Privacy Policy

Mizkan Group privacy policy

Mizkan Holdings Co. Ltd. and other affiliated companies (hereinafter referred to as “the Mizkan Group,” collectively or individually) shall recognize the importance of protecting the personal information of customers, business partners, and employees (hereinafter referred to as “the concerned”), comply with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information and other relevant laws and regulations, and properly handle personal information.

1. Collecting personal information

The Mizkan Group may collect personal information to the extent necessary, as part of business activities, or when various requests are made by the concerned to the Mizkan Group.
The Mizkan Group will use legitimate and appropriate means when collecting personal information through a third party such as a contractor, or from information that is publicly available.

The following are the main items of personal information collected by the Mizkan Group.

2. Purpose of use of personal information

The Mizkan Group uses the personal information of the concerned in the planning and development, manufacturing, sales and distribution, and other related operations for seasonings, food products, and natto (fermented soybeans), only to the extent necessary to fulfil the purpose of use described in the “Purpose of use” section below. (Written personal information that has been directly collected may be used to the extent necessary to fulfil any other purpose of use clearly specified to the concerned in advance, in addition to fulfilling the purpose of use stated in the “Purpose of use” section below.)

【Purpose of use】

When the need to use personal information arises beyond the scope reasonably deemed to be related to the purpose of use, the Mizkan Group shall notify the individual of the purpose of use and obtain consent in advance. The Mizkan Group shall not use personal information for this purpose of use if consent is not obtained.
In addition, in accordance with this privacy policy, the personal information of the concerned may be transferred to, held and handled in countries other than their country of residence, such as countries where Mizkan Group's subcontractors are located, in order to achieve the purpose of use.

3. Management and protection of personal information, and supervision of contractors

(1) Management and protection of personal information

Regarding the handling of personal information provided, the Mizkan Group will establish security control measures to ensure appropriate and strict management and prevent leakage of personal information to outside parties. We will also take appropriate and reasonable security measures to protect personal information from threats such as unauthorized access from external parties.

(2) Supervision of contractors

The Mizkan Group may entrust the handling of personal information to a contractor. In such a case, we will confirm the status of the handling of personal information by a contractor and take measures such as entering into a contract with the contractor to ensure that they manage personal information appropriately and rigorously.

(3) Details of management and protection of personal information and supervision of contractors

Please contact the Mizkan Group's contact desk listed in "6. Disclosure, correction, addition, deletion, utilization cease, etc. and inquiries concerning personal information" for the details of measures taken for the security control and protection of personal information and supervision of contractors.

4. Provision of personal information to third parties and joint utilization of personal information

(1) Provision of personal information to third parties

The Mizkan Group does not disclose or provide personal information of those concerned to any third party; with the exception of the following cases: (Third parties do not include outsourcing companies listed in 3 (2) above or the business partners listed in 4 (2) below)
1) When the personal information is provided to partner businesses of the Mizkan Group for the development, advertisement, promotion, and marketing activities for Mizkan Group products and services and research and statistical analysis of marketing data as described above in "2. Purpose of use of personal information"
2) When the Mizkan Group provides necessary information to settlements agents and credit card issuers to which the Mizkan Group is outsourcing settlement services and other related services (including identity verification, billing address verification, credit checks, fraud detection and prevention, etc.)
3) When personal information has been processed into statistical data that allows no personal identification
4) When required by laws and regulations
5) When consent of the concerned has been obtained

(2) Joint utilization

The Mizkan Group will jointly utilize personal information of the concerned in the following cases:

Item Content
(1) Group companies within the scope of joint utilization Mizkan Holdings Co., Ltd., Mizkan J plus Holdings Co., Ltd., Mizkan Co., Ltd., Mizkan Partners Co., Ltd., Mizkan Logitec Co., Ltd., Nakano Sumise Co., Ltd., Mizkan Asset Co., Ltd., Nakano Asset Global Ltd., Nakano Asset UK Limited, Mizkan AMS B.V., Mizkan America Holdings, Inc., Mizkan America, Inc., Mizkan America Partners, Inc, Mizkan Euro Holdings Limited, Mizkan Euro Ltd., Mizkan Euro Partners Limited, MIZKAN ASIA PACIFIC PTE. LTD., Mizkan China Co., Ltd., ZENB JAPAN Co., Ltd., ZENB US, Inc., ZENB UK LTD., BORN SIMPLE Brands LLC, IMAGINE REAL ESTATE LLC
(2) Purpose of joint utilization The same as the purpose of use of personal information described above in 2. Purpose of use of personal information.
(3) Personal information items that may be jointly utilized Personal Information as described above in 1. Collecting personal information.
(4) Name, address, and name of representative of the party responsible for managing personal information to be shared Mizkan Holdings Co., Ltd.
2-6 Nakamura-Cho, Handa-Shi, Aichi-Ken 475-8585, Japan
Division General Manager Tomoyo Hikosaka, Internal Control Division

The handling of joint utilization of personal information may be revised as necessary. In that case, notification or announcements will be provided in advance.

5. Personally referable information

The Mizkan Group may obtain personally referable information such as cookies and advertising identifiers (IDFA/ADID) from other businesses (including but not limited to DMP providers and partner businesses in the digital marketing filed) and combine it to the personal information of the concerned and use this data for the purposes described in "2. Purpose of use of personal information".

