Customer contact and service

We sometimes need to use your data in order to answer your questions or to help you with something. You must provide the data yourself. Examples include your contact details and your card number. In some cases, such as for remote assistance, it is also necessary for us to know the location of the ticket machine. We may need to use your bank details for matters such as processing a complaint or request, such as for a refund.

When you request a duplicate or replacement for a personalised OV-chipkaart, we may ask you to submit a passport photo to print on the new OV-chipkaart.

We use a chatbot to communicate with you. Chatbots are useful for answering simple questions, such as question about the timetable, a travel product or an e-ticket. For more complex, personal questions, you will be transferred to an NS employee, and the chatbot will only help by asking for your name and customer details. We may use anonymous data provided via the chatbot for analysis purposes and to improve the quality of the chatbot. We also process your IP address for security purposes.

We also make use of outbound bell (outgoing telephone traffic), which means that we engage an intermediary who may call you for telemarketing purposes, as long as you have not exercised your right to object. We comply with the Code for Telemarketing 2021 (Code for Telemarketing 2021 (CTM) - Stichting Reclame Code) in this respect.

We use your information for customer contact and service, including answering questions, processing complaints, reports and disputes, and returning lost and found items. 

When you ask NS Customer Service a question or submit a complaint at the station, or contact NS Customer Service or NS Zakelijk Customer Service via telephone, e-mail, social media, chat, or post, we may ask for your contact details in order to process the question or complaint and to respond with additional information. We will only use these personal details for this purpose, and your personal information is only accessible for those persons within NS who are charged with the processing of your question or complaint.

We may record telephone- or online conversations between you and NS Customer Service or your written correspondence with us in order to improve our services. We will not use these conversations for other purposes, and we ensure that the conversations are only accessible to those persons within NS who use the conversations for training purposes. If a bomb threat is made, the call may be transferred for further investigation. For the purpose of improving our services, we may contact you for customer satisfaction surveys, such as after we have had contact with you by telephone. We may also use market research companies working on our behalf for these purposes. Customer satisfaction surveys are performed with the purpose of improving our services. We may also approach you to find out whether you are satisfied with our products.

The principle for processing the information is: justified interest.

Processing this information is in the commercial interest of NS: it gives us the opportunity to provide optimal service to you, and to improve our services or address incidents as necessary. We take every security measure necessary to prevent or limit violations of your privacy.

The principle behind processing the information is: permission.

With your permission, other carriers may also view your travel information in order to provide services to you.

With your permission, other carriers may also view your travel information in order to provide services to you. If you have granted permission, we will share your information with the relevant carrier or carriers. We have made agreements with the other carriers regarding the processing and storage of data.

We contract third parties to provide IT services. These third parties process our information solely for our own internal use, and for no other purpose. We have made agreements with these parties pertaining to the processing of personal information.

Some NS Customer Service activities are contracted out to a party that has locations in the Netherlands and Suriname. We have made agreements with this party to implement the standard provisions required by the European Commission.

We store questions, complaints and contact information for a maximum of 18 months after processing the request or complaint, unless the nature of the question or complaint requires us to store the information for a longer period.

We store recorded telephone conversations for a maximum of 59 days. We store recorded chat conversations for up to 18 months.