9. WhatsApp

We offer to you the possibility to send technical inquiries and receive responses from us through the WhatsApp messenger service. WhatsApp is operated by WhatsApp Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Irland (WhatsApp"), a daugther company of Facebook. When contacting us via WhatsApp both Hitachi and WhatsApp will receive your phone number and also be aware of the fact that you have contacted our WhatsApp customer service hotline.

The aforementioned data is also forwarded by WhatsApp to Facebook servers in the USA and processed by WhatsApp and Facebook in accordance with the WhatsApp data protection guidelines, which also includes processing for their own purposes, such as improving the WhatsApp service. We would like to point out that WhatsApp also accesses the address book of the device used and the contact data stored in it. For more information on the purpose and scope of data collection and the further processing of this data by WhatsApp and Facebook, as well as related rights and setting options to protect your privacy, please refer to WhatsApp's data protection guidelines at: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#privacy-policy

In order to process your message/inquiry, Hitachi will process and store your data such as your phone number, name, details and contents of your message. The basis of this processing and the transmission to WhatsApp in this context is Art. 6 Para. 1 S. 1 b) GDPR, insofar as your request concerns an existing contractual relationship with us or serves to initiate such a contractual relationship. Otherwise, this data processing takes place on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 S. 1 f) GDPR, whereby our legitimate interest is the careful processing of your respective request and the solution of any technical problems. We take your interests into account by ensuring that communication via WhatsApp is only an additional option. Of course, you can also contact us in other ways, for example by phone call, e-mail or via our contact form on the website, as described above in this section. We also use a separate device for contact via WhatsApp, in which only the contact details of the inquirers who communicate with us via WhatsApp are stored, so WhatsApp only receives data from inquirers who willingly use the service.