Blizzard Entertainment® Privacy Policy

Blizzard Entertainment and its subsidiaries respects the privacy of its players and recognises the importance of providing a secure environment for personal information and non-personal information (collectively “Information”). We have adopted this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to explain how and why we process, collect, store and use the information you provide us. This Privacy Policy does not cover Information provided when you apply for a job at Blizzard. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and cannot control activities when you click a link to other sites from a Blizzard website. We highly recommend that you read the privacy policy of any third-party website you may be redirected to before providing any personally identifiable information.

 

The personal information you provide may be transferred to, stored, and processed within the United States or other countries where Blizzard maintains facilities or business operations (see section 6 for more information).

 

By using this website and/or any of Blizzard’s products or services, you acknowledge the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you object to anything described in this Privacy Policy, please do not use our websites or play our games. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time, so please check back periodically to ensure that you are aware of any changes. If we make a material change to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting the change on our websites or in this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Blizzard websites will signify that you acknowledge these changes.

 

1. Who is processing your information?

Blizzard Entertainment Ireland Limited is the data controller for the processing of your personal information, a registered company located at Blackpool Retail Park, Co. Cork, Cork, Ireland. For the performance of certain games and platform services, your information is controlled by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., One Blizzard Way, Irvine, CA 92618-3616, USA. Contact information for the Data Protection Officer, for both of these companies, is located in the last section of this document.

2. What information do we collect, and how long do we keep it?

We collect information from or about you in the following ways:

 

Information provided by you. If an online visitor submits information to Blizzard, it will usually take the form of one of the following: (1) the purchase of goods or services through our online store , (2) product or account registration, or registration for online game participation, (3) player match-up services, (4) message boards or forums, (5) eCards or Recruit-a-Friend e-mails, (6) warranty registrations, (7) contest registrations, (8) a consumer complaint, (9) surveys, (10) customer service or technical support, (11) Share WishList feature, and/or (12) newsletters. Information collected may include your name, username, home address, country of residence, phone number, date of birth, and/or e-mail address. We do not require this information to gain access to our websites, however, you will not be able to utilise certain products, services, or features that require registration or receive materials such as newsletters unless such information is provided.

 

In some very rare, specific and restricted cases, we may ask you to provide a copy partially obfuscated of a document or government-issued ID to verify your identity, location, and/or account ownership to comply with our legal obligations. When photo identification is provided to us, it is normally deleted as soon as the identification verification is complete or after 30 days if the case was not addressed within this period of time, unless otherwise required to establish, defend, or exercise our legal rights.

 

Information we get or generate from your use of our games or services. We collect information related to your game play and in-game activity, the services that you use and how you use them, and your devices and activities when you install or access our services to improve your player experience.

 

By using the speech to text accessibility feature in voice chat, you understand that your communications may be used for transcription of speech to text, including for accessibility purposes. We do not retain the chat transcription after you end the session and close the chat window.

 

By using the chat functionality and, when available, the voice chat functionality, you understand that Blizzard may monitor and/or record these communications to prevent cheating and fraud, or for enforcement of Blizzard’s End User Licence Agreement (EULA). Voice communication can be transcribed and analysed to detect toxic behaviour and conduct that disrupt or diminish the gaming experience for others. Blizzard will only retain the voice recording temporarily, no longer than necessary to investigate and transcribe it. Transcriptions will be retained to investigate the case and to apply sanctions, where necessary, in accordance with Blizzard’s EULA, before being deleted, except if we have a legal obligation to retain the transcription for longer. You have the choice not to use such functionality by changing your in-game settings.

 

Because voice chat and other communications may be viewed and/or heard by other users, users should avoid revealing any personal information in those communications. We also retain the conversations with the Customer Support team in order to help you to solve any query you might have. Blizzard may also monitor your computer, console, or other device (including mobile device) used to access and play games for the signatures of unauthorised programs and communicate this information back to Blizzard about that unauthorised activity to prevent cheating and fraud, and to enforce our EULA.

