Page updated: April 2024
Version 1.1
1. What’s in this policy?
This is the privacy policy for when you're using the BBC outside the UK (view policy for when you're in the UK).
It’s written by the BBC: BBC Studios (the BBC’s main commercial arm) and the BBC’s UK public service broadcasting (‘PSB’) arm.
It tells you:
- what information we might collect about you
- how we might use that information
- when we might use your details to contact you
- what information of yours we might share with others
- your choices about the personal information you give us
2. What does this policy cover?
This policy covers BBC.com, the international BBC website, and the international BBC News and BBC Sport apps.
These are commercial services run by BBC Studios. BBC Studios will generally be the controller of your information when you use the website and apps outside the UK.
Some features you might use are delivered by the PSB, for example, articles you read on BBC Sounds or BBC News. These features may include personalisation, or gather data to help the BBC PSB understand how the services are used globally, and how to improve them.
It’s up to you to decide how much detail you want to know. We have just-in-time explanations that appear when we ask you to input your personal information. As well as what’s in this Policy, a service might have a short privacy notice. In that privacy notice you can find key information on what we do with your personal information when you use that service. And if you’re after more detail have a look at these topics.
What’s not covered in this policy?
Our services sometimes link to other companies’ services, like articles published on other sites. Those companies have their own privacy and cookies policies, so remember that the information you give them will follow their rules and not ours.
Sometimes you can access our services from other places, like BBC News content on Facebook or Apple News. Make sure to check their privacy policy so you know how they will use your information.
3. How do you protect my personal information?
We’re strongly committed to keeping your information safe. And to do this we design our services with your safety in mind. We also have dedicated teams to look after your information security and privacy.
At the same time, no service can be completely secure – if you have any concerns that your BBC account or personal information has been put at risk, for example if someone could have found out your password, please get in touch straight away.
Where we store your information
The headquarters of the BBC are in the UK. Some companies that provide services to us run their services from outside the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA). We only let that happen if we are satisfied with their levels of security. Keep in mind that when you give us personal information it could be transferred to, stored or processed in a location outside the UK or EEA.
4. What types of personal information does the BBC collect about me?
We’ll give details about why we need your personal information and how we’ll use it before we collect it, unless it’s obvious.
a. Information that you give us
We might ask for your name and contact details, or your date of birth, depending on what you’re doing. Information you give us might include information in a comment or video clip (a “creation”) you share with us, such as people’s names that appear in the creation.
When you register for a BBC account, or update your details or settings we ask for some personal information, like your email address, country, and age.
b. Device information
Devices are lots of things like:
- your computer
- your mobile or cell phone
- your tablet
We automatically collect some technical information from these devices and web browsers even when you’re not signed in to a BBC account. This might include:
- IP (internet protocol) address
- device ID
- app ID
- vendor ID
- advertising ID
c. Information on your activities outside the BBC when you talk about us
Like if you’ve mentioned us in a Twitter post, we’ll collect your Twitter handle.
d. Information on how you use our services
Like the articles you read.
5. How long will the BBC keep my personal information?
When you give us any personal information we’ll let you know how long we’ll hold it for. We always stick to these principles:
- we only hold your information for as long as we need it to do the activities we told you about or if we have a valid reason to keep it
- we think about what type of information it is, the amount collected, how sensitive it might be and any legal requirements
- we design our services so that we don’t hold your information any longer than we have to
- we may close your BBC account if you haven’t used it in the last year. We’ll send you an email to tell you that we plan to do this before we delete anything, so please check to see if we’ve sent you any emails about this
6. How can the BBC use my personal information?
We must have a valid reason to use your personal information. It’s called the “lawful basis for processing”. Sometimes we might ask your permission to do things, like when you subscribe to a newsletter. Other times, when you’d reasonably expect us to use your personal information, we don’t ask your permission, but only when:
- the law says it’s fine to use it, and
- it fits with the rights you have
We use your information for these types of things:
a. to deliver our services and to provide you with information about them
b. to send you emails with news, offers and promotions
c. to deal with your requests, complaints and enquiries
d. to personalise your experience and our marketing communications
Your BBC account lets you personalise your BBC online experience. To do that, “Allow Personalisation” is set to on when you create an account.
