Applicant Privacy Notice

Privacy Notice for Party City Applicants and Staff Members

Last Updated: December 29, 2022

1. Introduction

   Party City Holdings Inc. (“Company”, “we” or “us”) has issued this Privacy Notice (this “Notice”) to describe how we handle Personal Information (as defined below) that we collect and process about our Staff Members and job applicants (collectively referred to as “you”) applying for a job at or working for Company. The term “Staff Member” includes employees and independent contractors, including contingent workers, temporary workers, and interns. This categorization is for convenience and does not demonstrate or establish any particular employee, contractor or other status.
   We respect the privacy rights of individuals and are committed to handling Personal Information responsibly and in accordance with applicable law. This Notice sets out the Personal Information that we collect and process about you, the purposes of the processing, and the rights that you have in connection with it.
   Please take the time to read and understand this Notice, which should be read in conjunction with our other corporate policies and procedures. When required by law, we will provide a “just in time” notice or notice at collection to cover any additional processing activities not mentioned in this document. If you are a California resident, please see the CCPA Addendum appended to this Notice for additional disclosures regarding the information we collect and any rights you may have under California law.
   If you have any comments or questions about this Notice, please contact us at the contact details in Section 8 below.

2. Types of Personal Information we collect

   In the course of your employment or engagement with Company, or when making an application for employment or engagement with Company, we may process Personal Information about you and your dependents, beneficiaries, and other individuals whose Personal Information has been provided to us.
   We use the term “Personal Information” (also called “personal data” or “personally identifiable information” in the laws of some jurisdictions) to refer to information that reasonably identifies, relates to, describes, or can be associated with you. Data that has been de-identified, anonymized, or aggregated, or that otherwise cannot reasonably be related back to a specific person, is not considered Personal Information. The precise definition of Personal Information may vary depending on your state, province, or country of residence, but we take the same approach to protecting your privacy.
   The types of Personal Information we may process include, but are not limited to:

   • Identification data – such as your name, gender, photograph, date of birth, Staff Member IDs.

   • Contact details – such as home and business address, telephone/email addresses, emergency contact details.

   • Employment details – such as job title/position, office location, employment contract, performance and disciplinary records, grievance procedures, sickness/time-off records.

   • Background information – such as academic/professional qualifications, education, CV/résumé, criminal records data (for vetting purposes, where permissible and in accordance with applicable law).

   • Government identifiers – such as government issued ID/passport, immigration/visa status, or social security numbers.

   • Information on your spouse/partner and/or dependents – such as your marital status, identification and contact data about them and information relevant to any Company benefits extended to such people.

   • Financial information – such as bank details, tax information, withholdings, salary, benefits, expenses, company allowances, stock and equity grants.

   • IT information – information required to provide access to company IT systems and networks (and information collected by / through those systems) such as IP addresses, log files and login information.

   We may also process Sensitive Personal Information relating to you (and your spouse/partner and/or dependents). The meaning of Sensitive Personal Information may vary depending on applicable privacy laws, but generally includes any information that reveals your racial or ethnic origin, religious, political or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership, criminal convictions, genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of unique identification, information about your health, government identifiers (including social security, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number), citizenship or immigration status, and precise geolocation data (“Sensitive Personal Information”). We do not sell Sensitive Personal Information collected under this Notice.

   We may need to collect, or request on a voluntary disclosure basis (or involuntarily, if required by applicable law), some Sensitive Personal Information for legitimate employment-related purposes: for example, information about your racial/ethnic origin and gender for equal employment opportunity reporting purposes (in accordance with applicable law); or information about your physical or mental condition to provide work-related accommodations, health and insurance benefits to you and your dependents, or to manage absences from work.

3. Sources of Personal Information

   Generally, you will have provided the information we hold about you, but there may be situations where we collect Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information from other sources. For example, we may collect the following:

   • Certain background and other information from recruitment agencies, academic institutions, referees, background checking agencies and other third parties during your recruitment and/or employment/engagement.

   • Certain information on your performance, conduct or other information relevant to formal internal procedures (e.g. disciplinary or whistleblowing procedures), from clients or other organizations with whom you work.

   • Information on your training and development from external training partners and information about your experience and impressions of Company through external survey providers.

   • Information about your health, including your fitness to carry out work and/or any accommodations or adjustments to be considered from a health care provider (as permitted by applicable law).

   • Information on accidents or incidents from Company’s insurance brokers, insurers and their appointed agents, where they are involved.

   • Information on tax payable from tax authorities and Company’s appointed payroll agents and tax/financial advisers.

   • Information collected through Company’s IT systems and other devices.

   • Information about your entitlement to participate in, or receive payments or benefits under, any insurance or pension plan or program provided by Company, from the relevant benefit provider or its appointed agent.

   • Information from publicly available sources (e.g. news sources and/or from social media platforms) in connection with any investigation or formal procedure concerning the same (for instance, for the investigation of an allegation that a Staff Member has breached our rules on social media use or conduct generally).

