GitHub Privacy Statement

Effective date: May 31, 2022

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 “Service”).

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, we provide the same high standard of privacy protection to all our users around the world, regardless of their country of origin or location.

To see our Privacy Notice to residents of California, please go to GitHub's Notice about the California Consumer Privacy Act 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.
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 from you, 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 host 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	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. We offer a page that makes this very transparent. We do not send any information to third-party analytics services.
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 processor or data processor is governed by our Data Protection Agreement. If you are a consumer end-user of one of those organizations, 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 the Service requested by you. 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 username, email address, and 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 photographs, documents, or other files 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.

Information GitHub automatically collects.

When you visit or use our Service, we collect some information automatically. For example:

Transaction information

If you have a paid Account 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

If you're accessing or using our Service, we may automatically collect information about how you use 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, 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.

Cookies

As further described below, we automatically collect information from cookies (such as cookie ID and settings) in connection with our Service.

Device information

We may collect information about your device, such as its IP address, browser or client application information, language preference, operating system and application version, device type and ID, and device model and manufacturer.

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, please review details regarding public repositories and community features here.

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:

• Provide our products and deliver our services including troubleshooting, improving, and personalizing the features on the Service.
• Business operations such as billing, accounting, improving our internal operations, securing our systems, detecting fraudulent or illegal activity, and meeting our legal obligations.
• Improve and develop our products and services including to develop new services or features, and conduct research.
• Personalization of our Service by understanding you and your preferences to enhance your experience and enjoyment using our Service.
• Provide customer support and respond to your questions.
• Deliver promotional communications with you about new services, features, offers, promotions, and other information about our Service.
• Send you information, including confirmations, invoices, technical notices, updates, security alerts, support and administrative messages.

We combine data we collect from different sources for these purposes and to give you a more seamless, consistent, and personalized experience.

How we share the information we collect

We share personal data with your consent or as necessary to complete your transactions or provide the services you have requested or authorized. In addition, we may share each of the categories of your personal data described above with the types of third parties described below for the following business purposes:

Public information

You may select options available through our Service to publicly display and share your name and/or username and certain other information, such as your profile, demographic data, content and files, or geolocation data. For example, if you would like your email address to remain private, even when you’re commenting on public repositories, you can adjust your setting for your email address to be private in your user profile. You can also update your local Git configuration to use your private email address. Please see more about email addresses in commit messages here.

Please note that if you would like to compile GitHub data, you must comply with our Terms of Service regarding information usage and privacy, and you may only use any public-facing information you gather for the purpose for which our user authorized it. For example, where a GitHub user has made an email address public-facing for the purpose of identification and attribution, do not use that email address for the purposes of sending unsolicited emails to users or selling personal information, such as to recruiters, headhunters, and job boards, or for commercial advertising. We expect you to reasonably secure information you have gathered from GitHub, and to respond promptly to complaints, removal requests, and "do not contact" requests from GitHub or GitHub users.

Third-party applications

We share your personal data with third parties when you tell us to do so. For example, if you purchase an application listed on our Marketplace, we share your username to allow the application developer to provide you with services. Additionally, you may direct us through your actions on GitHub to share your personal data. For example, if you join an Organization, you indicate your willingness to provide the owner of the Organization with the ability to view your activity in the Organization’s access log.

You can enable or add third-party applications, known as "Developer Products" to your Account. These Developer Products are not necessary for your use of GitHub. We will share your personal data with such third-party applications when you ask us to; however, you are responsible for your use of the third-party Developer Product and for the amount of personal data you choose to share with it. You can check our API documentation to see what information is provided when you authenticate into a Developer Product using your GitHub profile.

Organizations with which you engage

You may indicate, through your actions on GitHub, that you are willing to share your personal data. If you collaborate on or become a member of an organization, then its Account owners may receive your personal data. When you accept an invitation to an organization, you will be notified of the types of information owners may be able to see (for more information, see About Organization Membership). Please contact the Account owners for more information about how they might process your personal data in their Organization and the ways for you to access, update, alter, or delete your personal data stored in the Account.

Service providers

We share your personal data with service providers who process the information on our behalf to provide or improve our Service. For example, our service providers may perform payment processing, customer support ticketing, network data transmission, security, and other similar services. While GitHub processes all personal data in the United States, our service providers may process data outside of the United States or the European Union. Such processing by service providers will be in compliance with applicable law including any relevant transfer mechanism.

Affiliates

We enable access to personal data across our subsidiaries, affiliates, and related companies, for example, where we share common data systems or where access is needed to operate and provide the Service.