 

Information collected from external sources. Blizzard may enhance or merge the personal information collected from Blizzard websites, applications, and our games with data from third-party partners and vendors, in order to update your contact information, perform market analysis, improve our products, services, or systems, or for other purposes described in this Privacy Policy. As such, we may receive information about you and your activities from third parties when you link your account with external accounts (such as Facebook, PlayStation, XBOX or Twitch) and from advertisers or service providers about your experiences or interactions with them. We might also obtain information about you from public sites on the internet, such as Twitch, Instagram and YouTube, to mention a few. For example, if you login to a site or app using Facebook Log In, you may be asked if you wish to share information from your Facebook account with us. If you participate in a game or other feature where your score is posted on social media content, or if you use a "like" or a "share" button for a feature on our sites or apps, then the third party may share information about you with us. For more information, please check their privacy policy.

 

We treat all information associated with your account as personal information. Blizzard collects the following categories of information depending on which product(s) or service(s) you are interested in or interacting with. We usually retain information for only as long as necessary to provide you with products, services and an immersive entertainment experience. Exceptions are noted below.

 

ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with, an individual or household. Most of this information is provided and generated when a player creates his or her account and is available and can be updated by him or her in the account settings section. Age/date of birth is collected for parental control and to apply specific regulations in certain countries; and Gender only for merchandise provisioning. Phone number is required to obtain a licence of certain free-to-play games. We also collect information from players to follow up on the career and performance of our competitors.

 

Examples: Account name, BattleTag, name, email address, phone numbers, home address, social media handles, legal guardian details, any open field such as chat records, age, date of birth

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Game Teams, Esports (if applicable), Customer Service, Publishing and Security

 

SENSITIVE DATA: We might collect some sensitive data typically from players who participate in our esports events to provide personalised care and assistance during competitions. Such information consisting of racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic information, biometric information, information concerning health or information concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.

 

Examples: Dietary restrictions, food allergies

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Esports and vendors if applicable to provide the service.

 

TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Information about a product or service purchased or obtained, and transaction histories. We collect transaction details related to the licensing and purchasing of our products and services, and also related to the contests and competitions we sponsor. Transaction information may be retained for up to 7 years (primarily for audit purposes).

 

Examples: Order details/history, subscriptions, refunds, payments, shipping details, gifts, tax related information

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Consumer Products (if applicable), Customer Service, Publishing, Security, and Esports (if applicable)

 

ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Internet or other electronic network activity information and information regarding a consumer's interaction with an internet web site, application, or advertisement. When a player interacts with our services, we collect server logs. Server logs are retained between 90 days and 1 year, unless they are related to escalation of customer issues, in which case we keep them up to 3 years.

 

Examples: Region, activity log, cookies, operating systems and versions, licences details, forum content, wish list

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Game Teams, Customer Service, Security, and Esports (if applicable)

 

INFERENCES ABOUT A PERSON: Inferences drawn from an individual's activity, behaviour, or attitudes. We generate this type of information to set consumer's preferences and characteristics to provide great experiences to our players.

 

Examples: Reputation, experience, influencer type

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Marketing and Esports

 

LOCATION: Geographical location of a person or device by means of digital information processed via the Internet. We only use this type of information to evaluate service performance.

 

Examples: location based on IP address, IP address

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations and Game Teams

 

GEOLOCATION: Geographical location at a specific time of a person or device by means of digital information processed via the Internet. We only use this type of information to provide a specific in-game experience to players who opt-in in-time to it from within the game (and from their device).

 

Examples: Mobile device geolocation

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations and Game Teams

 

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Information collected/produced while assisting players through our customer support services to investigate and address players’ concerns and monitor and improve our services. Information gathered or produced during support of our players is retained for up to 3 years to ensure that we address concerns and issues in the best way possible. Information related to account restrictions and penalties are kept forever to protect our customers and business.

 

Examples: Account restriction history, case details, complaints and penalty histories, issue raised

 

Who has access to this type of information? Most of the time, it’s just Customer Service and Security, but occasionally Operations, Game Teams and Legal access this information

 

LEGAL RECORDS: Legal records. We keep records as support for any actual or anticipated legal matter.

 

Examples: Case files, or complaints

 

Who has access to this type of information? Legal, Operations, Security, and Esports (if applicable)

 

TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Information related to rankings, performance stats and team details to follow up on the career and performance of our competitors, licences and memberships, and tournament details.

