Amazon.co.uk: Help > Security & Privacy

Amazon.co.uk knows that you care how information about you is used and shared and we appreciate your trust in us to do that carefully and sensibly. This notice describes the privacy policy of Amazon.co.uk and Amazon Jersey. By visiting Amazon.co.uk, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

Controllers of Personal Information

Any personal information provided to or to be gathered by Amazon.co.uk is controlled primarily by Amazon EU Sarl and Amazon Services Europe Sarl, both at 5, Rue Plaetis L-2338, Luxembourg and secondarily by Amazon.co.uk Ltd of Patriot Court, 1-9 The Grove, Slough, Berkshire, England SL1 1QP UK. Any personal information provided to or to be gathered by Amazon Jersey is controlled primarily by Amazon (Jersey) Limited (registered number 88176) care of 26 New Street, St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands JE4 8PP, and secondarily by Amazon Services Europe SARL of 5, Rue Plaetis L-2338, Luxembourg and Amazon.co.uk Ltd of Patriot Court, 1-9 The Grove, Slough, Berkshire, England SL1 1QP UK.

Amazon.com, Inc. and its controlled US subsidiaries are participants in the Safe Harbour programme developed by the US Department of Commerce and the European Union. These Amazon Group companies have certified that they adhere to the Safe Harbour Privacy Principles agreed upon by the US and the EU. For more information about the Safe Harbour and to view these Amazon Group companies certification, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Safe Harbour website. If you would like to contact Amazon directly about the Safe Harbour programme, please send an e-mail to safeharbor@amazon.com.

Amazon (Jersey) Ltd and its service providers are located in Jersey, where the data protection laws do not offer the same level of protection for personal data as those within the European Economic Area. Amazon (Jersey) Ltd has agreed to adhere to the Standard Contractual Clauses for the transfer of personal data to processors established in third countries, under Directive 95/46/EC of the European Commission. For more information about the Standard Contractual Clauses, visit the European Commissions website. Amazon Jersey may, if required, pass on the details of your order to Jersey Customs & Excise and/or UK Customs & Excise.

The information we learn from customers helps us personalise and continually improve your shopping experience at Amazon.co.uk. We use the information to handle orders, deliver products and services, process payments, communicate with you about orders, products, services and promotional offers, update our records and generally maintain your accounts with us, display content such as wish lists and customer reviews and recommend merchandise and services that might be of interest to you. We also use this information to improve our store and platform, prevent or detect fraud or abuses of our website and enable third parties to carry out technical, logistical or other functions on our behalf.

Here are the types of information we gather.

Information You Give Us: we receive and store any information you enter on our website or give us in any other way. Click here to see examples of what we collect. You can choose not to provide certain information but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customising future shopping for you, improving our stores, and communicating with you.
Automatic Information: we receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many websites, we use "cookies" and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses Amazon.co.uk. A number of companies offer utilities designed to help you visit websites anonymously. Although we will not be able to provide you with a personalised experience at Amazon.co.uk if we cannot recognise you, we want you to be aware that these tools exist.
E-mail Communications: to help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail from Amazon.co.uk if your computer supports such capabilities. We also compare our customer list to lists received from other companies in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers. If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences.
Information from Other Sources: we might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information.

Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognise your browser and to provide features such as 1-Click purchasing, New for You, personalised greetings and storage of items in your Shopping Basket between visits.
The Help menu on the menu bar of most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie and how to disable cookies altogether. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of Amazon.co.uk's most innovative and useful features and we recommend that you leave them turned on.
If you do leave cookies turned on, be sure to sign off when you finish using a shared computer. Click here for more information on how to sign off.

Information about our customers is an important part of our business and we are not in the business of selling it to others. Amazon.co.uk and Amazon Jersey share customer information only as described below and with Amazon.com, Inc. and the subsidiaries which Amazon.com, Inc., controls and that are either subject to this Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Notice.

Affiliated Businesses We Do Not Control: We work closely with our affiliated businesses. In some cases, such as Marketplace, zShops and Auctions sellers, these businesses operate stores at Amazon.co.uk or sell offerings to you at Amazon.co.uk. In other cases, we operate stores, provide services or sell product lines jointly with or on behalf of these businesses. Click here for some examples of co-branded and joint offerings. You can tell when a third party is involved in your transactions and we share customer information related to those transactions with that third party.
Third Party Service Providers: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analysing data, providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links (including paid listings and links), processing credit card payments and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes. Further, they must process the personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and as permitted by the UK's Data Protection Act.
Promotional Offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of Amazon.co.uk customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. If you do not want to receive such offers, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences.
Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores, subsidiaries or business units. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Notice (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise). Also, in the unlikely event that Amazon.com, Inc. or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets.
Protection of Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Jersey and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Jersey, our users or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction. Obviously, however, this does not include selling, renting, sharing or otherwise disclosing personally identifiable information from customers for commercial purposes in a way that is contrary to the commitments made in this Privacy Notice.
With your consent: other than as set out above, you will receive notice when information about you might go to third parties and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.

Whenever we transfer personal information to countries outside of the European Economic Area in the course of sharing information as set out above, we will ensure that the information is transferred in accordance with this Privacy Notice and as permitted by the UK's Data Protection Act.

We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input.
We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.
We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, storage and disclosure of personally identifiable customer information. Our security procedures mean that we may occasionally request proof of identity before we disclose personal information to you.
It is important for you to protect against unauthorised access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when you finish using a shared computer. Click here for more information on how to sign off.

Our site may include third-party advertising and links to other websites. We do not provide any personally identifiable customer information to these advertisers or third-party websites. Click here for some examples as well as information on how to contact these companies to learn more or opt-out of their information collection practices.

These third-party websites and advertisers, or Internet advertising companies working on their behalf, sometimes use technology to send (or "serve") the advertisements that appear on our website directly to your browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. They may also use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (also known as action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalise advertising content. We do not have access to or control over cookies or other features that they may use, and the information practices of these advertisers and third-party websites are not covered by this Privacy Notice. Please contact them directly for more information about their privacy practices. In addition, the Network Advertising Initiative offers useful information about Internet advertising companies (also called "ad networks" or "network advertisers"), including information about how to opt-out of their information collection.

Amazon.co.uk gives you access to a broad range of information about your account and your interactions with Amazon.co.uk and Amazon Jersey for the limited purpose of viewing and, in certain cases, updating that information. Click here to see some examples. This list will change as our website evolves.

As discussed above, you can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or to take advantage of such Amazon.co.uk features as your About You area, Wish Lists and Customer Reviews.
You can add or update certain information on pages such as those listed in Which Information Can I Access?. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of the previous version for our records.
If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences. (If you do not want to receive Conditions of Use and other legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Notice, those notices will still govern your use of Amazon.co.uk and orders placed with Amazon.co.uk and Amazon Jersey, and it is your responsibility to review them for changes.)
The Help menu on the menu bar of most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie and how to disable cookies altogether. However, you will not be able to use such important features as 1-Click and New for You if you do not use cookies.

Amazon.co.uk does not sell products for purchase by children. We sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use Amazon.co.uk only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.

If you choose to visit Amazon.co.uk, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Notice and our Conditions of Use, including limitations on damages and application of the laws of England. If you have any concern about privacy at Amazon.co.uk, please e-mail us a thorough description and we will try to resolve the issue for you.

Our business changes constantly and our Privacy Notice and the Conditions of Use will change also. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our website frequently to see recent changes. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Notice applies to all information that we have about you and your account. We stand behind the promises we make, however, and will never materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of customer information collected in the past without the consent of affected customers.

Related Practices and Information:

Information You Give Us

You provide most such information when you search, buy, bid, post, participate in a contest or questionnaire or communicate with customer service. For example, you provide information when you: search for a product; place an order through Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Jersey or one of our third-party sellers; make an Auction bid or purchase; provide information in Your Account (and you might have more than one if you have used more than one e-mail address when shopping with us) or your About You area; communicate with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise; complete a questionnaire or a contest entry form; compile Wish Lists or other gift registries, provide and rate Reviews; and employ other personal notification services such as such as Available to Order Notifications. As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as: your name; address and phone number; credit card information; people to whom purchases have been shipped (including addresses and phone numbers); people (with addresses and phone numbers) listed in 1-Click settings; content of reviews and e-mails to us; the personal description in your About You area; and financial information.

Automatic Information

Examples of the information we collect and analyse include: the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type and version; operating system and platform; purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from other customers to create features such as Top Sellers; the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our website (including date and time); cookie number; products you viewed or searched for; zShops you visited; your Auction history; and any phone number used to call our customer service number. During some visits we may use software tools such as JavaScript to measure and collect session information, including page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

Information from Other Sources

Examples of information we receive from other sources include: updated delivery and address information from our carriers or other third parties, which we use to correct our records and deliver your next purchase or communication more easily; account information, purchase or redemption information and page-view information from some merchants with which we operate co-branded businesses or for which we provide technical, fulfillment, advertising or other services (such as Waterstones.co.uk); search term and search result information from some searches conducted through the Web search features offered by Amazon Group Companies, Alexa Internet and A9; search results and links, including paid listings (such as Sponsored Links from Overture); and credit history information from credit bureaus, which we use to help prevent and detect fraud and to offer certain credit or financial services to some customers.

Information You Can Access

Examples of information you can access easily at Amazon.co.uk include: up-to-date information regarding recent orders; personally identifiable information (including name, e-mail, password, communications preferences, address book and 1-Click settings); payment settings (including credit-card information and gift certificate, gift card and cheque balances); e-mail notification settings (including Alerts, Available to Order notifications, Delivers, New for You and newsletters); recommendations (including recent product-view history, prior-order history and Favourites); Wish Lists, Auctions, zShops and Marketplace seller accounts and your About You area (including your product reviews, requests and recommendations, your Listmania lists and your personal profile).

Co-Branded and Joint Offerings

An example of a business with which we offer co-branded products is Waterstones.co.uk. In the future we may offer joint or co-branded products and services such as those offered on Amazon.com's US website for Toysrus.com, Target, Borders, Hotwire, Gap, Nordstrom, Office Depot and Virginmega.com.