Sam's Club Privacy Notice

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We recently updated our Privacy Notice

Updates include:

• Added Texas Privacy Rights Section
• Added Oregon Privacy Rights Section
• Amended Sharing Within Our Corporate Family of Companies Section 

At Sam’s Club, our member is number one. That’s why everything we do is focused on providing excellent service and delivering low prices.

The information you share with Sam’s Club allows us to provide the products and services you want and need while giving you the very best shopping experience. For example, when you shop on Samsclub.com we use what we know about your shopping habits to let you easily reorder products and show you other products that may interest you.

Our founder, Sam Walton, reminded us that "a promise we make is a promise we keep," and it’s our promise to members that we respect the trust you place in us and the privacy of the information you share with us. Part of providing superior member service includes making sure that we’re building a relationship of trust with members. Our way of doing that is to let you know in a clear, prominent, and easily accessible way just how we collect, use, disclose, and – above all – protect your personal information.

Our Notice outlines:

• How and why we collect your personal information.
• How your personal information is used and protected.
• When and with whom we disclose your personal information.
• What choices you can make about how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information.

This Privacy Notice describes how we handle your personal information, the reasons we do so, the choices you may have regarding our use of the information, and the measures we take to protect the security of the information. It covers our clubs in the United States and Puerto Rico, and our websites and mobile services where this Privacy Notice is posted.

What is not covered in this Privacy Notice? 

• Uses and treatment of personal information related to our specialized operations are covered by our notices for specific types of information. Specialized operations may include areas such as health services operations, including Walmart pharmacies, vision centers, and clinics; financial products and services that we offer either directly or in connection with business partners; and mobile device retail installment sales. 
• Walmart maintains separate privacy policies for our operations outside of the US.

Our specific privacy notices for our specialized operations include:

• Our Health & Wellness operation (pharmacy and optical) which uses patient health information as described in the health services Notice of Privacy Practices. Review the Notice of Privacy Practices for the information practices specific to patient health information.
• When you obtain financial products and services from us, and our co-branded credit card partner, we may collect and use certain financial-related information. Find out more here Synchrony Bank’s Privacy Policy.
• Our Privacy Notice applies to all members, including those located in the European Economic Area (EEA) that provide personally identifiable information to Sam’s Club in order to participate in the Sam’s Export Program. Additional information and options are available to Sam’s Export members located in the EEA. Click here for the Sam’s Export Program Member Privacy Notice.
• When you link an eligible card to the Sam’s Cash Bonus Offers Program (“Program”), we collect, use, and disclose transaction data in the course of administering the Program. Please see the Sam’s Cash Bonus Offers Privacy Notice for more information. 

What Information Do We Collect?

We may collect or receive the following categories of personal information. Not all categories may be collected or received about for every individual:

• Identifiers: Personal identifiers, such as name, telephone number, physical address, email address, government-issued identifiers (e.g., national identification numbers, driver’s license numbers), and signatures
• Device Information and Online Activity: Device and online identifiers, account login information, keystroke patterns indicative of human or bot website/app usage, mobile and web network activity and related information (such as Mac address, IP address, cookie IDs, browser activity, and other information associated with your browsing history), and social media information
• Commercial Information: Purchase and transaction history information (such as products or services you have purchased, rented, or returned), health and safety-related information, product testimonials, travel and vacation information, and competition entries
• Communications: Communication details (such as the content of emails, text messages, or other communications), call logs, and calendar information where Walmart is a party to the exchange
• Demographic Information: Demographic information, such as age (including information about children under the age of 13 with respect to certain purchases and services (e.g., tobacco purchases), gender, citizenship, ethnicity, date of birth, family or marital status, household income, education, professional and employment information, family health, number of children, number of cars owned, and software or virtual assets owned
• Financial Information: Financial information, such as credit or debit card numbers, financial account numbers, and claims information
• Biometric Information: Biometric information, such as voice prints, imagery of the iris or retina, face geometry, and palm prints or fingerprints
• Geolocation: Location information, such as geolocation information
• Sensory Information: Audio, visual information, and other sensory information such as photographs and audio and video recordings
• Background Information: Background and criminal information, such as background checks and criminal convictions
• Inferences: Individual preferences and characteristics, such as inferences related to shopping patterns and behaviors, intelligence, and aptitudes

How Do We Collect Information?