 

Examples: Match details, team profile, performance stats, tournament details, player handle

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations and Esports

 

GAME DATA: Records of players' game licences, progress, history, stats, in-game purchases and interactions with other players. Game data is generated while a player plays our games.

 

Examples: Purchased item, unlocks, in-game social, progression, match history, ranking, guild information

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations, Game Teams, Customer Service, Publishing and Security, and community of developers

 

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Information needed for operations and logistics. Our tournaments and competitions are hosted all over the world. Therefore, we collect pro-players’ information needed for travel arrangements and assistance.

 

Examples: Preferred language, home/default airport, user franchises, clothing sizes, salutation

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations and Esports

 

EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Details about an individual current employment. This type of information is collected primarily from esports players to better manage our tournaments.

 

Examples: Company name, department, profession, job classification

 

Who has access to this type of information? Operations and Esports

 

3. Why do we process your information?

Blizzard collects and uses your information for its core business and operational activities to provide you with the best quality of services and experiences. Our purposes are:

 

a) Performing core business activities and its operations

 

Gameplay Experience. Creating the well-designed, highly enjoyable entertainment experiences you can find within our epic games! This includes: Progress and History, In-Game Social, Unlocks, and Purchased Items.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: BattleTag, Blizzard account name, game chat logs, name, social media handles (if linked to Game Account)
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, country
• GAME DATA: Game stats, match history, quest in progress, guild info, friends list, Items a player has/can purchase (d)

 

Player’s Account, Parental Controls and Security. Players of most of our games use a Battle.net account to house assets, communicate with friends and learn about our games and services. Parents of our younger players may set parental controls to monitor and control their children’s gaming. This includes: Player's Account, Parental Control Management.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Account name change history, address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, name, phone number, legal guardian details, social media handles (if linked to Bnet account)
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Account created date, activity log, timestamps, country, language, opt in details, SQA
• GEOLOCATION: IP address

 

Classic Esports Pro-Gaming Competitions. Professional competitive video gaming tournaments of many of our franchises taking place all over the world. The production of these tournaments often requires travel, lodging and nutrition arrangements for pro-players and attendees. We also might use players’ information to complete tournaments, service or product payouts and/or reimbursements, and attendees’ information to promote their participation and engagement. This includes: Tournament Administration, Event Travel and Logistics, Payments and Contract Management, Contest participation and Fans’ Engagement.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Name, email address, address, legal guardian details, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, National Identification Number, passport number
• SENSITIVE DATA: Dietary restrictions, food allergies
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Goodies sent, payment information
• INFERENCES ABOUT A PERSON: Experience, reputation, minor?
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, roles, team details, team/player stats
• ACTIVITY DATA: Timestamps
• ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Other passport details, rate history, region, language, clothing sizes
• EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Company name, department, job classification

 

Tournaments and events Broadcast & production. Many of our tournaments are broadcasted and require player-background information to facilitate a great viewer experience. This includes: Assets & Content Management, Chat Channel Moderation, Tournament & Gameplay Statistics, and Viewership & Engagement.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Name, legal guardian details, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, social media handles
• SENSITIVE DATA: Dietary restrictions
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, team details, team/player stats
• ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Social media sites, language, signed NDA
• EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Job classification

 

Global Customer Service. We provide you with personalised support to investigate and address any possible difficulty you might experience with our games, your account or your purchases. This includes: Customer Service Support, Customer Issue Resolution, Forum Moderation, Chat Setup.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, email address, name, phone number
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Billing address, order details, payment information, shipping address
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity log, timestamps, country, internet service provider, region
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• CUSTOMER SERVICE: Case details, case history, complaint history, customer service chat logs, penalty history, submitted files

 

Purchases. We process orders for our products, tournaments and services. This includes: Battlenet Purchases, Gear Store, Deduct Sessions, Strong Customer Authentication for Card Payments.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, CC/IBAN, company email address, name, phone number, parent Tax/Vat/VAS number, Tax/Vat/VAS number
• PROTECTED CLASSIFICATIONS: Date of birth, gender
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Billing name and address, order and refunds details, payment information, product reviews, shipping name and address shopping cart, licences and subscriptions
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Account created date, activity logs, timestamps, device information, web activity, wish list
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Company name

 

