Privacy Policy

Introduction and who we are

The Privacy Policy is issued on behalf by Shanghai SinoExpo Informa Markets International Exhibitions Company Limited, a joint-venture company between Informa Markets Asia Group Limited and Shanghai Sinoexpo International Co. Ltd.  In this Privacy Policy where “the organisers”, "we", "us" or "our" appears, it refers to Shanghai SinoExpo Informa Markets International Exhibitions Company Limited. This Policy is written in both Chinese and English, and both languages have the same effect. If there is any inconsistency between the English and Chinese versions, the Chinese version shall prevail.

We take the matters related to personal information seriously and are committed to handling the personal information of all those we engage with, whether customers, visitor, suppliers, colleagues, exhibitor or any other groups, responsibly and in a way that meets the legal requirements of China.

As part of using our products and services, browsing our websites and WeChat mini-programs, and contacting the business, data and information is collected. This Privacy Policy sets out our approach to safeguarding and maintaining that personal information, and explains what data is collected, how it is used, the legal basis for its use, and the rights individuals have over that data.

What we collect 

This section tells you what personal information we may collect when you use our products and services, and what other personal information we may receive from other sources. 

In this Privacy Policy, the term ‘personal information’ refers to the types of personal information that may be collected and used, including:

• Contact details, such as name, email address, postal address and telephone number
• Educational, nationality and professional information
• Demographic information such as gender and birth date
• Usernames and passwords
• Payment information, such as a credit or debit card number or bank account details
• Device information related to the security of ordersand other necessary information required by anti-money laundering regulations;
• Comments, feedback, ratings, posts and other content submitted, including survey information
• Interests and communication preferences including marketing permissions where appropriate
• Rough location information such as provided through website or WeChat mini-programs
• Images, including photographs and video footage, for example via CCTV or cameras in our mobile apps, or where we require a photograph on an event badge for security purposes
• Identity verifying information such as passport details to comply with legal obligations in certain countries and to provide visa invitation letters where requested 
• IP address, Website, WeChat mini-programsand communication usage information, such as correspondence and details of your use of our website and services obtained through cookies or other tracking technologies.
• Name of hotel when attending one of our events.

This personal information relates to the following categories of people:

• Prospects, customer contacts, subscribers and users in respect of our services and products;
• Visitors, sponsors, exhibitors and speakers at our events;
• Contacts of our service providers and business partners

We may collect this information directly from you when you register for an event or engage with our services and/or platforms. We may also collect this information from third party partners and public sources to the extent permitted by applicable data protection law in China. In some cases, the data we collect from third parties is provided in a de-identified form and we are only able to connect it to you, if, and when you enter your mobile phone number on one of our sites.

Sensitive personal information

Sensitive personal information refers to personal information that, if leaked or used illegally, may easily lead to an infringement upon the human dignity of a natural person or endangerment of the safety of his/her body or property, including biometric, religious beliefs, specific identity, medical and health care, financial accounts, whereabouts and other information, as well as the personal information of minors under 14 years of age.

If collecting or storing sensitive personal information, such as information relating to health and financial details, we will typically ask for your explicit and separate consent. However, there are some limited situations where this will not occur such as if you have an accident. If this does occur, we will ensure your privacy rights are protected.

During in-person events in Mainland China, we may collect your Personal identity numbers and scanned copy of the identity documents, to fulfil legal obligations such as epidemic prevention and public security management. We may retain this information for the time necessary and within the retention period stipulated by laws and administrative regulations. We may also share that information with government authorities

If you are registering as a merchant or other roles which required additional identity authentication, on our websites and WeChat mini-program, we may collect financial accounts information, such as data necessary for processing payments and fraud prevention, including credit/debit card numbers, security code numbers and other related billing information.

If you are registering for any of our in-person events as a visitor via online registration site or WeChat mini-program, we may collect your precise location to Identify or authenticate users and for access control purposes.

