Trust in S Group as a processor of personal data remains high

Every year, we survey our co-op members’ thoughts about how the S Group collects customer data and uses it for different purposes. We use the survey results in the development of our operations. The most recent survey results are from May 2022.It is important to us that our co-op members can provide their personal data to S Group with confidence. We want to be open and transparent about our processing of personal data and information security. Although our customers are well aware of the collection and use of their personal data, their rights related to customer information are still not well known.

A total of 56% of co-op members said that they have been given enough information on what personal data we collect and how we use the data collected.
Based on the responses, our co-op members prefer to be informed on the processing of personal data via websites, email and S-mobiili app.
Of the respondents, 13% said they had visited the S Group data protection website and 48% said they intended to visit it. Of the customers who has visited our data protection website, 84% said they had found all the information they had been looking for.
A total of 57% of the respondents were aware that they can check the personal data saved in the co-op member registry by logging in to their Oma S-kanava account at www.s-kanava.fi. A total of 32% of the respondents were aware that they could request a transcript of their data to be sent to them by mail.
Since last year, the awareness of customers on how they can control the use of their personal data by managing the consents they have given and restrictions they have placed had decreased by one percentage point (now 53%). However, awareness on the possibility to deny the collection and use of exact, product-specific data had grown by one percentage point (now 48%).

Co-op members are more aware of their right to control the marketing messages they receive by providing consents and placing restrictions than they are of the fact that they can control all the collection and use of their personal data in the same way.We strive to continuously improve our communications on co-op member information to be more informative and easier to understand. We are also developing the functions of both the S-mobiili app and S User Account to make it easier for their users to control the use of their personal data.Purposes of use for purchase dataCo-op members still considered the most useful purpose for purchase data to be the provision of useful services, such as electronic receipts and the My Purchases service. Using purchase data to improve the selection of stores and to identify and analyse consumer trends for service development came second.Impressions of S Group as a processor of personal dataIn the survey, we asked co-op members to evaluate a set of statements related to S Group and customer data. The following statements received the highest scores:

I trust that S Group processes my personal data with care and in accordance with legislation (the share of respondents who answered ‘completely agree’ or ‘mostly agree’ was 85%)
I trust that my personal data will not fall into the wrong hands (78%)
I would like S Group to be a pioneer in the transparency of customer data collection and the implementation of data security (74%)
It is to my benefit that my customer data is used to improve the services provided to me, for example, by improving selections or with more accurately targeted advertising, or by providing more information on my own purchasing behaviour (65%)
I trust that my personal data is processed for my own benefit (63%)

Survey methodThe survey is conducted once a year as a questionnaire sent by email to a randomised group of customers who have an S-Etukortti card. The most recent survey results are from May 2022. A total of 3,291 customers replied the survey at that time, and the respondent profile fairly well corresponded to the composition of the S Group co-op member and customer register.