Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy

As stated above, we can use commonly-used location technologies to show you more relevant content. For example, our mobile apps can identify articles from the Wikimedia sites about points of interest near your location. As a reminder, you can consent to and/or deactivate our access to these location technologies at any time for example through the native OS functionalities on your mobile device, and still use the Wikimedia Sites.

As stated above, we may automatically receive location data from your device. For example, if you upload a photo using the Wikimedia Commons mobile app, please be aware that the default setting on your mobile device typically results in the metadata associated with your photo being included in the upload. As a reminder, if you do not want metadata sent to us and made public at the time of your upload, please change your settings on your device.

When you visit any Wikimedia Site, we automatically receive the IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location. We keep IP addresses confidential, except as provided in this Policy. If you are visiting Wikimedia Sites with your mobile device, we may use your IP address to provide anonymized or aggregated information to service providers regarding the volume of usage in certain areas.

We use this location information to make your experience with the Wikimedia Sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and their interaction with the Wikimedia Sites, and to generally improve our services. For example, we use this information to provide greater security, optimize mobile applications, and learn how to expand and better support Wikimedia communities. We also use Personal Information in the manner described in the sections of this Policy titled "For Legal Reasons" and "To Protect You, Ourselves & Others."

We share your Personal Information for a particular purpose, if you agree. For example, if you receive a scholarship and we ask permission to share your Personal Information with a local chapter. You can find more information in the list of examples in our FAQ.

We will access, use, preserve, and/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 provide notice if we are not legally restrained from contacting you, there is no credible threat to life or limb that is created or increased by disclosing the request, and you have provided us with an email address.

Nothing in this 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 Personal Information. We recommend seeking the advice of legal counsel immediately if such a request is made involving you.

For more information, see our Subpoena FAQ.

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), consistent with our legitimate interest, we will continue to keep your Personal Information confidential, except as provided in this Policy, and provide notice to you via the Wikimedia Sites and a notification on WikimediaAnnounce-L or similar mailing list at least thirty (30) calendar days before any Personal Information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We, or particular users with certain administrative rights as described below, need to use and share your Personal Information if it is reasonably believed to be necessary to enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, or any Wikimedia Foundation or user community-based policies. We may also need to access and share Personal Information to investigate and defend ourselves against legal threats or actions.

Wikimedia Sites are collaborative, with users writing most of the policies and selecting from amongst themselves people to hold certain administrative rights. These rights may include access to limited amounts of otherwise nonpublic information about recent contributions and activity by other users. They use this access to help protect against vandalism and abuse, fight harassment of other users, and generally try to minimize disruptive behavior on the Wikimedia Sites. These various user-selected administrative groups have their own privacy and confidentiality guidelines, but all such groups are supposed to agree to follow our Access to nonpublic personal data policy. These user-selected administrative groups are accountable to other users through checks and balances: users are selected through a community-driven process and overseen by their peers through a logged history of their actions. However, the legal names of these users are not known to the Wikimedia Foundation.

We hope that this never comes up, but we may disclose your Personal Information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily harm or death to a person, or to protect our organization, employees, contractors, users, or the public. We may also disclose your Personal Information if we reasonably believe it necessary to detect, prevent, or otherwise assess and address potential spam, malware, fraud, abuse, unlawful activity, and security or technical concerns. (Check out the list of examples in our FAQ for more information.)

We use third-party service providers or contractors to help run or improve the Wikimedia Sites for you and other users. We give access to your Personal Information to these providers or contractors as needed to perform their services for us or to use their tools and services. We put requirements, such as confidentiality agreements, in place to help ensure that these service providers treat your Personal Information consistently with, and no less protective of your privacy than, the principles of this Policy. For further information, please see our FAQ.

If you are visiting Wikimedia Sites with your mobile device, we use your IP address to provide anonymized or aggregated information to service providers regarding the volume of usage in certain areas.

Some of our service providers ask us to post links to their privacy policies; a list of these service providers and links to their policies can be found on this page.

The open-source software that powers the Wikimedia Sites depends on the contributions of volunteer software developers, who spend time writing and testing code to help it improve and evolve with our users' needs. To facilitate their work, we give some developers limited access to systems that contain your Personal Information, but only as reasonably necessary for them to develop and contribute to the Wikimedia Sites.

Similarly, we share non-Personal Information or aggregated information with researchers, scholars, academics, and other interested third parties who wish to study the Wikimedia Sites. Sharing this Personal 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 Personal 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 our FAQ.)

Any information you post publicly on the Wikimedia Sites is just that – public. For example, if you put your mailing address on your talk page, that is public, and not specifically protected by this Policy. And if you edit without registering or logging into your account, your IP address will be seen publicly. Please think carefully about your desired level of privacy before you disclose Personal Information on your user page or elsewhere.

We strive to protect your Personal 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 is no such thing as completely secure data transmission or storage, so we cannot guarantee that our security will not be breached (by technical measures or through violation of our policies and procedures).

We will never ask for your password by email (but may send you a temporary password via email if you have requested a password reset). If you ever receive an email that requests your password, please let us know by sending it to privacy@wikimedia.org, so we can investigate the source of the email.

Once we receive Personal Information from you, we keep it for the shortest possible time that is consistent with the maintenance, understanding, and improvement of the Wikimedia Sites, and our obligations under applicable law. In most instances, Personal Information is deleted, aggregated or de-identified after 90 days. Non-Personal Information may be retained indefinitely as appropriate. (Check out the list of examples in our FAQ.)

Please remember that when you make a contribution to any Wikimedia Site, the page history will show when your contribution was made, your username (if you are signed in), or your IP address (if you edit while not logged in). The transparency of the projects' contribution and revision histories is critical to their efficacy and trustworthiness. To learn more about our data retention practices, see our data retention guidelines.

For information about how you may request removal of your Personal Information, or other rights you may have with respect to your Personal Information, see our FAQ. If you would like to request to access, update or restrict/object to the processing of Personal Information, or receive a copy of your Personal Information for purposes of transmitting it to another organization, you may Contact Us. We will respond to your request consistent with applicable law.

Please note also that you may be able to exercise some of these rights without our intervention. For example, if you are a registered user, you can access and update some Personal Information in your Preferences, as well as download your user account data. You may also manage what kinds of notifications you receive and how often you receive them by going to your Notifications Preferences.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California, with servers and data centers located in the U.S. If you decide to use Wikimedia Sites, whether from inside or outside of the U.S., you understand that your Personal Information will be collected, transferred, stored, processed, disclosed and otherwise used in the U.S. as described in this Privacy Policy. You also understand that your information may be transferred 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.

We are strongly committed to protecting users' Personal Information. Under this Policy, we may share your information only under particular situations, which you can learn more about in the "When May We Share Your Information" section of this Privacy Policy. In particular, we do not share your Personal Information for marketing purposes.

Because we protect all users in accordance with this 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 our FAQ.

Because things naturally change over time and we want to ensure our Privacy Policy accurately reflects our practices and the law, it may be necessary to modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We reserve the right to do so in the following manner:

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. If you are located in the European Economic Area and have questions about your personal data or would like to request to access, update, or delete it, you may contact our representative via email at EUrepresentative.Wikimedia@twobirds.com, or via mail at:

Main point of contact: Vincent Rezzouk-Hammachi

If you are an individual located in the United Kingdom, and have questions about your personal data or would like to request to access, update, or delete it, you may contact our representative via email at UKrepresentative.Wikimedia@twobirds.com, or via mail at:

Main point of contact: Vincent Rezzouk-Hammachi

Our European Economic Area and United Kingdom Representative can only be contacted for queries in relation to data protection.

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 for reading our 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.