Children’s personal information
Our services and products are directed at business professionals. They are not intended for children under the age of sixteen. We do not knowingly collect personal information from users in this age group and reserve the right to delete such information if we become aware of having collected it. 

How and why personal information is used 

This section explains how and why we use personal information.

In product enquiries, sales and administration

If you have made an enquiry about us or our products or services, either online or over the phone, your personal information will be used to respond to the enquiry or to take other steps at your request, prior to you entering into a contract with us.

If you have purchased or registered for one of our products or services, including on a trial basis, we will use your personal information, including bank or card details, to provide you with the product or service, communicate with you about it, handle payments and recover any debts.

In call monitoring for training and quality monitoring purposes

Where one of our sales representatives speaks to you over the phone, the calls may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

For event and exhibition management

If you participate in one of our events as a speaker, sponsor, exhibitor or attendee, your personal information will be used in connection with the running of the event, to handle payments and recover debts, and to carry out logistic, and analytics activities, to ensure our events run smoothly and so that we can offer an improved experience for our customers.

We will also use your personal information to maintain databases that allow us to assess your qualities as a speaker or sponsor/exhibitor, promote events and encourage further engagement at our events. 

Where we have your consent to do so, we may share your personal information with exhibitors at the event you are going to attend, so that they can contact you in advance and arrange to meet with you during the event.

In addition, photos and videos are taken at our events, which may feature attendees, speakers, sponsors or exhibitors. Where we have taken photos and videos at our events that feature you as an attendee, sponsor or exhibitor, to the extent permitted by applicable data protection laws, those photos and videos may be used for promotional purposes. Third parties may also take photographs at our events, for example to maintain a record of stands or exhibitors they have visited. We are not responsible for the collection or use of images taken by third parties.

Where events and exhibitions use badge scanning technology your personal information will be used to identify you at certain access points, such as to VIP areas, seminars, entry and exit and other areas of the event. This will provide certain location information. Badges or visitor registration QR code cannot be read remotely.

The personal information obtained from badge scanning will be used for access control, security and analysing visitor traffic with a view to improving the event experience for visitors and others. 

You can also allow your badge or visitor registration QR code to be scanned by event exhibitors. When you do so your contact details will be shared with the relevant exhibitor and used in accordance with applicable data protection laws, the exhibitor’s privacy policy and any other notices or consents you are provided with or given at the event.

Where we are hosting and managing a virtual exhibition or event the organisers (and any third party platform provider acting on our behalf) will use your personal information provided during the registration process to host and manage this digital event and for analysing visitor interactions and traffic with a view to improving the event experience for visitors and provide you with a personalized experience.

When you entering a virtual spaces, zone or room such as an exhibition booth your personal information may be shared with the sponsor and exhibitor to allow them to engage with you subject to the privacy notice and visitor rules and regulations you may have been provided during the registration and login process.

For marketing 

The relevant service providers we engaged may use your personal information to send you newsletters, offers or other marketing emails that keep you up to date with our news, events and products that may be of interest. Depending on the nature of your interaction with us and applicable data protection laws, you may have actively given us your consent (i.e. opted in) or we may be entitled to rely on your consent to this Privacy Policy to market to you. The opportunity to opt out of future marketing will always be provided and you have the right to amend your marketing preferences at any time (see Your Rights section). 

In some circumstances, where we have a lawful basis and you have provided your mobile telephone number, we may send marketing SMS/text messages or call you for marketing purposes, in accordance with applicable local laws. We may also send postal mailings with information on new products and events, where we have a lawful basis to do so and you have provided us with your postal address.

Some of our events, products and marketing services are co-branded or sponsored by third party exhibitors or sponsors. We may share your details with these third-party partners. Where this happens, a clear notice will be provided that gives the opportunity to opt out or opt-in to such sharing as required by applicable data protection laws. The third-party partner’s use of your details will be in accordance with the notice provided and its Privacy Policy and is not covered by this Privacy Policy.