Finance and Accounting. We use some information for the administration of our business' assets. This includes: Payment Gateway Cost Analysis, Revenue and Sales Tax Preparation, Unclaimed Property Transfer.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, name
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Billing address, order details, recharge details
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, balance
• GEOLOCATION: IP address

 

Social Features. We enable communications and experience sharing between our players. This includes: Fireside Gathering Event, Chat Applications, Forums, Tournament Hosting, Player Profile and Leaderboards.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : About me text, address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, chat records, game account details, name, nickname
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Timestamps, Fireside Gatherings details, forums content, skill/role, friends, region
• GEOLOCATION: Geolocation based on IP address, IP address
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Brackets, match details, player handle, tournament details, team/player stats
• GAME DATA: Gameplay details
• EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Company name

 

Communication with our players. We also communicate with players about products, services, studies, surveys, news, updates and events. Blizzard may also use the information to promote and process contests and sweepstakes, fulfil any related awards. This includes: Community Voting, Favourites, Mobile Push Notifications, Research and Studies.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : BattleTag, Blizzard account name, email address, name, phone number
• PROTECTED CLASSIFICATIONS: Age, gender
• TRANSACTION/ PURCHASING INFORMATION: Payment Information
• INFERENCE ABOUT A PERSON: Reputation, Influencer Type, Minor
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Timestamps, device information, language, preferences/favourites/subscriptions, votes
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, team/ player stats
• EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION: Profession, job classification

 

b) Debug to identify and repair errors that impair exiting intended

 

Troubleshooting / Diagnostics. We conduct troubleshooting and diagnostics to trace and correct failures in our products and services and use this information to prevent further or similar failures in the future. This includes: Troubleshooting / Diagnostics of Applications and Services, Reproduction of Customer Issues, Errors/issues Analytics, Monitor Services Performance.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, chat records, device name, email address, name, internal IDs
• PROTECTED CLASSIFICATIONS: Age, date of birth, gender
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, country, device information, language, region
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• CUSTOMER SERVICE: Service Performance Speed report

 

c) Detect security incidents and protect our players against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity

 

Security incidents and malicious activity protection and prevention. One of our core values is: Play Nice; Play Fair. We devote resources to minimise fraud, cheating and abusive behaviour. This includes: Abuse/Cheat/Exploit Prevention and Detention, Account Restrictions and Penalties, Toxicity Analysis.

Any available information can be used for this purpose

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Any available details
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, country, region
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• CUSTOMER SERVICE: Account restriction history, active penalties, case details, complaint history, customer service chat logs

 

Legal proceedings and requirements. We may use the information we collect to investigate, or address claims or disputes relating to your use of Blizzard’s services or as otherwise allowed or required by applicable law. This includes: Litigation or Pre-litigation.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, name
• INFERENCES ABOUT A PERSON: Reputation
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, team details, team/player stats
• LEGAL RECORDS: Case file
• ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Publicly available link

 

d) Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality of our products and services and to improve, upgrade, or enhance them for your convenience

 

Business optimisation and service development. We perform research, analysis and product and service development to provide you with the best gameplay experiences and services. This includes: Alpha and Beta Versions Participation, Analytics & Data Segmentation, Research and Study, Training & Development, Reporting, Dev Portal Management.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, BattleTag, Blizzard account name, CC/IBAN, chat records, forum content, game account details, related players, name, phone number
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Purchase and refund histories
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, cancellation surveys, country, device information, licences details
• GEOLOCATION: IP address
• CUSTOMER SERVICE: Support survey, case details
• GAME DATA: Gameplay details

 

e) Audit and legal compliance of products and services

 

Audit and Legal Compliance. At Blizzard we are committed to protect our customers' information and we are creating processes and procedures to ensure we comply with external privacy laws and regulations. This includes: SOX/Statutory audits, COPPA legal compliance, Data Privacy Notifications System.

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Address, email address, name, phone number, age
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Billing address, order details
• ACTIVITY INFORMATI ON: Timestamps, change details
• GEOLOCATION: IP address

 

f) Short-term, transit use, information that is not disclosed to another third party and is not used to build a profile about a consumer or otherwise alter an individual consumer's expertise outside the current intention

 

Traffic Management. We have adopted Application Delivery Controllers that provide application delivery services such as traffic management of our network, but non information is stored. This includes: ADS/TPS Traffic Management.