We collect information from you in a variety of ways. It may be:

• Provided directly by you or a member of your household
• Collected from a device associated with you or your household
• Collected through in-store technology
• Collected from another company within our family of companies
• Collected from an external third-party source
• Collected from another solution or asset 
• Collected from other sources, when it is appropriate, to help us correct or supplement our records, improve the quality or personalization of our services, increase the appeal and relevance of advertising, and to prevent or detect fraud 

Information Provided Directly by You or a Member of Your Household

You actively share information with us in various ways in our Clubs and online. For example, you share information when you:

• Sign up for a Sam’s Club membership;
• Make an online or in-Club purchase, Club Pickup order, or other transaction, from us;
• Create an account on one of our websites or mobile services;
• Conduct a transaction or request a service (including when required by law, such as purchasing certain cough and cold medications);
• Request member service or contact us;
• Post a review or comment on one of our social media pages, or post a rating, review or other user-generated content on one of our websites or mobile services;
• Participate in a contest, sweepstake, promotion, or survey; or
• Use features of our websites and mobile services that may ask you to grant us access to the camera or microphone on your computer or mobile device (such as voice search or scanning bar codes).

When you engage in these activities, you may share different types of personal information with us, such as your name, email address, physical or postal address, phone number, date of birth, and payment information.

Information Collected From a Device Associated With You or Your Household

You also passively provide us information in other ways through technology. This information helps our websites and mobile services work correctly and supports member marketing and analytics efforts – our work to understand our members’ needs and provide information about our products and services that may be of interest to you. Here are some examples:

• Device Information: We collect technical information when you visit our websites or use our mobile applications or services. This may include information such as Internet Protocol (IP) address, the type of mobile device you use, your device operating system and browser type, a unique device identifier, the address of referring websites, the path you take through our websites, and information about your session on our websites.
• Browsing Information: We use our own and third party technologies such as cookies, web beacons, and mobile device identifiers to collect information about the use of our websites and mobile services. We use these tools to provide an integrated and more personalized shopping experience for you. For example: cookies allow us to provide you relevant information as you use or return to our sites. Web beacons allow us to know if a certain page was visited, an email was opened, or if ad banners on our websites and other sites were effective. Under certain circumstances, we permit third parties to collect information on our websites for their own business purposes using cookies, web beacons, iframes and similar technologies.
• Precise Device Location Information: We may collect information about your location when your device is set to provide location information. For example, your device’s GPS signal allows us to show you the nearest Sam’s Club. We may be able to recognize the location of a mobile device in Clubs where we provide members free WiFi access or through the use of Bluetooth technology. Through mobile services, Bluetooth technology in our Clubs allows us to show you nearby products that may interest you, making it easier for you to locate products within and navigate through the store. See “What Are Your Choices?” below for more information.

Information We Collect from In-Store Technology

We may collect your personal information from technology we use in our Clubs, such as our facility cameras. We operate cameras in Clubs for security and operational purposes, for example, to help us improve the design of our Clubs to better serve our members.

Information We Collect from Another Company within Our Family of Companies

We may collect your personal information from another organization within our corporate family of companies, such as with Walmart.

Information We Collect From Third Party Sources

We receive personal information about you from other sources to help us to correct or supplement our records, improve the quality or personalization of our services, and prevent or detect fraud. We collect information from consumer reporting agencies in conjunction with products or services that involve financial risk to Sam’s Club, such as transactions in which Sam’s Club extends you financing. We also receive information, such as device information and browsing information, from third parties for marketing purposes, for example to provide you with personalized ads on Sam’s Club and third-party websites and mobile services.

We use your personal information to offer and provide you products and services and to support our business functions. These business functions include order and service fulfillment, internal business processes, marketing, authentication, loss and fraud prevention, public safety and legal functions.