For customer and prospects management (including analytics and product management)

We will combine the personal information that they collect from you, including much of the information in the “what we collect” section above, with personal data collected from certain trusted third party sources and use this information to create profiles in order to determine your/your company’s commercial interests.

For example, we will collate the information you provide as part of your registration for events, information you generate in connection with your attendance at events, information obtained by us using first party cookies and tracking technology on our websites and WeChat Mini-program and certain information we obtain from third parties (such as data providers) to analyse, segment and determine which marketing segments you fall within.

This information can then be used by, or for the benefit of, our clients in different ways as part of our marketing service offering to enable these clients to undertake tailored and targeted advertising campaigns. Our clients can present individuals with information about products and services that our clients think will be of interest to them via various channels based on the marketing segments we have developed and allocated individuals to. In many cases these advertising campaigns are run by us on behalf of clients without us ever sharing any personal data with the relevant clients (including via marketing emails, and social media channels and our advertising partners who facilitate advertising on third party sites). In other cases, we may provide to clients information that the client is unable to use to identify you in order for them to instigate their own marketing campaigns. In all cases, our activities are undertaken to the extent permitted by applicable law. These activities are undertaken based on individuals’ marketing consents. Therefore, if you have exercised your rights to opt out of email marketing, you will not be marketed to in connection with the marketing services we provide to clients via any channel.

The activities that we, and our third party partners, undertake may entail analysing or predicting behaviours and preferences (e.g. interests in certain content, services and/or at events). The analytics will identify companies and individuals with similar characteristics to companies and individuals that we know are interested in certain services, generating a similarity report for those clients. We will then enrich the information we hold about companies and individuals and send advertising to prospects based on this analysis.

In social media

We may use your personal information to undertake advertising campaigns on social media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and Baidu in order to provide information about upcoming events or new products and to ensure you only receive relevant advertising about our products and services. We may share your personal information with social media platforms so that you see advertising about our, or our partners’, products and services that we think you will be interested in when you interact with the relevant social media platform. We may also share your personal information with social media platforms to help us present relevant advertising to individuals who the social media platforms determine are likely to have similar interests to you.

We maintain presences on social media platforms, through our company and brand pages. We collect personal information when you interact with us on social media. Please note that these social media platforms may set cookies and other tracking technologies on your device when you visit their pages and when you navigate from their pages.

The output of such information may be provided to us (usually for statistical purposes to see how users interact with our content on social media platforms). The social media platforms are responsible for how they handle your personal information and information about how these social media platforms collect and use your personal information (and how they use cookies and other technologies, including instructions on how you can disable these) can usually be found in their respective privacy policies and cookies policies on their respective websites. For customer and prospects management (including analytics and product management)

For website analytics

We may combine visitor session information or other information collected through tracking technologies, whether you are logged in or not, with personally identifiable information to understand and analyse your online experiences and determine which events, products and services are likely to be of interest to you.

Our marketing related emails contain a single, campaign-unique “web beacon pixel” to tell us whether emails are opened, and combined with other technology, to verify any clicks through to links within the email. We may use this information for purposes including determining which emails are of more interest to you and to query whether users who do not open our emails wish to continue receiving them. The pixel will be deleted when you delete the email. 

Where you subscribe to an online service, the accompanying emails similarly include a pixel. We track interaction with these emails and our online services to validate attendance for accreditation purposes, to help determine which information is of interest to you and to customise the advertisements seen on our sites.

If you do not wish the pixel to be downloaded to your device, you should choose not to click links that we send or to opt out of email marketing or online events. This information may be connected to your personal identity.

While we strive to offer choice when using our website and WeChat Mini-program, we do not promise that we will be able to receive or honour web browser Do Not Track signals.

