California Privacy Disclosures

To help California consumers make informed privacy decisions and compare practices across businesses, the State has created a common framework for businesses to talk about privacy. Apple is using that framework here to describe, for each category of personal information and sensitive personal information under California law, whether Apple collects that personal information or sensitive personal information, or discloses it for a business purpose. Apple does not sell or share your personal information, as those terms are defined under California law. Apple also does not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purposes that would require a user to exercise a right to limit according to California law.

  • Identifiers: Apple collects information that identifies you to provide you with services that you request. For example, Apple processes your name, email address, and billing address to process transactions. And we process your mobile phone number to communicate with you. Apple discloses this information to our service providers who process the information on our behalf to help us perform a particular business purpose in accordance with our instructions. In some cases, Apple may provide this information to third parties for the business purposes requested by you, such as when Apple provides your name and certain information about your device to a mobile carrier to set up a carrier account for billing purposes. Under California law, certain personal information in this category, such as social security number, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number, may be considered sensitive.
  • Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law: California and federal laws provide protection against discrimination if you belong to a protected class. Under California law, certain personal information in this category may be considered sensitive. Protected classes include groupings based on race, ethnicity, or national origin; religious or philosophical beliefs; sexual orientation; genetic information; family status; and whether you have a disability. Similarly, even though you may represent to Apple that you are part of a family unit for Family Sharing, Apple does not take steps to infer your actual family status based on your feature use.
  • Commercial information: Apple collects and maintains a record of your transactions with Apple, such as the products or services that you have purchased. Apple discloses this information to our service providers for our business purposes, for example, to process transactions that you have requested. Apple also shares certain commercial information with third parties, such as credit card companies, in order to process your transactions. Under California law, certain personal information in this category may be considered sensitive. 
  • Biometric information: Under California law, biometric information includes any physiological or behavioral characteristics that can be used to establish your identity, such as a fingerprint or an image of your face from which a faceprint can be created. Under California law, certain personal information in this category may be considered sensitive. If you choose to store your photos with Apple, you may include in those photos an image of your face from which a faceprint could be made. Apple does not create or store faceprints of our customers and, as a result, does not consider photos stored in iCloud to be biometric information. 
  • Network activity information: Apple collects certain information about user activity on our electronic networks, such as how consumers interact with our websites and apps. We use this information to help determine what pages or features are popular or where our products and services could be improved. We may also use such information for marketing purposes with your consent or other applicable legal basis.
  • Geolocation data: Geolocation data at Apple is data that describes a consumer’s precise location. Under California law, precise location data may be considered sensitive. Apple may collect information about your location to provide you services that you request, such as Find My, where data is stored for a short period on our servers to process your request.
  • Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, or olfactory information: Apple does not collect information about your senses.
  • Employment information: We collect any professional or employment information that you share with us or direct others to share with or make available to us, such as the institutions that you attended, any professional degrees or certifications, or union membership.
  • Education information: If you are a student or educator and would like to use an education discount, we may collect information about your status to verify eligibility and maintain information about your affiliation with an educational institution.
  • Inferences from your personal information to create a profile about your preferences: If you choose to personalize your services or communications where such an option is available, Apple will use information that we collect so that we can offer you those personalized services or communications. You can learn more about how relevant services use information to personalize your experience by reviewing the privacy information presented when you first use a service that asks to use your personal information. We make this information easy to find by presenting it with our Data & Privacy icon; it is also available at all times on your Apple device and through the links below.
  • Personal information described in Section 1798.80(e): The California Consumer Privacy Act requires that we tell you whether we collect any personal information that is described in California Civil Code Section 1798.80(e). The Code section includes a broad variety of categories of personal information, such as name, contact information, physical characteristics, credit card or billing information, and more. Under California law, certain personal information in this category, such as financial information, health information, sex life, social security number, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number, may be considered sensitive. Apple collects personal information described in Section 1798.80(e). Some of this information is already described in the categories above. For a full description of how Apple collects and handles your personal information, we encourage you to review the Apple’s Privacy Policy and the privacy information presented when you first use a service that asks to use your personal information, denoted by the Data & Privacy icon.

Any personal information that Apple holds may also be used to comply with applicable law.