Some examples include:

• To fulfill your order or requests for services and provide customer service
• To create and maintain your account
• Performing services, including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, providing financing, providing analytics services, providing storage, or providing similar services
• Providing advertising and marketing services, including targeted advertising
• To conduct auditing and monitoring of transactions and engagement, including auditing related to counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions, and auditing compliance
• Short-term, transient use, such as non-personalized advertising shown as part of your current interaction with us
• Helping to ensure security and integrity and prevent fraud
• Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of our services or devices and to improve, upgrade, or enhance them
• Debugging to identify and repair errors
• To conduct business analysis, such as analytics, projections, identifying areas for operational improvement
• To conduct research and development, including undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration
• To fulfill our legal functions or obligations

To do the above, we combine information, collected online and offline, including information from third party sources. We also may transfer or share your personal information within our corporate family of companies, such as with Walmart for these purposes, as permitted by law.
Uses of personal information relevant to our specialized operations, such as our health services and financial services lines of business, are described in our notices for specific types of information.

We are careful to disclose your personal information in ways that respect your privacy and only as described in this Notice. All of the categories of personal information that we collect have been disclosed to other companies, including those within our corporate family, for a business purpose. We may disclose your personal information in the following circumstances:

Other Businesses in our Corporate Family

We may disclose your personal information with other retail and non-retail brands and businesses within the corporate family (e.g., Walmart and One Finance). When we do, the personal information will be used in ways that are consistent with this Notice.

Other Companies:

Service Providers

We disclose personal information about you with service providers that help with our business activities, including shipping vendors, billing and refund vendors, payment card processors, marketing and advertising vendors, and companies that help us improve our products and services. We require our service providers to keep your personal information secure. We do not allow our service providers to use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than providing services on our behalf. Your personal information may be stored and processed by our service providers in the United States or other locations where the service providers or Sam’s Club maintain facilities.

Advertising, Marketing, and Other Related Technology Partners

We work with various advertising, marketing, and other related technology partners so we can both market our products to you and provide advertising services to other companies.

• Advertisers. These are companies that place ads through our advertising services. Advertisers may use pixels or cookies in their ads that collect information from/about you to help them understand how you respond to their ads.
• Publishers. These are companies that operate the websites that you visit (e.g. an online newspaper or an entertainment website). We share personal information with publishers to help us serve ads to you on their websites and to help us understand how those ads perform. 
• Social Media Platforms. We share personal information with social media platforms that help us serve ads to you on those platforms.
• Advertising Technology Providers. We work with companies that use cookies, pixels, beacons and similar technologies to tailor the ads you see using information collected about you over time on our Sites, and across other participating websites and mobile services. Advertising Technology Providers include ad servers, advertising agencies, technology vendors that support media buying and selling, and research firms. For more information about your choices related to interest-based advertising, see Interest-Based Advertising Preferences in the “What Are Your Choices?” section below.
• Data Technology Vendors. We work with technology providers that help us manage and automate the use of the data we collect (including personal information). These companies include, for example, technology providers that help us automate our advertising services, and identity management companies.
• Measurement and Analytics Vendors. These vendors include, for example, companies that provide aggregate reporting on our website performance, and the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns and services. To learn more about Google Analytics, please visit https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

Credit Offers
If you apply for a Sam’s Club Membership, we may disclose your personal information with the company that we partner with to offer co-branded credit card programs. In conjunction with the co-branding program, we may receive compensation from the co-branding activity. To help you obtain the highest credit limit possible this may include your Membership and application information. Similarly, if you qualify for a credit account and are not offered a credit account by a Sam’s Club associate we may share your personal information with our partner, so that they may extend the offer of credit as required by law. For more information on how to stop receiving prescreened offers of consumer credit see “What are Your Choices?” below.

Business Member Information

We may disclose information regarding a Business Membership with the account’s primary member or an officer or principal of the business in order to respond to their inquiry. A non-primary member of the account may request information specific to their purchases.

We may disclose information about Business Members’ resale merchandise purchases, such as tobacco or candy products, to our suppliers in order to enable them to offer these members discounts or rebates.

Products and Services Offered by Other Businesses

We sometimes enable other businesses to make products or services available to our members. You may purchase products or services from these other businesses at our Clubs or through our websites or mobile services. We indicate when products or services are offered by other businesses and disclose to these businesses personal information related to your purchase of their products and services. These other businesses may operate their business in the United States or in other countries.