Within online membership communities, bulletin boards and chat areas (including WeChat groups)

You may choose to participate in WeChat groups organized by our Enterprise WeChat account and online membership communities on our sites that allow you to create and publish a profile and other personal information. These communities may provide privacy controls that allow choice in how much of your profile and other information to make public or to share with others within the community.

Privacy controls are usually found on the page on which you edit your profile, and each individual is responsible for understanding how those controls work, including default settings, and choosing how the information provided is shared and protected. By participating in these WeChat groups and online membership communities you may be contacted by other participants using the information provided.

When you disclose personal information on any public community boards, WeChat groups or chat areas of this website, your personal information can be collected and used by anyone who views that board, WeChat group or area. This may result in unsolicited messages from other participants or other parties, which are outside of our control or responsibility. In addition, the information you disclose may include your or others' personal information or even sensitive personal information. Please exercise extra caution when sharing or disclosing relevant information when using our services.

Where you engage with us in customer enquiry chat areas or WeChat groups, we will use any information provided to help recommend products and/or assist with confirming any order you wish to place.

For enquiries and complaints

Any personal information provided on the Contact Us page will be used only to provide a response or to service the request or enquiry made. The information provided will not be added to the marketing or customer prospect databases of our operating divisions.

For fulfilling legal obligations including anti-fraud measures and screening

If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified or suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies and may be recorded by us or by them.

To ensure we comply with international trade sanction laws and regulations, where appropriate customers, vendors and suppliers are screened against applicable sanctions lists.

We may also collect categories of personal information required by local law in order to obtain an event licence or to respond to queries or requests made by China law enforcement

How we protect personal information 

We recognise the importance of protecting and managing personal information. Any personal information provided will be treated with the utmost care and security. This section sets out some of the security measures in place.  

We use a variety of physical and technical measures to keep personal information safe and prevent unauthorised access to, or use or disclosure of it.  Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems with control over access to information using both physical and electronic means. Our colleagues receive data protection training and there is a set of detailed security and data protection policies which colleagues are required to follow when handling personal information.

While we take all reasonable steps to ensure that personal information will be kept secure from unauthorised access, we cannot guarantee it will be secure during transmission by you to a website or other services, as we do not control that transmission.  We make use of HTTPS (HTTP Secure) whereby the communication protocol is encrypted via Transport Layer Security (TLS) for secure communication over a computer network. The website is loaded via HTTPS, represented by the lock icon in your web browser ensuring the transmission is secured with a certificate issued by an official security certificate authority to the service provider operating it. 

When using our website, platform or WeChat mini-program for transactions, you will may disclose your personal information to potential trading parties, please properly protect your personal information and provide it to others only when it’s necessary.

Cross-border transfer of personal information

In principle, your personal information will be processed within China. However, as a global company, your Personal Information may be provided to Informa affiliates (including companies established outside of China) for global management and business planning purposes.

For example:

• Informa Group Limited, located in 5 Howick Place, London, United Kingdom

For such cross-border transfers, we will obtain your separate consent and meet the requirements and procedures in accordance with applicable Chinese law.

In some cases, we may also use service providers outside of China to assist us in processing your Personal Information. We will take necessary measures in accordance with the law, including but not limited to obtaining your separate consent, entering into standard contractual clauses with overseas recipients to stipulate the rights and obligations of both parties, and ensuring adequate protection for your Personal Information.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or complaints about the cross-border processing of personal information described above, you can contact us or contact overseas recipients through the contact details listed in this Policy.

Cookies 

A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identifier that is automatically placed on a user’s computer or other device when the user visits a website. For more information, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

Third-party links

This website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites and do not accept any liability in connection with their content. We recommend reviewing the privacy policy of each third-party site linked from our website to determine its use of your personal information.

Sharing personal information

To provide you with our services and products, your information may be shared for specific reasons. This section explains how and why personal data is shared.

We will only share your personal information if we have obtained your separate consent as required by China data protection law and regulations or in circumstances where your consent is not required according to laws and regulations.

