Lifegear.ca uses Amazon MWS API to integrate directly with Amazon to manage inventory, orders, fulfillment, and more. Amazon is introducing sweeping changes to their Data Protection Policy, which all third-party vendors must comply with. In response to these requirements, Lifegear.ca is making changes to how we handle PII (Personally Identifiable Information), in order to be fully compliant with Amazon’s new security standards.

What is PII?

Amazon defines PII as “information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate an individual (e.g., Customer or Seller), or to identify an individual in context.” 

This includes, but is not limited to: 

• Buyer’s First and Last name
• Buyer’s email address
• Buyer’s phone number
• Buyer’s Address Line 1, Address Line 2 
• Gift message content
• And more - please check out Amazon’s DPP page for more information. 

What are the changes that Amazon is making?

According to the new policy, for all Amazon orders the above information can be retained by 3rd party platforms for only as long as it is necessary to fulfill orders, and there is also a 30-day limit on PII storage. 

How will this affect the Lifegear.ca connector?

This change will cause several changes with how Amazon customer data is retained by Lifegear.ca:

• FBM and FBA orders will contain customer’s PII for 30 days after the order is marked as fulfilled or cancelled - after that the PII will be obfuscated
• For all historical Amazon orders (orders placed days, months, years before the new setting is on) that have been fulfilled, customer’s PII will be obfuscated 30 days after the feature is enabled
  

Affected areas (what data will be obfuscated):

• Sales and Purchasing Documents
• Incoming and Outgoing Payments

Note: 

- All Amazon customers' data will be obfuscated. Amazon customers have unique, Amazon-generated email addresses.  Email addresses are not used by the Lifegear.ca application.

- When obfuscation job is run, ALL Amazon buyers' data will get obfuscated.

- Only City, Province, and Country will stay on contact records. 

What about PIPEDA?

As a Canadian company, Lifegear.ca must abide by the requirements of the PIPEDA (Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act). Therefore we must furnish you with the data we have collected on your behalf.  You will have an opportunity to request customer data prior to us deleting it by contacting a Lifegear.ca representative.

Do you think Amazon is doing the right thing? It’s so inconvenient!

This is definitely the right thing for Amazon to do! Data security and privacy is more important than ever. Amazon is protecting customers’ data on our behalf, and as a result, these policies make e-commerce operations more secure and liability-free. In addition,  Lifegear.ca is taking an active stance to be compliant with platform policies, and prevent any damaging interruption in connectivity with Amazon API for our valued customers.