Ancestry.com

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How can I delete my Personal Information?

You can delete your Personal Information from Ancestry in a number of ways.

Personal Information: You can delete your Personal Information from Ancestry by logging into your Account Settings.

To the extent you have shared information through the Services (for example, by making your family trees public, or by sharing your DNA Results directly with other users), Ancestry will not be able to remove any copies of information that other Users may have retained.

Please direct any request to remove information from linked archival records to the responsible archival entity.

We will consider requests for removal of Personal Information from the searchable indexes of the records we hold on a case-by-case basis in accordance with law.

If you have shared content with others either directly or by making your family tree details available to other Users, some of your Personal Information may have been copied to other Users’ family trees, which can only be removed by contacting the other User and asking them to delete it.

Genetic: Note: If you request that Ancestry delete your DNA Data, we will delete all Genetic Information, including any derivative Genetic Information (ethnicity estimates, genetic relative matches, etc.) from our production, development, analytics, and research systems within 30 days.

To request the destruction of your biological samples, you must contact Member Services. Please note that if you have agreed to our Informed Consent to Research, we will not be able to remove your Genetic Information from active or completed research projects, but we will not use it for any new research projects.

General: Please note that there may be some latency in deleting your Personal Information from our backup systems after it has been deleted from our production, development, analytics, and research systems. Also, our laboratory partners may retain information they receive from us in order to comply with laws or regulations that may require them to do so, such as the Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments regulations administered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Ancestry may also retain certain information as reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud and abuse, as well as to comply with tax, payment industry, securities, and clinical regulatory compliance requirements.

Service Providers

We work with other companies when providing and marketing the Services. As a result, these companies will have some of your information in their systems. These companies are subject to contractual obligations governing data security and confidentiality consistent with applicable laws.

These companies include our:

• Laboratory partners;

• DNA test shipping providers;

• Payment processors;

• Cloud services infrastructure providers;

• Biological sample storage facilities;

• Vendors that assist us in marketing, (including advertising), consumer research analytics, fraud prevention, and security;

• Communications infrastructure providers; and,

• Some Member Services functions.

Research Partners

We share your Genetic Information with research partners only when you provide us with your express consent to do so through our Informed Consent to Research.

Research partners may include commercial or non-profit organizations that conduct or support scientific research, the development of therapeutics, medical devices or related material to treat, diagnose or predict health conditions. In some circumstances, a research partner or Ancestry may have a financial interest in the research arrangement. A list of our research partners can be found at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/collaborations.

Law Enforcement: Ancestry does not voluntarily cooperate with law enforcement. To provide our Users with the greatest protection under the law, we require all government agencies follow valid legal process.

If we are compelled to disclose your Personal Information to law enforcement, we will do our best to provide you with advance notice, unless we are prohibited under the law from doing so. In the interest of transparency, Ancestry produces a Transparency Report where we list the number of valid law enforcement requests for user data across all our sites.

Other Legal or Regulatory Process: We may share your Personal Information if we believe it is reasonably necessary to:

• Comply with valid legal process (e.g., subpoenas, warrants);

• Enforce or apply the Ancestry Terms and Conditions;

• Protect the security or integrity of the Services; or

• Protect the rights, property, or safety, of Ancestry, our employees or users.

Ancestry maintains a comprehensive information security program designed to protect our customers’ Personal Information using administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.

The specific security measures used are based on the sensitivity of the Personal Information collected. We have measures in place to protect against inappropriate access, loss, misuse, or alteration of Personal Information (including Genetic Information) under our control.

The Ancestry Security Team regularly reviews our security and privacy practices and enhances them as necessary to help ensure the integrity of our systems and your Personal Information.

We use secure server software to encrypt Personal Information (including Genetic Information), and we only partner with security companies that meet and commit to our security standards. While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur, we use reasonable efforts to prevent this.

It is also important for you to guard against unauthorized access to your Personal Information by maintaining strong passwords and protecting against the unauthorized use of your own computer or device.

Effective Date of our Revised Privacy Statement: 23 Sep 2020

We may modify this Privacy Statement at any time, but we will provide prominent advance notice of any material changes to this Statement, such as posting a notice through the Services, on our websites, or sending you an email, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes and choose whether to continue using the Services.

We will also notify you of non-material changes to this Statement as of their effective date by posting a notice through the Services, on our websites, or sending you an email. Your continued use of our Services after notice of non-material changes means that you consent to the updated Privacy Statement.

If you object to any changes, you may delete your account as described in Section 10.

Information from Third Parties: We may also receive information about you from third parties. For example, we may supplement the data we collect with demographic information licensed from third parties in order to personalize the Services and our offers to you.

If you purchase a gift subscription, we will collect Personal Information to complete the gift and notify the recipient, such as the recipient’s name and email address.

6. How does Ancestry use your Personal Information?

Personal Information (generally): We use your Personal Information to provide, personalize, improve, update and expand our Services. This includes:

• Authenticating your access to the Services and improving Ancestry information security;

• Processing your payments for subscriptions, AncestryDNA® services and test kits, and other products and features;

• Building new and improving existing Services;

• Helping you create, and providing insights about, your family trees based on data in Ancestry’s databases;

• Issuing surveys and questionnaires to collect Additional User Information for use in the Services, as well as facilitating product development and research initiatives;

• Conducting scientific, statistical, and historical research; and

• Detecting and protecting against error, fraud, or other criminal or malicious activity and enforcing our Terms and Conditions.

