Wikimedia Foundation Non-wiki Privacy Policy (July 2018 – June 2021)

Welcome!

This is the non-wiki privacy policy of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). This privacy policy applies to WMF’s non-wiki sites, unless stated otherwise on a specific site. Some of our non-wiki sites may be hosted by third-party service providers. In these cases, we will provide a link to that service provider’s privacy policy. The Wikimedia Foundation’s main Privacy policy is a separate document, and applies to wiki-based sites.

This Non-wiki Privacy Policy applies to our collection and handling of information about you that we receive as a result of your use of non-wiki sites. By using these sites, you agree to be held to the terms of this Non-wiki Privacy Policy and the Wikimedia Terms of Use. If you do not wish to be held to the terms of this Non-wiki Privacy Policy and/or our terms of use, please do not use these sites.

For the sake of clarity, definitions in this Non-wiki Privacy Policy take on the same definitions found in the main WMF Privacy Policy. The sites covered by this Non-wiki Privacy policy are separate websites, and are not covered by the general Wikimedia Privacy Policy. If a non-wiki site has an alternative privacy policy, it will link to that policy. If you have any questions or suggestions about this Non-wiki Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use, please Contact us.

Thank you!

What Information We Collect and What We Do With It

Personal data: Non-personally identifiable information

Like most website operators, WMF collects personal data in the form of non-personally-identifiable information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, including, but not limited to: the browser type, language preference, referring site, and date and time of each visitor request. We collect this personal data to understand how you interact with these non-wiki sites and related materials, maintain and improve these non-wiki sites and related materials, and protect against malicious users. From time to time, WMF may publicly release such personal data in aggregated or anonymized form, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of any of our sites.

Personal data: Personally identifying information

Depending on how you choose to use this site, you may disclose different amounts of personal data that could be used to identify you (such as your IP address, user agent information, or general location). We will keep this information confidential, except as provided in this  Non-wiki Privacy Policy.

We use this information for our legitimate interests, including to understand how you interact with these non-wiki sites and related materials, maintain and improve these non-wiki sites and related materials, and protect against malicious users.

If you provide an email address, we may use it to contact you or send you surveys so that we can better understand how you use our services and how we can improve our services, or to update you about the Wikimedia Foundation, projects and activities. These surveys are always optional. Each message will contain information about how to opt-out of further emails.

Cookies and other data collection tools

We may also use some common data storage technologies, including but not limited to: cookies, local storage, JavaScript, or tracking pixels, to obtain information that could identify you. We keep this information confidential, except as provided in this Non-wiki Privacy Policy. We use this information to make your experience with these non-wiki sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and user interaction with these non-wiki sites, and to generally improve our services. You may remove or disable some or all cookies and locally stored data through your browser settings, depending on your browser. While cookies and locally stored data may not be necessary to use these non-wiki sites, some features may not function properly if you disable cookies and/or local storage. If we ever use third-party cookies on these non-wiki sites, we will update our Cookie Statement to provide details of the cookie(s) in question. You can read more about some of the specific cookies we use, when they expire, and what we use them for in the main WMF Privacy Policy’s FAQ.

When We Can Share Information

With Your Permission

We may share your information for a particular purpose, if you agree, or as otherwise specified below.

Third-Party Service Providers

As hard as we may try, we can’t do it all. We may share your information (including your email address and general location information) with people we work with (e.g., third-party service providers, contractors, community volunteers) in order to help maintain, better understand, or improve these non-wiki sites or other Wikimedia Projects and sites. In the course of providing their services to us, some of these third-party providers and contractors may also collect and retain user information, including but not limited to user emails and general user location information based on IP addresses, in accordance with their privacy policies and any additional requirements we may put in place with them. As necessary, we may put safeguards, such as confidentiality agreements, in place to help ensure that these service providers protect the confidentiality of your personal information.

For Legal Reasons

We may access, preserve, or disclose your personal information if we reasonably believe it necessary to satisfy a valid and legally enforceable warrant, subpoena, court order, law or regulation, or other judicial or administrative order. However, if we believe that a particular request for disclosure of a user’s information is legally invalid or an abuse of the legal system and the affected user does not intend to oppose the disclosure themselves, we will try our best to fight it. We are committed to notifying you via email at least ten (10) calendar days, when possible, before we disclose your personal information in response to a legal demand. However, we may only be able to provide notice if we are not legally restrained from contacting you, there is no credible threat to bodily harm that is created or increased by disclosing the request, and you have provided us with an email address.

Nothing in this Non-wiki Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal objections or defenses you may have to a third party’s request (whether it be civil, criminal, or governmental) to disclose your information. We recommend seeking the advice of legal counsel immediately if such a request is made involving you.

Transfer of WMF

In the extremely unlikely event that ownership of all or substantially all of the Foundation changes, or we go through a reorganization (such as a merger, consolidation, or acquisition), information collected under this Non-wiki Privacy Policy may transferred to the new owner(s) of the Foundation or become subject to a different privacy policy such as the privacy policy of an acquirer.

