Walmart Privacy Notice
Updated: October 11, 2024
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Notice of Changes
- Amended the “Provided Directly by You or a Member of Your Household” section of the “How Do We Collect Personal Information?” header to clarify that we do not disclose biometric information collected through eyeglass virtual try on services.
What Does This Privacy Notice Cover?
This Privacy Notice describes what personal information we collect, how we collect and use your personal information, who we disclose it to and why, the measures we take to protect your personal information, and the choices you may have regarding our use of your personal information. It covers our Walmart retail stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, and our websites and mobile apps and services where this Privacy Notice is posted (“Sites”).
What is not covered in this Privacy Notice?
Our Notices for our Specialized Operations cover the uses and treatment of personal information related to our specialized operations such as health services, including Walmart pharmacies, and vision centers; financial products and services that we offer either directly or in connection with business partners; and mobile device retail installment sales.
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
We may collect or receive the categories of personal information listed below, which may depend on the products or services you may use, as well as your device and account settings. Not all categories of personal information will be collected or received about every individual.
- Basic 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 and Online Identifiers, such as account login information, Mac address, IP address, cookie IDs, mobile ad IDs, and social media information.
- Internet and Other Network Activity Information, such as information about your browsing or search activity as well as your interactions with our websites, mobile applications, emails, or advertisements (for example keystroke patterns which help us determine if it is you or a bot who is interacting with us).
- Commercial Information, such as purchase and transaction history information (such as products or services you have purchased, rented, or returned), details about products associated with services you receive from or through us (e.g., car make, model, year, odometer reading, and Vehicle Identification Number when you visit our Auto Care Center), product reviews, travel and vacation information, and sweepstakes and contest 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, such as age, 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, such as credit or debit card numbers, and financial account numbers.
- Biometric Information, such as voice prints, imagery of the iris or retina, face geometry, and palm prints or fingerprints.
- Geolocation: Data about the location of your device, which may be imprecise (i.e., inferred from your device’s IP address). If you provide your consent, this data may be precise. For more information about precise geolocation, see the How Do We Collect Personal Information? > Collected Through Automated Means section below.
- 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 drawn from and related to shopping patterns and behaviors, intelligence, and aptitudes.
How Do We Use Personal Information?
We use personal information to provide you with products and services and to operate and improve our business. For example, we use it for:
- Performing services, including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, providing financing, providing and conducting analytics services, providing storage, or providing similar services
- Performing and 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
- Conducting business analysis, such as analytics, projections, identifying areas for operational improvement
- Conducting research and development, including undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration
- Fulfilling our legal functions or obligations
We also combine and associate personal information collected or inferred about you from multiple online and in-store sources (including other companies and services in the Walmart corporate family) to better achieve these purposes.
To the extent we process deidentified information, we will maintain and use the information in deidentified form and will not attempt to reidentify the information unless permitted by applicable law.
How Do We Collect Personal Information?
We may obtain and combine personal information from different sources, types of technology, and devices. This information may be collected from various places including in our stores, online, and from third parties.
Provided Directly by You or a Member of Your Household
When you visit us in our stores or online, you may share different types of personal information with us when you engage in the activities below:
- Conduct or seek to conduct a transaction in-store or online, or request a service where we collect information (including when required by law, such as alcohol sales or hunting and fishing licenses)
- Create an account on one of our websites or mobile services
- Use a gift registry or create a mobile shopping list
- Participate in our programs, such as Walmart Pay or Walmart+
- Request customer service or contact us
- Interact with various types of technologies, applications and features, including our chatbot
- Post a rating, review, or other user-generated content on one of our websites or mobile services, or post a review or comment on one of our social media pages
- Participate in a contest, sweepstake, promotion, or survey
- Use features of our websites or mobile services that enable us, with your consent, to access the camera, microphone, or contacts on your computer or mobile device to provide you with functionality, such as voice search, scanning bar codes for online search or mobile scan & go, or importing your mobile contacts. You must give us your permission before we access these features, and you can opt out of providing access to them at any time by adjusting the settings on your device.
