Privacy Policy

1. You and Us

This notice ("Privacy Policy") is between you and us. "You" are an end user or visitor of BF Island mobile application, services, content, features, and properties (collectively, the "BF Island"). When we mention "BuzzFeed", "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Policy, we mean BuzzFeed, Inc., or the relevant BuzzFeed company responsible for providing BF Island. BuzzFeed legal entities are listed in our Section 13.

BF Island is not directed to individuals under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child may have provided us with personal data, please contact data-privacy@buzzfeed.com and we will delete the information promptly.

2. About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how BuzzFeed collects, uses, discloses, or otherwise processes your personal data when you use BF Island. Your "personal data" is any information that relates to and identifies or is capable of identifying you, directly or indirectly, such as your name, address, e-mail address, online identifier, and other information that is not otherwise publicly available. "Processing" means any operation or set of operations which can be performed on personal data.

3. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We’re likely to update this Privacy Policy in the future and when we make changes, we will revise the date at the top of the policy. When we make significant changes, we will notify you through BF Island, via email, or other communication. Please come back and check this page from time to time for the latest information on our privacy practices.

4. How to Contact us

If you have questions or concerns about the information in this Privacy Policy, our handling of your personal data more generally, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

5. How We Collect Your Data

6. How We Use Your Data

Overall, we collect your data to give you a better experience with BF Island. In detail, we use your data to:

• Enable the creation and maintenance of your Account
• Verify your age and determine the applicability of laws and regulatory requirements to you as a data subject;
• Identify which legal protections, rights, and obligations apply to you under applicable law, and to determine the functionalities, features, and activities that may be made available to you, or restricted, on BF Island;
• Personalize and improve BF Island and provide you with advertisements, content or features that match your profile, activities or interests;
• Infer your interests to suggest or recommend (i) features or content on BF Island, (ii) other BF Islands users you may like to connect with, or (iii) present relevant ads;
• Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts and support and administrative messages and to respond to your comments, questions and customer service requests;
• Communicate with you about products, services, offers, and events offered by BuzzFeed and others, and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you;
• Make inferences about your interests and preferences (including at a household level). Your interests and preferences are inferred from data we collect about the Media and Content you have interacted with, how long you interacted with them, how often you interacted with them, and the nature of your interaction;
• Customize content that our third-party Advertising Partners deliver on BF Island (such as personalized third-party advertising);
• Create and update profiles and audience segments that can be used for analytics, interest-based advertising and marketing on BF Island, and on websites, mobile apps and other platforms controlled by our advertisers and other third party advertising partners ("Third Party Sites")
• We may use information about you, such as your email address, to identify you across the devices you use to access BF Island or other BuzzFeed offerings. This helps us learn more about your interests and preferences, which we use for advertising on BF Island and Third Party Sites.
• Facilitate contests, sweepstakes and promotions and process and deliver entries and rewards;
• Monitor and analyze trends, usage and activities in connection with BF Island;
• Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights and property of BuzzFeed and others; and
• Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the data was collected.

7. Sharing Your Personal Data

In general, your personal data will remain with BuzzFeed but we may share personal data about you as follows or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

• Within BuzzFeed. We share your personal data within BuzzFeed’s legal entities where necessary to fulfill a contract or precontractual measures, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so (such as advertising/marketing) or a legal obligation to do so. BuzzFeed’s legal entities are listed in our "BuzzFeed Legal Entities" in Section 13;
• With vendors, consultants, and other service providers who process your data on our behalf when they provide services to us, for example data analytics, research, marketing and financial services;
• With Advertising Partners to customize your experience and better tailor BF Island and Third Party Sites, for marketing and advertising purposes. Our Advertising Partners are companies that provide services that help us provide advertising to you. These companies may use their own tracking technologies to collect or request information about you. For more information, please see our "Cookie Policy" in Section 11.
• In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company;
• We may be legally required to disclose or share your personal data without your consent in some circumstances, for example to comply with a court order or law enforcement. In such circumstances, we will only disclose your personal data if we have a good-faith belief that such sharing is required under applicable legal obligations;

Sharing of Aggregated or De-Identified Information

We may also share aggregated or de-identified information, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you (we do not attempt to re-identify de-identified information, except as permitted or required by law). For example, we may share aggregated or de-identified information with our ad partners and service providers so that we, and they, can understand how people use BF Island; this helps us grow our business and improve and develop BF Island.

We may also share information about you along with a hashed version of your email address with our Advertising Partners so that they and we can facilitate customized ad campaigns and other offers on BF Island and on other platforms. "Hashing" transforms your email into an unrecognizable series of numbers and letters (e.g. a "hashed" version of jane@email.com would be k5f7g23@email.com).

8. Retaining Your Information

We keep your personal data for as long as we need it for the purposes for which it was collected.

When we decide how long we will keep your information we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, why we need it, and any relevant legal requirements (such as legal retention and destruction periods). Here are some more factors we consider when we decide how long to keep your information:

• If we need the information to operate or provide BF Island. For example, we store your basic Account details — like your user name and email address — to maintain your Account.
• To do the things you expect from BF Island. For example, if you delete your Account, we will delete your personal data. However your Artifacts will remain.
• How long we need to retain the information to comply with certain legal obligations.
• If we need it for other legitimate purposes, such as to prevent harm, investigate possible violations of our User Agreement or other policies, investigate reports of abuse, or protect ourselves or others.

We may anonymize your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes.

9. Facial/Image Data/Self-Photograph ("Selfie")

When using BF Island, you may voluntarily take and upload a Selfie to the platform ("Raw Selfie"). A Raw Selfie may constitute personal information because it can contain identifiers—such as facial features or other distinguishing characteristics—that can be used to identify you, either on their own or when combined with other information. Uploading a Raw Selfie is entirely optional and is not required to access or use BF Island or any of its features. We do not retain, use, or disclose any Raw Selfie for any purpose other than solely for the purpose for which it was provided.

10. Notice for California Users

This section provides you with our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal data. It also explains your rights regarding your personal data that we collect pursuant to the California Privacy Rights Act, its amendments, and regulations (collectively the "CCPA").

Categories of Information We Collect:

• Your identifying details (e.g. your email address, Google/Apple ID, birthday and username).
• Inferences (e.g. inferences about your personal preferences and attributes drawn from profiling).
• Online identifiers (e.g. IP address, ADID/IDFA, cookie IDs, internal identification numbers, Google/Apple ID,).
• Location data (e.g. your city, state or country information).

Categories of Sources:

• You
• Your device
• Data partners, such as Apple and Google.

Business or Commercial Purposes for Collection

• Auditing related to counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions, and auditing compliance with this specification and other standards.
• Ensure security and integrity.
• Debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Short-term, transient use, including, but not limited to, nonpersonalized advertising shown as part of your interaction with BF Island.
• Performing services on behalf of BuzzFeed, including maintaining or servicing Accounts, providing customer service, verifying your information, providing analytic services, providing storage, or providing similar services on behalf of BuzzFeed.
• Providing advertising and marketing services.
• Undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration.
• Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of BF Island, and to improve, upgrade, or enhance BF Island.

When We Sell or Share Personal Data

We may share your personal data with government entities when required to do by law.

California Consumer Data Privacy Rights

Your California Consumer privacy rights are as follows:

1. The Right to Know and Have Access to Data

   You have the right to obtain a copy of the specific pieces of personal data that we have collected about you. To exercise your right, please contact us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.

2. Right to Delete

   You may request that we delete your personal data that we have collected from you. Please note that even if you make a request to delete your personal data, applicable law may permit or require us to retain personal data that was collected for security purposes, for legitimate internal business purposes, including maintaining business records, to comply with law, to exercise or defend legal claims, and to cooperate with law enforcement. To exercise your right, please contact us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.

3. Right to Correct

   You may request that we correct the personal data that we maintain about you that is inaccurate. To exercise your right, please contact us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.

4. Right to Opt Out of Sale or Sharing

   You may opt out of "sales" or "sharing" of personal data (as defined under applicable law) as follows:

   • Click on "Cookie Settings" and deactivate cookies.
   • Contact us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.
   • Exercising opt-out choices offered by the Digital Advertising Alliance at http://www.aboutads.info/choices, or by the Network Advertising Initiative at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.

5. No Right to Limit.

   BuzzFeed does not use or disclose sensitive personal data for purposes that, under applicable law, require us to offer consumers a "Right to Limit" the use or disclosure of sensitive personal data.

6. Non-Discrimination

   As required by the CCPA, we will not discriminate against you because you exercise your CCPA rights.

California Shine the Light Disclosure

Under California Civil Code sections 1798.83- 1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask for a notice identifying the categories of personal customer data which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to the following address: 50 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010, 6th Floor, Attn: Legal Department.

11. Cookie Information

We may use cookies or similar technologies to improve BF Island performance and user experience. These cookies are small data files stored on your device and are used for limited technical and analytical purposes. We may use Google Analytics to help us understand overall trends, such as session length, crash frequency, or device types. Google Analytics uses technical data such as device type and approximate location to generate aggregated reports. This information is processed in such a way that does not identify any individual user, and we do not receive or store any personal data from Google Analytics.

Cookies and similar technologies allow us to collect the following types of personal data: a unique ID assigned to your device; IP address; device and browser type; operating system; content viewed or other actions taken through BF Island; time and date of those actions; country and language selected.

We use three types of cookies:

• Necessary Cookies - These cookies are essential for BF Island to function properly. They enable features such as saving your settings or maintaining sessions.
• Session Cookies - These cookies remember you during your session on BF Island. They are deleted when you log out of BF Island. We use session cookies to ensure content is displayed correctly on BF Island, to balance and monitor load on our servers, and for other technical matters essential to the operation of BF Island.
• Analytics Cookies - These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with BF Island, such as which features are most used or how long sessions last. This information helps us improve BF Island’s performance and design.

We use Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy which you can review here. If you’d like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page.

12. Privacy Information for All Users

As described above, depending on your place of residence, you may have certain data privacy rights afforded by law; however, we allow you to exercise select privacy rights regardless of your jurisdiction.

To request deletion of your personal data or request access to the personal data we may have about you, please email us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.

13. BuzzFeed legal entities

• BuzzFeed, Inc.
• BuzzFeed Media Enterprises, Inc.
• BuzzFeed Canada, Inc.
• BuzzFeed UK Limited
• BuzzFeed India Private Limited
• BuzzFeed PTY, Ltd (Australia)
• BuzzFeed Japan Corporation
• Entertainment Contents Online Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
• BuzzFeed Motion Pictures Inc.
• Product Labs, Inc.
• Torando Labs, Inc.
• Lexland Studios, Inc (formerly known as BFMP Video, Inc.)
• The HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.