Sharing with Informa Group companies

As part of the Informa Group, we share your personal information with affiliates within the Group.

If we are sharing personal information with affiliates outside of China, we will also ensure compliance with the requirements and procedures set forth in the "Cross-border Transfer of Personal Information" section. We only share personal information when it is necessary, and within the purposes stated in this policy. If we share your sensitive personal information, we will seek your authorization and consent again.

We will take all reasonable controls to ensure the security of your personal information transmission and processing when it is shared with others as permitted by this Privacy Policy.

Sharing with Service Providers

We may share your personal information with third parties who assist in providing our products and services and administering our business. These include IT and marketing technology host suppliers, web and data hosting providers, mailing houses, ad servers, logistics and general services contractors, debt collection agencies, onsite health and safety partners, event registration partners, sales platform providers, communication tool providers, stand designers/builders/fitters, suppliers of sponsorship/marketing/PR collateral and other event collaboration partners. Personal information will only be shared with third parties if and to the extent it is necessary for them to provide our products and services to you.

We use web chat services including WeChat and WeCom that allow us to connect with you and answer sales and customer services questions quickly and directly. We ensure these service providers protect your data but these chats are intended to provide quick answers to basic service questions only, and you should not provide any sensitive information, such as bank or credit card details in these chats.

In particular, in order to improve the strength and stability of our WeChat (including WeCom) mini-programs, we might embed application program interfaces (APIs) and software tool development kits (SDKs) of authorized partners (including WeChat companies, online banking or third-party payment platforms, etc.). We will conduct security testing on the APIs and SDKs from authorized partners to obtain relevant information and establish data protection agreements which require authorized partners to process personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, as well as this Policy and any other relevant confidentiality and security measures, unless authorized partners obtain your consent separately.

The following table lists the relevant third-party SDKs:

These personal information processors are bound to compliance through contracts in place that protects the personal information you have shared with us.

Sharing with other Personal Information Processors

We may share your personal information with trusted partner organisations for their marketing purposes in accordance with applicable data protection laws and where required, with your permissions. We will inform you of the name of the recipient, contact information, processing purpose, processing method and type of personal information shared. If such sharing is based on consent, we will also obtain your separate consent in accordance with the requirements of relevant laws and regulations.

If you use one of our virtual products, such as a virtual exhibition, directory site or webinar, or choose to allow your badge or your visitor registration QR code to be scanned at an event, we may pass the information you provide to third parties. Generally, this will be via a process whereby you, as the user, visit or interact with a third party such as by visiting a stand at an online exhibition, having your badge or your visitor registration QR code scanned or clicking an asset branded and provided by a third party. In some instances, for example, a product listing site, you may reach out directly to a supplier or exhibitor, who may contact you in return. In other instances, our virtual products are sponsored and, in these cases, the data provided will be given to the sponsor. Generally, we will let you know at the time of collection if a product is sponsored.

We may also share your personal information or business information, if we determine that you have violated laws and regulations or seriously violated the relevant agreements and rules of the platforms you signed up to, to protect the personal and property safety of other users from infringement.

To reorganise or make changes to our business

In the event that we are subject to negotiations for the sale of all or a part of our business to a third party, are sold to a third party or undergo a re-organisation, we may need to transfer some or all of your personal information to the relevant third party or its advisors as part of any due diligence process. We will put reasonable controls on your personal information by signing confidentiality agreements with relevant third-parties.

Any information that is transferred to that re-organised entity or third party and will be used for the same purposes as set out in this policy, or for the purpose of analysing any proposed sale or re-organisation. If the third party changes the original processing purpose and processing method, your consent may be obtained again when it’s necessary.

In connection with legal or regulatory obligations

We may process your personal information to comply with our legal and regulatory requirements or to respond to regulators where applicable. This may include disclosing your personal information to third parties, the court service and/or regulators or law enforcement agencies in connection with enquiries, proceedings or investigations by such parties anywhere in the world or where compelled to do so.

