Effective date: 29 December 2019
This notice explains Visa’s approach to cookies and other online data collection technologies.
When you visit our websites, use our mobile apps, engage with our online ads or emails, we collect information, using technologies such as cookies, pixel tags (also called web beacons), browser analysis tools and server logs. Each of these technologies is explained below.
We use cookies and other online data collection tools for several many different purposes.
While we do not give any personally identifiable information to the third-party advertising companies, we may place third parties’ cookies and tags when you visit a Visa website. This practice allows these third parties to collect information from you using these technologies on our websites. The information they collect is subject to their own privacy policies.
Uses of cookies can vary by country or state. More information is provided in the supplemental privacy notices posted in the Privacy Centre or in the relevant website or app.
Adobe Marketing Cloud: If you would like more information on how to remove yourself from the tracking and reporting functions performed for this website by Adobe Marketing Cloud, please visit the Opt-Out page at https://www.adobe.com/privacy/marketing-cloud.html.
Google: For information on how Google Analytics uses data please visit “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps”, located at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners.
In most cases, the choices you make are linked to your browser. If you use different browsers or different devices, you will need to set your preferences on each one. Even if you opt-out, you may still receive ads that are not customised for you, unrelated to your browser settings.
Although our websites currently do not have a mechanism to recognise the various web browser Do Not Track signals, we do offer our customers choices to manage their cookie preferences as described in the previous section. To learn more about browser tracking signals and Do Not Track please visit https://www.allaboutdnt.com.
Residents of some countries and states have additional privacy rights. Information on these rights is provided in the supplemental privacy notices posted in the Privacy Centre.
Our websites may enable you to interact with us and others via social media platforms. This functionality is enabled using social media cookies and tags. For example, some Visa websites allow you to sign in using social media platform credentials. Please read the privacy statements provided by your social media platforms to understand how they use your information and to manage your choices.
We may display interest-based ads to you when you are using social media platforms. These platforms allow us to personalise the ads that we display to you. To enable delivery of these ads, we convert your email address into a unique number. The platforms also convert their user emails into unique numbers using the same process. This allows the records to be matched without any exchange of data elements that can identify you on their own. The platforms perform the matching as a service provider to Visa, and they do not retain or use the file that we send them for their own purposes. This process allows the platform to deliver our ads to our customers on the platform. The platforms may gain insights about individuals who respond to the ads we serve.
Our server logs record information about users to our websites. We may use these logs for internal purposes, such as website administration, optimisation and security. We may also use the data for fraud-protection, personalisation and advertising.
We collect device identifiers and other device-related information, including your device’s advertising ID if available. This information is used to identify the device and authenticate you. We may also use device-related information to associate you with different devices that you may use, including for fraud-protection purposes and to better target advertising. In many cases, you can reset your device’s advertising ID. Both Android and iOS devices enable you to reset your device identifier under the “settings” menu.
Cookies are small text files that websites send to your computer or other Internet-connected device to uniquely identify your browser or to store information or settings in your browser. Cookies allow us to recognise you when you return. They also help us provide a customised experience and can enable us to detect certain kinds of fraud.
First-party cookies are those cookies that are placed by Visa. These cookies are used by Visa and include all the essential cookies.
Third-party cookies are placed by another company, including service providers, social media cookies and third-party advertising companies. Cookies placed by third parties can be read by these third parties when you visit other sites in the advertising network, allowing a profile of your online behaviour to be created so that the third party can deliver targeted ads from all its customers
A Flash Cookie (also known as a Local Stored Object) is a small data file placed on a computer using Adobe Flash technology. A Silverlight Cookie is a small data file placed on a computer using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology. Flash and Silverlight are applications that allow delivery of dynamic content, such as video clips and animation. These cookies are used to personalise and enhance your online experience, deliver dynamic content, and for security purposes. They differ from “regular cookies” in that they are not managed using your browser settings. See Your Choices above for how to manage these types of cookies.
Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are tiny graphic images and small blocks of code placed on website pages, ads, or in emails that allow us to determine whether you have performed a specific action. When you access the pages or you open an email, the tag lets us know you have accessed the web page or opened the email. These tools allow us to measure response to our communications and improve our web pages and promotions.
Server logs record activities on our websites. Other types of logs collect similar information from our apps. These logs record information about the device you use to access our website, your operating system type, browser type, domain and other system settings, as well as the language your system uses and the country and time zone where your device is located. Our logs also record the IP address of the device you use to connect to the Internet. An IP address is a unique identifier that devices require to identify and communicate with each other on the Internet. We may also collect information about the website you were visiting before you came to Visa and the website you visit after you leave our site.