Toyota Research Institute is part of the Toyota global group of companies. It is a US-based research & development enterprise committed to improving the quality of human life through advances in artificial intelligence, automated driving and robotics.

Information You Provide To Us

Certain parts of our Website may ask you to provide personal information to us voluntarily: for example, you may provide us with your name, job title and contact details if you contact us through the site, or if you are applying for a job opportunity, you may provide us with other details such as your resume, online profiles, work-related experiences, and any other information that you choose to provide to us about yourself.

You may also provide us with personal information when you partner with us on one of our R&D projects, submit any inquiry to us, or correspond with us by email, mail or otherwise, or attend one of our events.

We use this information primarily to respond to your inquiry or request, to communicate with you about such matters, and to manage and administer our R&D projects and opportunities.

Where you have provided personal information to us as part of a job application, then we will use this primarily for recruitment purposes – in particular, to determine your qualifications for employment and to reach a hiring decision.

We may also collect information about you, including contact information, if you visit one of our offices or participate in our research studies.

Information We Collect Automatically

When you visit our Website, we may collect certain information automatically from your device. In some countries, including countries in the European Economic Area and certain U.S. states, this information may be considered personal information under applicable data protection laws. Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include:

• Usage Information. Whenever you visit or interact with our Website, we may automatically collect information about how the site is accessed and used (“Usage Information”). Usage Information may include your IP address, browser type, device type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city level), operating system, application version, and other technical information. We may also collect clickstream data regarding how your device has interacted with our Website, such as the pages served, links clicked, the time, and the preceding page views. This information helps us to better understand the visitors who come to our Website, where they come from, and what content is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of our site for visitors. Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further under the heading Cookies and similar tracking technology below.

We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:

• to our group companies, third party services providers and partners who support us in the operation of our business, assist in the delivery, security and functionality of our Website, or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice or notified to you when we collect your personal information.

• to any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;

• to a third party (and its agents and advisers) in connection with an actual or proposed purchase, merger, acquisition of assets, or other business reorganization, provided that we inform the third party it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice;

• to any other person with your consent to the disclosure.

If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you only: (i) where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your rights, (ii) where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you, or (iii) where we have your consent to do so. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).

If we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), this interest will normally be to operate our business or our Website effectively, to evaluate current or potential R&D opportunities, to manage existing R&D projects, to carry out recruitment and hiring, to communicate with you about such matters, to improve our business practices and processes, or for the purpose of detecting or preventing wrongful activities. If we have other legitimate interests not referred to in this Notice, we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the Contact us heading below.

We use cookies and similar tracking technology (collectively, “Cookies”) to collect and use personal information about you. In terms of third party cookies, we use Google Analytics (a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc.) to collect information about how you use our Website. Google Analytics serves cookies on your device which are used to store information, such as the time that the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before and what site referred you to our Website. We use this information to evaluate your use of the Website, compile reports on Website activity and to provide other analytics insights.

You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our Website. For more information, including details on opting out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites you use, visit this Google page, or you can opt out of the cookie directly here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Alternatively, you can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our Website though your access to some functionality and areas of our Website may be restricted. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information. Here are the current relevant information pages for the main browsers:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies

• Google Chrome: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/61416

• Mozilla Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences

• Apple Safari: Blocks cookies by default and accepts cookies only from your current domain. To change, click Safari, Preferences, Security, and choose your preference.

Your personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country (and, in some cases, may not be as protective).

Specifically, our Website servers are located in the USA, and our group companies and third party service providers and partners operate around the world. This means that when we collect your personal information we may process it in any of these countries. We will take appropriate safeguards to ensure that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable laws.

For further information about international transfers, please email us at privacy@tri.global.

If you wish to contact us regarding our collection or use of your personal information, then you can do so using the contact details further below and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

If you are a resident in certain jurisdictions (such as the European Economic Area), you may have the following data protection rights under applicable laws:

• If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the Contact us heading below.

• In addition, you may be able to object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability (in certain circumstances) of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details below.

• You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in the marketing e-mails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), then please contact us using the contact details below.

• Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.

• You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area are available here.

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Date updated: January 1, 2023

If you are a California resident and we receive your Personal Information in the form of contact details from business events, for example as part of a business appointment (e.g., by exchanging business cards) or as part of any other form of collaboration, we may use your contact and business details to maintain our business contacts. For this purpose, we may transfer your contact details to our internal database.  Pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”), you have privacy rights with respect to your business contact Personal Information. 

The processing activity may include the following categories of Personal Information:

• Your contact information (e.g., name, title, form of address or salutation, address, gender, telephone numbers, email address); and
• Details on your profession (e.g., job title, position, personnel number, place of work, branch office, department, qualifications).

This data processing is based on our legitimate business interests. We have a legitimate economic interest in maintaining contacts beyond the initial context, in using them to establish and develop a business relationship, and to remain in contact with the parties concerned.

Such business contacts could also be easily processed in our email communications with you and then kept in typical business software, either centrally or on the electronic devices of our employees.  

California law provides you with the following rights with respect to your Personal Information:

• The right to know what Personal Information we have collected, used, or disclosed about you.
• The right to request that we delete any Personal Information we have collected about you.
• The right to correct inaccurate Personal Information about you.

We do not sell or share any of our data subjects’/consumers’ Personal Information, as defined by the CCPA.  California law requires us to identify, for the 12-month period prior to the date of this Privacy Policy, what information we may have “sold” or “shared” about you. For the 12-month period prior to the date of this Privacy Policy, we have not sold or shared any personal information about its business contacts.

Submitting Requests

California residents have the right to opt out of the selling and sharing of their Personal Information and to limit the use of their sensitive personal data.  However, we do not sell or share Personal Information, and we do not use Sensitive Personal Information for any additional purposes that are incompatible with the purposes listed above, unless we provide you with notice of those additional purposes.

You may submit requests to correct, delete, and know specific Personal Information and/or categories of Personal Information we have collected about you by submitting a request via our CCPA Privacy Request web form.

Verification of Your Identity

When you exercise these rights and submit a request to us, we or our partners will verify your identity by asking you to authenticate your identity via standard authentication procedures.

Non-Discrimination

If you make a request under the CCPA, we will not discriminate against you in any way.  

Automated Decision-Making

We generally do not use automated decision-making technology, as that term is defined by State Privacy Laws. If we make use of automated decision-making technology, you will be informed through a separate privacy notice.

Record Retention

We may retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. We strive to retain your personal information no longer than is reasonably necessary to carry out the purposes listed in this Notice or as required by law. 

Effective Date: January 1, 2023

The California Consumer Privacy Act, of 2018 as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”) gives you certain privacy rights related to your personal information which are in addition to any privacy rights set forth in this Privacy Notice. If you would like to contact Toyota Research Institute, Inc. or Toyota Ventures to exercise your rights under the CCPA, submit your request via our CCPA Privacy Request web form or call 855-226-4048 with any requests. For all requests intended for Toyota Motor North America or Toyota Motor Corporation, please visit the TMNA Privacy Hub or call 855-226-4048.

The site is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect, use, sell, share or otherwise disclose personal information from anyone under 16 years of age. If we become aware that we have unknowingly collected personally identifiable information from a child under the age of 16, we will make reasonable efforts to delete such information from our records.

We take information security seriously and use certain appropriate technical and organizational security measures to help protect your personal information. The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information.

However, no electronic data transmission or storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Please note that we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you use the site and provide us with your information at your own risk.

With respect to the retention of your personal information, we keep personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes described in this Notice and to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting obligations. If you have further questions about the security or retention of personal information you have submitted to us, please email us at privacy@tri.global.

We may update this Privacy Notice to reflect changes to our information practices or to changing legal developments. When we update our Privacy Notice we will take appropriate measures in accordance with applicable data protection laws. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this Notice.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@tri.global or mail your inquiry to:

Toyota Research Institute
ATTN: Legal: Privacy Request
4440 El Camino Real
Los Altos, CA 94022