Legal Requirements and Protection of Our Company and Others

We may disclose your personal information in other special circumstances, which include situations when the disclosure is required by law, or we believe disclosure will help to protect the safety, property, or rights of Sam’s Club, our members, our associates, or other persons. Examples include:

• Protecting the health or safety of members;
• Addressing crimes committed on Sam’s Club property;
• Identifying and addressing fraud or financial risk;
• Providing personal information from cameras to law enforcement at their written request;
• Responding to a search warrant or other valid legal inquiry; and
• Responding to an investigative body in the case of a breach of an agreement or violation of law.

Business Transfers

In the event that all or a part of our business is merged, sold or reorganized (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings), personal information about you could be disclosed to the successor business. We will use reasonable measures to help ensure that any successor treats your information in accordance with this Notice.

Pursuant to Our Specific Privacy Notices

We have specific privacy notices related to some of our specialized operations. We may disclose personal information for purposes identified in those notices, which arise in those specialized operational areas. These specific privacy notices describe additional or different information practices relevant to those operations. Our specific privacy notices can be found here. For example, as detailed in the Notice of Privacy Practices, our health services operations will disclose personal information to other health care providers for treatment purposes.

Deidentified & Aggregated Personal Information

Sam’s Club continually strives to make member shopping experiences more relevant and with less friction and may offer related services and insights to its suppliers and others. As a result, Sam’s Club may disclose to others insights that combine information from many members in ways that do not directly identify you. For example, Sam’s Club may combine your shopping history with that of other members to deliver generalized insights to Sam’s Club’s suppliers. These insights do not identify individual members. This information helps Sam’s Club suppliers provide products and services relevant to Sam’s Club members. Sam’s Club may receive payment for these insights.

To deliver information about products and services that may be of interest to you, we may disclose information with other companies, such as publishers, advertisers and measurement analytics providers. For example, we may disclose device-related data (such as device identifier, type of device, IP address, cookies and other information associated with your browsing and app usage) and individual preferences and characteristics (such as insights and inferences related to shopping patterns and behaviors). This information does not identify you directly, but is necessary to personalize the advertisements you receive. Sam’s Club does not receive payment for this information.

We also allow companies that show advertisements on our webpages or our apps to collect information from your browsers or devices via the use of cookies or other technologies. Like many companies, we may allow cookie matching with select partners. However, these parties are not authorized to access information from our cookies. For more information about your choices related to advertising activities see “What are Your Choices?”

With Specific Notice or Your Consent

In circumstances other than those described above, we will provide specific notice or ask for your affirmative consent, as required by law, before we disclose your personal information outside of our corporate family of companies.

Categories of Personal Information We Disclose to Each Type of Third Party:

We may disclose your personal information with certain categories of third parties, as described below.

You have choices about the various ways we collect, use, and disclose your personal information.

• We may send you marketing communications. You can tell us your marketing preferences in different ways, including by logging on to your SamsClub.com account and clicking "edit" under email preferences in the Member profile.
• We also personalize your experience on our sites and mobile services by showing you advertisements from Sam’s Club or our advertising partners that are tailored to your interests. Learn more about interest-based advertising.
• Some of our mobile services use your device’s location information. You can adjust the settings of your mobile device at any time to control whether your device communicates this location information. We may also offer additional controls on our use of your mobile location information.

We want to offer you choices about the different ways we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. These choices are described below.

Marketing Preferences
When we are sending marketing communications to you, we use the following standards:

• We use an opt-in standard for automated phone and text messages, and for sharing personal information with companies outside our corporate family of companies for their use in direct marketing of their products, such as sending you promotions for their products. Opt-in means we will only conduct the activity with your affirmative consent.
• We use an opt-out standard for phone, email, app notifications, and postal mail. Opt-out means we may contact you, but will stop upon your request (as described below).

Additionally, these standards may not apply to Sam’s Club-branded credit card offerings because these are provided through associated financial institutions. However, you can choose to stop receiving certain prescreened offers of credit that originate from participating nationwide credit reporting agencies, including our prescreened offers, by calling the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry organization at 1-888-567-8688 or by going to www.optoutprescreen.com.

