Last Updated: December 2022
Willis Towers Watson (collectively, “we,” “us”,” or “WTW”) operate worldwide through subsidiary and affiliate companies. We are committed to privacy and to transparency in our information practices. In this privacy notice, we describe our collection, use, disclosure and processing of personal information that we collect online via our websites, as well as related to our products and services.
This privacy notice describes, generally, how Willis Towers Watson, in our capacity as a “controller” or a “business” or a “responsible party” under applicable laws, handles and processes personal information related to:
Our collection, use and disclosure and processing of personal information about individuals will vary depending upon the circumstances. This privacy notice is intended to describe our overall privacy and data protection practices. In some cases, different or additional notices about our data collection and processing practices may be provided and apply to our processing of certain personal information.
Personal information. In this privacy notice, our use of the term “personal information” includes other similar terms under applicable privacy laws—such as “personal data” and “personally identifiable information.” In general, personal information includes any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated, linked, or linkable with a particular individual.
In South Africa only, “personal information” also includes information of juristic persons, the most common example being a company.
Not covered by this notice. This privacy notice does not apply to job applicants and candidates who apply for employment with us through our job application portal or to our employees and non-employee workers whose personal information is subject to different privacy notices which are provided to such individuals in the context of their employment or working relationship with a Willis Towers Watson group entity.
When providing Services to clients, Willis Towers Watson may act as a “service provider” or “processor” or “operator” under applicable privacy and data protection laws. This means that we may receive or collect your personal information from or on behalf of our client. In this scenario, we will only process personal information on behalf of and subject to the instructions of our clients (who, from a privacy law perspective, are “controllers” or “businesses” or “responsible parties” with respect to the personal information we process on their behalf). In some cases, where we are acting as a “service provider” or “processor” or “operator,” our clients’ privacy notices (and not this one) will apply to and control the processing of personal information. If you have any questions which privacy notice may apply, please contact us as at privacy@wtwco.com.
Where we act in our capacity as a controller or business or responsible party with respect to personal information, for the purposes of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other relevant applicable laws, including but not limited to the Cayman Islands Data Protection Law (“DPL”), this privacy notice will apply, as explained below. Furthermore, Willis Towers Watson plc is the controller unless the processing is controlled by another Willis Towers Watson entity.
Our Websites. The Websites are controlled by Willis Towers Watson plc, unless a Website identifies (in its terms of use or otherwise) that it is controlled by another Willis Towers Watson entity. Willis Towers Watson group companies (as well as individual divisions of Willis Towers Watson) may have their own websites with their own privacy notices, in which case this privacy notice will not apply to such websites unless such website provides a link to this privacy notice.
Websites and specific web pages linked to, or from, www.wtwco.com may be subject to separate terms of use (including separate privacy notices, separate cookies notices and separate cookies preference managers that you can access and review on those websites). The inclusion of a link to a third-party website does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or our affiliates. These third-party websites will be governed by different terms of use (including privacy notices) and you are solely responsible for viewing and using each such website in accordance with the applicable terms of use. Willis Towers Watson is not responsible for how your personal information is handled by such third-party websites.
Services and other activities. With respect to our Services and other business activities, in general, the Willis Towers Watson group company with whom you engage is the controller for your personal information, together with Willis Towers Watson plc, the parent company for the Willis Towers Watson group. (Click here to view the WTW group companies).
Willis Towers Watson is a global company and the data that we collect from you may be transferred to, accessed, processed or stored in, and subject to requests from law enforcement in, jurisdictions outside of your home jurisdiction, including the United States, India, Bermuda, the European Union and other jurisdictions, in which we or our service providers operate. Some of these jurisdictions, including the United States, may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your home jurisdiction. We have established safeguards to protect personal information that is transferred to other countries, including appropriate contractual protections. For more information on the appropriate safeguards in place, please contact us using the details below.
We collect personal information directly from individuals, automatically related to the use of the Services and engagement with our marketing and Websites, and in some cases, from third parties (such as social networks, platform providers, payment processors, and operators of certain third-party services that we use). Generally, we collect your personal information on a voluntary basis. However, if you decline to provide certain personal information that is marked mandatory, you may not be able to access certain services or we may be unable to fully respond to your inquiry.
