Legal information

Privacy policy

If you are under 16 years old, please talk to your parents or other adults who care for you, and make sure that they understand what you are visiting and agree the way in which you share your information. Data collected without proper authorization for children under 16 years old will be deleted or marked as soon as possible to restrict access.

Scope of this policy

It is very important for us to take proper care of your information. This privacy policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information on the unicef.org site, and what steps we take to protect your information.

This policy applies to all "our sites", that is the sites within the domain name of “unicef.org" and "unicef.cn" and other UNICEF-managed sites. In some of our sites, you can create accounts, order merchandise, make donations, join or participate in discussion forums, and apply for jobs. Those sites generally have specific privacy policies, but if they don’t, this Privacy Policy applies.

Please read our Privacy Policy carefully before using our sites and refer back to it regularly to check for updates. Remember, this Privacy Policy will govern the way in which we collect and use your personal information from the moment you start visiting or using our sites. 

What does this Privacy Policy NOT cover?

You should note that through our sites you may reach or be directed to other sites that relate to UNICEF, such as the sites of our national committees (the various private charities around the world whose mission is to support UNICEF). All those sites have their own privacy policies which follow the same key personal data privacy and protection principles as UNICEF, but may have some differences. 

Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to other non-UNICEF websites that may be linked through one of our sites, or to any collection of your personal information after you click on links to such other sites. The inclusion of a link in any of our sites to those other sites does not imply endorsement by UNICEF of the linked site or of those sites’ privacy policies. For more information, see https://www.unicef.org/legal#terms-of-use.

What is Personal Information?

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “personal information” is any information that enables us to identify you, directly or indirectly, by reference to any identifiers such as your name, address, phone number, email address, identification number, location data, online identifier, or one or more other factors specific to you as an individual that would allow us to identify you.  

In brief: How do we protect your personal information?

• We will only use your personal information for the purposes described in this Policy and for no other purpose.
• We will not sell your personal information.
• We will not keep your personal information for longer than is necessary for the stated purposes except to the extent required by applicable regulations.
• We will take all reasonable and necessary technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information.

Special note for children

A number of sites in the unicef.org domain are focused on children, including interactive sites such as group discussions. Some of these sites require the child user to provide us with personal information, for example, to create an account. If so, we will only ask for the minimum amount of personal information necessary. Those sites will generally have a site-specific privacy policy which you should read carefully.

1. WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT FROM YOU?

Depending on how you interact with us, the personal information that we collect may include your name, postal address, email address, telephone or mobile number, social media name, your contact preferences, bank details, the date and/or year of your birth, and gender (where this is appropriate, such as when you register for a running event). We may also collect personal information about the donations you make to us, any actions you take as part of a campaign for us, or events that you register for or participate in, and details from any interactions with our support team. We may combine this information with information we gather during your general browsing from standard server logs (such as your IP (Internet Protocol) address, domain name, browser type, operating system, and information such as the web site that  you referred to us, the files you downloaded, the pages you visit, and the dates/times of those visits). We do this to make sure our communications to you are appropriate and tailored – something we fully know means a lot to our supporters. We’ve set out some examples below.

Personal information provided when you contact us or create an account through our sites

• If you contact us directly, we may receive personal information about you. For example, when you contact our team, subscribe to a newsletter, request information, provide feedback, apply for a job, create an account or join a discussion group, we may receive your name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other personal details necessary for the purposes of addressing your engagement with us, as well as the contents of a message or attachments that you may send to us, and other information you choose to provide.

Personal information provided when you make a donation

• If you make a donation through one of our sites, you will be asked to provide certain personal information to help us process the payment and make sure that your donation goes where you intend it to go. For example, we may receive your name, email address, postal address, phone number, a record of your consent, and other information you choose to provide.

Publicly available personal information about you

• We may also gather personal information that is publicly available and the behavioural data on the digital platforms, to build up a better picture of you and your interests, so we can consider how best to ask for your support. To do this, we do research, which may include using third-party subscriptions, to help us understand things such as the demographic information associated with your postal code, an estimate of your age, information about directorships and shareholdings, employment and earnings as well as your charitable interests and giving history.

Personal information received from other sources

• We may collect data about you from other personal sources, such as a donation made by someone else in your name, an invitation to support the activities of UNICEF, or content shared with you.
• Through your authorization, other companies or third parties will share data with us. For example, you can authorize a social media platform to share relevant data with us, so that you can follow the relevant accounts of UNICEF.

2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We may use your personal information:

To communicate with you

• If you ask us questions or provide feedback, we may communicate with you to respond.
• We may communicate with you and provide you with the access and usage services you require or register, such as subscription to newsletters or news updates.
• If you create an account on any of our sites, we may send you a message to see if we can help you or see if you have any problems. We may contact you to verify that we have the correct email or postal address for you.

To fulfill administrative tasks, including processing donations

• We will use your information to keep a record of your relationship with us.
• We may use your information to process payments of donations and contact you about the payment transaction or donation and verify the payment transaction.
• If we have a contractual arrangement with you or your employer (and you have been named as the contact person), we may use your information to contact you about that contractual arrangement.
• We may also use your information to analyse and improve our website, services, products or information we provide to you. 

To engage your support to advocate for children’s rights

• We may collect pledges of support from the public for campaigns to advocate for children’s rights, like pledge signatures  to promote us to take proactive actions.
• We may use your information to ask you to participate in surveys or research, to carry out and analyze research surveys, focus groups or other research methods.

To engage support from you and other potential supporters

• We may use your information to ask you to participate in surveys, focus groups or other research methods.
• We may also use you and other supporters’ information, and combine it with other publicly available information, to create supporter ‘profiles’ and assess trends.
• We may also carry out research to identify individuals who have an affinity to our cause but with whom we are not already in touch. We use sources from the public domain and partnership mechanism to identify other individuals who may be able to support us or introduce us to others, usually at a major gift level.
• The purpose of doing so will be to:

1. better understand you and our other supporters and to engage with you and them in appropriate and efficient ways
2. to provide more targeted, relevant experiences for our individual donors, provide to them more awareness for UNICEF’s work around the world, to be more transparent on how donors’ funds are being used, and to target similar profiles in different digital landscapes.

• In certain cases, we may use the information we’ve collected to conduct due diligence on all major gifts in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations and internal risk management policies and procedures. This is to safeguard our reputation and to help us mitigate any associated risk.

For personalized service

• If you choose to personalize services or communications that provide personalization options, we will use the collected information to provide you with these personalized services or communications.

To market directly to you

• We may use your information to let you know by email, telephone, SMS or post or through social media the latest news about our work for children and share with you how else you can help, where we have a legitimate basis to do so. These updates may include information on fundraising or campaigning for us, our range of UNICEF-branded merchandise and other gifts, information on leaving a gift in your will, specific appeals as well as updates on our work with children.
• Where we don’t specifically ask for you consent to do this, we believe it is in our mandate and legitimate interest to let our supporters know about the latest news about our work for children and share with you how you can help. We only do this where we don’t believe sending these will impact your privacy or cause you harm or distress. You can certainly call or email us anytime to request to stop receiving such information.

To facilitate your participation in a competition

• We may use your information to enable you to take part in one of our competitions.
• If you take part in one of our competitions, we may use your information to carry out the administration of the competition.

To protect our legal rights

• We may use your personal information to enforce our Terms of Use, to defend our legal rights, and to comply with our legal obligations and policies.

Cross-border transmission and aggregation of data

• We may transfer your personal information to the UNICEF headquarters, country offices or regional offices for their visit and analysis. Relevant personal data will only be used for the necessary processing methods described in this Privacy Policy. We may de-identify (i.e. anonymize) and aggregate information collected through our sites for statistical analysis and other legitimate purposes, including in research studies.

3. HOW DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We may share your personal information with the UNICEF headquarters, country offices or regional offices, other partners, agents or service providers. They will only use your Personal Information for the purposes set out in the Section above.

We will only share your personal information with our partners if they provide sufficient guarantees to ensure that your personal information is protected and safe, including the situation where these third parties are located in countries or regions other than your country of residence. We will also take reasonable measures to ensure adequate protection for the transmission mode of your personal information.

We promise to keep your information safe at all times, and we will never sell or exchange your personal information with any other organization.

We may provide your email address or mobile phone number to digital communication or social media platforms that we work with. This is to ensure that we can provide you and other similar users with our latest news and information on how to help keep children safe. This personal information is always provided in encrypted format.

If you don’t want to see targeted advertising from us on social media, please refer to the instructions provided by the specific social media website or app, to take the follow-up actions.

4. HOW CAN YOU CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We respect your right to know and manage your personal data. You can request more information about how we hold and use your information or make any other request in relation to your personal information, including changing your personal information, restricting the processing of your personal information or deleting your personal information and data, by contacting us through 400 098 2366 or  dataprotection@unicef.org. In some cases, we may not be able to meet your requests, for example, when the transaction data you request to delete fall under the category where we are obliged to keep the transaction record and comply with the relevant audit regulations.

5. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We will only use and store your personal information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long personal information will be stored for depends on the personal information in question and what it is being used for, as well as whether there is any administrative or regulatory requirement for retaining the personal information. For example, we retain your personal information as long as necessary to comply with our obligations, including our obligations to you, to address any request by you (including to administer your donation), or to enforce our rights.

6. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SECURE?

We have in place reasonable standards of technology and operational security to protect all personal data provided by individuals from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. Only authorized personnel, who have been made appropriately aware of our privacy obligations, are provided access to personal information.

7. COOKIES

UNICEF’s websites use cookies (data stored on local terminals to identify users) to provide statistics that help us to give you the best experience of our sites. You can find out more in our cookies policy page or switch them off if you prefer. However, by continuing to use our sites without changing settings, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

8. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post the updated Privacy Policy here and those changes will become effective immediately on posting. For this reason, we encourage you to check our Privacy Policy frequently. The “Last Updated” date at the bottom of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. The updated Privacy Policy will apply from the date it is posted on here and will govern the way in which we collect and use personal information from then on.

9. CONTACT US

We attach great importance to your personal information protection. We will have a professional team to provide you with relevant consultation and services to ensure timely and effective response to your requests or questions. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please call 400 098 2366 or email to: dataprotection@unicef.org.

Last updated: April 2022