As a Sam’s Club member, you may update your marketing preferences any of the following ways:

• Online: By logging on to your SamsClub.com account and clicking “edit” under email preferences in the Member profile.
• By Email: You may email privacy@samsclub.com for assistance.
• By Mail: Sam’s Club, 2101 SE Simple Savings Drive, Bentonville, AR 72716-0745, Attention: Membership Services
• By Phone: You may call Member Services by dialing 1-888-746-7726.
• In Club: You may request to opt out at the Membership Services desk of your local Sam’s Club.

If you are not a Sam’s Club member and are currently subscribed to our promotional emails, you may update your marketing preferences by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in the footer of one of our promotional emails or by contacting the Mail or Email resources listed above.

If you contact us by email or mail, please be sure to include your full name, membership number, the types of communications you would like to receive or not receive, and your related contact information. For instance, if you would like to opt-out of mail, include your mailing address. Please allow sufficient time for your marketing preferences to be processed. It may take up to ten days to process your requests related to email and up to 30 days to process your requests related to telephone calls, text messages, app notification and sharing information with your consent. Please note that postal mailings are often prepared many weeks in advance, and you may continue to receive mail for six to ten weeks.

Since we do not accept opt-out requests from third parties (except as described in our California Privacy Notice, linked to from the “State Privacy Rights” section below), such as catalog opt-out services, please communicate your request directly to us through one of the mechanisms mentioned above.

Please know that, even if you opted out of receiving marketing communications from us, we may still contact you for transactional or informational purposes. Some examples are contacts for member service, product information, service or reminder notices, or recalls. We may also need to contact you with questions or information regarding your order.

Interest-Based Advertising Preferences
We personalize your experience on our sites and mobile services by showing you advertisements that are tailored to your interests. For example, if you browse or shop for electronics with us or on other sites, we may show you ads for electronics as you continue to browse the Internet. For more information about browsing information, see “Information We Receive From You.”

We show you advertisements related to Sam’s Club or our advertising partners. We belong to ad networks that may use your browsing history across participating websites and mobile services to show you interest-based advertisements. You may also see ads for Sam’s Club on participating websites and mobile services based on how you browse. Learn more about interest-based advertising.

Mobile Location Settings
Some of our mobile services use your device’s location information. You can adjust the location settings of your mobile device at any time to control whether your device communicates this information. You will also need to adjust your device’s Bluetooth settings to completely disable the collection of Bluetooth location-related data. See your device instructions to learn more about these settings. In addition, we may offer you controls on our use of your mobile location information. See “What Types of Information Do We Collect?” above for more information on the types of location information we collect.

Device Camera and Microphone
Some of the features on our websites and mobile services may require access to the camera or microphone of your computer or mobile device. You must give your permission before we access your device’s camera or microphone, and you can adjust the settings of your device at any time to control access to your camera or microphone. See “What Types of Information Do We Collect?” above for more information.

We provide you with various ways to access or update your personal information, including contact and account information. We also take reasonable steps to keep your personal information accurate and complete.

You can access or update your personal information, including contact or account information, in the following ways:

• If you have created an account on one of our websites or mobile services, log into your account. Once you do, you will be able to enter and update your own contact information and payment information, as well as contact information for recipients you have designated.
• Contact us at the email or postal address listed in the “Who Can I Contact at Sam’s Club About this Privacy Notice?” section at the bottom of this Notice. Please include your current contact information, the information you are interested in accessing, and your requested changes. We will provide you the personal information requested if it is reasonably available, unless it infringes on the privacy of other individuals, and subject to reasonable limitations provided by law and internal procedures. Otherwise we will describe the types of information we typically collect. We will provide access and make the changes you request, or will provide an explanation of what actions we will be able to take with regard to the request.
• If you need to access your personal information related to a specified service provided to you by a Sam’s Club service provider or business partner, we will refer you to the service provider or business partner. Please contact us via the “Who Can I Contact at Sam’s Club About this Privacy Notice?” section below.
• If you need assistance accessing records related to your Pharmacy or Optical information, please visit the “What Privacy Protections Apply to Specific Types of Personal Information?” section.
• You can deactivate your Sam’s Club account if you wish. Please contact our Member Service Department by calling 1-888-746-7726 for further instructions about deactivating your samsclub.com account.
• You can delete your Sam’s Club account within the Sam’s Club app at any time. Please visit the “Account” section of the app and select “Request to Delete Online Account”.