Information about how you use our online services is then connected with other information you give us to personalise your experience and our advertising.
If you don’t want us to do this, you can always turn personalisation off in your account settings.
e. to show you advertising on our services and to understand how effective it is
Some of this advertising might be personalised to you. We might use your BBC account information to do this. For example, we might show you adverts based on your age or the country you registered in.
If you don’t want us to use your account information in this way, you can turn personalisation off in your account settings.
f. to market our products and services to you on social media
g. to help us understand what kind of services you might use
And sometimes how you might share things with other people
h. to recommend things we think might interest you
What does "Recommended for you" mean?
i. to enable the BBC to research and innovate
You’re not a guinea-pig here, but knowing how you use our services could lead to the next big technology breakthrough.
j. to contact you about various things
When will the BBC use my information to contact me?
7. When will the BBC use my information to contact me?
We might use your information to contact you about different things, like:
- to update you on any changes to the BBC’s policies, practices and Terms of Use
- to check with you about any service or activity you’ve signed up for. For example, we might tell you if your BBC account hasn't been used in a long time.
- to contact you about a creation you sent us, like videos you might share with us
- to answer you when you’ve contacted us, or to respond to a comment or complaint
- to invite you to take part in surveys about BBC services, which are always voluntary
- for marketing purposes
- to send you notifications on your device depending on your settings
We’ll only contact you when we need to or when you’ve given us permission.
We’ll never contact you to ask for your BBC account password.
8. Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?
We’ll only send you marketing emails if you’ve agreed to this.
Keep in mind, even if you unsubscribe from marketing emails, we may still contact you with important updates and information about our services.
Will my personal information be used when the BBC advertises with other companies?
If you have a BBC account we might use information that we hold about you to show you personalised advertising for BBC services through other companies’ sites, like Facebook, Google, Snapchat or Twitter. This could be showing you a BBC sponsored message where we know you have a BBC account and have used BBC services.
If you don’t want to see our personalised advertising, you can set ad preferences in your social media companies’ settings. Also, you can turn off personalised promotional messages.
Will my personal information be used for advertising on BBC services?
On BBC.com, you will see commercial advertising, content recommendations, and advertiser microsites (“ads”).
Depending on your cookie and data settings, some of these ads may be personalised based on information we know or assume. This helps us to show you more relevant ads. It also means we can receive more revenue from our advertisers, allowing us to invest more in great content.
9. When does the BBC share my personal information with others?
We share your information with others in these ways:
a. When you make something public
Like post a comment which the public can see.
b. When we use other companies to power our services
In order for us to give you quality experiences and to understand how you’re using our services we often use other companies to process your personal information on our behalf.
For example, sending you emails about things we think might interest you, or analysing data on how people use our digital services so we can improve them.
We make sure that your personal information is looked after as if we were handling it directly. We carefully select these companies, only share with them what they need to do the work and we make sure they keep your information secure.
c. When advertising companies buy ad space and personalise their advertising
We work with a range of advertising and data companies to sell and deliver ads, and keep track of how they did. Some of these ads are personalised. Generally, these companies act as separate data controllers, or they might control your data on behalf of their advertiser client rather than us. We don’t share your account data with them.
d. When we share personal information with companies in the BBC family
BBC Studios and the BBC PSB work together on features like BBC account, and understanding how BBC services are used globally. This means that some information is shared between us.
e. When we do collaborative research
The BBC PSB sometimes collaborates with research partners. Every now and then we share data with them. This might include information we’ve collected about you. But we’re careful about what we share and what BBC research partners can do with it.
f. Sometimes by law we have to pass on your information to other organisations
We might also share your information if we have to by law, or when we need to protect you or other people from harm.
10. Can children use your services?
Outside the UK, you must be 16 or over to register for an account. This is because we don’t create content and services specifically for kids on BBC.com.
If you’re the parent or guardian of someone under 16 and you find out they’ve sent us information, please contact us at [email protected]. That way, we can delete the information from our records.
11. Can I delete my information?
This depends on what information you’re talking about.
a. If you’re talking about your BBC account
You can delete your account. Your account information will be deleted immediately. Keep in mind:
- we keep a record of how you’ve used our services, but this information can’t be linked back to you
- we also keep anything you’ve uploaded or commented on
b. What about other information I’ve shared with you?
We might have collected other personal information that you might ask to be deleted that has nothing to do with your BBC account.
12. What are my rights?
Remember, you’re in control of your personal information.
- request a copy of your information
- not let robots make big decisions about you
- to ask us to correct information that’s wrong, to delete it or to request that we only use it for certain purposes
- to change your mind, and ask us to stop using your information. For example, unsubscribing from any marketing emails or turning off personalisation
- opt out from personalised advertising cookies and other tracking
Signed in users can also opt out of the use of registration data for advertising purposes by turning off personalisation in their account settings.
Bear in mind, sometimes we might not be able to help. Like if the law tells us we can’t or it forms part of our journalistic output.
If you live in California:
We allow our advertising companies to collect a limited amount of information about you – like your IP address, device info, location and browsing data – to show you personalised advertising. Sharing this type of data can be viewed as a “sale” of “personal information” for the purposes of the California Consumer Privacy Act 2018 (“CCPA”).
You can opt out of future “sales” of your personal information.
You can opt back in by changing your commercial cookies settings or any of the other measures we’ve explained, and confirming your choice by continuing to use our services.
13. How does the BBC use cookies and similar tracking?
a. What are cookies and tracking technologies?
Cookies are small text files which are transferred to your computer or mobile when you visit a website or app.
There are also similar pieces of tracking information we collect.
b. Why do we use cookies and other tracking?
To do a few different things:
- to remember information about you, so you don’t have to give it to us again. And again. And again
- to keep you signed in, even on different devices
- to help us understand how people are using our services, so we can make them better
- to deliver advertising
- to help us personalise the BBC to you by remembering your preferences and settings.
- to find out if our emails have been read and if you find them useful
c. What are the types of cookies?
Some cookies are always on when you visit us, and you can’t turn them off unless you change your browser settings. We call these “strictly necessary cookies”. We use them to make sure our digital services work correctly and are meeting audience needs and interests.
We also use functional, performance and advertising cookies to make your experience more enjoyable. You can switch these on or off at any time and you can always change your mind. We’ll only use them if you’ve agreed.
Bear in mind there are some other cookies out there from other companies. These "third-party cookies" might track how you use different websites, including ours. For example, you might get a social media company’s cookie when you see the option to share something. You can turn them off, but not through us.
d. How long do cookies last?
Some are erased when you close the browser on your website or app. Others stay longer, sometimes forever, and are saved onto your device so that they’re there when you come back.
e. How do I control my cookies and tracking?
Strictly necessary cookies are always on when you visit us. On your first visit to us, we’ll tell you about our other types of cookies and ask you to choose which cookies we can use. You can always change your mind by going to your settings.
Stopping all cookies might mean you can’t access some BBC services, or that some of them might not work properly for you.
Another way to control some tracking is in the settings on your device.
14. How will I find out about changes to this policy?
We update this policy sometimes. If we make important changes, like how we use your personal information, we’ll let you know. It might be a notice, an email or a message in your app.
If you don’t agree to the changes, then you can always stop using our services, delete your account and stop giving us any more personal information. We’d be sorry to see you go.
15. How can I contact the BBC?
Find out more and contact us about your rights.
For any other questions or comments about this policy contact to our Data Protection Officer:
- by email
- by post: Data Protection Officer, Regulatory Affairs, BBC Studios, 1 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London W12 7FA
If you’re in the UK, please contact the BBC Public Service Data Protection Officer:
- by email
- by post at BBC Data Protection Officer, C/o DPO Team, Floor 6 C, London Broadcasting House, London, W1A 1AA
We’re regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can also contact them for advice and support.