The personal information that we collect and process will vary depending upon the circumstances. For example, the personal information we may collect through our Websites includes:
We may also collect additional personal information in providing our Services, operating our business, and interacting with individuals in the course of our business, which may at times include “sensitive" information (otherwise known as “special categories of personal information” under the GDPR, “sensitive personal data” under the DPL or “sensitive personal information” under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)), such as health records or criminal conviction data; physical or mental health or condition; medical data; commission, or alleged commission of an offense; any proceedings for an offense committed, or alleged to have been committed. Where required by law, we will provide specific data processing information to you regarding how we may process that data and what rights you may have regarding such processing.
For South Africa only:
Categories of sources of personal information. We may collect personal information directly from you, as well as automatically related to your use of Services and engagement with our marketing and our Websites and other services, as well as from third parties. For example, we collect personal information:
Categories of personal information we collect. While the personal information we collect varies—as explained above—depending upon the nature of the services provided or used and our interactions with individuals, we may collect the following categories of personal information (subject to applicable legal requirements and restrictions):
Certain laws, including the GDPR, require that we inform you of the legal bases for our processing of your personal information. Pursuant to the GDPR (and other relevant laws), we process personal information for the following legal bases:
Purposes for using personal information. While the purposes for which we may process personal information will vary depending upon the circumstances, in general we use personal information for the purposes set forth below. Where GDPR or other relevant laws apply, we have set forth the legal bases for such processing (see above for further explanation of our legal bases) in parenthesis.
Aggregate and de-identified information. We may de-identify personal information and create anonymous and aggregated data sets and reports in order to assess, improve, and develop our business, products, and services, prepare benchmarking reports on our industry, and for other research, marketing and analytics purposes. When we de-identify personal information, we have implemented reasonable measures as required by law to ensure that the de-identified data cannot be associated with any individual or client. We will only maintain and use such data in a de-identified manner and do not attempt to re-identify the data, except as permitted by law.
We disclose the personal information we process as set forth in this section.
A. Purposes for Which We Disclose Personal Information
Willis Towers Watson may disclose your personal information to any Willis Towers Watson group company for the uses and purposes set out above, including for marketing the products and services offered by other businesses across the Willis Towers Watson group (subject to applicable laws). We may also disclose your personal information for the following reasons:
We request those external service providers to implement and apply security safeguards to ensure the privacy and security of your personal information. These third parties have agreed to confidentiality restrictions and to use of any personal information we share with them or which they collect on our behalf solely for the purpose of providing the contracted service to us.
Aggregate and de-identified information. We may share aggregate or de-identified information, which does not identify and is not linked or linkable to a particular individual, with third parties for research, marketing, analytics and other purposes. When we de-identify personal information, we have implemented reasonable measures as required by law to ensure that the de-identified data cannot be associated with any individual or client. We will only maintain and use such data in a de-identified manner and do not attempt to re-identify the data, except as permitted by law.
B. Categories of Personal Information Disclosed
Certain privacy laws (such as the CCPA) require that we disclose the categories of Personal Information that we have disclosed for a business purpose as well as the categories that we have “sold” or “shared” (as those terms are defined under the CCPA or other applicable laws). Please review the descriptions of the categories of personal information under the Personal Information Collected section above, for further descriptions of each category of personal information.
Categories of personal information disclosed for a business purpose. In general, we may disclose the following categories of personal information in support of our business purposes identified above:
We have disclosed the categories of personal information listed above to the following categories of third parties in the preceding twelve months: our clients, advertising networks, data analytics providers, other service providers, other insurance companies, and government entities.
Categories of personal information sold or shared. While we do not disclose personal information to third parties in exchange for monetary compensation from such third parties, we do disclose or make available personal information to third parties, in order to receive certain services or benefits from them, such as when we allow third party tags to collect information such as browsing history on our Websites, in order to improve and measure our ad campaigns. The CCPA defines a “sale” as disclosing or making available to a third party Personal Information in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration, and it defines “share” in pertinent part as disclosing personal information to a third party for cross-context behavioral advertising. Pursuant to the CCPA, the categories of Personal Information that we may “sell” as defined under the CCPA includes:
We have “sold” the categories of personal information listed above to data analytics providers in the preceding twelve months.
We do not “share” personal information with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Our Websites may use first party and third-party cookies, pixel tags, plugins and other tools to gather device, usage and browsing information when users visit our Websites or use our online services. For instance, when you visit our Websites, our server may record your IP address (and associated location information) and other information such as the type of your internet browser, your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (Windows or Macintosh), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, and the pages you view and links you click on our Websites, as well as date and time stamps associated with your activities on our Websites.
