Privacy Policy

At Kawasaki Motors Europe N.V. (‘KME’) we intend to give you as much control as possible over your personal data in our care. When you visit any of our websites or otherwise make use of our services we may need to collect personal data from you, such as your name, email address, IP address or location data. This personal data will be processed in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) and applicable derivative local legislation.

KME respects the privacy of everyone who visits our website or uses our services. Please read this privacy policy carefully so that you can understand how KME collects and uses the personal data that you provide to us. Please be aware that you are never obligated to share personal data with us, but if you refuse to share personal data, we may not be able to offer you our services or only on a limited basis.

In this privacy policy, KME will inform you of how we collect personal data from you on our websites or through other means. If you choose to share personal data with us, or if we use personal data that we need and have collected ourselves, this privacy policy will let you know why we are collecting such data and how we will use such data. These purposes may include to correspond with you in order to provide you with a service or product that you have ordered or to provide you with a subscription to our e-mails.

KME websites may contain links to third party websites. KME is not responsible for the privacy notices or the content of such third party websites.

Except as set out in this privacy policy, KME will not disclose any personal data without your permission unless KME is legally entitled or required to do so (for example, if it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime) or if KME believes that such action is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of any other person.

1. What does this privacy policy cover and which categories of personal data are processed by KME?

This privacy policy covers the use of your personal data which is collected through or in connection with KME’s websites or other services.

The type of personal data collected can be: name, address, telephone number,  email address, location data / country of residence, preferred language and subscriber type (e.g. Original Equipment Manufacturer (‘OEM’), dealer, professional landscaper, home gardener, etc.) and incidentally other types of personal data of which you will be informed in advance if the situation occurs.

This privacy policy does not cover the processing of personal data by third parties. KME will not be responsible for the privacy notices and practices of other websites or third parties even if:

a) You accessed the third party website using links from our website; or
b) You linked to our website from a third party website.

KME recommends that you check the notices of each website you visit and contact the owner or operator of such website if you have any concerns or questions.

2. Who is responsible for the personal data collected on KME’s websites or through KME’s services?

KME controls the personal data collected on KME’s websites or through KME’s services. Therefore under the terms of the GDPR, KME is the controller of the data you have provided.

In certain situations we may use your personal data for marketing purposes through social media platforms. In those situations, the social media platform provider is also a controller of your personal data. Depending on the specific circumstances, KME and the social media provider will be joint controllers or separate controllers in the sense of the GDPR with respect to your personal data. In both situations KME will make sure that all necessary legal and technical safeguards are in place to protect your personal data.

3. Lawful grounds and legitimate purposes for processing your personal data

In order to lawfully process your personal data, we must rely on a lawful ground for processing that is specified in the GDPR. Generally speaking, the processing of personal data by KME falls within one of three categories which will be described below. Please note that in incidental situations we are allowed to rely on other lawful grounds for processing than the ones described here.

Performance of a contract

The personal data KME processes may be used for the purpose of performing our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and KME including, but not limited to:

  • Responding to queries or requests submitted by you;
  • Processing orders or applications submitted by you;
  • Administering or otherwise carrying out our obligations in relation to any contract you have with us; and
  • Anticipating and resolving problems with any goods or services supplied to you.

Consent

From time to time, if consented to by you in advance, KME may use the personal data you supply to us for:

  • market research and tracking of sales data;
  • informing you about our products, products powered by Kawasaki engines sold by our OEM partners, and services, which may include contacting you by telephone or giving your personal information to KME affiliate offices and companies, which may be located outside the EEA (subject to the below limitations relating to transfers of personal information outside the EEA), to enable them to send you information which may be of interest to you;
  • create products or services that may meet your needs, therefore KME may ask from time to time if you would like to take part in one of our surveys;
  • using social media first party list based targeting (we call this ‘Customer Matching’, but the different social media platforms all use different terms) in order to send you information and offers on social media that may be relevant or of interest to you based on your profile;
  • measurement and optimisation of our online advertising, including sharing information about the actions you take on our website back to social media platforms, such as when you use our ‘Find a dealer’ tool or click on an OEM partner logo;
  • personalisation of email content, either based on the information you share with us or to help us test content to improve our communications with you;
  • other ways of processing your personal data of which you will be informed and your consent will be requested in advance.