For security purposes

We will disclose personal data if we believe it is necessary to:

• protect our customers and others, for example to prevent spam or attempts to commit fraud, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;
• operate and maintain the security of the Service, including to prevent or stop an attack on our systems or networks; or
• protect the rights or property or ourselves or others, including enforcing our agreements, terms, and policies.

For legal disclosure

GitHub may disclose personal data or other information we collect about you to law enforcement or other governmental agencies if required in response to a valid legal process. For more information about our disclosure in response to legal requests, see our Guidelines for Legal Requests of User Data.

Change in control or sale

We may share your personal data if we are involved in a merger, sale, or acquisition of corporate entities or business units as described in this Privacy Statement.

Please note that some of the features on our Service include integrations, references, or links to services provided by third parties whose privacy practices differ from ours. If you provide personal data to any of those third parties, or allow us to share personal data with them, that data is governed by their privacy statements.

Finally, we may share de-identified information in accordance with applicable law.

No selling of personal data

We do not sell your personal data for monetary or other consideration as defined under California and Nevada state laws. You can learn more about the CCPA and how we comply with it here.

Your choices regarding our processing of your personal data

We provide choices about the personal data we collect about you. The choices you make will not apply to any personal data associated with an Organization under your Account.

Access, correction, and deletion. If you're a GitHub user, you may access, update, alter, or delete your basic user profile information by editing your user profile or contacting GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support. You can control the information we collect about you by limiting what information is in your profile, by keeping your information current, or by contacting GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support.

We retain and use your information as described in this Privacy Statement, but barring legal requirements, we will delete your full profile within 90 days of your request. After an account has been deleted, certain data, such as contributions to other Users' repositories and comments in others' issues, will remain. However, we will delete or de-identify your personal data, including your username and email address, from the author field of issues, pull requests, and comments by associating them with a ghost user. That said, the email address you have provided via your Git commit settings will always be associated with your commits in the Git system. If you choose to make your email address private, you should also update your Git commit settings. We are unable to change or delete data in the Git commit history — the Git software is designed to maintain a record — but we do enable you to control what information you put in that record.

If GitHub processes personal data other than your profile information, such as information about you GitHub receives from third parties, then you may, subject to applicable law, access, update, alter, delete, object to or restrict the processing of your personal data by contacting GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support.

You can adjust the settings on your Account regarding the display of your personal data in private or public repositories or personal data processed in connection with Community Features (such as GitHub Feed, GitHub Sponsors, and GitHub Explore) through profile settings.

Additionally, if you are unable to access certain personal data we have via the means described above, you can request access by contacting us as described at the bottom of this privacy statement.

Data portability

As a GitHub User, you can always take your data with you. You can clone your repositories to your desktop, for example, or you can use our Data Portability tools to download information we have about you.

Communication preferences

We use your email address to communicate with you, if you've said that's okay, and only for the reasons you’ve said that’s okay. For example, if you contact our Support team with a request, we respond to you via email. You have control over how your email address is used and shared on and through our Service. You may manage your communication preferences in your profile.

By design, the Git version control system associates many actions with a user's email address, such as commit messages. See more details regarding setting your commit email address.

Depending on your email settings, GitHub may occasionally send notification emails, for example, about changes in a repository you’re watching, new features, requests for feedback, important policy changes, or to offer customer support. We may also send marketing emails, based on your choices and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. There's an “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of each of the marketing emails we send you.

Please note that you cannot opt out of receiving important communications from us, such as emails from our Support team or system emails, but you can configure your notifications settings in your profile to opt out of other communications.

European Data Protection Rights

If the processing of personal data about you is subject to European Union data protection law, you have certain rights with respect to that data:

You can request access to, and rectification or erasure of, personal data; If any automated processing of personal data is based on your consent or a contract with you, you have a right to transfer or receive a copy of the personal data in a usable and portable format; If the processing of personal data is based on your consent, you can withdraw consent at any time for future processing; You can to object to, or obtain a restriction of, the processing of personal data under certain circumstances; and For residents of France, you can send us specific instructions regarding the use of your data after your death.

To make such requests, please use the contact information at the bottom of this statement. When we are processing data on behalf of another party (i.e., where GitHub is acting as a data processor) you should direct your request to that party. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, but we encourage you to first contact us with any questions or concerns.

We rely on different lawful bases for collecting and processing personal data about you, for example, with your consent and/or as necessary to provide the services you use, operate our business, meet our contractual and legal obligations, protect the security of our systems and our customers, or fulfill other legitimate interests.

Our use of cookies and tracking technologies

Cookies and tracking technologies

GitHub uses cookies to provide, secure and improve our Service or to develop new features and functionality of our Service. For example, we use them to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, identify your device for security purposes, compile statistical reports, and provide information for future development of GitHub. We use our own cookies and do not use any third-party service providers in this context. If you disable your browser or device’s ability to accept these cookies, you will not be able to log in or use our Service. We provide more information about cookies on GitHub on our GitHub Subprocessors and Cookies page that describes the cookies we set, the needs we have for those cookies, and the expiration of such cookies.

Our emails to users may contain a pixel tag, which is a small, clear image that can tell us whether or not you have opened an email and what your IP address is. We use this pixel tag to make our email communications more effective and to make sure we are not sending you unwanted email.

DNT

"Do Not Track" (DNT) is a privacy preference you can set in your browser if you do not want online services to collect and share certain kinds of information about your online activity from third party tracking services. GitHub responds to browser DNT signals and follows the W3C standard for responding to DNT signals. If you would like to set your browser to signal that you would not like to be tracked, please check your browser's documentation for how to enable that signal. There are also good applications that block online tracking, such as Privacy Badger.

Retention of personal data

We retain personal data for as long as necessary to provide the services and fulfill the transactions you have requested, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and other legitimate and lawful business purposes. Because these needs can vary for different data types in the context of different services, actual retention periods can vary significantly based on criteria such as user expectations or consent, the sensitivity of the data, the availability of automated controls that enable users to delete data, and our legal or contractual obligations. For example, we may retain your personal data for longer periods, where necessary, subject to applicable law, for security purposes.

How GitHub secures your information

GitHub takes reasonable measures necessary to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction; maintain data accuracy; and help ensure the appropriate use of your personal data. To help us protect personal data, we request that you use a strong password and never share your password with anyone or use the same password with other sites or accounts.

In addition, if your account has private repositories, you control the access to that Content. GitHub personnel does not access private repository content except for

• security purposes,
• automated scanning for known vulnerabilities, active malware, or other content known to violate our Terms of Service
• to assist the repository owner with a support matter
• to maintain the integrity of the Service
• to comply with our legal obligations if we have reason to believe the contents are in violation of the law,
• or with your consent.

Github will provide notice regarding private repository access where not prohibited by law or if in response to a security threat or other risk to security.

Cross-border data transfers

GitHub processes personal data both inside and outside of the United States and relies on legal mechanisms such as Standard Contractual Clauses to lawfully transfer data from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to the United States. You may request a copy of the Standard Contractual Clauses using the contact details provided in the section entitled “Contacting GitHub” below.

Resolving complaints

If you have concerns about the way GitHub is handling your personal data, please let us know immediately. We want to help. You may contact us by filling out the Privacy contact form. You may also email us directly at (privacy [at] github [dot] com) with the subject line "Privacy Concerns." We will respond promptly — within 45 days at the latest.

You may also contact our Data Protection Officer directly.

Our United States HQ	Our EU Office
GitHub Data Protection Officer	GitHub BV
88 Colin P. Kelly Jr. St.	Vijzelstraat 68-72
San Francisco, CA 94107	1017 HL Amsterdam
United States	The Netherlands
privacy [at] github [dot] com	privacy [at] github [dot] com

Dispute resolution process

In the unlikely event that a dispute arises between you and GitHub regarding our handling of your User Personal Information, we will do our best to resolve it. Additionally, if you are a resident of an EU member state, you have the right to file a complaint with your local supervisory authority, and you might have more options.

Changes to our Privacy Statement

Although most changes are likely to be minor, GitHub may change our Privacy Statement from time to time. We will provide notification to Users of material changes to this Privacy Statement through our Website at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect by posting a notice on our home page or sending email to the primary email address specified in your GitHub account. We will also update our Site Policy repository, which tracks all changes to this policy. For other changes to this Privacy Statement, we encourage Users to watch or to check our Site Policy repository frequently.

License

This Privacy Statement is licensed under this Creative Commons Zero license. For details, see our site-policy repository.

Contacting GitHub

Questions regarding GitHub's Privacy Statement or information practices should be directed to our Privacy contact form.

Translations

Below are translations of this document into other languages. In the event of any conflict, uncertainty, or apparent inconsistency between any of those versions and the English version, this English version is the controlling version.

French

Cliquez ici pour obtenir la version française: Déclaration de confidentialité de GitHub

Other translations

For translations of this statement into other languages, please visit https://docs.github.com/ and select a language from the drop-down menu under “English.”

GitHub's notice to California residents

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.100 et seq., as amended, “CCPA”) gives California residents rights and control over their personal information. GitHub, Inc. ("GitHub", "we") provides this statement to those residents ("you") in accordance with requirements under the CCPA to make certain disclosures about the collection and processing of their personal information. This is GitHub’s California-specific description of consumers’ privacy rights under the CCPA. For information about how we’ve extended the CCPA core rights to control personal information to all of our users in the United States, please see our Privacy Statement.