In some circumstances, we may be legally required to disclose your personal information because a court, the police, another judicial or law enforcement body or government entity has asked us for it.

How long information is kept 

We will only retain personal information for as long as is necessary and as permitted by applicable laws. 

We will retain personal information while we are using it, as described in the section above.  We may continue to retain it after we have ceased such uses for certain legitimate business purposes.  For example, if you have opted out of marketing communications from us, we will retain limited details about you to ensure we can honour your opt-out request. We may also continue to retain your personal information to meet our legal requirements or to defend or exercise our legal rights. 

The length of time for which we will retain your personal information will depend on the purposes for which we need to retain it and whether we can achieve these purposes by other means, as well as the volume, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the risks that may arise from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information and applicable legal requirements. After the expiration of the retention period, we will delete or anonymize your relevant personal information unless we obtain your explicit consent.

Your rights 

If you have any questions in relation to our use of your personal information, contact us. Under certain conditions, you (or in limited circumstances, your next of kin) may have the right to require us to:

• Provide you with further details on the use we make of your information
• Provide you with a copy of information that you have provided to us
• Correct or update any inaccuracies in the personal information we hold if the correction does not affect the objectivity and accuracy of the information
• Delete any personal information that we no longer have a lawful ground to use, or if the collection or use of the personal information violates applicable law or our agreement with you
• Change the scope of your consent to our processing of your personal information or withdraw your consent
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another personal information processor
• Cancel your registered account at any time

Please contact us if you would like to exercise any of the above rights. You may find our contact information at the end of this policy.

For security reasons, we may verify your identity before processing your request. After verifying your identity, we will respond to your request in a timely manner and give a reply and reasonable explanation within the time limit stipulated by applicable laws and regulations or inform you of external ways to resolve disputes.

However, we may not be able to respond to your request in some circumstances, such as those in connection with:

-     Our performance of our obligations under laws and regulations;

-     National security, national defence and security;

-     Public safety, public health, or major public interests;

-     Criminal investigations, prosecutions and trials;

-     Evidence of malice or abuse of rights;

-     Protection of the life, property and other major legal rights and interests of you or other individuals;

-     Issues where responding to your request will cause serious damage to the legitimate rights and interests of you or other individuals or organizations;

-     Trade secrets.

In connection with requests for deletion of personal information, due to applicable legal and security technical restrictions, we may not be able to immediately delete the corresponding information from backup systems.  In such cases, we will securely store your personal information and restrict any further processing of it until the backup can be erased or anonymized.

After canceling your account, we will stop providing you with products or services and delete your personal information, except as otherwise stipulated by laws and regulations.

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please send an email to databi-hk@informa.com. We will check your entitlement and respond in most cases within 15 working days.

Updating your information and marketing preferences 

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal information. We try to ensure the personal information held about you is accurate and up-to-date. We will always provide the opportunity to unsubscribe or opt out of future marketing communications.

Information on how to unsubscribe or opt out will be provided on every marketing email we send you.  However, if at any stage you would like to update and/or correct such personal information, or opt-out of future marketing communications, request this by sending an email to databi-hk@informa.com

Contacting us  

For any questions about this Privacy Policy contact:

Personal Information Protection Coordinator 

E-mail: databi-hk@informa.com

We hope we will be able to resolve any privacy concerns you may have. However, you always have the right to complain to the competent court at the registered address of Shanghai SinoExpo Informa Markets International Exhibitions Company Limited or any supervisory authority for data protection law and regulations.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

To keep up with changing legislation, best practice and changes in how we process personal information, we may revise this Privacy Policy at any time by posting a revised version on this website. In the event of any material change to this Privacy Policy, we will provide notice via email or our website or by other means. To stay up to date on any changes, check back periodically. You acknowledge that your continued use of our products or services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to this Privacy Policy means that the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to the updated Privacy Policy, as of its effective date.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on December 26, 2023.