Hypertherm’s EU General Data Protection Regulation Statement

Statement

The EU General Data Protection Regulation, effective May 25, 2018 (“GDPR”), aims to strengthen the security and protection of personal data in the European Union and will replace the European Privacy Directive and national legislations accordingly. The GDPR imposes additional requirements for companies that collect or store personal data of European Union residents.

Our Commitment

Hypertherm welcomes the arrival of the GDPR. We are committed to ensuring the security and protection of the personal information that we process to meet the demands of the GDPR. The success of our company builds on the trust that our associates, customers, and other stakeholders have in our ability to deliver premier quality. This includes our ability to apply a high level of data protection and security in relation to personal data that our associates, customers, and third parties entrust to us. Hypertherm considers it not just its duty to comply with national and international data protection regulations, but also to do this by applying the same standards, processes, and procedures throughout our Hypertherm footprint. This allows us to deliver the transparency, predictability, and consistency that our stakeholders expect from us. Our preparation and measures for GDPR compliance have been summarized in this statement and include the development and implementation of new data protection preparations, roles, policies, procedures, controls, and measures to ensure maximum and ongoing compliance.

Preparations

Our policies regarding data protection are focused on providing stakeholders with confidence that their data remains secure. We have established a number of measures to ensure that stakeholders and their data are treated in a manner consistent with privacy principles. Therefore, our preparations for the GDPR requirements across our organization include:

  • Information Audit:carrying out an information audit from a GDPR lens via data mapping and inventories to identify and assess what personal information we hold, its source, how and why it is processed, and if and to whom it is disclosed.
  • Policies & Procedures:data protection policies and procedures to meet the requirements and standards of the GDPR and any relevant data protection laws, including:
    • Data Protectionour main policy and procedure document for data protection has been overhauled to meet the standards and requirements of the GDPR. Accountability and governance measures are in place to ensure that we understand and adequately disseminate and evidence our obligations and responsibilities; with a dedicated focus on privacy by design and the rights of individuals.
    • Data Retention & Erasurewe have updated our retention policy and schedule to ensure that we meet the ‘data minimization’ and ‘storage limitation’ principles and that personal information is stored, archived and destroyed compliantly and ethically.
    • Data Breachesour breach procedures ensure that we have safeguards and measures in place to identify, assess, investigate and report any personal data breach at the earliest possible time. Our procedures are robust and have been disseminated to all employees, making them aware of the reporting lines and steps to follow.
    • International Data Transfers & Third-Party Disclosureswhere Hypertherm stores or transfers personal information outside the EU, we have robust procedures and safeguarding measures in place to secure, encrypt and maintain the integrity of the data. We are working to put the systems and processes in place to facilitate our continual review of the countries with sufficient adequacy decisions, as well as adopting provisions for binding corporate rules; standard data protection clauses or approved codes of conduct for those countries without. We carry out strict due diligence checks with all recipients of personal data to assess and verify that they have appropriate safeguards in place to protect the information, ensure enforceable data subject rights and have effective legal remedies for data subjects where applicable.
    • Subject Access Request (“SAR”)we have revised our SAR procedures to accommodate the revised, mandated thirty-day timeframe for providing the requested information and for making this provision free of charge. Our new procedures detail how to verify the data subject, steps to take for processing an access request and what exemptions apply to ensure that communications with data subjects are compliant, consistent, and adequate.
  • Legal Basis for Processing:we are reviewing all processing activities to identify the legal basis for processing and ensuring that the basis is appropriate for the activity. Where applicable, we also maintain records of our processing activities, ensuring that our obligations under Article 30 of the GDPR are met.
  • Privacy Policy:we have our Privacy Notice to comply with the GDPR, ensuring that all individuals whose personal information we process have been informed of why we need it, how it is used, what their rights are, to whom the information is disclosed, and what safeguarding measures are in place to protect their information. https://www.hypertherm.com/en-US/policies/
  • Obtaining Consent:we have revised our consent mechanisms for obtaining personal data, ensuring that individuals understand what they are providing, why and how we use it and giving clear, defined ways to consent to us processing their information. We have developed stringent processes for recording consent, making sure that we can evidence an affirmative opt-in, along with time and date records; and a straightforward way to withdraw consent at any time.
  • Direct Marketing:we have revised processes for direct marketing, including clear opt-in mechanisms for marketing subscriptions; a clear notice and method for opting out and providing unsubscribe features on all subsequent marketing materials.
  • Data Protection Impact Assessments (“DPIA”):where we process personal information that is considered high risk, involves large scale processing or includes special category/criminal conviction data; we have developed stringent procedures and assessment templates for carrying out impact assessments that comply fully with the GDPR’s Article 35 requirements. We have implemented documentation processes that record each assessment, allow us to rate the risk posed by the processing activity and implement mitigating measures to reduce the risk posed to the data subject.
  • Special Categories Data:where we process any special category information, we do so in complete compliance with the GDPR’s Article 9 requirements and have encryptions and protections on all such data. Special category data is only processed where necessary and is only processed where we have first identified the appropriate Article 9(2) basis. Where we rely on consent for processing, this is explicit and is verified by a signature, with the right to modify or remove consent being clearly signposted.

Data Subject Rights

In addition to the procedures above, we provide information via our numerous communication means of an individual’s right to access any personal information that Hypertherm processes about them and to request information about:

  • What personal data we hold about the individual
  • The purposes of the processing
  • The categories of personal data concerned
  • How long we intend to store the personal data
  • If we did not collect the data directly from the individual, information about the source
  • The right to have incomplete or inaccurate data about the individual corrected or completed and the process for the request
  • The right to request erasure of personal data (where applicable) or to restrict processing in accordance with data protection laws, as well as to object to any direct marketing from us and to be informed about any automated decision-making that we use
  • The right to lodge a complaint and who to contact in such instances

Information Security Measures

The EU General Data Protection Regulation, effective May 25, 2018 (“GDPR”), aims to strengthen the security and protection of personal data in the European Union and will replace the European Privacy Directive and national legislations accordingly. The GDPR imposes additional requirements for companies that collect or store personal data of European Union residents.

GDPR Roles

Hypertherm has designated a cross-functional, global team to develop and implement our roadmap for complying with the GDPR. The team is responsible for promoting awareness of the GDPR across the organization, assessing our GDPR readiness, identifying any gap areas, and implementing the new policies, procedures and measures.

Hypertherm understands that continuous associate awareness and understanding is vital to the continued compliance of the GDPR and have involved our associates in our preparation plans. We have implemented an associate notice which will be provided to all associate prior to May 25th, 2018, and forms part of our welcome of the GDPR.

Further information

If you have any questions about our preparation for the GDPR, please contact our dedicated privacy contact:

DataProtection@Hypertherm.com

We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold.