Reuters: Privacy / Data Protection Notice

The Reuters Group respects your privacy and seeks to protect your personal data. The following information describes how we gather and use data. The amount of information the Reuters Group holds on you and how it uses it depends on your relationship with the Reuters Group and on what Reuters service you use, so some of the sections below may not be relevant to you.

What Reuters uses your personal information for
The Reuters Group collects and uses your information to administer, support, improve and obtain feedback on our services and to detect and prevent faults, breaches of our network security, the law or our contract terms. We will also use all this information to assess what Reuters Group products and services may be of interest to individuals and to personalise our service and marketing.

If you are registered to use a service Reuters may contact you to obtain feedback on that service and any improvements we could make to it.

Further information/marketing
If you have agreed to such contact, the Reuters Group may contact you about those of its other services to which you do not subscribe but which may interest you. We may for example invite you to join a free trial of a service. Sometimes we may invite you to client entertainment and similar events. Such contact may be by post, fax, email, instant message and (in certain limited circumstances) by telephone from time to time. You have a right to ask us at any time not to contact you by way of direct marketing. You can do this by contacting esupport.global@reuters.com with the words “No marketing” in the subject line. Then you will no longer receive invitations for events or free trials. If you are a user of Reuters On-line subscription services, such as Reuters Messaging you may also use Account Preferences to change your marketing preference at any time.

Calls to Help Desks
Calls to Reuters Group telephone help desks may be recorded for quality control, regulatory and monitoring purposes.

Personal Information Reuters collects
The Reuters Group collects and updates information about users of its services, suppliers, account and IT managers and other individuals it deals with in its day-to-day business. It may obtain this information via direct contact with you, from third parties such as your employer or another one of our suppliers and automatically via your use of our services.

Information you/others give us: This information includes your contact details, registration and payment details, support problems, details around participation in events, prize draws or surveys and certain relevant details of your interests and preferences. Information may also be obtained on you as a result of authentication or identity checks, including as required by anti money laundering laws.
Information we collect via our services: If you are a registered user of our services the Reuters Group also gathers information about your use of our services, such as generic types of data accessed, times and volume of use of the services and Traffic Data. Traffic Data includes logs, details of networks, data and systems accessed, details of the sender and recipients of messages sent over our services, times and location of log on or access, duration of sessions, clickstream and similar usage or system data. Traffic Data may sometimes be traceable to/related to not just companies but named individuals. Before you register with the Reuters Group, however, you can browse Reuters Group web sites anonymously.

Storage methods and duration
The Reuters Group may store your information in its databases, such as its Customer Relationship database, for reference. The information may be retained and used by the Reuters Group for a reasonable period, reflecting our need to answer queries or resolve problems, provide improved and new services and any data retention requirements of the law. This means we may retain information after an individual ceases to use Reuters Group services or after the individual has ceased interacting with us. Except where the law, authorities or regulatory bodies require us to retain it for longer, we retain Traffic Data for a reasonable period after the Traffic Data was generated, including in some circumstances (such as with firewall logs or fault data) after any bill has been paid. The details of money laundering checks, user authentication or verification checks and details of trading or other regulated activity may be retained for so long as the law or the regulator requires or evidence of the trade is required

Passing your information to others in your own organisation
If your employer subscribed for the service on your behalf then we may pass certain information to your employer about your use of the service where your employer has a legitimate reason to receive it. Similarly if you are the point contact person in your organisation for a service, we may pass your contact details to those in your organisation for this purpose.

Passing your information to third parties
Except where the law permits or unless you specifically agree, the Reuters Group does not sell or rent your personal data to others outside the Reuters Group.

In some instances, we may pass information to third parties involved in the relevant Reuters Group service (such as to stock exchanges or third party information and software providers) who wish to manage and check the distribution of their information/software and obtain payment for it. They may then match it with the data they have for this purpose. You will generally know if such a transfer of your personal data happens, except if the third parties are simply working on our behalf as our subcontractors, administrators (such as companies that process credit card payments) or our professional advisers or if the data is required to be disclosed by law or to a regulator – then we might not inform you.

If we sell a business division to another company and your personal data is used by that business then your data may be transferred to the buyer along with the business for them to use in the same way.

Cookies/Software agents
A "cookie" is a piece of software, which may be sent to your computer. Cookies enable us to collect information about how our web sites and services are being used and to manage them more efficiently. Until you have registered on Reuters web sites, the cookie will only track general usage patterns and technical information about your computer type and will not be used to identify you individually. After registration, cookies will be used to collect information on you as described in “Personal Information Reuters collects”. You can turn off the ability to receive cookies by adjusting the browser in your computer but you should note that if you do so, this may materially distort the quality of service and data you receive. You therefore do this at your own risk. Reuters also uses agents with your computer to assist with our diagnosis of technical problems and therefore to obtain information about software versions installed and data transmitted, for software compliance purposes and for you/your company to receive software updates, new releases or additional software. Sometimes you can refuse or remove these agents but that means you will not receive this additional software and may suffer service problems and you may lose all rights to support. We therefore do not recommend that you remove or tamper with these agents.

Newsletters and Reuters Magazine
With some services you are given the opportunity to receive a related newsletter by email or post. You can at any time choose to stop receiving a service’s newsletter or the Reuters Magazine by following the instructions with the newsletter or Magazine.

Advertising on our web sites
Where advertising is served on to our web sites there may be cookies used to collect technical information and generic usage information but third party advertisers will not be able to relate this to you as an individual without your consent.

Restricted Data Sets
If you contract for a service in your own name (and not that of your company) and that service involves the supply of trade, pricing or other financial data, your name may be included in the directory of subscribers in order that the data providers can select or restrict who can view their data.

Credit checks
Reuters may in some instances for some fee-paying products carry out credit checks with credit reference agencies, or we may follow up references. This will affect you if you are contracting for the service in your own name. Then the fact that Reuters has carried out such a credit check, and in some instances the nature or results of the credit check, will appear on the agency's register against your name. In many countries you can obtain a copy of your register entry by writing to the relevant credit reference agency, sometimes on payment of a fee.

Digital Signatures/Certificates
If the product you are using has digital certificates/certificate signatures then your name and related details may be displayed as part of any certificate issued to you. It will be seen by those to whom your certificate or signature is presented or who rely on it. Your details may also need to be entered into a related status directory of certificates issued.

Interception of mail
Reuters may intercept some mail and email addressed to individuals in Reuters. The reasons it may do this are related to security of Reuters, its staff and others, for detection and prevention of crime and to identify correct recipients or to make sure mail is dealt with during staff absence. In the case of emails, we may reject, delay or remove content from emails which have a nature, content or attachments which may disrupt our systems or because they may pose security issues such as viruses. We may also filter out emails which contain certain content on the basis that content is offensive or the email is unwanted or spam. In certain circumstances this may unfortunately result in “innocent” emails being affected but we do try and reduce such occurrences.

International Transfer of your information
Because Reuters services and the Reuters Group are international, personal data may be made available internationally, including in countries which do not have data protection laws, or laws which provide as much protection as in the country of origin. We seek to require those to whom we transfer your data to protect it and your privacy. This way Reuters works to protect personal data transferred to countries which do not have data protection laws or whose laws are less strict.

News reporting
In its capacity as a news agency, Reuters gathers and stores what could be classified as personal data. This is used for news reporting, opinion polls and related research. This privacy notice does not focus on that type of use.

Security and staff awareness
Reuters has developed strict corporate policies governing information technology. These cover areas such as access control, authentication, audit, monitoring, alarms, data storage and back up and transmission standards and environment integrity. Reuters staff are subject to a code of conduct which requires them to adhere to privacy principles and Reuters has a privacy compliance programme.

Reuters Group
Reuters Group means Reuters Group plc and subsidiaries or corporate entities as they exist from time to time and in which Reuters Group plc has a direct or indirect ownership interest of 50% or more. This includes some companies which do not have the word “Reuters” in their corporate name and which use other brands such as Lipper, Instinet, Radianz or Bridge. In some circumstances these companies may have their own privacy policies for data they collect themselves. Users will then be presented with their policies/notices on registration for those subsidiary services.

Your local Reuters office is primarily responsible for managing the registration data, except in relation to a few Reuters services where Reuters SA is responsible. Where your employer subscribed for the service on your behalf, details of who is managing your data will be available from your employer. Where the local Reuters company is outside the EU, its representative in the European Union is Reuters Limited. Reuters Limited is primarily responsible for managing usage and traffic data.

Reuters Messaging and similar services and forums
Reuters Messaging is a real-time communication tool designed to give you access to your key market and industry sector contacts anywhere in the world. You can save time and work more efficiently by choosing to share your presence information (for example whether you are online or away from your desk) with selected other users of Reuters Messaging.

If you have registered for Reuters Messaging or Reuters.Net mail, you will be provided with an entry in a searchable directory that allows other users of that service to view your name, email address, Messaging address, job function and place of work. If you choose to be ex-directory then others, including your market counterparties, will not be able to search for you in the directory.

It is possible that those in or outside the Reuters service will obtain or contact you via your Messaging address even if you are ex directory, if you have for example given them your Messaging address (e.g. on your business card) or they have guessed it. Given this and the purpose of the service you agree to the receipt of messages and to contact which you have not expressly requested.

Users agree to comply with the rules and the Code of Conduct in order to maintain the quality of the user experience. Reuters will take complaints about other users conduct and privacy seriously and you can raise such complaints at any time via the Contact Us button.

Material you post on interactive forums or chatrooms in Reuters services will be posted alongside your user name and will be viewable by other users of the Reuters service in which the chatroom is contained. In some limited circumstances we use extracts from chatrooms to encourage others to join the service.

Questions
More details about the way we use data in a particular Reuters Group service may be found in a notice or statement which is provided to you as part of that service. If you have any questions about Reuters privacy/data protection policy please contact privacy.queries@reuters.com. If you have a query regarding the use of data in a particular service, or you wish to see or change your data please contact: esupport.global@reuters.com detailing “Personal Details” in the subject line. The law often allows you to write and ask to see and correct the information held about you, sometimes on payment of a fee.