We use the information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to personalize and improve your experience while using the Websites, to improve and measure our advertising campaigns and to better reach users with relevant advertising both on our Websites and on third party websites. We also gather statistical information about use of the Websites in order to continually improve their design and functionality, understand how they are used and assist us with resolving questions regarding them. Our Cookie Notice contains further information about our use of cookies. You can manage how your preferences regarding cookies are set by this Website, using our cookie preference manager. If you have reached this Privacy Notice from a website other than our Homepage, please go back and use the cookie preference manager on that website to set your cookie preferences for that website.
Cookies. Cookies are small text files that a website transfers to your computer or other device to store and sometimes collect information about your usage of websites, such as time spent on the websites, pages visited, language preferences, and other anonymous traffic data. You can control the way in which cookies are used by altering your browser settings. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to reject cookies. However, if you select such a setting, this may affect the functioning of our Websites. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you access or log on to our Websites. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. For more information about the use of cookies on our Websites and your choices regarding the placement of cookies, please see our Cookie Notice. If you have reached this Privacy Notice from a website other than our Homepage, please go back and review the Cookie Notice on that website to understand how cookies are used on that website.
Pixel tags and other similar technologies. Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) may be used in connection with some Websites to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Websites (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns and compile statistics about usage of the Websites and response rates. We and our service providers also use pixel tags in HTML emails to our customers, to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.
Log files. Most browsers collect certain information, such as your IP address, device type, screen resolution, operating system version and internet browser type and version. This information is gathered automatically and stored in log files.
Third Party Analytics Tools. Our Websites may use automated devices and applications operated by third parties (e.g., Google Analytics), which use cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the Websites and report on activities and trends. Please see our Cookie Notice for more information. If you have reached this Privacy Notice from a website other than our Homepage, please go back and review the Cookie Notice on that website to understand how cookies are used on that website.
Opt-Out Preference Signals and “Do-Not-Track” Signals. If your browser enables the Global Privacy Control (GPC) when visiting our Website, our Website will automatically opt you out of any tracking cookies that constitute a “sale” where required by applicable privacy law. For more information about the GPC and to learn how to implement it on your browser, please click here. Please note our Website does not recognize or respond to any signal which your browser might transmit through its so-called “Do Not Track” (DNT) feature. If you wish to disable cookies on our Websites, you should not rely on DNT browser settings. For more information about DNT signals, please click here.
On some of our websites, we may work with third-party ad networks, analytics companies, measurement services and others (“third-party ad companies”) to display advertising on our Websites and to manage our advertising on third-party sites, mobile apps and online services. We and these third-party ad companies may use cookies, pixels tags and other tools to collect information on our Websites (and on third-party sites and services), such as browsing history, IP address, device ID, cookie and advertising IDs, and other identifiers, general location information and, with your consent, your device’s geolocation information; we and these third-party ad companies use this information to provide you more relevant ads and content and to evaluate the success of such ads and content.
You can manage how your preferences regarding third party ad company cookies are set by this Website, using our cookie preference manager. If you have reached this Privacy Notice from a Website other than the Homepage, please go back and use the cookie preference manager on that Website to set your cookie preferences.
Please see our Cookie Notice for information about the third parties we may work with to display targeted ads on third-party sites and to measure the success of our marketing and campaigns. If you have reached this Privacy Notice from a Website other than the Homepage, please go back and review the Cookie Notice on that Website to understand how cookies are used there. You may also obtain more information about targeted or “interest-based advertising” and opt-out of many ad networks at the industry websites below:
Willis Towers Watson has implemented technical and organizational security measures with the goal of protecting the personal information we process. Despite this, the security of the transmission of information via the internet cannot always be guaranteed and you acknowledge this in your access and use of our Websites and Services. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of your account has been compromised), please immediately notify us in accordance with the "Contact and Comments" section below.
Marketing. You may opt-out from receiving marketing-related communications from us on a going-forward basis by contacting us or by using the unsubscribe mechanism contained in each email. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt-out of receiving marketing-related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt-out.
Access, amendment and deletion. You may request to review, make amendments, have deleted or otherwise exercise your rights under applicable privacy laws over your personal information that we hold, subject to certain limitations under applicable law. You may submit a request to us related to your personal information, except that requests under U.S. state privacy laws must be made in accordance with the information provided in the section below applicable to each particular state:
We take steps in accordance with applicable legislation to keep your personal information accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you would like to review, correct, update, suppress, or restrict the processing of your personal information or request a copy of personal information about you, you may contact us by sending us an email at dataaccessrequest@wtwco.com or sending your request by postal mail to the address provided in the "Contact & Comments" section below.