Our specialized lines of business, such as health services offer specific methods to exercise privacy rights. For example, our health services operations, such as Sam’s Club Pharmacies, Vision Centers, and Clinics, provide opportunities to access or amend protected health information collected, created, or received by those operations (for example, information collected at a Walmart pharmacy to fill a prescription) as described by the Notice of Privacy Practices. If you need assistance accessing records related to your personal information collected, created, or received by our health services operations or financial services operations, please visit the “What Privacy Protections Apply to Specific Types of Personal Information?” section.

Additional information on privacy rights for residents of certain states is available in the “What Are Your State Privacy Rights?” section below.

Whether you are using our websites or mobile services or visiting our stores, we use reasonable information security measures, including physical, administrative, and technical safeguards. Learn more about measures you can take to help to protect the security of your personal information.

We will keep the personal information we collect about you for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes set forth in this Privacy Notice or any other notice provided at the time of data collection, but no longer than as required or permitted under applicable law or internal Walmart policy. We dispose of the information we collect in accordance with Walmart’s retention policies and procedures.

Biometric Retention Schedule: For Illinois residents, as applicable, Walmart will permanently destroy your biometric identifiers and biometric information when the first of the following occurs: (i) the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such biometric data has been satisfied; or (ii) within 3 years of your last interaction with us.

You can contact the Sam’s Club Privacy Office online or by postal mail.

Contact Member Service for Club experience, marketing preferences, and general feedback/questions.

Contacting the Privacy Office
Email the Privacy Office - Please feel free to contact the Privacy Office with any questions or comments about this Notice or about how your personal information is handled. You can also contact the Privacy Office via the address below:

Mail:
Sam’s Club Corporate Privacy
702 SW 8th Street, MS #0160
Bentonville, AR 72716-0160

California Privacy Rights

California residents should refer to our California Privacy Notice for more information about our privacy practices and their California privacy rights.

Colorado Privacy Rights

Colorado residents should refer to our Colorado Privacy Notice for more information about privacy practices and their Colorado privacy rights.

Connecticut Privacy Rights

Connecticut residents can exercise the following rights by going to the footer of our website or settings section of our app and selecting the “Request My Personal Information” link:

1. Request to Access My Personal Information
2. Delete My Personal Information
3. Correct My Personal Information

Connecticut residents can exercise the following rights by going to the footer of our website or the settings section of our app and selecting the "Your Privacy Choices" link:

1. Opt Out of the Processing of My Personal Information for Purposes of Targeted Advertising
2. Opt Out of the Sale of My Personal Information

If we decline to take action on one of your rights as a Connecticut resident, you can submit an appeal by going to our privacy request page.

Oregon Privacy Rights

Oregon residents should refer to our Oregon Privacy Notice for more information about privacy practices and their Oregon privacy rights.

Texas Privacy Rights

Texas residents should refer to our Texas Privacy Notice for more information about privacy practices and their Texas privacy rights.

Utah Privacy Rights

Utah residents should refer to our Utah Privacy Notice for more information about privacy practices and their Utah privacy rights.

Virginia Privacy Rights

Virginia residents can exercise the following rights by going to the footer of our website or settings section of our app and selecting the "Request My Personal Information" link:

• Request to Access My Personal Information
• Delete My Personal Information
• Correct My Personal Information

Virginia residents can exercise the following rights by going to the footer of our website or the settings section of our app and selecting the “Your Privacy Choices” link:

• Opt Out of the Processing of My Personal Information for Purposes of Targeted Advertising
• Opt Out of the Sale of My Personal Information

If we decline to take action on one of your rights as a Virginia resident, you can submit an appeal by going to our privacy request page.

Please check our Privacy Notice periodically for changes. We will provide additional notice of significant updates. We will post the date our Notice was last updated.