Effective date: October 10, 2023
Thanks for entrusting GitHub, Inc. or GitHub B.V. (“GitHub”, “we”, "us" or "our") with your source code, your projects, and your personal data. This Privacy Statement explains our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your data, including any personal data we collect and process in connection with our website and any applications, software, products, and services provided by GitHub, including any Beta Previews (collectively, the “Service(s)”).
All capitalized terms have their definition in GitHub’s Terms of Service, unless otherwise noted here.
The short version
We use your personal information as this Privacy Statement describes. No matter where you are, where you live, or what your citizenship is, you have the same high standard of privacy protection when using GitHub's products as all our users around the world, regardless of their country of origin or location.
To see our Privacy Notice for U.S. Residents, please go to GitHub's Notice about U.S. State Data Privacy or scroll down.
Summary
| Section | What can you find there? |
|---|---|
| Who is responsible for the processing of your information | Subject to limited exceptions, GitHub is the controller and entity responsible for the processing of your personal data in connection with the Website or Service if you are in North America. For individuals outside North America the data controller is GitHub B.V. |
| What information GitHub collects | GitHub collects information directly from you for your registration, payment, transactions, and user profile. We also automatically collect from you your usage information, cookies, and device information, subject, where necessary, to your consent. GitHub may also collect personal data from third parties. We only collect the minimum amount of personal data necessary to provide innovative services and personalized experiences, unless you choose to provide more. |
| How GitHub uses your information | In this section, we describe the ways in which we use your information, including to provide you the Service, to communicate with you, for security and compliance purposes, and to improve our Website or Service or develop new features and functionality of our Website or Service. We also describe the legal basis upon which we process your information, where legally required. |
| How we share the information we collect | We may share your information with third parties under one of the following circumstances: with your consent, with our service providers, for security purposes, to comply with our legal obligations, or when there is a change of control or sale of corporate entities or business units. We do not sell your personal information and we do not display advertising on GitHub. |
| Your choices regarding our processing of your personal data | We provide ways for you to access, alter, or delete your personal information. |
| Cookies and tracking technologies | Except for some of the cookies used on our Enterprise Marketing Pages, we only use strictly necessary cookies to provide, secure, and improve our Website or Service or develop new features and functionality of our Website or Service. As described below, we may use non-essential cookies on certain pages of our website to support our enterprise marketing efforts and market our products and services to enterprise customers, for example on resources.github.com (collectively “Enterprise Marketing Pages”). For more information about cookies, see the list of cookies used by GitHub. |
| How GitHub secures your information | We take all measures reasonably necessary to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your personal data on GitHub and to protect the resilience of our servers. |
| Communication preferences | We communicate with you by email. You can control the way we contact you in your account settings, or by contacting us. |
| Resolving complaints | In the unlikely event that we are unable to resolve a privacy concern quickly and thoroughly, we provide a path of dispute resolution. |
| Changes to our Privacy Statement | We notify you of material changes to this Privacy Statement 30 days before any such changes become effective. You may also track changes in our Site Policy repository. |
| License | This Privacy Statement is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. |
| Contacting GitHub | Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about our Privacy Statement. |
| Translations | We provide links to some translations of the Privacy Statement. |
GitHub Privacy Statement
Who is responsible for the processing of your information?
The data controller of your personal data is GitHub, Inc. For individuals outside North America, the data controller is GitHub B.V.
This privacy statement does not apply to personal data we process as a service provider or data processor on behalf of our enterprise customers. Our data processing activities as service provider or data processor is governed by our Data Protection Agreement. If you are an end-user of one of those organizations, such as an employee or student, you should read that organization’s privacy statement and direct any privacy inquiries to that organization.
GitHub acting on your behalf
In some cases, GitHub is acting only on your behalf for the personal data we collect and process in connection with our Service (for example, for the personal data added to a repository by the contributors to such repository). In such cases, GitHub will only process the data in order to provide, protect, and improve Service. Please note that subject to our Private Information Removal Policy contributors’ requests to remove personal data generally require notice to and action from the repository owner.
What information GitHub collects
The personal data we collect depends on how you interact with us, the services you use, and the choices you make. We collect information about you from different sources and in various ways when you use our Service, including information you provide directly, information collected automatically, third-party data sources, and data we infer or generate from other data.
Information users provide directly to GitHub
We collect personal data you provide to us. For example:
Registration information
We collect information such as your name and contact data, including username and email address, and credentials such as your password, during account creation.
Demographic information
In some cases, we request that you provide age, gender, and similar demographic details.
Payment and billing information
If you make a purchase or other financial transaction, we collect credit card numbers, financial account information, and other payment details.
Content and files
We collect any code, text, photographs, documents, or other files, including videos or recordings, you upload to our Service; and if you send us email messages or other communications, we collect and retain those communications. For example, you may choose to give us more information for your Account profile, such as your full name, an avatar which may include a photograph, your biography, your location, your company, and a URL to a third-party website. Please note that your profile information may be visible to other Users of our Service.
Feedback and ratings
We collect any feedback or ratings you provide, including through written communications and via surveys.
Information GitHub automatically collects
When you visit or use our Service, we collect some information automatically. For example:
Transaction information, Subscription and licensing data
If you have a paid Account or subscription with us, or make a purchase or sale using our Service, we automatically collect certain information about your transactions on the Service, such as your full name, address, region, state, country, zip code, the date, time, and amount charged.
Usage information and Interactions
If you're accessing or using our Service, we may automatically collect information about how you use and how your device interacts with the Service, such as the pages you view, the referring site, your IP address and information about your device, session information, the date and time of each request, device type and ID, operation system and application version, information contained in or relating to your contributions to individual repositories, and telemetry data (i.e., information about how a specific feature or service is performing) regarding your use of other features and functionality of the Service. As further described below, we automatically collect usage information and interaction data using cookies (which may use a cookie ID), depending on your settings or preferences, in connection with our Service.
Geolocation information
In connection with certain features and depending on the functionality of the Service, we collect geolocation information such as through IP addresses or the location information you choose to provide in your Account profile.
Information we create or generate
We infer new information from other data we collect, including using automated means to generate information about your likely preferences or other characteristics (“inferences”). For example, we infer your general geographic location (such as city, state, and country) based on your IP address.
Information we collect from third parties
Other companies with whom you choose to engage. GitHub may collect personal data about you from third parties. For example, this may happen if you sign up for training or to receive information about GitHub from one of our vendors, partners, or affiliates. GitHub does not purchase personal data from third-party data brokers.
Service Providers. We may also receive information from processors or service providers who process the data on our behalf, such as our payment processor who process payment and billing information in connection with our Service.
Content you post on our Service. Information you store in, or contribute to, a public repository, provide for use in connection with a Community Feature or make otherwise publicly available through the Service will be collected by GitHub as described in this Privacy Statement. Such information may also be available to the GitHub user community as well as the general public. For more information about repositories and community features, see "About your profile."
Co-branding/marketing partners. We may receive information from partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities.
Publicly available sources. We may also obtain information from publicly available sources as GitHub repositories.
When you are asked to provide personal data, you may decline. And you may use web browser or operating system controls to prevent certain types of automatic data collection. But if you choose not to provide or allow information that is necessary for certain services or features, those services or features may not be available or fully functional.
How GitHub uses your information
We may use your information to provide, administer, analyze, manage, and operate our Service. For example, we use your information for the following purposes: