All about cookies

We value your privacy and want to improve the user-friendliness of your visit to our channels. That is why it is important to us that you know why we use these cookies and similar techniques. Below we explain how we use them and how you can set your preferences yourself.

For analytical, personalization and advertising cookies, we always ask for your consent in advance. If you do not give consent, you will still see advertisements, but they will not be tailored to your interests.

Change your cookie settings

With the use of some cookies we also process personal data. In our Privacy Statement you can find more information about how PostNL handles your data and which rights you have under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Do you visit a PostNL website or use our app? Then we use cookies. These are small text files that we store on your computer, phone or tablet. Through the information in these files we can recognize you when you return to our website. For example, we remember your login details and the language you have set.

In addition to cookies, there are other techniques that allow us to store and read information on your computer, tablet or mobile phone. An example is local storage. Because these techniques work in a similar way, we also refer to them as cookies in this Cookie Statement for convenience. To place cookies we use various techniques, such as JavaScript and tracking pixels.

We use cookies for various purposes. Below we explain which types of cookies we use and for what. Certain types of cookies will not be used without your prior consent.

Functional or necessary cookies ensure that our web pages function properly. These cookies are placed by default; your consent is not required.

These cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of our website, for example to remember the contents of your shopping cart.

In addition, we use limited analytical cookies to measure how our website is used, how many unique users visit our website and, for example, what is clicked on and searched for most, so that we can further improve our website. We call these cookies “limited analytical” because they collect minimal information that is also not directly traceable back to you, so they have little or no impact on your privacy.

Examples of what functional and limited analytical cookies can do: 

• Store your login details so you do not have to log in again each time. 
• Protect the website against DDoS attacks.

With these analytical cookies we track how you use our website and link your browsing behavior to a unique identifier. We use this information to continuously improve our website and app, especially their ease of use. This is possible, for example, because we know which pages are visited most or in what order pages are opened. We only place these cookies if you have given consent.

With these cookies we collect, among other things, the following information: 

• The anonymized IP address; 
• How long you spend on certain pages of our website; 
• Your search queries in the navigation bar of our app and website; 
• Which device you use, for example a computer, phone or tablet.

We can also test different designs of our channels. Some of our visitors will then see a modified version of the website. This allows us to measure whether this change is an improvement. We use cookies so that you always see the same version of the website.

For this we use cookies so that we can offer you a more personalized service on our PostNL channels. This allows us to see your online click and search behavior. If you have a PostNL account, we combine this with your customer data, such as information about previous deliveries, your delivery preferences and your purchases in our webshop. This enables us to show recommendations on our channels that are relevant to you, for example about a new parcel locker near you.

For this purpose we store, among other things, the following information: 

• Which pages of our website you view
  For example, we can store the barcode of the last parcel you searched for, so that if you have a conversation with our chatbot Daan you do not have to search for your barcode again. 
• What you search for on our website
  For example, if you have shown interest in one of our vacancies, we can provide you with additional information about this vacancy at a later time, for example in the PostNL app. 
• Which products you view and/or purchase
  This allows us to draw your attention to other products that may also be of interest to you.

How do we determine which information suits you? We create different groups of users who are very similar to each other. We call this profiling. Business customers, for example, are interested in different products than consumers. This allows us, among other things, to determine which products suit you or which questions you are likely to have for us.

Please note: if you do not give us consent to place these cookies, you can still see offers from us on our channels. These will then be general and not tailored to your behavior.

Outside our PostNL channels we would also like to inform you about our products and services. If you have given consent, we use the following marketing cookies from our 8 advertising partners, which allow them to track your click and search behavior both on our website and on the partner’s website. We can also, but only with your consent, share encrypted customer information with these 8 partners, so that these partners can show advertisements that are interesting to you on their websites. This only concerns email addresses or phone numbers that are hashed, meaning the original data is not visible or traceable. Our advertising partners can compare this encrypted data with their own encrypted data to find a match, without original data being shared.

Through our partners we can also look for other target groups for whom our advertisements may be interesting.

With these cookies we can:

• See which pages you visit on our website
  This allows us to determine which of our advertisements are interesting to you and place them on other websites you visit. For this we work together with the advertising partners listed below, such as Google and Meta. 
• Measure how many people click on our advertisements
  This allows us to track how many of them subsequently purchase one of our products or apply for a vacancy. In this way, advertising cookies help us improve our digital marketing; 
• By sharing your encrypted information,
  we can, for example, inform you via Facebook that a parcel locker has opened near you.

Please note: if you do not give us consent to place these cookies or to share your customer data in encrypted form, you can still see offers from us outside the PostNL channels. These will then be general and not tailored to your interests.

Our advertising partners

Please note that these companies may also use your data for their own purposes. By clicking on the companies below you can consult their privacy and cookie statements for more information. Please be aware that these statements may change regularly.

• Google DoubleClick
• Google Ads
• Google Dynamic Retargeting
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Microsoft Ads
• TikTok

Would you prefer that we do not store information about your visit to our website and app and your device settings? You can change this yourself. Below we explain how you can do this. Changes you make for the website do not automatically apply to our app and vice versa. You will need to set them separately.

Change your cookie settings

1. Open the app
2. Choose ‘Account’
3. Choose ‘App settings’
4. Choose ‘Privacy settings’
5. Adjust your preferences

You can delete cookies via the settings of your internet browser, such as Google Chrome, Safari or Microsoft Edge. You can also consult your browser’s help function for this.

We will amend this Cookie Statement if necessary due to changes in legislation or to our website or app. The most recent version of our Cookie Statement can be found at the bottom of every page of our website.

You can always contact us if you have a question or complaint about how PostNL handles cookies. You can do so via fg@postnl.nl.

Here you can find our full cookie overview