To Protect You, Ourselves, or Others

We may need to share your personal information if it is reasonably believed to be necessary to: enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use or this Non-wiki Privacy Policy; investigate and defend ourselves against legal threats or actions; prevent imminent and serious bodily harm or death to a person; protect our organization, employees, contractors, users, or the public; or detect, prevent, or otherwise assess and address potential spam, malware, fraud, abuse, unlawful activity, and security or technical concerns.

To Learn and Experiment

We may share non-personal or aggregated information with researchers, scholars, academics, and other interested third parties who wish to study the Wikimedia Sites, including these non-wiki sites. Sharing this information helps them understand usage, viewing, and demographics statistics and patterns. They then can share their findings with us and our users so that we can all better understand and improve the Wikimedia Sites.

When we give access to personal information to third-party developers or researchers, we put requirements, such as reasonable technical and contractual protections, in place to help ensure that these service providers treat your information consistently with the principles of this Policy and in accordance with our instructions. If these developers or researchers later publish their work or findings, we ask that they not disclose your personal information. Please note that, despite the obligations we impose on developers and researchers, we cannot guarantee that they will abide by our agreement, nor do we guarantee that we will regularly screen or audit their projects. (You can learn more about re-identification in the main WMF Privacy Policy’s FAQ.)

In general, WMF does not disclose personal information obtained through these WMF non-wiki sites other than as described in this Non-wiki Privacy Policy.

Information You Share with Third Party Services

These non-wiki sites may allow you to access third-party services through their interface. For example, if you click on a “Share” button, or a link contained in a blog post, you may be connected to an external website such as a Twitter post or a New York Times article. Please note that this Privacy Policy only governs information we collect, and you are responsible for reading and understanding privacy policies and practices of the third-party services that you use.

How Do We Protect Your Data?

We strive to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We use a variety of physical and technical measures, policies, and procedures (such as access control procedures, network firewalls, and physical security) designed to protect our systems and your personal information. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as completely secure data transmission or storage, so we can’t guarantee that our security will not be breached (by technical measures or through violation of our policies and procedures).

Accessing Your Information

WMF works hard to accurately process and maintain information. If you would like to access, correct, update, suppress, restrict or delete the personal information we have about you, object to our processing of such personal information or if you would like to request to receive an electronic copy of your personal information for purposes of transmitting it to another organization (to the extent this right to data portability is provided to you by applicable law), or if you would like to change your WMF communication preferences, you (or an authorized representative) can let us know by contacting us at privacy@wikimedia.org. While we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request, there are certain situations where we will not grant your request (such as when we cannot adequately verify your identity to give you access to personal information, when we are legally required to retain information, or when we are not technologically able to change or delete information). Therefore, the granting of such requests remains at the sole discretion of WMF.

How Long Do We Keep Your Data?

Once we receive personal information from you, we keep it for the shortest possible interval that is consistent with the maintenance, understanding, and improvement of these non-wiki sites and our obligations under applicable U.S. law. For more information on Wikimedia’s data retention policies, please see our Data Retention Guidelines.

Transfer of Information to the United States

If you decide to access or use these non-wiki sites, whether from inside or outside of the U.S., you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, processing, disclosure, and other uses of your information in the U.S. as described in this Non-wiki Privacy Policy. You also consent to the transfer of your information by us from the U.S. to other countries, which may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country, in connection with providing services to you.

Our Response to Do Not Track

We are strongly committed to protecting users’ nonpublic information. Under this Policy, we may share your information only under particular situations, which you can learn more about in the “When We Can Share Information” section of this Privacy Policy.

Because we protect all users in accordance with this Non-wiki Privacy Policy, we do not change our behavior in response to a web browser’s “do not track” signal. For more information regarding Do Not Track signals and how we handle them, please visit the main WMF Privacy Policy’s FAQ.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Because things naturally change over time and we want to ensure our Privacy Policy accurately reflects our practices and the law, we reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will provide notice of changes to this Privacy Policy in a reasonable time and manner.

We ask that you please review the most up-to-date version of this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of these non-wiki sites after any subsequent version of this Privacy Policy becomes effective constitutes acceptance of that version of the Privacy Policy on your part.

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, or the information collected under this Privacy Policy, please email us at privacy@wikimedia.org or contact us directly.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you also may have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority competent for your country or region.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading our Non-wiki Privacy Policy. We hope you enjoy using the Wikimedia sites, and appreciate your participation in creating, maintaining, and constantly working to improve the largest repository of free knowledge in the world.

This policy was approved by Eileen Hershenov on July 24, 2018, pursuant to the Delegation of policy-making authority by the Board, and went into effect on July 30, 2018.

Please note that in the event of any differences in meaning or interpretation between the original English version of this Privacy Policy and a translation, the original English version takes precedence.