Privacy Policy (EEA and UK)

FIRST PUBLISHED: December 22, 2023

LAST UPDATED: December 22, 2023

We take your privacy seriously. When we process your personal data, we commit ourselves to ensure compliance with applicable personal data protection laws, including the Act on the Protection of Personal Information of Japan (the “APPI”), the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union as applied in the European Economic Area and the said regulation as transposed to and applied as a domestic law in the United Kingdom pursuant to the Data Protection Act 2018 of the said country (the “GDPR”).

This Privacy Policy is intended for our guests from the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, explaining how we collect, use, disclose and/or store your personal data in connection with your visit and use of our website “The Official Nara Travel Guide” (https://www.visitnara.jp/) (the “Website”).

In this Privacy Policy, “we”, "us" and "our" refer to Nara Prefectural Government, Tourism Bureau, Tourism Promotion Division established at 30 Noboriojichou, Nara City, Nara, Japan 630-8501.

We may, from time to time, amend, add to, or delete part of this policy. You can obtain the latest version at the following link: https://www.visitnara.jp/

1. How we collect and use your personal data (Purposes)

When you use our Website, we collect and use the following categories of your personal data for the respective purposes on the respective lawful grounds as described below.

(1) Responding to your inquiries

When you make inquiries to us by using the inquiry form and we response to them, we collect your personal data such as your contact details (e.g., your name, email address, telephone number), what information you requested from us and our response. We do so on the lawful ground that such processing of your personal data is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests, namely serving you by providing you with the information you request from us.

(2) Analysing the Website usage

When you visit the Website and interact with it, we collect your personal data, including your source IP address, browser type/version, device type, operating system/version, the pages viewed, time, your approximate location (countries), the referrer information (what web page you come from) and other technical data about your usage of the Website, including unique identifiers ("Device Identifiers") by which we could identify the web browser you use to access the Website. We refer to the categories of data described above collectively as the “Automatically Collected Data”.

We analyse the Automatically Collected Data to obtain insights about the usage of the Website, including the demographic composition of our audience and the popularity of each page, item, and article. These insights help us provide contents that better fit with the demand from our audience. Such processing of your personal data is based on the lawful ground that it is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interest, namely serving you better by improving the Website. Such processing is by no means aimed at profiling you in order to personalise contents shown to you on the website according to your profile.

(3) Personalising ads by YouTube

We use YouTube (owned by Google) as our video platform on the Website. YouTube hosts and stores our videos on its servers for us. YouTube cookies are placed on your browser when you access pages of the Website with YouTube videos. The YouTube cookies are used to track viewing statistics and assign a unique identifier to your browser on which the video is viewed, enabling YouTube to recognise your browser. This data collected by the YouTube cookies is sent to Google, and Google can use this data to show you relevant advertisements that may be of your interest in other YouTube videos. Google and we only perform such processing upon your prior and specific consent for use of the Targeting Cookies on our cookie banner or cookie settings on the Website. Please refer to 2. Cookies and similar technologies section below for more details. When the Targeting Cookies is turned off, YouTube cookies are not set or are deactivated, and the data is not sent to Google, but you may not be able to play the YouTube videos embedded on our website.

2. Cookies and similar technologies

Certain third parties and we deploy cookies and other similar technologies on the Website, where we use data processing or storing capabilities of your browser or we read data from your browser, in order to collect some of the Automatically Collected Data for the purposes described above. Except where the use of these technologies is strictly necessary to provide you with services you requested, we ask for your prior consent thereto. You can find the full information about how we deploy these technologies here. You can, at any time, withdraw your consent or customise your cookie settings here.

3. Who we share your personal data with

We disclose your personal data to the following third-parties:

(1) Web analytics service provider (e.g., Google Analytics)

We engage web analytics service providers to collect and analyse the Automatically Collected Data and disclose such data to such providers for the purpose (2) above.

(2) YouTube (Google)

Where, based on your consent, we allow YouTube to place cookies on your browser and to collect the data such as viewing statistics and a unique identifier for the purpose (3) above.