4. Purposes for Processing Personal Information

   (i) Recruitment purposes
   If you are applying for a role at Company, then we collect and use your Personal Information primarily for recruitment purposes – in particular, to determine your qualifications for employment or engagement as an independent contractor and to reach a hiring decision. This includes assessing your skills, qualifications and background for a particular role, verifying your information, carrying our reference checks or background checks (where applicable) and to generally managing the hiring process and communicating with you about it.
   If you are accepted for a role at Company, the information collected during the recruitment process may form part of your ongoing Staff Member record.
   If you are not successful, we may still keep your application for internal reporting, to comply with any applicable record retention laws, and to allow us to consider you for other suitable openings within Company in the future.
   (ii) Employment or work-related purposes
   Once you become a Company Staff Member, we may collect and use your Personal Information for the purpose of managing our employment or working relationship with you – for example, your employment records and contract information if you have a contract (so we can manage our employment relationship with you), your bank account and salary details (so we can pay you), your equity grants (for stock and benefits plans administration), if any, and details of your spouse and dependents (for emergency contact, tax and benefits purposes).
   We may process our Staff Members’ Personal Information through a human resources system (“HR System”), which provides tools that help us to administer HR and Staff Member compensation and benefits. Company may host these servers or utilize third party servers.
   (iii) Other legitimate business purposes
   We may also collect and use Personal Information when it is necessary for other legitimate purposes, such as:

   • to help us conduct our business more effectively and efficiently – for example, for general HR resourcing, reporting or analytics, IT security/management, business continuity purposes, accounting purposes, or financial planning;

   • to investigate violations of law or breaches of our own internal policies and more generally to protect the rights and interests of Company’s group, our employees, applicants and others. For instance, we may monitor your browsing or communications activity or location when using our devices or systems, if we suspect that you have been involved in phishing scams, fraudulent activity or activities in competition with or inconsistent with your work for Company.

   • to help secure our networks and systems from unauthorized access, scams, and malicious code. For instance, we may monitor and review electronic mail communications sent or received using Company issued devices or accounts, or stored on or using such a device or account. We may also monitor and record each website visit, each chat session, newsgroup post, e-mail message, and each file transfer into and out of our systems and networks. Company may monitor this activity at any time, and, to the extent permitted by laws, users of our networks and systems should not expect privacy when using these systems and devices.

   • to foster diversity, inclusion, and a welcoming work culture.

   Company may use video cameras and recording equipment for its premises, offices, and facilitates, and stores information captured by this equipment in order to secure its networks, systems, and property, to protect the safety of employees and members of the public, and may monitor access and use of its systems and property using this equipment.

   (iv) Law-related and other purposes
   We also may retain and use your Personal Information where we consider it necessary for complying with laws and regulations, including collecting and disclosing Staff Member Personal Information as required by law (e.g. for tax, health and safety, anti-discrimination and other employment laws), under judicial authorization, to protect your vital interests (or those of another person), or to exercise or defend the legal rights of the Company global group of companies.

5. Who we share your Personal Information with

   We take care to allow access to Personal Information only to those who require such access to perform their tasks and duties, and to third parties who have a legitimate business purpose or other lawful ground for accessing it. Whenever we permit a third party to access Personal Information, we will implement appropriate measures designed to ensure the information is used in a manner consistent with this Notice.
   (i) Transfers to third-party service providers
   In addition, we may make certain Personal Information available to third parties who provide services to us. We do so on a “need to know basis” and in accordance with applicable data privacy laws.
   For example, some of this information will be made available to:

   • our benefit/reward plans service providers (including retirement plan and medical insurance providers);

   • service providers who provide us with payroll, tax, and expense administration support services;

   • providers of our HR Platform, including our recruitment platform;

   • providers of employment and income verification services, including background screening vendors;

   • service providers who provide, support and maintain our IT, security, and communications infrastructure (including for data storage purposes) and/or provide business continuity services;

   • providers of our employee emergency contact tools;

   • service providers who provide services in relation to staff training and/or qualifications and staff surveys, e.g.; and

   • auditors, advisors, legal representatives and similar agents in connection with the advisory services they provide to us for legitimate business purposes and under a contractual prohibition of using the Personal Information for any other purpose.

   (ii) Transfers to other third parties

   We may also disclose Personal Information to third parties on other lawful grounds, including:

   • Where you have provided your consent;

   • To comply with our legal obligations, including where necessary to abide by law, regulation or contract, or to respond to a court order, administrative or judicial process, including, but not limited to, a subpoena, government audit or search warrant;

   • In response to lawful requests by public authorities (including for tax, immigration, health and safety, national security, or law enforcement purposes);

   • As necessary to establish, exercise or defend against potential, threatened or actual legal claims;

   • Where necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person; and/or

   • In connection with the sale, assignment or other transfer of all or part of our business.

     We do not sell the Personal Information we collect from and about you as described in Sections 2-4.