- In addition to the above, we may use your device’s camera to provide virtual services such as eyeglass virtual try-on services and pupillary measurements. To use this feature, either you are at least the legal age of the jurisdiction (e.g., state) in which you reside or you have obtained parental or guardian consent. You (or your parents/guardians) are given the option to consent to the collection and use of your biometric information as described here, or decline use of the service, before we use your device’s camera for this service. If you use this service, your device’s camera (e.g., an Apple® TrueDepth® camera) uses facial scanning technology to measure your unique features so we can virtually place eyeglass frames over the image of your face. To do this, we collect your biometric information. Any biometric data we collect from you will be deleted within 48 hours and will be used solely for the purpose of enabling you to see yourself wearing virtual eyeglass frames.
- If you use the Walmart shopping voice assistant within the Walmart app, and consent to microphone and speech recognition, Walmart will have access to your microphone when the Walmart app is open and will continually listen for the key words “Hey, Walmart” to wake up your assistant. Walmart does not retain any information prior to recognizing the “Hey, Walmart” utterance, and only uses information collected after hearing that utterance for limited purposes such as providing the service, maintaining the quality or safety of the service, or fulfilling other internal business purposes, or our legal or compliance obligations.
When you make a purchase or use our in-store services, such as services provided by our Auto Care Center or Bakery, we may also ask you for your phone number and collect other information related to your transaction. If you choose to provide us with your phone number, we may associate and store it with your Walmart account or other personal information we may already have about you, along with the information related to your transaction. In addition to using this information as described in the How Do We Use Personal Information? section above, we may also use it to provide you with a more personalized Walmart experience, including to improve and deliver tailored online ads, product recommendations, and promotions.
Collected Through Automated Means
We obtain personal information about you in our stores or online, such as device and online identifiers and internet or other network activity information via automated means through your use of technology, such as when you visit our websites or use our mobile applications or services, or click on advertisements or links in emails you receive from us.
Also, depending on your device’s settings, we may collect precise geolocation information. You can control our ability to do this by adjusting the location-sharing settings on your mobile device at any time. You also may adjust your mobile device’s Bluetooth settings to disable the sharing of Bluetooth location-related data.
- Your mobile device’s GPS signal allows us to show you the Walmart stores closest to you. It also lets us know when you are about to arrive to pick up your Online Grocery Pickup order after you check in.
- We may be able to recognize the location of your mobile device in our stores when you are in a store where we provide free WiFi access or through the use of Bluetooth technology. We may use Bluetooth technology in our stores to allow our mobile services to show you nearby products that may interest you, make it easier for you to locate products within our stores, and help you navigate through our stores.
We collect your personal information from technology we use in our stores. For example, our point-of-sale terminals process your credit card information when you complete your purchase, and we operate in-store cameras for security and operational purposes. These cameras may capture images of you as part of check out, to help deter theft, or improve store design to better serve our customers.
Obtained from Other Companies within Our Corporate Family
We may obtain your personal information from another company within our corporate family, such as Sam's Club.
Obtained from External Third-Party Sources
We may obtain personal information about you from other sources 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. We also may obtain device and browsing information, from third parties for marketing purposes.
Collected from Another Solution or Asset
For example, when you speak to customer service, we collect your personal information using call recording technology in accordance with applicable law.
Who Do We Disclose to & Why?
We may share all categories of personal information described above with certain categories of third parties, as described below.
Within Our Corporate Family of Companies
We may disclose your personal information with other retail and non-retail companies (e.g., Sam’s Club and One Finance) within our corporate family for them to use in ways that are consistent with this Privacy Notice.
Other Companies
We may disclose personal information to the entities listed below, for the reasons described. In circumstances other than those described below, in accordance with applicable law, we will provide specific notice or ask for your affirmative consent.
Vendors for Business Operations: We disclose personal information about you to vendors to perform services on our behalf. These vendors include without limitation, shipping vendors, billing and refund vendors, payment card processors, and companies that help us improve our products and services.
Walmart Marketplace and Other Direct-to-Customer Companies: We work with a number of companies that provide services directly to you, either through our Marketplace or through co-branded and other promotions. For co-branded programs, we may receive compensation for the co-branded activity. When we share your personal information with these companies, they are prohibited from using it for any purpose other than making their products or services available to you.
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 How Can You Set Your Preferences? 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/.
Walmart Suppliers and Other Third Parties: To help make customer shopping experiences more relevant and friction-free, we may offer insights and related services to companies, including our suppliers who provide us with products and services to offer directly to customers both online and in our stores. These insights do not directly identify you and are derived by combining information such as shopping history from many customers. Walmart may receive payment for these insights.
Law Enforcement, Courts, and Other Legal or Governmental Bodies
We may disclose your personal information when required by law or legal process, or when we believe doing so will help to protect the safety, property, or rights of individuals or Walmart. Examples include:
- Protecting the health or safety of individuals
- Addressing crimes committed on Walmart property
- Identifying and addressing fraud or financial risk
- Responding to a request from law enforcement, search warrant, or other valid legal inquiry
- Responding to a court or other investigative body in the case of an alleged breach of an agreement or violation of law
Business Transfers
If we plan to merge, sell, or reorganize our business, we may disclose your personal information, along with personal information of other Walmart customers as part of the business arrangement. (This may also include transfers of personal information made as a part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings). We will use reasonable measures to help ensure your information is handled in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
How Can You Set Your Preferences?
Marketing
For marketing communications, we use an:
- Opt-in standard for automated phone and text messages, and for disclosing personal information with companies outside of our corporate family of companies to promote their products and services through direct marketing. Opt-in means we will only conduct the activity with your consent.
- Opt-out standard for email, mobile service (in-app) notifications, and postal mail.
You may withdraw your consent if you would like to stop receiving marketing communications. Please communicate your marketing communications requests directly to us or through a third party authorized to act on your behalf by:
- Visiting the Communication Preferences & Alerts page to adjust your preferences for marketing communications.
- Using the Contact Us section below, providing the types of communications you would like to receive or not receive, and your contact information.
For email requests, it may take up to ten days for us to process your requests. For requests related to telephone calls, text messages, mobile service notifications, and disclosing information with your consent, it may take up to 30 days. If you adjust your postal mail preferences, it may take six to ten weeks before you stop receiving mail because postal mailings are prepared many weeks in advance.
Regardless of your marketing communication preferences, we may still contact you for transactional or informational purposes, such as customer service, reminder or service notices, recalls, or information regarding your orders.
Additionally, the consent standards described in this section do not apply to Walmart co-branded credit card offerings provided through associated financial institutions. To stop receiving certain prescreened offers of credit that originate from participating nationwide credit reporting agencies, contact the Consumer Credit Reporting Industry organization at 1-888-567-8688 or www.optoutprescreen.com.
Interest-based ads are optimized for effectiveness based on inferences about you. For more information about interest-based advertising, see the Advertising, Marketing, and Other Related Technology Partners section above. To adjust your preferences for interest-based advertising, follow the instructions below:
- Opt out of Walmart interest-based ads through your Walmart.com account. When you browse Walmart.com via your web browser or browse sites where Walmart has ad space, you may see advertisements that are tailored to your interests. You can opt out of receiving these ads through our advertising settings. If you opt out, you will still see advertisements on Walmart.com, but they will not be relevant to your interests.
- Opt out of interest-based ads on your mobile device. Mobile devices offer options for opting in or out of interest-based advertising. Please refer to your device settings and instructions for additional information.
- Opt out of interest-based ads through advertising groups. You can opt out of interest-based advertising by advertisers that are part of the National Advertising Initiative or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising by clicking the links provided.
To successfully opt out of interest-based advertising, you must have cookies enabled in your web browser (see your browser’s instructions for information on cookies and how to enable them). Opting out only applies to your current web browser on your current computer. If you use multiple computers or multiple web browsers, you must opt out on each one. If you delete your browser’s saved cookies, you will need to opt out again. If you have opted out of receiving interest-based ads on Walmart.com previously and would like to opt out of interest-based ads that are provided by Walmart on sites outside of Walmart, please resubmit an opt-out request on this Ad Preferences page.