Communications: We use your Personal Information to communicate with you about the Services, such as when we:

• Respond to your inquiries to Member Services;

• Alert you to potential relatives identified by DNA matching, or through our family history services (for example, “Hints” about potential ancestors in our database);

• Alert you to records pertaining to people in your family tree or to whom you may be related;

• Inform you of changes to Services or new Services;

• Ask you to participate in Ancestry media productions or testimonials; and,

• Provide you with information or request action in response to technical, security, and other operational issues.

Market new products and offers from us or our business partners.: We use your Personal Information to market new products and offers from us or our business partners. This includes advertising personalized to you based on your interests.

Note: You can control how we market to you by using the unsubscribe link in any email you receive, by changing your account preferences, or by following the instructions in any other marketing communications you receive; for more information please see our Cookie Policy. Controls for Ancestry’s related brands’ are available through their settings.

Genetic Information: Ancestry uses your Genetic Information for the following primary purposes:

• Delivering ethnicity results, DNA matches (e.g., close relatives or distant cousins) from our database, and other information to help you learn more about yourself as well as your DNA relatives and genetic family groups;

• Connecting you with and helping you learn about your genetic relatives in our database through features such as DNA matching or other product features;

• Providing you other insights into what your DNA reveals about traits, personal health and wellness; we may also invite you to participate in surveys and questionnaires (entirely optional) based on your DNA data.

• Providing relevant results to assist you in discovering common ancestors and other details about your family history, as well as helping you connect with friends and family;

• Studying aggregated Genetic Information to better understand population and ethnicity-related health, wellness, aging, or physical conditions;

• Conducting scientific, statistical, and historical research; and,

• Improving features and functionality in our existing DNA-related products, enhancing the customer experience across Ancestry Services, improving the quality of our laboratory processes and technology, and building new products and services, including services related to personal health and wellness.

We will seek additional consent from you before we collect and process additional sensitive Personal Information (for example, health history) as part of your interaction with the Services.

3. What Information Does Ancestry Collect From You?

The table below describes the information we collect from you to provide the Services. In this Privacy Statement, we refer to data that relates to you as “Personal Information.”

Account Information:

• Your name

• An email address

• A password that you provide us when you create an account

• A mobile phone number that you may voluntarily provide so we can notify you of DNA test result status, other updates you agree to, or when you contact Ancestry Member Services

• Certain other Ancestry related brands may specify additional information necessary for account creation, or may support third-party authentication services

Credit Card/Payment Information : Payment information, such as your credit card number, and your billing and shipping address(es), when you purchase something from Ancestry, such as an Ancestry subscription or a DNA test kit.

DNA Kit Activation Information: When you activate a DNA test kit, we collect

• Your DNA test kit code

• Your biological sex

• Your year of birth

Profile Information:

• We collect the information that you provide when you voluntarily create a user profile. This information may be seen by other Users.

• Additional personal details that you provide in your profile (for example, a profile image, your name, age, location, etc.), will be visible to other Users.

User Provided Content:

• Information you provide about yourself or other living individuals when you voluntarily contribute to the Services or participate in community discussions.

• For example, you might contribute details (stories, images) about you or other users’ family trees, annotate Ancestry content or records.

• Information about deceased persons is not Personal Information under this Privacy Statement.

Genetic Information:

• We extract your DNA from your saliva at one of our partner laboratories when you send it back to us in the tube provided with your AncestryDNA test kit.

• We convert your DNA into machine-readable code (“DNA Data”), which is used to provide you an ethnicity estimate including ethnic communities. Your DNA Data is also used to provide other information about you, such as your degree of connection to genetic relatives in our database and any genetic markers associated with certain traits, such as hair thickness and eye color or traits associated with your health and wellness.

• A note about your DNA and Saliva: Once our laboratory partner has produced your DNA Data, the DNA and saliva (also referred to as “biological samples”) are stored so that they can be available for future testing. Future testing may be done if you agree to our Informed Consent for Research or if you otherwise consent to future testing of your biological sample. Sections 8 and 10 below describe how you can control both your DNA Data and your biological samples.

Social Media Information: If you use Facebook to log into Ancestry Services, we collect information from your Facebook profile that you choose to provide to us (for example your Facebook profile information).

Additional User Information: Information that you provide to us when you answer surveys or questionnaires.

Note about health-related information: Ancestry is not a covered entity under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), and as a result no Additional User Information provided by you is subject to or protected by HIPAA.

Your Communications: Your communications with other Users through our communications features, as well as information you provide in communications with Ancestry Member Services and support teams for our other Services.

Contests and Promotions: Personal Information when you voluntarily participate in contests and special promotions we run or sponsor.

Find A Grave® Photos and Photo Volunteers: Metadata associated with digital photographs uploaded to Find A Grave®, including location, date and time the photo was taken. If you choose to be a photo volunteer for Find A Grave®, you provide your location to us which you can change or remove at any time.

4. What Information Does Ancestry Collect Through Your Use of the Services?

Computer and Mobile Device Information: Information about how you access our Services, including the website you visited before and after Ancestry’s site.

The Internet protocol (“IP”) address of your computer, mobile device, or the proxy server that you use to access the Internet, in addition to other technical information, such as:

• Your computer operating system, and

• Your web browser.

• Your mobile device identifier provided by your mobile device operating system and your mobile operating system.

• The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier.

Information from Cookies and similar technologies: Cookies and similar technologies as described in our Cookie Policy. Please refer to our cookie policy to learn about our practices and the controls we provide you.

Information shared through social media features: If you interact with social media through the Services, for example “Like,” “Tweet,” “Pin,” or “Follow Us” links to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, Ancestry will collect these interactions and whatever account information these services make available to us.

Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy statement of the applicable third-party company.

Information from your use of the Services: Information about your use of the Services, such as when you search or access records or public family trees, which pages you view or links you click on, or when you add people to your tree, etc.