6. Data retention periods

   Personal Information will be stored in accordance with applicable laws and kept as long as Company has an ongoing legitimate business need to carry out the purposes described in this Notice or as otherwise required by applicable law. Generally this means your Personal Information will be retained until the end or your employment, employment application, or work relationship with us plus a reasonable period of time thereafter to respond to employment or work-related inquiries, comply with regulatory obligations, or to deal with any legal matters (e.g. judicial or disciplinary actions), document the proper deductions during and on termination of your employment or work relationship (e.g. to tax authorities), or to provide you with ongoing pensions or other benefits.

7. Updates to this Notice

   This Notice may be updated periodically to reflect changes in our privacy practices. We will indicate at the top of the Notice when it was most recently updated, and if we make a material change, we will inform you, for example, on our Company intranet or via organization-wide email. We encourage you to check back periodically in order to ensure you are aware of the most recent version of this Notice. Please note that Company does not discriminate against those who exercise their rights under applicable data protection laws.

8. Contact details

   Please address any questions or requests relating to this Notice to [email protected], or alternatively, you can raise any concerns with your Human Resources Business Partner. If you have disabilities, you may access this notice in an alternative format by contacting your Human Resources Business Partner.

CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT ADDENDUM

These provisions apply only to California residents and supplement the above Notice. The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, including the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 and any regulations promulgated thereunder (“CCPA”), provides California residents with specific rights regarding their Information. This CCPA Addendum describes your rights under the CCPA, explains how you may exercise your rights, and provides an overview on the types of Personal Information we collect.
General information regarding our collection, use, and disclosure of your data is detailed in the Notice.

OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTION PRACTICES
The CCPA defines “Personal Information” as information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, or is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.
In the past 12 months, we have collected some or all of the categories of Personal Information described in the table below. The table below further describes the business or commercial purpose(s) for which the Personal Information was collected and the entities to whom such information has been disclosed within the last 12 months.

The Personal Information described in the table above is collected directly from you, or from the sources set forth in the Notice at Section 3, “Sources of Personal Information.” In addition to the parties described above, we may disclose your Personal Information to other third parties for legal, security, or safety purposes; to regulatory authorities, courts, and government agencies if required by applicable law; or with a third party in the event of any contemplated or actual reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, brands, affiliates, subsidiaries, or other assets.

We never sell your Personal Information (as the term “sell” is defined under the CCPA), nor do we share it with third parties for the purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising. However, we may use de-identified, anonymized, or aggregated versions of your Personal Information for any purpose. If we do de-identify Personal Information, we shall maintain and use such information in de-identified form and will not to attempt to re-identify the information, except as permitted by the CCPA.

RIGHTS TO YOUR INFORMATION
Right to Know
As a California consumer, you have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection, use, disclosure, or sale of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, and subject to certain limitations that we describe below, we will disclose such information. You have the right to request any or all of the following:

• The categories of Personal Information that we have collected about you.

• The categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected.

• Our business or commercial purpose for collection, use, or disclosure of that Personal Information.

• The categories of third parties with whom we sell or share that personal information.

Right to Data Portability
You have the right to request a copy of Personal Information we have collected and maintained about you in the past 12 months. The CCPA allows you to request your this information from us up to twice during a 12-month period. We will provide our response in a readily usable (in most cases, electronic) format.

Right to Delete
You have the right to request that we delete any of your Personal Information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your Personal Information from our records unless an exception applies. For example, we may deny your deletion request if retention of the Personal Information is:

• Necessary to detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity;

• Reasonably anticipated within the context of your employment or engagement, or application for employment, with us;

• For solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with your expectations based on your relationship with us;

• Necessary to comply with a legal obligation; or

• Otherwise necessary for internal use in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the Personal Information.

Right to Correct
You have the right to request the correction of any Personal Information we maintain about you.

Right to Nondiscrimination
You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by us for the exercise of your CCPA privacy rights.

EXERCISING YOUR RIGHTS
To exercise the rights described above, please submit a request to us by contacting us through the following methods:

• 1-800-727-8924

After submitting a request, we will take steps to verify your identity in order for us to properly respond and/or confirm that it is not a fraudulent request. In order to verify your identity, we will request, at a minimum, that you provide your name, phone number, address, and relationship to us, so that we can seek to match this information with the information existing in our systems. When providing us this information, you represent and affirm that all information provided is true and accurate. If we are unable to verify that the consumer submitting the request is the same individual about whom we have collected personal information, we may contact you for more information, or we may not be able to meet your request.

Only you, or an agent legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable request related to your Personal Information. If you are making a request as the authorized agent of a California consumer, we will ask you also submit reliable proof that you have been authorized in writing by the consumer to act on such consumer’s behalf.

We will make every effort to respond to your request within 45 days from when you contacted us. If you have a complex request, the CCPA allows us up to 90 days to respond. We may contact you within 45 days from the date you contacted us to inform you if we need more time to respond.

CONTACT
If you have any questions, comments, or complaints about how we use your information, or would like to exercise any rights that you may have under the CCPA, please reach out to us by using the contact information provided in Section 8 (“Contact Details”) in the above Notice.