Privacy for Shopify Partners

For Shopify Partners who develop apps, build stores, refer merchants, or help merchants operate their stores

Introduction

If you participate in Shopify’s partner program (for example, by developing apps or themes for use by Shopify merchants, by serving as an affiliate that refers potential merchants to us, or by helping merchants build or manage their stores), we collect and use your personal information to provide you with the use of our platform and its services, and generally to help you work with our merchants. Additionally, please review our overall privacy policy that applies to everyone whose information we process.

What information we collect about you and why

We collect the following personal information about you when you sign up as a Shopify partner or affiliate, or when you otherwise provide us with this information. We process your personal data in order to perform our contract with you or because it is in our legitimate interests to maintain our business relationship, prevent risk and fraud, provide effective services to you, improve our products and services, and to be responsive to you. In some cases, we only process your personal information with your consent.

What we collect How we use it
Information you provide about yourself and your business, like your name, company name, address, email address, and phone number.
  • To provide you with the use of our platform and other related services (e.g., to confirm your identity, to contact you about issues with the platform, to invoice you)
  • To advertise and market products or features to you
  • To comply with legal requirements
Payment information you provide, such as your credit or debit card number or your bank account number.
  • To process payments from you, or to remit payments to you
Information about how you access Shopify websites, your account, and our platform, including information about the device and browser you use, your network connection, your IP address, communication with Merchants, and details about how you browse our websites and platform. We collect some of this information by using “cookies” or other similar technologies directly from your device. For more information about how we use these technologies, see our Cookie Policy.
  • To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
  • To personalize the platform for you (e.g., by showing you apps in our app store that we believe may be useful to you)
  • To advertise and market products or features to you
Copies you provide of government-issued identification you provide us.
  • If we need to verify your identity (e.g., to protect you against identity theft or fraud)
  • To verify that we are speaking with you if you contact us
  • To comply with legal requirements

When and why we share your information with others

We need to share your personal information with companies who help us provide you with our services, and to connect you with merchants that we believe may be interested in your services. We also share your personal information with others:

  • to prevent or investigate suspected fraud, threats to physical safety, illegal activity, or violations of a contract (like our Terms of Service) or our policies (like our Acceptable Use Policy)

  • to help us conduct marketing and advertising

  • to process payments from you, or to remit payments to you

  • to comply with legal requirements, or to respond to court orders, subpoenas, warrants, or other similar government demands (for more information, please read our Government Access Policy)

  • in connection with an asset sale or purchase, a share sale, purchase or merger, bankruptcy, or other business transaction or re-organisation, we will share your personal data with a prospective buyer, seller, new owner, or other relevant third party as necessary while negotiating or in relation to a change of corporate control such as a restructuring, merger, or sale of our assets

Your rights over your information

You can access and correct a lot of your personal information directly through the Shopify admin. For information you are not able to access or correct directly within the Shopify admin, please submit a data subject request through our online portal. Please refer to our Overall Privacy Policy for further information.

When you sign up for the partner program you remain in the program until you tell us otherwise. Please submit a data subject request through our online portal if you would like us to delete your personal information. Please keep in mind that we may anonymize your personal information once you close your account, and we will continue to use non-identifiable information to improve our services. Please note that some data subject rights only apply in certain circumstances, and all of these rights may be limited by law.

Merchants that use your services

Shopify Partners provide a range of critical services to our merchants. When merchants sign up to use your services (for example, when they install an app you have developed), we will provide you with their personal information on the merchant’s instruction. When we do this, we are acting on behalf of our merchants. It is your responsibility to protect our merchant’s personal information and process it safely and securely in accordance with applicable law, our Partner Program Agreement, API License & Terms of Use and any other terms governing other Shopify services you may use. Shopify also requires you to provide merchants with a clear and transparent privacy policy to help them understand your privacy practices, and how you use the personal information they provide you. If you develop an app that you would like to list on Shopify’s App Store, that app will also require a privacy policy. To help you with this, we have prepared a template App Privacy Policy that you can use as a starting point to help explain what information you collect, and how you use and disclose that information.