Apple Support Community & Privacy

When you sign in to Apple Support Community with your Apple Account, certain data, like your name, email address, usage information, and IP address will be sent to Apple. You also have the option to personalize your Community profile and create your own content.

Apple Support Community ("Community") is designed to protect your information and enable you to choose what you share.

  • When you sign in to Community with your Apple Account, certain data, such as your name, email address, usage information, your internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data will be sent to Apple.
  • You have the option to provide additional personal data in your Community Profile.
  • You also have the option to create your own content on the site including user-submitted threads, replies and comments, and user tips.

Community and all Apple services are designed from the ground up to protect your privacy. We work hard to collect only the data we need to make your experience better. When we collect data, we believe it’s important for you to know what we’re collecting and why we need it, so you can make informed choices.

Providing Community

Community is intended to help you use Apple products and services more effectively. Apple uses your personal data to provide the services and features in Community. To submit information to Community, each user must have a unique user name and password combination, known as an Apple Account. When you sign in to Community with your Apple Account, Apple will receive your user name and email address, usage information, and other information, such as your internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.

You also have the option to provide additional personal data in your Community Profile, such as your approximate location and a bio. Although you are not required to enter this information, providing it helps Apple better serve you based on your region and service support availability. The information you provided in your Community Profile will be visible to other members of Community.

When you use Community, you also have the choice to receive certain communications from Apple in connection with Community. Apple may respond to your post directly in Community and, if the preferences you set permit it, Apple may attempt to contact you outside Community via telephone, email, text message, or another method of communication. For example, you may receive reminder emails for posts if you have not visited Community for a certain period of time, a reminder to respond to answers that have helped you or solved your questions, or a survey on improving the services offered at Community. You can manage your communications preferences by going to discussions.apple.com/profile/preferences.

Community features a Ratings & Reputations system to reward and motivate users who participate, and recognizes the quality of their posted content. Your posts may be processed by Apple’s service providers to facilitate these Ratings. Apple will endeavor to remove any personal data from your posts prior to this processing.

Apple may use cookies and other technologies within Community. Such cookies enable us to maintain your session and to personalize your experience on the site, help us measure the effectiveness of the site, and improve user experience. Cookies are removed if you explicitly sign out. Otherwise, the cookies will persist on your browser. However, Community cookies do not track any information related to your browsing activity or actions on other sites.

Retention

We retain personal data associated with your Community account only for so long as you have an active account. Your account and all Profile data are removed upon your requesting that your account be deleted via Apple’s Privacy Portal at privacy.apple.com. If you have questions or concerns about how your personal data is used as it relates to Community, or you would like to reach our Data Protection Officer, you can contact us at www.apple.com/legal/privacy/contact. After you have deleted your account, any content you have submitted to Community including posts, comments, and user tips is retained and anonymized.

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy.