This draft represents a consensus of the P3P User Agent Task Force. The underlined text in the notes column indicates recent suggestions under consideration by the working group. Proposed revisions and comments are in red. Proposed changes to the P3P spec definitions are in green. A revised version (without the IE6 and Notes columns) will probably get incorporated into the P3P 1.1 specification. Please send feedback to public-p3p at w3.org.
| P3P Element | Attribute | P3P Specification Definition | Proposed Recommended Plain Language Translation |
| POLICY | discuri (attribute of POLICY element) | URI of the natural language privacy statement | Read our full privacy policy at [with link to discuri] |
| opturi (attribute of POLICY element) | URI of instructions that users can follow to request or decline to have their data used for a particular purpose (opt-in or opt-out) | Find out how to opt-in or opt-out at [with link to opturi] | |
| ENTITY | Identifies the legal entity making the representation of the privacy practices contained in the policy | This policy is issued by: [display all entity information provided by site] | |
| ACCESS | the ability of the individual to view identified data and address questions or concerns to the service provider. Service providers MUST disclose one value for the access attribute. The method of access is not specified. Any disclosure (other than <all/>) is not meant to imply that access to all data is possible, but that some of the data may be accessible and that the user should communicate further with the service provider to determine what capabilities they have. | Your access to information about you: | |
| nonident | Web site does not collect identified data. | We do not keep any information identified with you | |
| all | All Identified Data: access is given to all identified data. | We give you access to all of our information identified with you | |
| contact-and-other | Identified Contact Information and Other Identified Data: access is given to identified online and physical contact information as well as to certain other identified data. | We give you access to your contact information and some of our other information identified with you | |
| ident-contact | Identifiable Contact Information: access is given to identified online and physical contact information (e.g., users can access things such as a postal address). | We give you access to only your contact information in our records | |
| other-ident | Other Identified Data: access is given to certain other identified data (e.g., users can access things such as their online account charges). | We allow you to access some of our information identified with you, but not your contact information | |
| none | None: no access to identified data is given. | We do not give you access to our information about you | |
| DISPUTES | Although there may be other ways, the entity offers or acknowledges the following ways for a user to resolve disputes about the entity's privacy practices or alleged protocol violations. |
Ways to resolve privacy-related disputes with us include: | |
| service | The entity's customer service reprsentative is available to help resolve users' disputes regarding the use of collected data. The description MUST include information about how to contact customer service. |
[display long description and short description, if provided, with hyperlink to service URI, otherwise display "customer service" with hyperlink to service URI] | |
| independent | The entity is willing to be bound by the authority of an independent organization for resolution of disputes regarding the use of collected data. The description MUST include information about how to contact the third party organization. | [display long description and short description, if provided, with hyperlink to service URI, otherwise display "independent organization" with hyperlink to service URI] | |
| court | The entity making the statement believes that the authority referenced in the description offers recourse for disputes arising in connection with the privacy statement. |
We believe that the following authority offers recourse for disputes: [display long description and short description, if provided, with hyperlink to service URI, otherwise display "possible legal complaint" with hyperlink to service URI] |
|
| law | The laws or regulations referenced in the description may provide recourse procedures and remedies for disputes arising in connection with the privacy statement. |
We believe that the following laws or regulations provide recourse: [display long description and short description, if provided, with hyperlink to service URI, otherwise display "law" with hyperlink to service URI] |
|
| REMEDIES | The entity offers or acknowledges that the following remedies may apply to the identified dispute-resolution procedures. | [no heading - display this following corresponding disputes element] | |
| correct | The entity has implemented a policy to rectify errors or consequences for disputes arising in connection with the privacy statement. | We will correct any errors we make related to the commitments in our privacy policy | |
| money | The entity has implemented a compensation policy for disputes arising in connection with the privacy statement. | We will compensate individuals if it is determined that we have violated our privacy policy. | |
| law | Remedies for disputes arising in connection with the Privacy Statement may be specified by the law referenced in the human readable description. | Our privacy policy references a law that may determine remedies for breaches of our policy | |
| NON-IDENTIFIABLE | This element signifies that either no data is collected (including Web logs), or that the organization collecting the data will anonymize the data referenced in the enclosing STATEMENT. In order to consider the data "anonymized", there must be no reasonable way for the entity or a third party to attach the collected data to the identity of a natural person. Some types of data are inherently anonymous, such as randomly-generated session IDs. Data which might identify natural people in some circumstances, such as IP addresses, names, or addresses, must have a non-reversible transformation applied in order be considered "anonymized". | We do not keep any information that could be used to identify you personally | |
| PURPOSE | purposes for data processing relevant to the Web. | The ways your information may be used: | |
| current | Completion and Support of Current Activity: Information may be used by the service provider to complete the activity for which it was provided, such as the provision of information, communications, or interactive services -- for example to return the results from a Web search, to forward email, or place an order. | To provide the service you requested | |
| admin | Web Site and System Administration: Information may be used for the technical support of the Web site and its computer system. This would include processing computer account information, information used in the course of securing and maintaining the site, and verification of Web site activity by the site or its agents. | To perform web site and system administration | |
| develop | Research and Development: Information may be used to enhance, evaluate, or otherwise review the site, service, product, or market. This does not include personal information used to tailor or modify the content to the specific individual nor information used to evaluate, target, profile or contact the individual. | For research and development, but without connecting any information to you | |
| tailoring | One-time Tailoring: Information may be used to tailor or modify content or design of the site not affirmatively selected by the particular individual where the information is used only for a single visit to the site and not used for any kind of future customization. For example, an online store that suggests other items a visitor may wish to purchase based on the items he has already placed in his shopping basket. | To customize the site for your current visit only | |
| pseudo-analysis | Pseudonymous Analysis: Information may be used to create or build a record of a particular individual or computer that is tied to a pseudonymous identifier, without tying personally-identifiable information (such as name, address, phone number, email address, or IP address) to the record. This profile will be used to determine the habits, interests, or other characteristics of individuals for purpose of research, analysis and reporting, but it will not be used to attempt to identify specific individuals. For example, a marketer may wish to understand the interests of visitors to different portions of a Web site. | To do research and analysis in which your information may be linked to an ID code but not to your personal identity | |
| pseudo-decision | Pseudonymous Decision: Information may be used to create or build a record of a particular individual or computer that is tied to a pseudonymous identifier, without tying personally-identifiable information (such as name, address, phone number, email address, or IP address) to the record. This profile will be used to determine the habits, interests, or other characteristics of individuals to make a decision that directly affects that individual, but it will not be used to attempt to identify specific individuals. For example, a marketer may tailor or modify content displayed to the browser based on pages viewed during previous visits. | To make decisions that directly affect you without identifying you, for example to display content or ads based on links you clicked on previously | |
| individual-analysis | Individual Analysis: Information may be used to determine the habits, interests, or other characteristics of individuals and combine it with personally identifiable information for the purpose of research, analysis and reporting. For example, an online Web site for a physical store may wish to analyze how online shoppers make offline purchases. | To do research and analysis that uses information about you | |
| individual-decision | Individual Decision: Information may be used to determine the habits, interests, or other characteristics of individuals and combine it with personally identifiable information to make a decision that directly affects that individual. For example, an online store suggests items a visitor may wish to purchase based on items he has purchased during previous visits to the Web site. | To make decisions that directly affect you using information about you, for example to recommend products or services based on your previous purchases | |
| contact | Contacting Visitors for Marketing of Services or Products: Information may be used to contact the individual, through a communications channel other than voice telephone, for the promotion of a product or service. This includes notifying visitors about updates to the Web site. This does not include a direct reply to a question or comment or customer service for a single transaction -- in those cases, would be used. In addition, this does not include marketing via customized Webcontent or banner advertisements embedded in sites the user is visiting -- these cases would be covered by the , and , or and purposes. | To contact you through means other than telephone (for example, email or postal mail) to market services or products | |
| historical | Historical Preservation: Information may be archived or stored for the purpose of preserving social history as governed by an existing law or policy. This law or policy MUST be referenced in the DISPUTES element and MUST include a specific definition of the type of qualified researcher who can access the information, where this information will be stored and specifically how this collection advances the preservation of history. | To aid in historical preservation as governed by a law or policy described in this privacy policy | |
| telemarketing | Contacting Visitors for Marketing of Services or Products Via Telephone: Information may be used to contact the individual via a voice telephone call for promotion of a product or service. This does not include a direct reply to a question or comment or customer service for a single transaction -- in those cases, would be used. | To contact you by telephone to market services or products | |
| other-purpose | Other Uses: Information may be used in other ways not captured by the above definitions. (A human readable explanation should be provided in these instances). | For other uses: [include site's human, readable explanation; if site omits human-readable explanation say "not described here"] | |
| RECIPIENT | the legal entity, or domain where data may be distributed. | With whom we may share your information | |
| ours | Ourselves and/or our entities acting as our agents or entities for whom we are acting as an agent: An agent in this instance is defined as a third party that processes data only on behalf of the service provider for the completion of the stated purposes. (e.g., the service provider and its printing bureau which prints address labels and does nothing further with the information.) | Companies that help us fulfill your requests (for example, shipping a product to you), but these companies must not use your information for any other purpose | |
| delivery | Delivery services possibly following different practices: Legal entities performing delivery services that may use data for purposes other than completion of the stated purpose. This should also be used for delivery services whose data practices are unknown. | Delivery companies that help us fulfill your requests and who may also use your information in other ways | |
| same | Legal entities following our practices: Legal entities who use the data on their own behalf under equable practices. (e.g., consider a service provider that grants the user access to collected personal information, and also provides it to a partner who uses it once but discards it. Since the recipient, who has otherwise similar practices, cannot grant the user access to information that it discarded, they are considered to have equable practices.) | Companies that have privacy policies similar to ours | |
| other-recipient | Legal entities following different practices: Legal entities that are constrained by and accountable to the original service provider, but may use the data in a way not specified in the service provider's practices (e.g., the service provider collects data that is shared with a partner who may use it for other purposes. However, it is in the service provider's interest to ensure that the data is not used in a way that would be considered abusive to the users' and its own interests.) | Companies that are accountable to us, though their privacy policies may be different from ours | |
| unrelated | Unrelated third parties: Legal entities whose data usage practices are not known by the original service provider. | Other companies whose privacy policies are unknown to us | |
| public | Public fora: Public fora such as bulletin boards, public directories, or commercial CD-ROM directories. | People who may access your information from a public area, such as a bulletin board, chat room, or directory | |
| RETENTION | the type of retention policy in effect | How long we may keep your information | |
| no-retention | Information is not retained for more than a brief period of time necessary to make use of it during the course of a single online interaction. Information MUST be destroyed following this interaction and MUST not be logged, archived, or otherwise stored. This type of retention policy would apply, for example, to services that keep no Web server logs, set cookies only for use during a single session, or collect information to perform a search but do not keep logs of searches performed. | We do not keep your information beyond your current online session | |
| stated-purpose | For the stated purpose: Information is retained to meet the stated purpose. This requires information to be discarded at the earliest time possible. Sites MUST have a retention policy that establishes a destruction time table. The retention policy MUST be included in or linked from the site's human-readable privacy policy. | We keep your information only long enough to perform the activity for which we collected it | |
| legal-requirement | As required by law or liability under applicable law: Information is retained to meet a stated purpose, but the retention period is longer because of a legal requirement or liability. For example, a law may allow consumers to dispute transactions for a certain time period; therefore a business may for liability reasons decide to maintain records of transactions, or a law may affirmatively require a certain business to maintain records for auditing or other soundness purposes. Sites MUST have a retention policy that establishes a destruction time table. The retention policy MUST be included in or linked from the site's human-readable privacy policy. | We keep your information only as long as we need to for legal purposes | |
| business-practices | Determined by service provider's business practice: Information is retained under a service provider's stated business practices. Sites MUST have a retention policy that establishes a destruction time table. The retention policy MUST be included in or linked from the site's human-readable privacy policy. | Our full privacy policy explains how long we keep your information | |
| indefinitely | Indefinitely: Information is retained for an indeterminate period of time. The absence of a retention policy would be reflected under this option. Where the recipient is a public fora, this is the appropriate retention policy. An example of a non-reversible transformation is removing the last seven bits of an IP address and replacing them with zeros. This transformation must be applied to all copies of the data, including those that might be stored on backup media. An algorithm that replaces identified data with unique corresponding values from a table is not considered non-reversible. In addition, a one-way cryptographic hash would not be considered non-reversible if the set of possible data values is small enough that all possible hashed values can be generated and compared with the value that someone is attempting to reverse. | We may keep your information indefinitely | |
| CATEGORIES | Categories are elements inside data elements that provide hints to users and user agents as to the intended uses of the data. | We may collect the following types of information about you | |
| physical | Name, address, phone number, or other physical contact information | ||
| online | Online Contact Information: Information that allows an individual to be contacted or located on the Internet -- such as email. Often, this information is independent of the specific computer used to access the network. (See the category "Computer Information") | Email address or other online contact information | |
| uniqueid | Unique Identifiers: Non-financial identifiers, excluding government-issued identifiers, issued for purposes of consistently identifying the individual. These include identifiers issued by a Web site or service. | Website login IDs and other identifiers (excluding government IDs and financial account numbers) | |
| purchase | Purchase Information: Information actively generated by the purchase of a product or service, including information about the method of payment. | Information about your purchases, including payment methods | |
| financial | Financial Information: Information about an individual's finances including account status and activity information such as account balance, payment or overdraft history, and information about an individual's purchase or use of financial instruments including credit or debit card information. Information about a discrete purchase by an individual, as described in "Purchase Information," alone does not come under the definition of "Financial Information." | Financial information such as accounts, balances, and transaction history | |
| computer | Computer Information: Information about the computer system that the individual is using to access the network -- such as the IP number, domain name, browser type or operating system. | Information about the computer you are using, such as its hardware, software, or Internet address | |
| navigation | Navigation and Click-stream Data: Data passively generated by browsing the Web site -- such as which pages are visited, and how long users stay on each page. | Which pages you visited on this web site and how long you stayed at each page | |
| interactive | Interactive Data: Data actively generated from or reflecting explicit interactions with a service provider through its site -- such as queries to a search engine, or logs of account activity. | Activities you engaged in at this web site, such as your searches and transactions | |
| demographic | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data: Data about an individual's characteristics -- such as gender, age, and income. | Information about social and economic categories that might apply to you, such as your gender, age, income, or where you are from | |
| content | Content : The words and expressions contained in the body of a communication -- such as the text of email, bulletin board postings, or chat room communications. | Messages you send to us or post on this site, such as email, bulletin board postings, or chat room conversations | |
| state | State Management Mechanisms: Mechanisms for maintaining a stateful session with a user or automatically identifying users who have visited a particular site or accessed particular content previously -- such as HTTP cookies. | Cookies and mechanisms that perform similar functions | |
| political | Political Information: Membership in or affiliation with groups such as religious organizations, trade unions, professional associations, political parties, etc. | Which groups you might be a member of such as religious organizations, trade unions, and political parties | |
| health | Health Information: information about an individual's physical or mental health, sexual orientation, use or inquiry into health care services or products, and purchase of health care services or products. | Health information such as information about your medical condition or your interest in health-related topics, services, or products | |
| preference | Preference Data: Data about an individual's likes and dislikes -- such as favorite color or musical tastes. | Information about your tastes or interests | |
| location | Location Data: Information that can be used to identify an individual's current physical location and track them as their location changes -- such as GPS position data. | Information about an exact geographic location, such as data transmitted by your GPS-enabled device | |
| government | Government-issued Identifiers: Identifiers issued by a government for purposes of consistently identifying the individual. | Government-issued identifiers such as social security numbers | |
| other-category | Other: Other types of data not captured by the above definitions. (A human readable explanation should be provided in these instances, between the and the tags.) | Other types of data: [include site's human, readable explanation; if site omits human-readable explanation say "not described here"] | |
| optional (attribute of data elements) | indicates whether or not the site requires visitors to submit this data element to access a resource or complete a transaction | ||
| no | the data element is not optional (it is required) | [append to data element or category] (optional) | |
| yes | the data element is optional | ||
| required (attribute of purpose and recipients elements) | Whether the purpose is a required practice for the site. | ||
| always | The purpose/recipient is always required; users cannot opt-in or opt-out of this use of their data. | ||
| opt-in | Data may be used for this purpose/recipient only when the user affirmatively requests this use -- for example, when a user asks to be added to a mailing list. An affirmative request requires users to take some action specifically to make the request. For example, when users fill out a survey, checking an additional box to request to be added to a mailing list would be considered an affirmative request. However, submitting a survey form that contains a pre-checked mailing list request box would not be considered an affirmative request. In addition, for any purpose that users may affirmatively request, there must also be a way for them to change their minds later and decline -- this MUST be specified at the opturi. | [append to purpose/recipient] -- only if you request this | |
| opt-out | Data may be used for this purpose/recipient unless the user requests that it not be used in this way. When this value is selected, the service MUST provide clear instructions to users on how to opt-out of this purpose at the opturi. Services SHOULD also provide these instructions or a pointer to these instructions at the point of data collection. | [append to purpose/recipient] -- unless you opt-out |
Changelog: