Searching for a privacy policy template? You’ve landed in the perfect spot! This starter template serves as an excellent privacy policy example and offer various sample privacy policy options to cater to your specific needs!
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In this blog post, we’ll discuss privacy policies and how to create an effective one. We’ll also answer some frequently asked questions to help you understand the importance of having a privacy policy on your website. So, let’s get started!
Let’s start by answering some frequently asked questions.
A privacy policy is a document in which the data owner (the person or entity that runs a website/app) outlines the methods, purposes and in some cases legal justification, of its processing of personal data. Privacy policies should also outline the rights that users have in relation to the processing of their data.
Privacy policies typically include information about:
You have probably seen privacy policy links on most if not all websites you’ve visited. It is commonly included in the footer so users can access it at all times.
You probably need to have a data processing agreement in place.
No matter if you’re running a small or large website, a web or mobile app, a blog, an eCommerce or a newsletter (just to name a few examples): if you collect personal information from users, you need a privacy policy. It’s required by law and by third-party services you may use.
All that is required to trigger this obligation is the presence of a simple contact form, Google Analytics, a cookie or even a social widget: if you’re processing any kind of personal data, you definitely need one.
In short, you definitely need a privacy policy if you’re processing any kind of personal data – and you probably are as even IP addresses can be considered personal data.
The most important reason you need a privacy policy is to comply with privacy laws.
Under the vast majority of legislations including the GDPR in Europe and most US State Laws, if you’re processing personal data you’re generally required to make disclosures related to your data processing activities via a comprehensive privacy policy.
As a result, this legal document is required in order to inform users and meet disclosure and transparency requirements.
🇪🇺🇬🇧 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): This legislation is applicable to businesses that collect user data in Europe. It requires the inclusion of a privacy policy that discloses the methods of collecting, processing, and storing personal data, along with the user’s ability to manage their data.
🇺🇸 California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) and other US State Laws: This legislation applies to businesses that collect data from residents of these States. It requires the inclusion of a privacy policy that mentions the categories of personal information are collected, how it’s used, and with whom it’s shared, among other things.
🇧🇷 Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD): This law applies to all businesses processing personal data in Brazil, regardless of their geographical location. It establishes guidelines for how businesses must handle personal data, encompassing its collection, utilization, processing, and sharing.
👉 Non-compliance with these regulations can result in fines or reputational damage.
💡 Not sure which privacy laws apply to you? Find out with our 1-min free quiz!
A significant number of B2B third-party apps and services require their users and partners to comply with applicable law and have a privacy policy available.
Some examples of third-party services that require you to have a privacy policy for website or app are:
💡 All these services specifically require privacy policies from everyone with whom they collaborate.
Individuals value their privacy. The multitude of data breaches reported frequently in the media can make anyone feel vulnerable.
As a website owner, you are responsible for your users’ personal data, such as their names, dates of birth, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other identifying information including location data, purchasing habits, educational and medical history, as well as email and message content.
Looking at the nature of this data and how companies use it extensively nowadays, this motivated numerous people to educate themselves more about privacy and, upon realizing the associated dangers, often want to make sure their information is safe. This means being aware of how privacy-friendly and transparent a company is in their practices and at different touch points.
💡 Consequently, a competent privacy policy can function as both a promotional tool and a legal obligation!
Although it may be alluring to directly replicate a privacy policy from another site, we strongly advise against doing so.
Legally, your privacy policy disclosures must legitimately apply to your specific situation, processing activities and the particular laws that apply to you. Duplicating content will likely result in an illegitimate document.
Simply copying another website’s privacy policy without making the necessary modifications to reflect your own practices may not comply with applicable laws and regulations. Your business likely has different data processing practices, legal requirements, and third-party relationships, so it’s crucial to tailor the privacy policy to your own specific circumstances.
It is more prudent to seek legal advice or use a professional Privacy Policy Generator in order to create a professional privacy policy tailored to your own site.
As privacy policies are essentially legal documents, you probably should not try to write one yourself – unless you’re a legal professional. Privacy policies contain legally mandated disclosures that may vary based on things like:
Needless to say, drafting the clauses of a privacy policy is something best handled by professionals. We suggest either hiring a good lawyer or using a professional generator like ours, that allows you to customize from over 1800 lawyer-crafted clauses and offers much more than a static privacy policy template. This way you can still do it yourself but with the expertise of an international legal team.
These are the most basic elements that a privacy policy should include:
Use simple language and avoid complicated terms to create a clear and easy-to-understand privacy policy. Consider adding a summary or FAQ section to help users grasp the content easily.
iubenda’s simplified view allows you to do just that:
The truth is that the topic of privacy regulations is a rather complex thing. Therefore, a generic privacy policy template has to take various things into account like where you are based & what you are actually doing on your website that is privacy relevant. That’s rather hard to manage when you think that there are dozens and dozens of relevant things you may be doing on your site.
If you are doing most of the work for your website, you are the one that knows best about your practices. You know if you’re using Google Analytics, Mailchimp, a contact form, Facebook Like buttons or making use of any other practice that involves the personal data of your visitors/users.
Mostly however what you don’t know, even if you’ve had very advanced legal schooling, is how to write a legally viable privacy policy. That is what you pay a good lawyer for, who usually has to work out all of the details for your site before they can start applying their very own framework/process for creating a policy for you.
A privacy policy template usually contains only the most basic clauses and information, which is definitely not enough for building a compliant document that reflects all your privacy practices.
Let’s get it out there: hiring a specialized lawyer for your privacy policies, Terms of Service and other legal documents is the safest way for legal compliance: they will examine your site & situation, work out the legal issues and hopefully create a good policy for you. There’s no question however, that you will have to invest considerable time and money.
Fortunately, there are other tools that help you with this job without breaking the bank and very easily 👉 go to this section to find out.
It’s advisable to ensure that your privacy policy can be readily accessed on every page of your website. A good approach would be to incorporate a link in the footer, guaranteeing constant visibility and accessibility.
Be sure to include a privacy policy link wherever you ask for personal information. This applies to various scenarios, including email newsletter or account sign-up forms, contact forms, and payment checkout pages.
When it comes to mobile apps, you should follow the same principle by including the link in a menu section like “About” or “Legal.” Additionally, make sure to add this link to any other parts of your app where personal information is requested.
It’s important to ensure that your privacy policy still accurately reflects your current data processing operations to properly inform users, in a transparent way.
Technically, you would need to update it anytime there is a change in your privacy practices and data collection activities. This can be:
Keep in mind that privacy policies need to be tailored specifically to align with your business and website. The sample privacy policy template we provide serves as a solid foundation to familiarize yourself with the privacy disclosures generally mandated by legislation such as GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and beyond. You can see how these elements come together in these live privacy policy example below:
3bmeteo employs a user-customizable privacy policy and cookie policy, allowing for extensive personalization of various sections by the user.
Bestway uses our direct text embedding for their privacy policy.
BPER banca use only the embedding of the dynamic clauses – instead, their legal team writes the general section.
As mentioned before, a privacy policy template can only work for very basic legal documents. We provide this template just so you can see how your policy should be structured.
👉 We strongly recommend using a Privacy Policy Generator for generating your own professional document. You can try ours for free!
Effective Date: [Date]
[Your Business]
[Your Business Address]
[Your Owner Email Address]
[List all the types of data your website collects, by itself or through third-parties. For example:
[Describe all the security mesaures in place to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, modification, or unauthorized destruction of the data. Mention who can have access to the data, and how processing is carried out e.g. through computers.]
[List the legal bases or reasons you have to process data. For example: users have given their consent to one or more specific purposes (which is the most common legal basis for businesses).]
[Define where data is being processed.]
[Also mention here any data transfers to other countries.]
[This sets a defined period of time for keeping the data. Typically, personal data is processed and stored for as long as required by the purpose it has been collected for.]
[Also mention, if it’s the case, that data will be deleted once the retention period expires. Read this post for best practices on data retention.]
[This is more of a detailed section that lists all the services used on your website (like Google Analytics or Stripe for example) and, for each of them, defines the following information:
👉 This section can be tricky. This is made easy with iubenda’s site scanner.
Simply input the URL of your website and the scanner will automatically identify all the services in use and create a document with all necessary clauses. Each clause includes all the detailed information mentioned above and has been pre-drafted by lawyers.
[Users have a number of rights over their data, such as the right to withdraw their consent, access their data, or have their data deleted. You need to list their rights in this section. You’re likely to have to include data subjects’ rights under the GDPR. Also mention how they can exercise these rights (e.g. by contacting the company by email.]
This is crucial in case you use trackers on your website. 👉 Not sure? Follow this guide to find out!
[Here you can link to your cookie policy. It should list all the trackers used on your site, what data they collect and for which purposes. Make sure to mention how users can manage their cookie preferences.]
👉 See a cookie policy example here and how to generate your own.
[Some additional clauses can include:
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⚠️ Note
This is a general and basic privacy policy template and must be customized to fit your specific circumstances and requirements. As mentioned, because these are legally binding documents, we highly recommend consulting with legal professionals or using a generator created by legal professionals to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
Our approach to privacy policies is the following:
It’s as easy as that because our legal team has already done most of the work, handling all the legal documents and texts. It means we have pre-written all of 1800+ clauses for various services out there like Google Analytics and others.
You can just sign up, choose a few services and then use the policy we generate for you on your site within a few minutes.
Additionally, we host the privacy policy for you, which means that we keep it legally relevant and change things whenever things need to be changed.
Our most popular clauses like:
are free for any basic policy and can be used on your site without any further ado.
👉 See our free Privacy Policy Generator in action 🎥
The solution to generate your Privacy Policy. Customizable from 1700+ clauses, available in 9 languages and self-updating
