3M Australia
3M Company and its subsidiaries and affiliates (“3M,” “we,” “our” or “us”) respect your privacy. This 3M Global Privacy Statement (“Statement”) describes the Personal Data we may collect about you; how we use, disclose and otherwise process it; how we protect it; and the rights and choices you may have regarding your Personal Data. For more information about our processing and the rights that may be available to you in the jurisdiction where you reside, see “Additional Information for Residents of Certain Jurisdictions” below.
This Statement applies to the Personal Data (as defined below) that we process when you use this Website (“Website”), our mobile applications (“Apps”), and our other Websites and services or products that reference this Statement (collectively, our “Services”), and when you otherwise interact with us as described in more detail below. Unless you are in a jurisdiction where this is not permitted, your use of our Website, and any related dispute over privacy, is subject to our Terms of Use. Where required by applicable law, we will first obtain your consent before we collect, use, or disclose your Personal Data.
Throughout this Statement, we use the following defined terms:
Our Statement is organized in the following sections. For immediate access to a particular section, click on the title.
This Statement applies to Personal Data that we may process through your interactions with us, including, but not limited to:
Some of our Services are regulated by certain state, federal or local laws and may have specific privacy requirements ("Specific Privacy Notices"). When a Specific Privacy Notice exists, the content of the Specific Privacy Notice applies to your use of that specific product and/or service.
Some of our Services are intended for use by our Business Partners, including our business customers (“3M B2B Services”). When Business Partners purchase and use our 3M B2B Services, we may process your Personal Data at their direction and on their behalf, as a service provider, and your use of 3M B2B Services is administered by that company, our Business Partner. In such cases, the privacy policies of the respective Business Partner apply to the processing of your Personal Data and not this Statement. If you have any privacy questions related to your Personal Data processed related to a 3M B2B Service, you should contact the relevant Business Partner directly.
When you interact with us, we may collect Personal Data such as:
When you interact with us, we may collect Personal Data directly from you, automatically from your browser or device, and from other sources such as our Business Partners and other third parties.
We collect Personal Data you choose to provide to us on our Website, through our Apps, or when you contact us by phone or email. For example, we may collect Personal Data from you when you:
If you provide us with any Personal Data relating to a third party, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Statement.
We automatically collect information from you when you interact with us and use our Services, such as:
Our Business Partners and other third parties may also use these technologies to collect information about your online activities. For more information, see the section below on Cookies and Similar Automated Data Collection Technologies.
3M may collect, use, or supplement the Personal Data we have about you with information obtained from other publicly or commercially available sources, such as our Business Partners, suppliers, vendors, and other third-party sources (e.g., public databases and social media platforms).
For example, we may use such third-party information to confirm contact or financial information, or to better understand your interests by associating demographic information with the information you have provided.
We use your Personal Data to:
This may include:
This may include:
This may include:
This may include:
3M may also use your Personal Data for other uses consistent with the context in which the information was collected or with your consent.
3M may anonymize, aggregate or de-identify any of the information we collect from you and, where permitted by applicable law, use it for any purpose, including for research, product-development, and service and product quality review purposes. Such information will not identify you individually, and we will maintain and use the information in deidentified form and will not attempt to reidentify the information.
We may disclose your Personal Data to the following recipients and for the purposes described below. In each case, we will take appropriate steps (including obtaining your consent where required by applicable law) to protect your Personal Data.
3M Affiliates. Our 3M affiliates will use your Personal Data in a manner consistent with this Statement, any applicable Specific Privacy Notices, and all applicable laws.
Service Providers. We may disclose your Personal Data to contractors, service providers and other vendors we engage to perform support services for us, such as hosting providers, payment processors, customer service agencies, analytics service providers and ad companies.
Business Partners. We may disclose your Personal Data with third parties who partner with us to support our products, services and marketing efforts to our customers; to our partners who provide us with analytics services (for example, to better understand our customers); and to our authorized partners and service providers.
In connection with business transfers. We may disclose your Personal Data with third parties (including potential or prospective buyers, sellers, lenders and their respective affiliates, agents, advisers and representatives) in connection with the actual or contemplated sale, purchase, merger, reorganization, liquidation, dissolution or other disposal of assets or interests of 3M or a 3M business unit.
With your consent. We may disclose your Personal Data with your permission or at your request.
To comply with law or to protect. We may disclose your Personal Data with third parties when we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary:
In the aggregate / de-identified. To the extent permitted by applicable law, 3M may share anonymized, aggregated or de-identified information internally and with third parties for any purpose. Such information will not identify you individually.
3M uses third-party analytics services to better understand how users engage with 3M Internet Sites and Apps, including services provided by Google and Adobe. These third-party analytics companies may collect usage data (using cookies, pixels and similar tools) about our Services in order to provide us with reports and metrics that help us to evaluate usage of our Services and improve performance and user experiences. Please use the following links for more information about how Google and Adobe collect and use data when you visit their partners' websites or apps:
www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/
https://www.adobe.com/privacy/marketing-cloud.html
3M also uses third-party advertising services to provide advertisements for 3M products or services that may be of interest to you when you visit websites or other online services.
We and our service providers and Business Partners may collect information about you by using cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, session replay and other similar automated data collection tracking technologies (collectively, "Cookies"). A Cookie is a bit of data that we can send to your browser when you link to our Website or Apps.
Subject to local law requirements, we may also collect your electronic identification data (obtained by means of cookies, pixel tags, or similar technologies), including personal data about how you access, use and interact with our Services. This may include information such as your IP address, MAC address, mobile device identifier (IDFA or GAID), cookie ID, cookie content, browser type, browsing and click behavior and other activities, purchase information, domain name, referrer-URL, access dates and times, hardware and software information and settings, information about the device you use (e.g., device ID, device type), operating system, language, and approximate location. We also may use pixels in HTML emails to understand if you read the emails we send to you.