(3) Other service providers

We may use third-party service providers to process your personal data for the purpose(s) as described above and disclose your personal data to such providers. They act as processors in the meaning of the GDPR and are bound by contracts with us to process your personal data only on our instruction and only for the purpose designated by us, commit themselves to confidentiality, and have appropriate security measures in place.

(4) Business successors

In the event that we sell or transfer a portion or all of our business, your personal data we have collected may be transferred by us to the purchasing or acquiring entity as part of the transaction. We will continue to ensure the confidentiality of your personal data before such transaction occurs, and after such transaction, we will delete your personal data we have collected as soon as reasonably practicable after such transaction.

(5) Competent public authorities

We may be obliged to disclose your personal data we have collected, as required by law, regulation or order to investigative, judicial or regulatory authorities. We may also be required to disclose your personal data we have collected to competent data protection authorities in order for them to investigate privacy complaints filed by you or any data breach incidents involving your personal data.

(6) Other third parties

Where necessary for the purposes described above, for example, where we need to ask for advice or further information in order to respond to your inquiry, we may disclose your personal data to relevant third parties. Where we find that disclosing your personal data to such third parties is out of your reasonable expectation, we ask for your consent thereto before we do so.

4. How long we use your personal data

We will retain your personal data that we collect for the purpose specified in 1-(1) above (Responding to your inquiries) for 1 year. In regard to the other purposes, we will continue to retain your personal data for as long as necessary for each purpose specified above. When we no longer require your personal data for the purpose, we will destroy them or irreversibly anonymize them so that the processed data could never be used to identify you.

5. International transfer of your personal data

We regularly transfer your personal data as described above to the following entities (the “Recipients”) for the purposes described above, which are located outside of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom:

  • Our analytics service providers (Google Analytics);
  • Other service providers.

Where the Recipients are located in Japan, your personal data is protected in accordance with the APPI. The European Commission and the United Kingdom have decided that Japan ensure an adequate level of data protection (the “Adequacy Decisions”) and that personal data can be lawfully transferred to Japan without requiring any specific authorisation.

Where we need to transfer your personal data to countries or territories that are not covered by the Adequacy Decisions, we will protect your personal data by virtue of data transfer contracts with the concerned Recipients in line with the appropriate standard data protection clauses adopted by the European Union or the United Kingdom depending on where you are located pursuant to the GDPR.

6. Data security

We systematically assess information security risks of the Website, establish and implement appropriate security controls to avoid or mitigate such risks, and periodically review and improve its implementation to ensure effective protection of your personal data.

7. Children’s privacy

We are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations regarding the collection, storage and use of personal data concerning children. The Website is intended for a general audience; it is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under the age of 16. If you are a parent or guardian and are concerned that your child has provided his/her personal data to us without your consent, you should contact us, so that we can immediately destroy such data.

8. Sensitive personal data

We usually do not collect or use sensitive personal data as defined in Article 9 and 10 of the GDPR. Where we collect and use sensitive categories of your personal data, we will obtain your prior and explicit consent thereto, unless we are required to do so in order to perform our statutory obligations or to protect vital interest of you or another person in emergency.

9. Your legal rights

Provided that certain conditions are met, you have legal rights to request from us the following:

  • Access to your personal data and to certain supplementary information covered by this policy;
  • Correction of your personal data if inaccurate or incomplete;
  • Erasure of your personal data;
  • Suspension of using your personal data;
  • Stopping processing your personal data; and
  • Obtaining your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and computer-readable format; and
  • Withdraw your consent you have previously given to us at any time.

If you wish to exercise your right, please contact us.

10. Complaint

You can lodge complaints about how we process your personal data with data protection supervisory authorities. You can find your local supervisory authority at the following link:
https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en

11. Our contact

If you have any privacy concern, complaint or inquiry, or if you wish to exercise your legal rights, please contact us by submitting the inquiry form.