Next Generation Logistics (NGL)
Privacy Statement
Last Updated: April 2024
NGL collects data from you, through our interactions with you and through our products for a variety of purposes described below, including to operate effectively, and providing you with the best experiences with our products. You provide some of this data directly, such as when you create a NGL account, administer your organization’s licensing account, or contact us for support. We get some of it by collecting data about your interactions, use, and experience with our products and communications.
We rely on a variety of legal reasons and permissions (sometimes called “legal bases”) to process data, including with your consent, a balancing of legitimate interests, necessity to enter into and perform contracts, and compliance with legal obligations, for a variety of purposes described below.
We also obtain data from third parties. We protect data obtained from third parties according to the practices described in this statement, plus any additional restrictions imposed by the source of the data. These third-party sources vary over time and include:
Data brokers from which we purchase demographic data to supplement the data we collect.
Services that make user-generated content from their service available to others, such as local business reviews or public social media posts.
Communication services, including email providers and social networks, when you give us permission to access your data on such third-party services or networks.
Service providers that help us determine your device’s location.
Partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities.
Developers who create experiences through or for NGL products.
Third parties that deliver experiences through NGL products.
Publicly available sources, such as open public sector, academic, and commercial data sets and other data sources.
You have choices when it comes to the technology you use and the data you share. When you are asked to provide personal data, you can decline. Many of our products require some personal data to operate and provide you with a service. If you choose not to provide data required to operate and provide you with a product or feature, you cannot use that product or feature. Likewise, where we need to collect personal data by law or to enter into or carry out a contract with you, and you do not provide the data, we will not be able to enter into the contract; or if this relates to an existing product you’re using, we may have to suspend or cancel it. We will notify you if this is the case at the time. Where providing the data is optional, and you choose not to share personal data, features like personalization that use the data will not work for you.
The data we collect depends on the context of your interactions with NGL and the choices you make (including your privacy settings), the products and features you use, your location, and applicable law.
The data we collect can include the following:
Name and contact data. Your first and last names, email address, postal address, phone number and other similar contact data.
Credentials. Passwords, password hints, and similar security information are used for authentication and account access.
Demographic data. Data about you such as your age, gender, country, and preferred language.
Payment data. Data to process payments, such as your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number) and the security code associated with your payment instrument.
Subscription and licensing data. Information about your subscriptions, licences, and other entitlements.
Interactions. Data about your use of NGL products. In some cases, such as search queries, this is data you provide in order to make use of the products. In other cases, such as error reports, this is data we generate. Other examples of interactions data include:
Device and usage data. Data about your device and the product and features you use, including information about your hardware and software, how our products perform, as well as your settings. For example:
Payment and account history. Data about the items you purchase, and activities associated with your account.
Browse history. Data about the webpages you visit.
Device, connectivity, and configuration data. Data about your device, your device configuration, and nearby networks. For example, data about the operating systems and other software installed on your device, including product keys. In addition, IP address, device identifiers (such as the IMEI number for phones), regional and language settings, and information about WLAN access points near your device.
Error reports and performance data. Data about the performance of the products and any problems you experience, including error reports. Error reports (sometimes called “crash dumps”) can include details of the software or hardware related to an error, contents of files opened when an error occurred, and data about other software on your device.
Troubleshooting and help data. Data you provide when you contact NGL for help, such as the products you use, and other details that help us provide support. For example, contact or authentication data, the content of your chats and other communications with NGL, data about the condition of your device, and the products you use related to your help enquiry. When you contact us, such as for customer support, phone conversations or chat sessions with our representatives may be monitored and recorded.
Bot usage data. Interactions with bots and skills available through NGL products, including bots and skills provided by third parties.
Interests and favrites. Data about your interests and favourites, such as the sports teams you follow, the programming languages you prefer, the stocks you track or cities you add to track things like weather or traffic. In addition to those you explicitly provide, your interests and favourites can also be inferred or derived from other data we collect.
Content consumption data. Information about media content (e.g., TV, video, music, audio, text books, apps, and games) you access through our products.
Searches and commands. Search queries and commands when you use NGL products with search or related productivity functionality, such as interactions with a chat bot.
Voice data. Your voice data, sometimes referred to as “voice clips”, such as search queries, commands, or dictation you speak, which may include background sounds.
Text, inking, and typing data. Text, inking, and typing data and related information. For example, when we collect inking data, we collect information about the placement of your inking instrument on your device.
Images. Images and related information, such as picture metadata. For example, we collect the image you provide when you use a Bing image-enabled service.
Contacts and relationships. Data about your contacts and relationships if you use a product to share information with others, manage contacts, communicate with others, or improve your productivity.
Social data. Information about your relationships and interactions between you, other people, and organisations, such as types of engagement (e.g. likes, dislikes, events, etc.) related to people and organisations.
Location data. Data about your device’s location, which can be either precise or imprecise. For example, we collect location data using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) (e.g., GPS) and data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. Location can also be inferred from a device’s IP address or data in your account profile that indicates where it is located with less precision, such as at a city or postcode level.
Other input. Other inputs are provided when you use our products. For example, data such as the buttons you press on an Xbox wireless controller using the Xbox network, skeletal tracking data when you use Kinect, and other sensor data, like the number of steps you take, when you use devices that have applicable sensors. And, if you use Spend, at your direction, we also collect financial transaction data from your credit card issuer to provide the service. If you attend an in-store event, we collect the data you provide to us when registering for or during the event and if you enter into a prize promotion, we collect the data you input into the entry form.
Content. Content of your files and communications you input, upload, receive, create, and control. For example, if you transmit a file using Skype to another Skype user, we need to collect the content of that file to display it to you and the other user. If you receive an email using Outlook.com, we need to collect the content of that email to deliver it to your inbox, display it to you, enable you to reply to it, and store it for you until you choose to delete it. Other content we collect when providing products to you include:
Communications, including audio, video, text (typed, inked, dictated, or otherwise), in a message, email, call, meeting request, or chat.
Photos, images, songs, movies, software, and other media or documents you store, retrieve, or otherwise process with our cloud.
Video or recordings. Recordings of events and activities at NGL buildings, retail spaces, and other locations. If you enter NGL Store locations or other facilities, or attend a NGL event that is recorded, we may process your image and voice data.
Feedback and ratings. Information you provide to us and the content of messages you send to us, such as feedback, survey data, and product reviews you write.
Traffic data. Data generated through your use of NGL’s communications services. Traffic data indicates with whom you have communicated and when your communications occurred. We will process your traffic data only as required to provide, maintain, and improve our communications services and we do so with your consent.
Product-specific sections below describe data collection practices applicable to the use of those products.
How we use personal data
NGL uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to:
Provide our products, which includes updating, securing, and troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also includes sharing data when it is required to provide the service or carry out the transactions you request.
Improve and develop our products.
Personalize our products and make recommendations.
Advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising, and presenting you relevant offers.
We also use the data to operate our business, which includes analyzing our performance, meeting our legal obligations, developing our workforce, and doing research.
For these purposes, we combine data we collect from different contexts (for example, from your use of two NGL products). For example, Cortana may use information from your calendar to suggest action items in a heads-up email, and NGL Store uses information about the apps and services you use to make personalized app recommendations. However, we have built in technological and procedural safeguards designed to prevent certain data combinations where required by law. For example, where required by law, we store data we collect from you when you are unauthenticated (not signed in) separately from any account information that directly identifies you, such as your name, email address, or phone number.
Our processing of personal data for these purposes includes both automated and manual (human) methods of processing. Our automated methods often are related to and supported by our manual methods. For example, to build, train, and improve the accuracy of our automated methods of processing (including artificial intelligence or AI), we manually review some of the predictions and inferences produced by the automated methods against the underlying data from which the predictions and inferences were made. For instance, with your permission and for the purpose of improving our speech recognition technologies, we manually review short snippets of voice data that we have taken steps to de-identify. This manual review may be conducted by NGL employees or vendors who are working on NGL’s behalf.
More on the purposes of processing:
Provide our products. We use data to operate our products and provide you with rich, interactive experiences. For example, if you use OneDrive, we process the documents you upload to OneDrive to enable you to retrieve, delete, edit, forward, or otherwise process it, at your direction as part of the service. Or, for example, if you enter a search query in the Bing search engine, we use that query to display search results to you. Additionally, as communications are a feature of various products, programs, and activities, we use data to contact you. For example, we may contact you by phone or email or other means to inform you when a subscription is ending or discuss your licensing account. We also communicate with you to secure our products, for example by letting you know when product updates are available.
Product improvement. We use data to continually improve our products, including adding new features or capabilities. For example, we use error reports to improve security features, search queries and clicks in Bing to improve the relevancy of the search results, usage data to determine what new features to prioritize, and voice data to develop and improve speech recognition accuracy.
Personalization. Many products include personalized features, such as recommendations that enhance your productivity and enjoyment. These features use automated processes to tailor your product experiences based on the data we have about you, such as inferences we make about you and your use of the product, activities, interests, and location. For example, depending on your settings, if you stream movies in a browser on your Windows device, you may see a recommendation for an app from the NGL Store that streams more efficiently. If you have a NGL account, with your permission, we can sync your settings on several devices. Many of our products provide controls to disable personalized features.
Product activation. We use data—such as device and application type, location, and unique device, application, network, and subscription identifiers—to activate products that require activation.
Product development. We use data to develop new products. For example, we use data, often de-identified, to better understand our customers’ computing and productivity needs which can shape the development of new products.
Customer support. We use data to troubleshoot and diagnose product problems, repair customers’ devices, and provide other customer care and support services, including to help us provide, improve, and secure the quality of our products, services, and training, and to investigate security incidents. Call recording data may also be used to authenticate or identify you based on your voice to enable NGL to provide support services and investigate security incidents.
Help secure and troubleshoot. We use data to help secure and troubleshoot our products. This includes using data to protect the security and safety of our products and customers, detecting malware and malicious activities, troubleshooting performance and compatibility issues to help customers get the most out of their experiences, and notifying customers of updates to our products. This may include using automated systems to detect security and safety issues.
Safety. We use data to protect the safety of our products and our customers. Our security features and products can disrupt the operation of malicious software and notify users if malicious software is found on their devices. For example, some of our products, such as Outlook.com or OneDrive, systematically scan content in an automated manner to identify suspected spam, viruses, abusive actions, or URLs that have been flagged as fraud, phishing, or malware links; and we reserve the right to block delivery of a communication or remove content if it violates our terms. In accordance with European Union Regulation (EU) 2021/1232, we have invoked the derogation permitted by that Regulation from Articles 5(1) and 6(1) of EU Directive 2002/58/EC. We use scanning technologies to create digital signatures (known as “hashes”) of certain images and video content on our systems. These technologies then compare the hashes they generate with hashes of reported child sexual exploitation and abuse imagery (known as a “hash set”), in a process called “hash matching”. NGL obtains hash sets from organisations that act in the public interest against child sex abuse. This can result in sharing information with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and law enforcement authorities.
Updates. We use data we collect to develop product updates and security patches. For example, we may use information about your device’s capabilities, such as available memory, to provide you a software update or security patch. Updates and patches are intended to maximise your experience with our products, help you protect the privacy and security of your data, provide new features, and evaluate whether your device is ready to process such updates.
Promotional communications. We use data we collect to deliver promotional communications. You can sign up for email subscriptions and choose whether you wish to receive promotional communications from NGL by email, SMS, physical mail and telephone. For information about managing your contact data, email subscriptions, and promotional communications, see the How to access and control your personal data section of this privacy statement.
Relevant offers. NGL uses data to provide you with relevant and valuable information regarding our products. We analyse data from a variety of sources to predict the information that will be most interesting and relevant to you and deliver such information to you in a variety of ways. For example, we may predict your interest in gaming and communicate with you about new games you may like.
Advertising. NGL does not use what you say in email, human-to-human chat, video calls, or voicemail, or your documents, photos, or other personal files to target ads to you. We use data we collect through our interactions with you, through some of our first-party products, services, apps, and web properties (NGL properties), and on third-party web properties, for advertising on our NGL properties and on third-party properties. We may use automated processes to help make advertising more relevant to you. For more information about how your data is used for advertising, see the Advertising section of this privacy statement.
Prize promotions and events. We use your data to administer prize promotions and events available in our physical NGL Stores. For example, if you enter into a prize promotion, we may use your data to select a winner and provide the prize to you if you win. Or, if you register for a coding workshop or gaming event, we will add your name to the list of expected attendees.
Transacting commerce. We use data to carry out your transactions with us. For example, we process payment information to provide customers with product subscriptions and use contact information to deliver goods purchased from the NGL Store.
Reporting and business operations. We use data to analyse our operations and perform business intelligence. This enables us to make informed decisions and report on the performance of our business.
Protecting rights and property. We use data to detect and prevent fraud, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and protect our property. For example, we use data to confirm the validity of software licences to reduce piracy. We may use automated processes to detect and prevent activities that violate our rights and the rights of others, such as fraud.
Legal compliance. We process data to comply with law. For example, we use the age of our customers to assist us in meeting our obligations to protect children’s privacy. We also process contact information and credentials to help customers exercise their data protection rights.
Research. With appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard individuals’ rights and freedoms, we use data to conduct research, including for public interest and scientific purposes.
Reasons we share personal data
We share your personal data with your consent or as necessary to complete any transaction or provide any product you have requested or authorized. For example, we share your content with third parties when you tell us to do so, such as when you send an email to a friend, share photos and documents on OneDrive, or link accounts with another service. If you use a NGL product provided by an organization you are affiliated with, such as an employer or school, or use an email address provided by such organization to access NGL products, we share certain data, such as interaction data and diagnostic data to enable your organization to manage the products. When you provide payment data to make a purchase, we will share payment data with banks and other entities that process payment transactions or provide other financial services, and for fraud prevention and credit risk reduction. Additionally, when you save a payment method (such as a card) to your account that you and other NGL account holders use to make purchases from NGL or its affiliates, your purchase receipts may be shared with anyone else who uses and has access to the same payment method to make a purchase from NGL, including the payment method’s named accountholder. When you permit push notifications for NGL products or applications on a non-Windows device, the operating system of that device will process some personal data to provide push notifications. Accordingly, NGL may send data to an external, third-party notification provider to deliver push notifications. Your device’s push notification services are governed by their own service-specific terms and privacy statements.
In addition, we share personal data among NGL-controlled affiliates and subsidiaries. We also share personal data with vendors or agents working on our behalf for the purposes described in this statement. For example, companies we've hired to provide customer service support or assist in protecting and securing our systems and services may need access to personal data to provide those functions. In such cases, these companies must abide by our data privacy and security requirements and are not allowed to use personal data they receive from us for any other purpose. We may also disclose personal data as part of a corporate transaction such as a merger or sale of assets.
Finally, we will retain, access, transfer, disclose, and preserve personal data, including your content, when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to do any of the following:
Comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies.
Protect our customers, for example, to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of our products, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone.
Operate and maintain the security of our products, including to prevent or stopping an attack on our computer systems or networks.
Protect the rights or property of NGL, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services—however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of NGL, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.
Please note that some of our products include links to or otherwise enable you to access products of third parties whose privacy practices differ from those of NGL. If you provide personal data to any of those products, your data is governed by their privacy policies.
How to access and control your personal data
You can also make choices about the collection and use of your data by NGL. You can control your personal data that NGL has obtained, and exercise your data protection rights, by contacting NGL or using various tools we provide. In some cases, your ability to access or control your personal data will be limited, as required, or permitted by applicable law.
Categories of Personal Data
While the bulleted list above contains the primary sources and purposes of processing for each category of personal data, we also collect personal data from the sources listed.
Next Generation Logistics, Inc.
1611 Colonial Parkway
Invernesss, IL 60067
+1 847-963-0007
Next Generation Logistics, Inc.
1611 Colonial Parkway, Inverness, Illinois 60067, United States