6.Disclosure, correction, addition, deletion, utilization cease, etc., and inquiries concerning personal information

Whenever the Mizkan Group receives a request from the concerned for disclosure, correction, addition, deletion, utilization cease, etc., concerning personal information in accordance with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, we will promptly respond to such request within a reasonable scope in accordance with prescribed procedures. Please contact the following contact desk.

Contact desk

The Mizkan Group's contact desk for inquiries and procedures regarding personal information is as follows (hereinafter referred to as "contact desk"). Please note that we cannot respond to requests made through visits to company offices.

Announcement regarding personal information subject to disclosure requests (hereinafter referred to as "retained personal data″)

Item Content
(1) Name of companies that handle personal information, address and name of representative View here.
(2) Purpose of use The same as the purpose of the use described in “2. Purpose of use of personal information” above.
(3) Procedures for processing disclosure of personal information Please use the contact desk.
(4) Security control measures to be taken by the Mizkan Group with respect to personal data in its possession Please contact the contact desk in the same manner as for the security control measures described in "3. Management and protection of personal information, and supervision of contractors".
(5) Feedback For comments on the handling of retained personal information, please get in touch with the contact desk.

7. Revision of the privacy policy

At the Mizkan Group, we shall continuously improve our approach to the protection of personal information. As such, this privacy policy may be revised without prior notice.

Handling information of the concerned using the Mizkan Group website

In addition to the "Mizkan Group privacy policy" above, information described below that cannot be used to identify specific individuals may be obtained for the purpose of Mizkan Group's products and services development, improvement, product development, and advertising and marketing activities.

1. Use of cookies

(i) Cookies
The Mizkan Group's website contains pages that use 'cookies' to track website usage, distribute advertisements, and collect statistical data for the purpose of providing better services to users. Cookies are one of the mechanisms that enable the website server to identify users. Although cookies identify the browsers used by website users, they do not contain personal information from which the concerned can be identified. By adjusting browser settings, the user concerned can reject cookies or display warnings when receiving cookies. When rejecting cookies, some website services may not be received.

(ii) Services provided by third-party providers used by the Mizkan Group.
The Mizkan Group may use cookies to provide services using the following third parties and may provide these third parties with information about the concerned which does not contain personal information from which the concerned can be identified. Those wishing to disable (opt out of) the delivery of advertisements via third-party cookies can do so from the websites of the companies listed below.

2. Access log

Access information of the concerned using the Mizkan Group website will be stored as an access log on the web server. Except in limited circumstances such as when required by law, this data will be used only for the following purposes:

3. Ad serving by third-party vendors

Third-party vendors, including Google, post Mizkan Group advertisements on various websites, and use cookies to serve ads based on the user's past visits to the Mizkan website. The concerned can disable the use of cookies in Google ads by visiting the opt-out page (https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads?hl=ja) . (Or they can disable the use of cookies by third party vendors by visiting the opt-out page of Network Advertising Initiative.)

4. Guarantee and limitation of liability

The Mizkan Group website includes links to external websites. Please note that the Mizkan Group will bear no liability for the collection or use of personal information, the contracting of or provision of personal information to third parties, or the website content, for linked websites.
Users always have the option of refusing to provide the personal information requested. However, in that case some services on the Mizkan Group website may become available.
The Mizkan Group strives to ensure security by means of security technology such as the encoding of personal information by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) as necessary, so that the personal information provided by customers on the Mizkan Group website cannot be intercepted by a third party during transmission.
In terms of server certificates used in encrypted communication (SSL/TLS), worldwide efforts are being made to migrate from SHA-1, a cryptographic algorithm that has been widely used, to SHA-2, a cryptographic algorithm of a higher security level. The Mizkan Group will also switch to SHA-2 from SHA-1 on October 26, 2016, and as a result, inquiry forms and newsletter registration will not be available on some feature phones or legacy terminal devices. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, and ask for your understanding on this matter.

Handling personal information relating to recruitment

1. Collecting personal information

The Mizkan Group may collect, to the extent necessary, the personal information of job applicants through the course of recruitment activities.

Furthermore, the Mizkan Group will use legitimate and appropriate measures when collecting personal information through a third party such as a contractor.

2. Purpose of use of personal information

The Mizkan Group uses written personal information that has been directly collected (including information input directly onto the website) only to the extent necessary to fulfil the purpose of use that has been clearly specified to job applicants in advance.

Personal information obtained by measures other than the above shall be used to the extent necessary to fulfil the purpose of use described below.

  1. Mizkan Group recruiting activities, including sending company information to job applicants, assessment, and notifying assessment results
  2. Creation of statistically-processed information that allows no personal identification

When the need to use personal information arises beyond the scope reasonably deemed to be related to the purpose of use, the Mizkan Group shall notify the individual of the purpose of use and obtain consent in advance. The Mizkan Group shall not use personal information for this purpose of use if consent is not obtained.

3. Management and protection of personal information and supervision of contractors

The Mizkan Group will manage personal information provided by job applicants appropriately and rigorously, and strive to prevent unauthorized disclosure to external parties. We will also take appropriate and reasonable security measures to protect the personal information of job applicants from threats such as unauthorized access from external parties.

The Mizkan Group may entrust the handling of personal information to a contractor. In such a case, the Mizkan Group will take measures such as entering into a contract with the contractor to ensure that they manage the personal information of job applicants appropriately and rigorously.

In addition, the handling of personal information that is subject to disclosure requests, etc. (hereinafter referred to as "retained personal data") is as follows.