American Express®
Online Privacy Statement

How do we use the information we collect about you?

We use Online Information we collect about you, either on its own or combined with Other Information: (i) where it is necessary to administer our contractual relationship with you; (ii) for our own legitimate interests to provide you with better products and services (such as to reduce fraud); (iii) where we have obtained your consent (such as for certain marketing purposes); or (iv) for compliance with laws.

More specifically, to administer our contractual relationship with you, we may use your information to:

• process your application for a card, account or other product or to manage your existing accounts;
• complete transactions, tell you about updates to your accounts, products, and services, provide location based services you may request, and/or update you about new features and benefits;
• answer questions and respond to your requests made through our websites or apps and through third-party websites (including social media);

For our legitimate interests or for the legitimate interests of others, we may use your information to deliver products and services, advertise and market products and services, conduct research and analysis, and manage our fraud and security risks, in the following ways:

• determine how to best provide services to you and manage your accounts, such as the best way and time to contact you;
• to better understand our customers and users, improve our websites or apps and make them easier to use;
• use the location and other technical attributes of your mobile device or browser to prevent fraud and improve security;
• to advertise and market for the American Express Family of Companies and those of our Business Partners (for example, we may present ads, promotions, offers or content that is tailored to your interests, including Targeted Advertising, and analyse whether such marketing or advertising is effective);
• inform our collection practices and share information with credit reference agencies and fraud-management agencies 
• manage fraud and security risks, including to review and approve individual transactions you make through digital channels, detect and prevent fraud or criminal activity and/or safeguard the security of your information);
• develop and refine our risk management policies, models and procedures for applications and customer accounts, relying on information such as your experience with our websites or products;
• allow you to provide feedback by rating and reviewing our products and services and those of our Business Partners;
• produce data analytics, statistical research, and reports;
• review and change our products and services;
• help determine whether you may be interested in new products or services;

To promote our products and services, we may also ask for your consent to:

• send you ads, promotions, and offers for the products and services for the American Express Family of Companies and those of our Business Partners;
• recognise you when you return to our websites, receive our emails, or use our apps (for example, we may send you tailored ads, promotions, offers or content,  including Targeted Advertising);

Finally, we may use your information to comply with applicable laws and regulation around the world, including to:

• establish, exercise, or defend legal rights or claims and assist in dispute resolution; or
• as required or permitted by law (such as performing due diligence on customers before approving their applications).

We may use automated systems to help us make certain decisions, e.g., whether to process card applications, manage fraud and security risks. You have rights with respect to certain types of decisions that are made solely by automated means. Please see the section called “What are your rights?” for more information.

How do we keep and safeguard your information?

We use organisational, administrative, technical and physical security measures to protect your Personal Information. These measures include computer safeguards and secured files and facilities. We require Service Providers to safeguard Personal Information and only use your Personal Information for the purposes we specify.

We will keep your Personal Information only as long as we need to deliver our products and services, unless we are required to keep it for longer periods because of law, regulation, litigation or regulatory investigations. For example, your Personal Information could be stored by American Express for five years after you close your account due to anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulations. When your Personal Information is no longer necessary for our business, legal or regulatory needs, we will take reasonable steps to securely destroy such information or permanently de-identify it.  For more information about American Express’s retention periods for Personal Information, please contact us using the number on the back of your card.  

Glossary

Aggregated Information  – data or information relating to multiple people which has been combined or aggregated such that individuals cannot be re-identified. Aggregated Information includes information that we create or compile from various sources, including card transactions or certain data from  Cookies and Similar Technologies.

American Express (we, our, us)  – the American Express Company as identified at the beginning of this online privacy statement.   

American Express Family of Companies – any affiliate, subsidiary, joint venture, and any company owned or controlled by, the American Express Company.

Business Partners  – third parties with whom we conduct business and have a contractual relationship, such as digital payment providers and technology platforms which provide our services, insurance and travel service providers, and parties that accept American Express branded cards for payments of goods/services purchased by you (i.e., merchants).  

Co-brand Partners  – businesses we partner with to offer cards featuring both brand logos.  

Cookies and Similar Technologies  – a cookie is a small data file that a website transfers to your computer's hard drive. We place cookies when you visit our website or another company’s website where our ads appear or when you make purchases, request or personalise information, or register for certain services. If you accept the cookies used on our website, websites that are “powered by” another company on our behalf, or websites where our ads appear, you give us access to information about your interests. We use that information to personalise your experience. Similar technologies such as web beacons, pixels, gifs, and tags also do the same thing. We use the term Cookies and Similar Technologies in this statement to refer to all technologies that collect information in this way. For further details of our use of cookies and how you disable them, click on   Privacy Statement and American Express Cookie Preferences.

De-identified Information  – data or information used in a way (for example, pseudonymised) that does not identify you to a third party. We often derive De-Identified Information from Personal Information. It includes information that we may collect from various sources, such as card transactions or certain data from Cookies and Similar Technologies.  

IP Address  – a number assigned to a device when connecting to the Internet.  

Online Information – data or information collected on the American Express websites and apps as well as on websites and apps of third parties relating to topics about our business. Online Information may include your Personal Information, Aggregated Information and De-Identified Information.

Other Information – American Express internal information (for example, card transaction data or paper application form data), external data that financial companies use to process applications and complete transactions, and other online and offline information we collect from or about you. Other Information includes your Personal Information, Aggregated Information, and De-Identified Information, but does not include your Online Information.

Personal Information   – any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, such as name, addresses, telephone number, and email address and other information specific to that individual such as demographic details and transaction information.  

Service Providers  – any vendor, third party and/or company that provides services or performs business operations on our behalf, such as printing, mailing, and other communications services (email, direct mail, etc.), marketing, data processing and outsourced technology, servicing, collections, ad management, auditors, consultants and professional advisors.  

Targeted Advertising  – ads we, or our Service Providers, display on websites outside the American Express Family of Companies based on the preferences or interests inferred from data collected from a particular computer or device regarding web viewing behaviours over time and across different websites or, more generally, on data internally available to us (for example, transaction data).  

Third-Party Ad-Servers  – companies that provide the technology to place ads on websites (and apps) and track how ads perform. These companies may also place and access cookies on your device. The information they collect from our websites is in a form that does not identify you personally.