Americas Privacy Statement
Last updated: March 27, 2023
IN THIS SECTION
Morningstar, Inc. and its affiliates (collectively, "Morningstar" or "we") are committed to keeping your personal information safe. This Privacy Statement describes how we use personal information, with whom we may share it, how we keep it secure, and your rights relating to your personal information.
This Privacy Statement applies to any individual (or “you”) located in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile or any other location in the Americas who uses Morningstar products or who otherwise interacts with Morningstar. This includes customers and subscribers, site visitors, and event attendees.
How we collect your information
Morningstar collects your personal information through your interactions with us or from third party sources. Specifically, we collect your information when:
- You use, purchase, or subscribe to our products or services.
- You interact with us, including when you ask us for support, attend one of our events, or otherwise contact us.
- You visit our sites or use our products. If you would like more information about how we use cookies to collect personal information, please visit our Cookie Policy.
We may also collect information about you from third parties, including:
- Your employer, organization, or other third party that arranges for you to access our products and services.
- Our partners and other service providers that work with us to provide you with our products or services. For example, with your consent, we may receive your information from your bank or other financial institutions.
- Your financial advisor, who may give us personal information about you when they use our products or services.
- Other publicly available sources.
Personal information we collect
The types of personal information we may collect about you varies by context and may include the following:
- Name and contact information: Your first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other contact information.
- Account credentials: Your user ID, password, password hints, and other similar security information used to authenticate your account.
- Demographic information: Your age, sex, geographic location, and preferred language.
- Payment details: Your bank account information, credit card number, and other information used to process payments.
- Subscription and usage information: Information about the products or services you subscribe to and how you use them, including preferences, browsing history, and help information.
- Device and network information: Information about your device, such as IP address, location, or internet service provider.
- Financial and portfolio information: Information about your finances, portfolio, and transactions.
- Audio or video information: If you visit a Morningstar location or participate in a Morningstar event, Morningstar may record your image or voice.
How we use personal information
How Morningstar uses your information depends on the product or service you use and your relationship with us. We use personal information for the following purposes:
- Provide our products and services, including to verify your identity, create and administer your account, personalize the content you receive, and send important account and product update information.
- Provide customer service, as well as technical and product support.
- Provide you with marketing, including third-party advertisements.
- Conduct research and develop the features and functions of our products and services.
- Protect your, our, or third parties' networks, systems, property, or physical safety.
- Comply with requests from regulatory agencies, law enforcement, and other public and government authorities.
- Enforce our contracts, terms, and conditions or otherwise exercise our legal rights; and comply with laws and regulations that apply to us or third parties with whom we work.
- Generate anonymous, aggregated data that we use for research and product development. We may publish or otherwise provide the results of this research data in our products and services.
- Participate in any merger, acquisition, or other corporate transaction.
- Meet our or third parties' audit and compliance requirements.
How we share personal information
Morningstar may share your personal information with other Morningstar companies, our business partners, content providers, clients, service providers, and other third parties with your consent or for the purposes disclosed above in this Privacy Statement.
Aggregated and anonymized information
Morningstar collects certain information about you and your use of our services to generate anonymous, aggregated data which we use for research, product development, and the purposes set forth above. We may publish or otherwise provide our research containing this aggregated data in our products and services to third parties. In the event that we "de-identify" personal information, we will not attempt to re-identify that data.
How we protect your personal information
Morningstar maintains a comprehensive information security program intended to keep your information safe. We have technical, physical, and organizational measures in place to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure, or destruction of personal information. The measures we use are appropriate to the nature, scope, and purpose for which we use the personal information we collect. If you have additional questions about how we protect your information please contact us.
How long do we retain personal information?
We store your Personal Information for as long as needed, or permitted, based on the purposes for which we obtained it, consistent with applicable law. When deciding how long to keep your Personal Information, we consider whether we are subject to any legal obligations, such as laws that require us to keep records for a certain period of time before we can delete them or as needed to fulfill our obligations in response to a lawsuit.
Data transfers
Morningstar companies, its operations, workforce, and service providers are located throughout the world. Depending on how you interact with us, your personal information may be handled and stored in, accessed from, or transferred to different countries. Whenever we transfer personal information to different countries we take steps to ensure that the personal information we transfer receives adequate protection in the jurisdictions that we handle or store it.