Subject to your prior consent (to the extent required), we and our third-party providers use cookies, clear GIFs/pixel tags, JavaScript, local/session storage, log files, and other mechanisms to automatically collect and record information about your browsing activities, and use of the Services. We may combine this “activity information” with other personal data that we collect about you.
Generally, we use this activity information to understand how our Services are used, track bugs and errors, improve our Services, verify account credentials, allow logins, track sessions, prevent fraud, and protect our Services, as well as for targeted marketing and advertising purposes, to personalize content and for analytics purposes.
For more information on the Cookies we use or your choices related to them, please visit our Cookie Notice.
Certain web browsers and other programs may transmit “opt-out” signals, such as the Global Privacy Control (or GPC) signal (“GPC Signal”), to websites with which the browser communicates. For users that access our Websites from U.S. states, we will recognize and apply the GPC Signal to deactivate all of the cookies for that Website, except for cookies that are necessary for the Website to operate (“Strictly Necessary Cookies”). You can determine if your browser GPC Signal has been recognized by clicking on the “Your Privacy Choices” link in the footer of the Website, where you will see the message “You have opted-out” under Manage Preferences.
Note that if you come back to our Websites from a different device or use a different browser on the same device, you will need to enable GPC or set your cookie preferences for each browser and device you use to access our Websites and Services. More information about GPC is available at: https://globalprivacycontrol.org/.
You may use mobile device settings to limit mobile tracking technologies and associated activities. For instance, Android users can visit Google settings > Ads > Reset advertising ID to adjust or reset the advertising identifiers on their mobile device in the device settings. Apple users can go to settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, and turn off “tracking” to limit apps from tracking their activities across apps and websites for targeted advertising.
You may request (i) to access your Personal Data, including the specific pieces of your Personal Data that we maintain, and (ii) that we provide your information in a portable format to you or your authorized representative (i.e., the right to data portability).
You may request to know certain information about the Personal Data that we process about you, including the:
You may request correction of your Personal Data if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
You may request deletion of your Personal Data (i.e., the “right to be forgotten”).
You may object to or restrict our processing of your Personal Data, including to:
You may request de-registration of any account you maintain with us, if applicable.
You or (where permitted by applicable law) your authorized agent may exercise your rights by completing our request form. Before responding to your request, we will first take steps to verify your request by matching the Personal Data you provide to us with the information we have in our records. Your request must provide sufficient information for us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected Personal Data or an authorized representative (e.g., by completing all required fields on our request form. We may, after receiving your request, require additional information from you (or your authorized agent) to honor your request and verify your identity. For more information on how you can exercise the rights available to you in certain jurisdictions, see “Additional Information for Residents of Certain Jurisdictions” below.
Please note that for Personal Data that we process on behalf of a Business Partner, in our capacity as a processor or service provider, we will provide reasonable assistance to that Business Partner as necessary to enable them to respond to your requests to exercise your privacy rights. You should submit your request directly to the relevant Business Partner.
In some jurisdictions, you have the right to approach us or the competent data protection authority or equivalent regulatory body with requests or complaints in the jurisdiction(s) in which you reside, including with respect to cross-border transfers of your data.
If we deny your request to exercise a privacy right, you may request the right to appeal the decision to 3M by contacting us or by submitting your appeal through our request form.
3M operates in many countries. Your Personal Data may be transferred across international borders to other 3M affiliates, or to other companies performing support functions on our behalf (as described in this Statement), located outside of the country where you live. Many of these transfers are to the United States, Costa Rica, Philippines and Poland. Regardless of where your Personal Data is processed, we ensure that the recipient offers an adequate level of protection and security, for instance by entering into the appropriate agreements and, if required, standard contractual clauses or an alternative mechanism for the transfer of data as approved by the European Commission or in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
3M maintains appropriate technical, physical and organizational measures designed to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of your Personal Data. Data protection measures include, but are not limited to, adoption of industry standard encryption tools and access controls.
3M Websites and Apps may contain links to websites or mobile apps that are not operated by us. In addition, our Websites and Apps may include or incorporate plugins, widgets, buttons or similar features which are operated by third-party social media platforms and other third-party networks. We provide these links and plugins as a service solely for your convenience and information. We have no responsibility or liability for, nor any control over, those websites, apps, or social media platforms or their operators’ processing of Personal Data. We encourage you to review the privacy policies for the websites, apps, and social media platforms you visit before using them or providing your Personal Data.
We will retain your Personal Data for as long as reasonably necessary or permitted in light of the purposes for which it was collected, and as described in this Statement or as otherwise disclosed to you at the time of collection. How long we keep your Personal Data varies and may depend on criteria that include:
If Personal Data is either no longer necessary or relevant for the purposes for which it was collected, or no longer required to be retained by applicable laws, then we will take reasonable steps to have it deleted, destroyed, erased, or, if permitted by applicable law, aggregated, made anonymous, or de-identified.
If you have questions about our retention policies, please contact us at privacy_office@mmm.com.
3M’s Websites and Apps are not directed to children under the age of sixteen (16), and we do not knowingly collect Personal Data from anyone under 16. If you believe we have unintentionally collected such information, please notify us as set out in the Questions about this Statement section below.
If you have any questions about this Statement or our use of your Personal Data, please email us at privacy_office@mmm.com or write to us at:
3M Company
Privacy Office
3M Center, 220-9E-01
St. Paul, MN 55144-1000
We reserve the right to modify this Statement at any time. Where required by applicable law, we will seek your consent to any material changes. Any modifications will apply only to the Personal Data we collect after publication of the revised Statement.
You can determine when this Statement was last revised by referring to the Last Revised date set forth below.
Last Revised: November 20, 2024.