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PRIVACY STATEMENT

Last Updated: December 13, 2022

This privacy statement (also referred to as Costco's Privacy Policy) explains our privacy practices for our customers who:

(1) shop in our warehouses all around the world or
(2) use our website www.costco.com.tw and mobile application (collectively, the "Tools")

Costco's Commitment to Privacy
We respect your right to privacy. We collect, process and use your personal information in accordance with the Personal Information Protection Act. We do not sell, rent, share or disclose personal information to third parties without your prior written consent, except in the circumstances described in this Privacy Statement.
In addition, your ability to make informed choices about the uses of your information is important to us. This privacy statement explains our policy regarding the collection, process, use, disclosure and protection of personal information. The links below provide detailed information about our privacy practices:

A. What is Personal Information?
Personal information is information that may directly or indirectly identify an individual. We collect personal information, such as:
  1. Your name, membership number, photo, contact information, the name of your business or employer if you are a business member, or other related information provided by you in your application for membership and your account;
  2. Information about your purchases in Costco, including but not limited to your purchase for any product or service using the Tools or at our warehouse and related information, such as return of products, payment, account records and card number of credit card and debit card and expiry date and card holder's name;
  3. Information about your business, legal and/or family relations related to your membership account;
  4. When you use the Tools, we will automatically collect information such as the site from where you linked to us and information regarding your IP address,device or mobile application;
  5. Investigation, survey, marketing inquiry, reply to your complaint and other information you feedback to us; and
  6. Other information which may identify your identity, or other direct or indirect identifiable information including but not limited to identity of your family, your educational background or experience, work experience, social activities and recreation activities, family condition and athletic activities.
If you are our customers at our Optical or Hearing aid center, personal information includes such information we collect from those sites. In this situation, you are required to give additional consent to our privacy practice and policy.
B. Collection and Processing of Personal Information
We collect and process the personal information that you provide us, such as when you:
  1. sign up for or renew your Costco membership;
  2. use the Tools;
  3. sign up for news or notifications of specials or other promotions on the Tools;
  4. purchase products;
  5. contact us for any reason;
  6. participate in a survey or promotion; or
  7. purchase services.
We may automatically collect some information when you use the Tools, such as your computer's IP address, your device number and operating system, the URL from which you linked to us, your activity on the Tools, the time and date of your visit and your purchases. This information may be collected through the use of "cookies" and web beacons. We also collect or process information through third parties who help us correct our records, prevent fraud, and provide other services. We may combine any of this information with the other personal information we maintain about you. We will maintain and keep your personal information during the time period when you are our member and for a reasonable time period thereafter.
C. Purposes of Collection, Processing and Use of Personal Information by Costco
The personal information we collect, process and use is generally used to process your requests or transactions, provide you with high-quality service, tell you about opportunities we think will be of interest and administer your account, including distribution of our own surveys and publications. For example, we may:
  1. Process your order and payment, and arrange delivery;
  2. Administer your membership account and your membership qualification, such as invoicing, return of products and keeping a record of your purchases;
  3. Alert you about product recalls or safety issues;
  4. Communicate membership opportunities and programs; and
  5. Provide you with promotional information, such as coupons, offers and product recommendations, or information about Member Services ("Promotional Information"). If you prefer not to receive Promotional Information from us, we make it easy for you to let us know. You may contact us at any time to decline Promotional Information (see Your Right and Choice below). Unless you give us a written consent to be willing to receive promotional information, we will not send any electronic promotional information to you.
D. Sharing of Personal Information
We share information in these circumstances:
1. Order Fulfillment
We may provide to a third party information as necessary to fulfill an order you have placed with us. For example, we may provide your address to a shipper, and if you pay by a credit or debit card, your card number and sales transaction information are passed to the card processor and/or issuer (including their service providers such as fraud verification services). However, we give suppliers, and others involved in the distribution chain only the information needed to provide you the products or services you order, and we require them to keep the information confidential and not to use it for other purposes. We are not responsible for any information you provide directly to these parties, and we encourage you to become familiar with their practices before disclosing information directly to them.
2. Member Services
Upon compliance with the law, having entered into a contract with you or obtaining your written consent, we offer special products and services to our members through third parties, such as rebates and other business and consumer services ("Member Services"). We may share your name, postal address, email address and membership status, number and type ("Member Information") with these third parties in order to notify you of their offerings, to determine whether, or at what level, you qualify for the products, offerings or services, and to evaluate new and existing products, offerings or services. If you prefer that we not share Member Information with third parties, you can contact us at any time (see Your Right and Choice below).

We are not responsible for any additional information you provide directly to these parties, and we encourage you to become familiar with their privacy practices and policies before disclosing information to them. Information you provide to third parties, may in turn be shared with us along with information about your use of the services. In some cases, these third parties may require as a condition of providing services to you that you authorize them to share information with us. If we terminate our relationship with a third party, information you provided to them may be returned to us, and we may provide that information to a new third party offering the same or similar services.
3. Our Affiliates and Contractors
Upon compliance with the law, having entered into a contract with you or obtaining your written consent, we may share your personal information with our worldwide Costco affiliates based on the purposes of this Policy. We may also contract with others to perform services on our behalf. For example, we might retain a company to process credit card payments, ship merchandise, distribute emails, process rebates or analyze or maintain and keep data. If any of these service providers need access to your personal information, we require them to use it only to perform the services for us. We also require that they maintain the confidentiality of the information and/or return the information to us when they no longer need it.
4. Primary Account Holder
Each membership account has an individual primary account holder who is authorized to designate and remove add-on members and make other account management decisions. We may disclose Personal Information that relates to activities occurring under the account to the primary account holder in compliance with the laws.
5. Personal information protection for Costco members
Regarding the purpose, scope and geographic area of the usage of member's personal data and scope of business partners that may use the aforesaid data, please see PERSONAL INFORMATION PROTECTION ANNOUNCEMENT.
E. Other Uses and Disclosures
In addition, we may use or disclose personal information in the good faith belief that we are lawfully authorized to do so, or that doing so is reasonably necessary to protect you, to comply with legal process or authorities, to respond to any claims, or to protect the rights, property or personal safety of the Costco Companies, our shoppers, Costco's Members and Subscribers, our employees or the public. Such includes use or disclose personal information to control or investigate fraud. Information about our Members, including personal information, may be disclosed or transferred as part of, or during negotiations of, any merger or sale of company assets or acquisition.
F. Processing and use of Personal Information and time period, area, object and methods
We, our affiliates and/or any third party who are retained by us may collect, process and/or use personal information during any time period of continuance of existence of Costco Taiwan and in any area (including but not limited to within or out of the territory of Republic of China and at any other site where related business is operated). Besides, personal information may be collected, processed, used and disclosed by electronic or non-electronic methods; provided however that all such methods shall be in compliance with this Privacy Statement and the laws of Republic of China (including the Personal Information Protection Act.)

You agree that we may regard your specific actions – such as viewing your inbox to receive the latest emails, or send email directly to us or through the Tools, or provide your e-mail address in a text message for the customer service department to answer questions about your account – as requesting us to convey personal information or medical information to you through encrypted emails.
G. Protection of Personal and Credit Card Information
We have physical, administrative and technical security measures in place to protect personal information from loss, misuse or alteration while it is under our control. We are required to collect, process and maintain payment card information in accordance with the data security rules adopted by credit card companies such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express. This means that we do not retain debit card PINs or credit card security codes, and that any time we maintain a credit card number, such as when you create an online account, we must limit access to it and use strong encryption to protect it.

Online account information is accessible only by using a password. You must keep your password confidential. You are responsible for all uses of the Tools by anyone using your password. Please advise us immediately if you believe your password has been misused.
H. Your Right and Choice
You may not be able to enjoy all complete rights and interests of Costco membership if you fail to provide information to us, fail to keep information correct, or disagree with our specific use of information. For your personal information, you have statutory rights to check and review the information, make duplications, correct and amended such information, and ask us to delete, stop collecting, processing, using or sharing information unless your enforcement of such rights will be detriment to us and/or our affiliates to perform our statutory obligations or we have no longer keep such personal information due to expiry of statutory maintenance obligation. We may charge you necessary fees thereof.
I. Questions or Concerns
If you would like to (1) check, review, supplement, correct or make duplication of your information; (2) ask us to stop collecting, processing and/or using your information for any purpose; (3) asked us to delete your information, or (4) have any question or concern to this Statement, you may contact us by the following ways:
  1. Email us at memberservice@costco.com.tw
  2. Call Customer Service direct line: 449-9909 (local calls please dial without the area code, mobile calls please dial 02 in front of the number.)

We will update this Privacy Notice when necessary to reflect changes in our Services, how we use personal information, or the applicable law. When we post changes to this Privacy Notice, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of the Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to the Privacy Notice, we will provide notice or obtain consent regarding such changes as may be required by law.