Our handling of personal information

While the table below contains information about the categories of personal information we collect, process, and share, please see the GitHub Privacy Statement for full details.

Category of personal information collected in last 12 months	Category of sources from which the personal information has been collected
Identifiers (such as real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, or other similar identifiers)	Information consumer provides directly or automatically through their interaction with our Service and/or Website or GitHub’s vendors, partners, or affiliates
Personal information described in Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80 (e) such as name, address, credit card or debit card number)	Information consumer may choose to provide directly, through service providers
Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law (such as gender)	Information consumer may choose to provide directly
Commercial information (such as about products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies)	Information consumer provides directly or automatically through their interaction with our Services
Geolocation data (such as any information collected after giving users the opportunity to opt-in to location-based services, which rely upon a device’s precise location services. )	Information consumer provides automatically through their interaction with our Services
Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information such as content and files uploaded to the Service.	Information consumer may choose to provide directly
Professional or employment information	Information consumer may choose to provide directly
Inferences drawn from any of the information identified in this table to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences	Information consumer provides directly or automatically through their interaction with our Services

We use the categories of personal information described above for the purposes listed in the “How GitHub uses your information” section of our Privacy Statement. We also disclose the categories of personal information listed above for business purposes. Please see the “How we share the information we collect” section of our Privacy Statement for additional details.

We do not sell your personal information

Under the CCPA, a business that sells California residents' personal information to others: 1) must give notice to California residents before selling their personal information to others; and 2) must provide the right to opt out of the sale of their personal information. GitHub does not sell personal information, including personal information of anyone under 16 years old.

Your rights under the CCPA

The CCPA provides California residents with certain rights related to their personal information. To submit a request based on these rights, please contact us via our contact form.

When receiving a request, we will verify that the individual making the request is the resident to whom the personal information subject to the request pertains. California residents may exercise their rights themselves or may use an authorized agent, designated in writing or through a power of attorney, to make requests on their behalf. If you use an authorized agent to submit a request, we may require that you provide us additional information demonstrating that the agent is acting on your behalf, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us. With respect to your personal information, California residents may exercise the rights described below.

Right to Know.

You have a right to request that we disclose to you the personal information we have collected about you. You also have a right to request additional information about our collection, use, disclosure, or sale of such personal information. Note that we have provided much of this information in this privacy statement. You can use GitHub’s User Migration API to access and download your data. Learn more here. You may also make such a “request to know” by contacting us here.

Right to Request Deletion.

You also have a right to request that we delete personal information under certain circumstances, subject to a number of exceptions. To make a request to delete, You can use GitHub’s User Migration API to access and download your data. Learn more here. You may also make such a “request to delete” by contacting us here.

Right to Opt-Out.

You have a right to opt-out from future “sales” of personal information. Note that we do not “sell” personal information as defined by the CCPA and have not done so in the past 12 months.

Right to Non-Discrimination.

You have a right to not be discriminated against for exercising your CCPA rights. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights.

You may designate, in writing or through a power of attorney, an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf to exercise your rights under the CCPA. Before accepting such a request from an agent, we will require the agent to provide proof you have authorized it to act on your behalf, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us. Further, to provide or delete specific pieces of personal information we will need to verify your identity to the degree of certainty required by law. We will verify your request by asking you to submit the request from the email address associated with your account or requiring you to provide information necessary to verify your account. Please note that you may use two-factor authentication with your GitHub account.
Finally, you have a right to receive notice of our practices at or before collection of personal information.

Additionally, under California Civil Code section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine the Light” law, California residents who have provided personal information to a business with which the individual has established a business relationship for personal, family, or household purposes (“California Customers”) may request information about whether the business has disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Please be aware that we do not disclose personal information to any third parties for their direct marketing purposes as defined by this law. California Customers may request further information about our compliance with this law by emailing (privacy [at] github [dot] com). Please note that businesses are required to respond to one request per California Customer each year and may not be required to respond to requests made by means other than through the designated email address.

California residents under the age of 18 who are registered users of online sites, services, or applications have a right under California Business and Professions Code Section 22581 to remove, or request and obtain removal of, content or information they have publicly posted. To remove content or information you have publicly posted, please submit a Private Information Removal request. Alternatively, to request that we remove such content or information, please send a detailed description of the specific content or information you wish to have removed to GitHub support. Please be aware that your request does not guarantee complete or comprehensive removal of content or information posted online and that the law may not permit or require removal in certain circumstances. If you have any questions about our privacy practices with respect to California residents, please contact us via our contact form.