses cookies in advertising, please see www.acuitybrands.com/privacy-statement/cookie-disclosure). Alternatively, you may wish to forgo installing certain software or seeking certain benefits that require the disclosure of particular information. Acuity Brands is providing transparency so that you can decide what level of disclosure is best for you.
Some browsers have incorporated "Do Not Track" (DNT) features that can send a signal to the websites you visit indicating you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, our services do not currently respond to browser DNT signals. You can use the range of other tools we provide to control data collection and use, including taking steps to discourage the use of cookies described herein.
HOW WE CAN CHANGE THIS STATEMENT
Acuity Brands may change this Privacy Statement from time to time, however we will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Statement for any previously provided data without your explicit consent. We will post any changes to this Privacy Statement on this page, and we may also provide a more prominent notice, such as providing an email notification of the changes.