California Residents
Notice at Collection
California requires that we provide you with the following information, which you can find in this Privacy Statement:
The categories of personal information we have collected about consumers in the preceding 12 months;
- The categories of sources from which we have collected consumers’ personal information;
The business or commercial purposes for which we collect, sell or share personal information; and
- The categories of third parties to whom we’ve disclosed consumers’ personal information.
California law also requires that we disclose the categories of personal information we've "sold" or "shared" in the preceding 12 months as each are defined by the CCPA.
- What personal information does Morningstar "sell"? In the last twelve (12) months, one Morningstar affiliate, PitchBook Data, Inc. (“PitchBook”) has sold personal information. PitchBook makes information relating to the ownership of privately held companies available to its subscribers. This data includes identifiers (name and contact information) and professional or employment-related information (job titles and other similar information). You can find out more about PitchBook and its privacy practices here.
- What personal information does Morningstar "share"? In the last twelve (12) months, Morningstar has shared personal information with marketing partners – including for cross-context behavioral advertising – and analytics partners. This data is collected from website visitors and includes internet or other electronic network activity information. For information about how to opt-out of the sharing of your personal information, please visit our Cookie Policy.
Your rights under California law
If you are a resident of California, you have the following rights:
- Right to Know/Access. You have the right to request (subject to certain exemptions):
- The categories of personal information we collected about you;
- The sources from which we have collected that personal information;
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing that personal information;
- The categories of third parties to whom we have disclosed that personal information; and
- A copy of the specific pieces of personal information we have collected.
- Right to Correct. You have the right to request that we correct inaccuracies in your personal information.
- Right to Delete. Subject to certain exceptions, you have the right to request deletion on personal information that we have collected from you. Please note, Morningstar is not obligated to delete personal information that is necessary to provide services that you request required to comply with applicable laws.
- Right to Limit Use and Disclosure. Subject to certain conditions and exceptions, you may have the right to limit the use and disclosure of “Sensitive Personal Information,” as defined under the CCPA. However, we do not engage in activities triggering this right.
- Right to Non-Discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of the rights described in this section.
We do not have actual knowledge that we sell or share personal information of individuals under 16 years of age.
Exercising Your California Privacy Rights
To exercise any of these rights, you may submit a request through one of the methods listed in the "Your Rights" section below:
- Email: privacyenquiries@morningstar.com
- Tollfree: 1-888-293-8609
You may designate someone as an authorized agent to submit requests and act on your behalf. To do so, you must provide us with written permission to allow the authorized agent to act on your behalf. We may also ask you directly to verify that you have authorized your authorized agent to act on your behalf.
Exercising your rights
Certain jurisdictions provide their residents rights to access, correct, restrict the use or sale of, or delete personal information. These rights are not absolute, and they don't always apply in all cases.
If applicable, you can exercise your rights by sending us a request here. In response to a request, we'll ask you for additional information to verify your identity and may ask that you provide further information to help us better fulfill your request. You can also make your request by calling us toll-free at +1 (888) 293-8609.
If you request that we erase your personal information and we process that request, we may still retain certain elements of your personal information as permitted by law including to comply with legal, regulatory, or our own policy requirements.
Some of our products and services, however, may require your personal information. If you choose not to provide your personal information, you may not be able to use those products or services.
Nevada customers
Nevada law gives Nevada consumers the right to request that a company not sell their personal information. If you are a Nevada consumer and wish to exercise this right, please submit your request here.
Candidates
If you access our website to inquire about employment with a Morningstar company, we may collect the following personal information: your name, physical and email addresses, phone number(s), and any additional employment-related information that you choose to provide.
If you are submitting an employment application through our site, we may also collect your username and password.
We use this information to process and manage your application for employment with Morningstar. We may also use candidate personal information to fulfill reporting requirements as required by law.
Children’s privacy
Morningstar does not separately identify or collect personal information of individuals under 16 years of age.
Cookies and similar technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies to recognize when you've signed into our sites and personalize your experience with our products and services. For more information about how we use cookies, please read our Cookie Policy.