 

Examples of information used:

• GEOLOCATION: IP address

 

g) Creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have a specific value to our customers

 

Marketing & Promotion. Blizzard also uses your information to communicate with players about promotions and serve you relevant ads and content about our products and games. Specifically, we use your data for the following marketing purposes:

 

Ad targeting via “paid media” and “custom audience” (your unencrypted information is never shared with third parties without your consent)

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Email address, name, Device information (IDs)
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Licences details, purchase history
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, country, ad/campaign activity, language, region
• GAME DATA: Gameplay details
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, team details, team/player stats
• ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Language, Social media sites

 

Transactional and Marketing campaigns and promotions

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : BattleTag, email address, name
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Purchase history
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, timestamps, country, email activity, language, region
• GAME DATA: Gameplay details
• TOURNAMENT/MATCH INFORMATION: Player handle, team details, team/player stats
• ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: Language, Social media sites

 

Attribution & media measurement

 

Examples of information used:

• ACCOUNT INFORMATION : Device information (IDs)
• TRANSACTION/PURCHASING INFORMATION: Purchase history
• ACTIVITY INFORMATION: Activity logs, device information, ad/campaign activity, app details
• GEOLOCATION: IP address

 

4. What are Blizzard’s legal bases for processing your information?

We process your information in accordance with the legal bases determined as follows:

 

1. Necessary for the performance of your game contract or any other feature you request or enable. These are required, and ceasing their processing will remove access to certain features or to the game service altogether. This includes using information for:

• Game functionality
• Global Customer Service
• Battle.net platform functionality
• Account functionality
• Parental control
• Purchases
• Chat, Text, or Voice applications
• Forums
• Contest participation
• Tournament hosting
• Research and studies
• Troubleshooting and diagnostics
• Abuse/toxicity/cheat/exploit detection and prevention
• Account compromise prevention
• Account restrictions and penalties
• Enrolled esports
• Enrolled promotions/contests
• Alpha and beta versions participation

 

2. Consent. You can withdraw your consent to these at any time.

 

Consent functionality in account management – Communications Preferences

 

• Receive news and special offers from Battle.net by email – Carefully selected news, event information and special offers about Battle.net products and services
• Receive news and special offers about selected third-party products and services by email – Carefully selected news, event information and special offers about third-party products and services
• Battle/net Product Recommendations in the Shop - allow tailored products and offers recommended to you based on the games you already own.
• Battle.net and mobile push notifications - Receive communication push notifications about Battle.net on your device.
• Enable Real ID – The first and last names associated with your account will be visible to Real ID friends. If you do not enable Real ID, only your BattleTag will be visible
• Suggest me to friends of friends – If enabled, friends of your friends may see you in their suggested friends list
• Receive private chat messages from friends only – If enabled, you can only receive private chat messages from your friends. This setting may not apply to chat messages sent in-game
• Receive account security notification by SMS - SMS notifications when your account is flagged for suspicious login activity, your password has been changed, or security features are added or removed from your account. You must setup SMS alerts to receive these
• Third-party account connection - You may wish to link your third-party accounts to your battle.net account to access additional features, including logging in to your Battle.net Account with those other account credentials

 

Consent obtained in other instances

 

• Cookies and Tracking Technology - Information stored on your device (cookies and similar tracking technology), so that we can better understand how our sites and apps are used and send more relevant offers to you. See the Tracking Technology section below regarding how to withdraw this consent.
• Sensitive Data - Such as allergies, disabilities or other health requirements which you provide when you enrol in an Esports Pro-Gaming competition. Contact Privacy@Blizzard.com to withdraw this type of consent.

 

3. Legitimate interest. We use your information for purposes that are not harmful to your privacy and that can be reasonably expected within the context of your relationship with Blizzard. This includes using information for:

• Ad targeting via ‘Paid Media’
• Ad targeting via ‘Custom Audience’ and similar systems—Appropriate ads for players considering their previous purchases (Your unencrypted personal information is never shared with third parties without your consent.)
• Attribution & media measurement
• Analytics & data segmentation
• Training & development
• Statistics/reporting
• Data Privacy Notifications System
• Social Media Content Management
• Research and studies

 

4. Legal obligation. We process your information due to a legal obligation or right. This includes using information for:

• Legal compliance
• Litigation or pre-litigation
• Security monitoring and Investigations
• Forum moderation
• Finance and accounting

 

5. With whom may we share your information?

Blizzard websites have message boards, forums, and/or chat areas, where users can exchange ideas and communicate with one another. When posting to a message board, forum, or chat area, please be aware that the information is being made publicly available on-line and the user does so at his or her own risk. For certain forums, anyone posting or replying to a post may be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their full first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character (see discussion regarding Real ID below).

 

Some of Blizzard’s products, services and features require that we share information with (1) our partners and service providers, (2) with other players and/or the general public, (3) with subsidiaries and affiliates, or (4) for legal reasons or in the event of a dispute.

 

1. With partners and service providers. Blizzard may provide information to its vendors, consultants, marketing partners, research firms and other service providers or business partners. For example, we may provide information to such parties to help facilitate event ticket sales, conduct surveys on our behalf and process payments for our products and/or games. We share some of our players’ game data with our community of developers, who create applications and websites that benefit our player community. You may opt out of having your game data included in this program by opting out of game-data sharing in the Privacy section of your Battle.net account.

 

2. With other players and/or the general public. Information may be viewable by your friends, people in games, or the public in general if you play our games, use certain features in our games, use certain features on our platforms (such as chat applications in game or on the Battle.net platform) or make posts in the forums.

 

3. With subsidiaries and affiliates. We share information with our subsidiaries and affiliates to help us provide our services or conduct personal information processing on our behalf. For example, Blizzard processes and stores information at Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the United States. We also may share your personal information with our affiliated companies, available here , including for our affiliated or subsidiary companies’ own marketing purposes

 

Blizzard is not responsible for the privacy practices of our affiliates and the use of your Information by those companies will be governed by those specific companies’ privacy policies, which you may find on each company’s website.

 

As with any business, your personal information is also an asset of Blizzard and will become part of our normal business records. As such, we may also disclose your personal information to a third party if we decide to sell a line of business to that third party, so you can continue to receive service and information in connection with that line of business with as little disruption as possible. Similarly, in the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, bankruptcy, or other similar event, your personal information may be transferred to Blizzard's successor or assigned.

 

4. For legal reasons or in the event of a dispute. Blizzard may share your information if we believe it is required by applicable law, regulation, operating agreement, legal process or governmental request. This includes sharing your information with law enforcement officials, government authorities or other third parties as necessary to enforce our End User Licence Agreement, user agreements or other policies to protect Blizzard’s rights or property or the rights or property of others, or in the event of a claim or dispute relating to your use of our services.

 

5. International Transfer

Your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States where many of our central databases operate. We use European Commission approved Standard Contractual Clauses and UK International Data Transfer Agreement to protect your information. Where we share personal information with vendors, we use these clauses, or other appropriate legal mechanisms. A copy of the relevant mechanism can be provided for your review on request to our Data Protection Officer using the details set out below.

 

6. What rights do I have?

Access my personal information: You may be able to receive a report about the personal information Blizzard stores about you. To learn more about accessing your personal information, please click on this link.

 

Erasure: You may have a right to request the deletion of some of your personal information Blizzard holds about you. Blizzard is required by law to retain certain personal information. To learn more about having your personal information erased or anonymised, please click on this link.

 

Object: You may object to the processing of your personal information if you believe Blizzard doesn’t have the appropriate rights to engage in that processing or if you wish to ask Blizzard not to process your personal information for direct marketing purposes. To learn more about making an objection, please click on this link.

 

To unsubscribe from communications from our affiliates, please unsubscribe directly through the methods in those emails or privacy policies.

 

Rectification: You can correct your personal information if you feel it’s inaccurate. Please log in to your Battle.net account and use the account management settings to make the changes.

 

Restrict Processing: You can request that your personal information no longer be processed in certain cases, for instance, when you exercise your right to object as described above. When objecting, you will be given an option to restrict processing.

 

Portability: Data portability is the ability to move your personal information from one company to another (for instance, when you transfer your mobile phone service to another carrier). While this right is not very applicable to Blizzard’s current business, we will provide you with an electronic file of your most basic account information, should you request it. To obtain this file, please click this link.

 

8. What is Real ID?

Real ID friends can see each other’s real-life name and can see each other’s characters across all Blizzard products and services. By participating in Blizzard’s optional Real ID system, you will make your real name visible to your friend’s friends, who will also be able to invite you to become friends.

 

When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you will have access to a number of additional features, including the following:

• Real Names for Friends: Your Real ID friends will appear under their real-life names on your friends list, when chatting, communicating in-game, or viewing a character's profile.
• Cross-Realm and Cross-Game Chat: With Real ID, friends can chat cross-realm, cross-faction, and cross-game using Blizzard’s products and services.
• Rich Presence: You will see additional info on your friends list about what your Real ID friends are up to in Blizzard’s products and services in real time.

 

9. What are tracking technologies, and how are they used?

Blizzard and our partners, such as marketing partners (listed here), may use tracking technologies like cookies, beacons, tags, scripts and unique codes used in apps. These technologies are used in analysing trends, administering the websites or apps, tracking users’ movements around the websites or apps and gathering demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual, as well as an aggregated, basis.

 

We use this technology for various purposes, including our shopping cart, maintenance of user settings (e.g. language preference) and authentication. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our websites, but your ability to use some of the features or areas of our websites may be limited. To manage your cookie settings, please click here.

 

We may also use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. For this reason, these types of clear gifs are tied to personal information.

 

We, and third parties with whom we partner to provide certain features on our websites or to display advertising based on your web browsing activity, use Local Shared Objects such as Flash cookies and Local Storage such as HTML5 to store content information and preferences. Various browsers may offer their own management tools for removing HTML5. To manage Flash cookies, please click here.

 

We partner with third party ad networks to either display advertising on our websites or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partners may use tracking technologies to collect information about your activities on this and other websites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. Some of these ad networks are members of the Networking Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) – organisations who offer a single location to opt- out of receiving tailored ads. If you wish not to have your information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out by visiting the DAA's Consumer Choice page and/or the NAI’s Consumer Opt-Out page. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic, or non-targeted, ads. Please also note that we strive to adhere to the DAA's Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising.

 

10. What are Internet Protocol addresses?

An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is the unique number assigned to your computer. Blizzard may track such IP addresses for system administration, to report aggregate information, site tracking, country detection, security purposes, or to prevent our servers from being abused. See tracking technology discussion above.

 

11. What level of security is applied to your personal information?

To help protect the privacy of the information and personal information you provide to us and that we learn from you, we maintain physical, technical and administrative safeguards. We update and test our security technology on an ongoing basis. In addition, we will take reasonable steps to assure that third parties to whom we transfer any personal information will provide sufficient protection. We restrict access to your personal information to those employees indicated above. In addition, we train our employees about the importance of confidentiality and maintaining the privacy and security of your information.

 

12. Note to Parents

We recognise a special obligation to protect personal information about children. We urge parents to instruct their children to never give out their real names, addresses or phone numbers without permission when they are on line.

 

Once a child states that his/her age is under 16 (or under 18 in the UK), he or she will be unable to register an account with us. Parents or guardians will be prompted to create a parental account and a child account for their child. If parents believe that we have unintentionally collected their children’s personal information, they may request the deletion of the information by contacting us at EU-Privacy@Blizzard.com.

 

Blizzard has engineered Parental Controls to help parents monitor and limit, if necessary, the amount of time their children spend interacting with our games. For more information, you may visit our Parental Controls area at BattleNet Support.

 

13. Further Information or Complaints

If you have questions or concerns regarding your personal information protection at Blizzard, you may contact our Data Protection Officer by writing to DPO@Blizzard.com.

 

Each EU Member State and other countries shall provide one or more independent public authority (ies) to be responsible for monitoring the application of the GDPR in order to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons in relation to processing and to facilitate the free flow of personal information within the Union (‘supervisory authority’), as well as the UK in application of the UK-GDPR (Data Protection Act 2018). If you feel that Blizzard has violated your rights, or if you wish to raise a concern with the data protection authorities, please contact the supervisory authority in the country where you live, work, or where you believe a breach of data protection law has occurred.

 

Blizzard Entertainment Privacy Policy: Europe, Middle East and Africa, updated 11/14/2022