In your request, please make clear what personal information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your personal information suppressed from our database or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of your personal information. For your protection, we may only implement requests with respect to the personal information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.
Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion. There may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed.
To exercise your rights please contact us using the contact information below. Subject to legal and other permissible considerations, we will make reasonable efforts to honor your request promptly or inform you if we require further information in order to fulfil your request.
We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.
Additional information for certain jurisdictions. Willis Towers Watson is committed to respecting the privacy rights of individuals under all privacy laws applicable to us. Some privacy laws require that we provide specific information about individual rights to applicable consumers, which we have set forth at the end of this Notice:
WTW stores personal information as needed to accomplish the purposes identified in this Notice and to meet legal requirements, including legal and compliance requirements regarding records retention, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements. This means that WTW may be required to maintain your information, for example, to: (1) comply with our legal or regulatory compliance needs (e.g., maintaining records of transactions you have made with us); (2) to exercise, establish or defend legal claims; and/or (3) to protect against fraudulent or abusive activity on our services and systems. For these and possibly other reasons, we may be unable to delete personal information upon request of an individual in certain cases.
We may retain different categories of information for different periods of time for the instances stated above. However, it is our policy as an organization that when personal information is no longer needed or after legal authority to retain it has expired, personal information will be destroyed in accordance with applicable law and pursuant to procedures established in relation to the relevant WTW services, systems, or processes. Retention periods for records maintained by WTW, including those containing personal data are established based upon business need, statutory and regulatory record keeping requirements in the geographies where we do business, and legal obligations. If you have any further questions about our handling of personal information, please contact us at privacy@wtwco.com.
The Websites and Services are not directed to individuals under the age of sixteen (16), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from minors under the age of 16.
From time to time, we may change our Privacy Notice. The effective date set forth at the top indicates the last time this Privacy Notice was revised. Checking this effective date allows you to determine whether there have been changes since the last time you reviewed the notice. We will notify you of changes to this privacy notice by posting the revised Privacy Notice on our Websites.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Notice, please contact our Privacy Team, at 800 North Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22203 or at privacy@wtwco.com.
In some countries, there is a legal requirement to provide a named individual and their contact details. These are:
Country | Name | Contact details |
---|---|---|
Nigeria | Adewunmi Akinmodiro | Adewunmi.Akinmodiro@wtwco.com Willis Towers Watson Nigeria Limited 6th Floor, Africa RE Building. Plot 1679 Karimu Kotun Street, Victoria Island Lagos, Nigeria. |
South Africa | André Wild | Andre.Wild@wtwco.com Towers Watson (Pty) Ltd Level 4, MontClare Place, 23 Main Road, Claremont, Cape Town, 7708 Private Bag X30, Rondebosch, 7701 |
Pasha Karodia | Pasha.Karodia@wtwco.com
Willis South Africa (Pty) Ltd Illovo Edge, 1 Harries Road, Illovo, Johannesburg 2196 |
In this section, we set forth additional information as required under applicable privacy laws in certain jurisdictions.
A. California Residents
In this section, we provide information for California residents as required under California privacy laws, including the CCPA, which requires that we provide California residents certain specific information about how "we" handle their personal information, whether collected online or offline. This section does not address or apply to our handling of:
Categories of personal information that we collect and disclose. Our collection, use and disclosure of personal information about a California resident will vary depending upon the circumstances and nature of our interactions or relationship with such resident. The sections above set out generally the categories of personal information (as defined by the CCPA) about California residents that we collect, sell, and disclose to others for a business purpose. We collect these categories of personal information from the sources described in the Personal information we may collect section above, and for the purposes described in the Purposes for which we use personal information section above. We process personal data belonging to individuals 16 years or younger.
Rights of California residents. California law grants California residents certain rights and imposes restrictions on particular business practices as set forth below.
California residents may make a Request to Know up to twice every 12 months. We will respond to verifiable requests received from California residents as required by law. The instructions for submitting a verifiable Request to Know are described in the “Submitting Requests” section below.
Submitting Requests. Do-Not-Sell (Opt-out) Requests may be submitted through our cookie manager. Requests to Know, Requests to Delete, and Requests to Correct may be submitted:
We will use the following process to verify Requests to Know and Requests to Delete: We will acknowledge receipt of your Consumer Request, verify it using processes required by law, then process and respond to your request as required by law. To verify such requests, we may ask you to provide the following information:
An authorized agent can make a request on a California residents’ behalf by providing a power of attorney valid under California law, or providing: (1) proof that the consumer authorized the agent to do so; (2) verification of their own identity with respect to a Right to Know categories, Right to Know specific pieces of personal information, or Requests to Delete which are outlined above; and (3) direct confirmation that the consumer provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request.
We will respond to verifiable requests received from California residents as required by law. For more information about our privacy practices, you may contact us as set forth in the Contact and Comments section above.
Consumer Requests Received in 2021. In calendar year 2021, we received and responded to consumer requests under the CCPA as set forth in the table below:
Request Type | Number of Requests Received | Number of Requests With Which We Complied (in whole or in part) | Number of Requests Denied* | Average Response Time (Number of Days) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Requests to Know | 1 | 1 | 0 | 33 |
Requests to Delete | 3 | 1 | 2 | 64 |
Requests to Opt-Out of the Sale of Personal Information | 790 | 782** | 0 | 0 |
*This includes requests that were denied because we were unable to verify the identity of the requestor.
**We receive opt-out requests through multiple channels including a cookie preference manager and by email. The difference between the number of requests received and the number of requests we responded to is due to the channel by which we received the request to opt-out. We received 8 requests to opt-out through email. We followed up with the requestors for more information, but the requestor never clarified to which WTW group or information their request applied to.
B. European Union / European Economic Area / United Kingdom
Residents of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) have the following rights, under the GDPR, regarding their personal information:
We are not required to comply with your request to erase personal information if the processing of your personal information is necessary for:
Right to object: You have the right to object at any time to any processing of your personal information which has our legitimate interests as its legal basis. You may exercise this right without incurring any costs. If you raise an objection, we have an opportunity to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests which override your rights and freedoms. The right to object does not exist, in particular, if the processing of your personal information is necessary to take steps prior to entering into a contract or to perform a contract already concluded.
Right to object to our use of your personal information for direct marketing purposes: You can request that we change the manner in which we contact you for marketing purposes. You can request that we do not transfer your personal information to unaffiliated third parties for the purposes of direct marketing or any other purposes.
C. Brazil
The following information applies to personal data which we process from any individuals that is related to Brazil’s territory under the National Data Protection Law (LGPD):
D. Cayman Islands Data Protection Law
Individuals whose Personal Data is collected and/or used in the Cayman Islands have the following rights over their Personal Data:
Submitting Requests. Requests may be submitted:
E. Rights of Virginia residents
Virginia law grants Virginia residents certain rights and imposes restrictions on particular business practices as set forth below.
Submitting Requests: Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Delete Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests may be submitted:
We will use the following process to verify Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Delete Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests: We will acknowledge receipt of your request, authenticate it using processes required by law, then process and respond to your request as required by law. To authenticate such requests, we may ask you to provide additional information as reasonably necessary.
F. Rights of Connecticut residents
Beginning on July 1, 2023, Connecticut law grants Connecticut residents certain rights and imposes restrictions on particular business practices as set forth below.
Submitting Requests: Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests may be submitted:
We will use the following process to verify Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests: We will acknowledge receipt of your request, authenticate it using processes required by law, then process and respond to your request as required by law. To authenticate such requests, we may ask you to provide additional information as reasonably necessary.
G. Rights of Colorado residents
Beginning on July 1, 2023, Colorado law grants Colorado residents certain rights and imposes restrictions on particular business practices as set forth below.
Submitting Requests: Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests may be submitted:
We will use the following process to verify Right to Access Requests, Right to Correction Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, Right to Data Portability Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests: We will acknowledge receipt of your request, authenticate it using processes required by law, then process and respond to your request as required by law. To authenticate such requests, we may ask you to provide additional information as reasonably necessary.
H. Rights of Utah residents
Beginning on December 31, 2023, Utah law grants Utah residents certain rights and imposes obligations on businesses as set forth below.
Submitting Requests: Right to Know Requests, Right to Access Requests, Right to Obtain a Copy Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests may be submitted:
We will use the following process to verify Right to Know Requests, Right to Access Requests, Right to Obtain a Copy Requests, Right to Deletion Requests, and Right to Opt-Out Requests: We will acknowledge receipt of your request, authenticate it using processes required by law, then process and respond to your request as required by law. To authenticate such requests, we may ask you to provide additional information as reasonably necessary.