You may use the Global Privacy Control (GPC) to opt out of the processing of personal information for purposes of Targeted Advertising or the sale of your personal information through the use of the GPC. If you notify us of your opt-out preferences through GPC, we will honor your request with respect to the browser or device that sends us the GPC signal, and when you log in to your account from that device, the opt-out will extend to your account, as well. Our Sites will not respond to other types of “do not track” signals. For opt out rights related to specific states, see the State Privacy Rights section below.
How Can You Access and Update Your Personal Information?
You can access or update your personal information as described below.
- Enter and update your own contact information and payment information, as well as contact information for your delivery recipients, by logging into your Walmart account.
- To change your personal information as it relates to specific services provided by Walmart business partners or service providers, use the Contact Us section below and we will refer you to the correct partner.
- To delete your Walmart account, use the Contact Us section below. Or, within our mobile apps, visit the “Account” section of the Walmart app and click the “Request to Delete Account” link.
You can also access or update any of the information described in the bullets above by using the Contact Us section below and including, along with your contact details, the information you would like to access or update and any requested changes. Consumers in certain states have additional rights, which are addressed below in the State Privacy Rights section.
How Do We Secure Your Personal Information?
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.
How Long Do We Retain 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 personal 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.
How Does Walmart Protect the Privacy of Children Online?
As a general rule, our Sites are designed for a general audience and are not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 online. Any Walmart website or mobile service that is directed to children under the age of 13 will explicitly state that it collects information from children. In these instances, a separate privacy notice will be posted detailing the practices specific to those websites or mobile services.
Please contact us if you have concerns regarding the potential collection of your child’s information.
Links to Third-Party Services and Features
We want to improve your online experience and make it easier to discover new products and services through our Sites. We may provide you with links to other online services (such as websites or social media platforms) and may include third-party features such as apps, tools, widgets, and plug ins. We may not own or control these linked online services or third-party features, and we are not responsible for the information practices of the third parties that have ownership or control over them. In some cases, these third parties operate independently from us, which means their privacy practices are not covered in this Notice. We recommend that you review their privacy statements to learn about these third parties' privacy practices, including details on the personal information they may collect about you.
State Privacy Rights
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:
- Request to Access My Personal Information
- Delete My Personal Information
- 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:
- 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 Connecticut resident, you can submit an appeal by going to our privacy request page.
Montana Privacy Rights
Montana 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
We may disclose personal information to third parties or process your personal information for various purposes, including targeted advertising. These kinds of disclosures may be deemed selling under Montana law. You have the right to opt-out of the sale or processing of your Personal Information for targeted advertising as described below.
Montana 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 Sale of My Personal Information
- Opt Out of the Processing of My Personal Information for Purposes of Targeted Advertising
If we decline to take action on one of your rights as a Montana 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.
How Will I Know if this Privacy Notice Changes?
We will provide notice of significant updates, but please check our Privacy Notice periodically for changes. We’ll always post the date our Privacy Notice was last updated at the top of the Notice.
Contact Us
To contact the Customer Service Team about this Privacy Notice or about how we handle your personal information, visit our Store & Corporate Feedback page and select “Company Feedback and Questions.” Alternatively, write to us at:
Walmart Corporate Privacy
702 SW 8th Street, MS #0160
Bentonville, AR 72716-0160
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Notice of Changes
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What Does This Privacy Notice Cover?
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What Personal Information Do We Collect?
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How Do We Use Personal Information?
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How Do We Collect Personal Information?
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Who Do We Disclose to & Why?
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How Can You Set Your Preferences?
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How Can You Access and Update Your Personal Information?
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How Do We Secure Your Personal Information?
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How Long Do We Retain Your Personal Information?
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How Does Walmart Protect the Privacy of Children Online?
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Links to Third-Party Services and Features
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State Privacy Rights
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How Will I Know if this Privacy Notice Changes?
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Contact Us