At all times you have the right to withdraw your consent for the processing of personal data that was based on your consent. If you wish to withdraw your consent please let us know by sending an email to [email protected]. KME will stop the use of your information for such purposes as soon as it is reasonably possible to do so.

Legitimate interest

In certain situations, KME may rely on our legitimate interest to process your personal data. For the purposes mentioned below, KME is of the opinion that KME’s legitimate interest supersedes your personal interest. Generally speaking, we may rely on our legitimate interest in the following situations:

  • You are a customer of KME which allows us to send you information about our services and products that could be of interest to you;
  • You have subscribed to our e-mail newsletter or other method of keeping you informed, by which you have indicated that you are willing to receive marketing information from us.

When relying on our legitimate interest for processing your personal data, the GDPR requires us to weigh your interests against ours. While each individual case requires its own assessment, we can rely on a general assessment for similar cases, while we of course always keep an eye out for specific circumstances. This general assessment weighs our interest to inform you about our services and product and to direct marketing efforts towards you, against your interests not to be subjected to information you do not want to receive. Because you are already a customer and/or have subscribed to our newsletter, you have indicated that you are interested in receiving this information from us. Additionally, every e-mail you receive from us has the option to unsubscribe from our notices. As regards our commercial information that is shown to you on social media through the Custom Audience feature, you yourself choose to see ads because it is inherent in the use of social media.

Other grounds of lawful processing

From time to time, situations may occur when a processing of personal data is not covered by the grounds for lawful processing as described above. In those instances we may process personal data on other lawful grounds provided by the GDPR and will individually inform you about it if the GDPR so dictates.

4. Security measures

KME has taken state of the art measures in relation to the sensitivity of the personal data being processed. These measures include:

Technical measures:

  • Access security;
  • Patch Management: Software, browsers and virus scanners will be kept up-to-date to prevent and close security leaks;
  • Network security;
  • Regular Back-ups.

Organisational measures:

  • Data minimisation: only processing the personal data that is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose;
  • Authorisation limitation: Employees can only access personal data that is strictly necessary for fulfilling their job description;
  • Privacy awareness: Employees will be trained in recognizing cyber threats including phishing and social engineering. 

Physical Security Measures:

  • Limited Physical access: Rooms containing servers and/or Physical files are always locked with restricted access to keys;
  • Clean Desk Policy: Documents containing personal data will be stored safely every day;
  • Hardware security: all devices will be protected against illegal access.

5. Data retention periods

Generally speaking your personal data will only be retained for as long as necessary for the purpose for which the data was originally acquired. How long this actually is will depend on the specific purpose for which the personal data was collected:

  • Processing your personal data based for the performance of a contract with you: the retention period will be two years after the end date of the contract;
  • Processing your personal data based on your consent: the retention period will be as long as necessary for the purpose the data was acquired for. If the purpose is fulfilled or otherwise is no longer valid, the data will be deleted within two years after that date;
  • Processing your personal data based on our legitimate interest: until the moment our legitimate interest for processing ends. The personal data will be deleted within two years after that date. 
  • Processing your personal data to send you regular KME updates by e-mail: for as long as you don’t unsubscribe to the e-mail, which is an option in every e-mail.
  • Processing your personal data to send you information through the Customer Matching options on social media platforms. For a period of two years after we have shared the information with a social media platform provider. Please also be aware of the data retention period taken into account by the social media platforms you use, it’s your own responsibility to check this.

6. Data transfer to third parties

As part of the products and services offered to you, the personal data you provide to us may need to be shared with third parties inside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) and sometimes transferred to countries outside of the EEA. By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EEA or one of our service providers is located in a country outside of the EEA. It will also apply in the event that your personal data is shared with a social media provider for Customer Matching purposes.

In the event of sharing personal data with third parties within the EEA we will ensure there is an agreement in place that covers this data sharing. This can be a processing agreement or a controller to controller agreement, depending on the specific situation.

In the event of sharing personal data with third parties outside the EEA, we will ensure that the sharing of the personal data is covered by one of the principles for data transfer as laid down in the GDPR. The specific principle used will depend on the country and/ or organisation the personal data is transferred to.

Currently, we may transfer your personal data to the following parties:

  • We make use of the services of OneAgency, Ltd. This company acts as our representative when dealing with social media companies. A data processing agreement is in place, in which inter alia is stated that personal data will not leave the European Economic Area, unless incidentally necessary. And if so, the GDPR rules on international data transfers will be followed. 
  • For Custom Audience purposes, which is the Customer Matching option of Meta, your personal data will be shared with Meta Platforms, Inc. for use to send you ads on mainly Facebook and Instagram timelines. Meta Platforms, Inc. is registered under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/list), which means that we may legally assume that sharing personal data with them is legally covered. If other social media providers are used in the future, we may also rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for international data transfers if the social media providers are part of it.
  • To process your personal data when you are a subscriber to our e-mails, we make use of the services of Campaign Monitor, which is operated by Marigold. In their Privacy Statement, they state that the GDPR is followed and that any transfer of data to the US is based on standard contractual clauses as provided for in the GDPR. Please see: https://meetmarigold.com/company/compliance/marigolds-privacy-notices#site-transfers for more information.
  • We might also make use of other currently existing, or future social media platform Customer Matching services. These might include, but are not limited to:
  • Google/YouTube (Customer Match) 
  • LinkedIn (Matched Audiences) 
  • TikTok (Custom Audiences) 

In the event that we share personal data with these social media platforms, we will make certain that the legal grounds for transferring of the data are at all times met.

Additionally, as KME is a subsidiary of the global organization Kawasaki Motors Ltd. we may need to transfer your data to our head office or other subsidiaries which are located outside of the EEA. If KME intends to transfer your information outside of the EEA in this way, KME will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected and will ensure that adequate safeguards are in place, including but not limited to the use of EU standard contractual clauses.

7. Does KME use Cookies?

KME may store some information (commonly known as a "cookie") on your computer when you visit our websites. KME is able to read these cookies for information purposes when you revisit our websites. The type of information KME collects as a result of a cookie being accepted by you is specific to your computer and includes the IP address, the date and time the computer visited the websites, what parts of our website were looked at and whether the web pages requested were delivered successfully. It also depends on your choices when first accessing our website, or you later changed in the cookie or browser settings.

KME uses the cookie information to improve our knowledge of the use of our website and to enable us to be able to ascertain whether the website is operating at an optimal level. This allows KME to enhance our web offerings to you and to provide an enjoyable and an innovative online experience.

What cookies do we use?
For more information or to change cookie settings see link below.

COOKIES

8. Your rights regarding the personal data that is processed by KME

Under the applicable Data Protection Legislation you have several rights regarding the use of your personal data.  KME respects these rights and does its utmost to guarantee. The GDPR provides you with the following rights:

  • Right of access. This means that you have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning you is being processed, and, where that is the case, access to the personal data and the purposes of such processing;
  • Right to rectification. If we are processing inaccurate personal data, you have the right to obtain rectification of such inaccurate personal data;
  • Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’). You have the right to request the erasure of your personal data, subject to certain conditions;
  • Right to data portability. You have the right to request a copy of your personal data in order to transmit such data to another controller;
  • Right to restriction of processing. You have the right to request restriction of processing your personal data;
  • Right to object. You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your specific situation, to the processing of your personal data by KME which is based on art. 6(1)(e) (tasks in the public interest) or 6(1)(f) GDPR (our specified legitimate interests). You also have the right to object to the processing of personal data by KME where personal data is processed for direct marketing purposes, unless you want to object to the processing in part. 
  • Right to withdraw a consent: As far as our processing is based on a consent (pursuant to Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), you may withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on the consent before its withdrawal.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority located in the European Union.

For more information about your rights and data processing in general we refer you to the Data Processing authority in the country you live in (see par. 9 below).

8. Changes to this privacy policy

From time to time KME may make changes to this privacy policy. If KME makes any substantial changes to the way in which KME uses your personal data, KME will post these changes on this page and will give you the opportunity to adjust your preferences if necessary. Please check our privacy policy on a regular basis.

9. Who should you contact if you have any questions or complaints?

For questions, comments, requests, complaints regarding this privacy policy or the use of your personal data, please contact Kawasaki Motors Europe N.V. Engine Department, 1 Dukes Meadow, Millboard Road, Bourne End, Bucks, SL8 5XF or email [email protected]. The supervisory authority in the United Kingdom is the Information Commissioner’s Office (IOC).  

Version 2.0, March 2026.