General Privacy Statement
Last updated: December 14, 2020
Morningstar, Inc. and its affiliates (collectively, “Morningstar”) are committed to keeping your personal information safe. This General 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 is intended for residents of jursidictions where Morningstar does not provide a jurisdiction-specific statement and applies to Morningstar users and customers (or “you”) who use, order, register or interact with any product or service from any Morningstar business. This includes customers and subscribers, product users, site visitors, and event attendees.
Morningstar offers a wide range of products and services throughout the world and may use your information in different ways. Morningstar's subsidiaries may have product-specific privacy statements on how a specific product handles personal information. You can find more about these subsidiaries' products below.
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 read our Cookie Policy.
We may also collect information about you from third parties, including:
- Your employer, organization, or other third party who arranges access to our products and services for you.
- 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 collect depend on your interactions with us 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.
- User content: Your files or other information you upload to our products or services.
How we use personal information
How Morningstar uses your information depends on the product and service that you use and your relationship with us. We use personal information as permitted under applicable law, as you request or consent to, and for the following purposes:
- Provide products and services, including to verify your identity, personalize the content you receive, create and administer your account, and send important account and product update information.
- Provide content or offers of content from third parties that you request.
- Provide customer service, as well as technical and product support.
- Provide you with marketing or targeted third-party advertisements.
- Conduct research and develop, improve, test, and enhance 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; defend ourselves from claims; 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 shares 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.
Links to other websites
Where applicable, Morningstar may provide links to one or more third-party sites within our products or services. This Privacy Statement does not apply to those sites. We encourage you to read any third-party site’s privacy policy before providing any of your personal information to them.
How we protect, store, and transfer 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.
Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided.
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.
If you have additional questions about how we protect your information, please contact us.
Individual data access requests
Certain jurisdictions provide their residents rights to access, correct, restrict the sale of, or erase 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 personal data access 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.
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.
We won’t discriminate against our customers who choose to exercise their rights to access, control, or delete their personal information. 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.
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.
About children’s privacy
Morningstar does not separately identify or collect any information that is specific to children.
Product-specific policies
Morningstar Investment Management Group:
- DBRS Morningstar®
- Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company
- PitchBook
How we revise this statement
Our business frequently changes, and we may need to update this statement to reflect those changes. When we make changes to this Privacy Statement, we’ll revise the “last updated” date at the top of this page. If we make material changes to this statement, we’ll notify you directly as required by law.
Contact us
If you have a concern, complaint, or question about how we handle your personal information, please contact us by using our web form, call us toll-free at +1 (888) 293-8609, or write us at the following mailing address:
Morningstar, Inc.
22 W. Washington St.
Chicago, IL 60602
Attn: Chief Privacy Officer
To find the Morningstar contact in your country, please visit our list of office contacts.