Privacy Policy

This privacy policy is no longer effective. To review the updated version of EA's Privacy policy, please visit: https://www.ea.com/.

California Residents: Click for Your California Privacy Rights

Last Update: October 21st, 2008

By registering, you will open an account for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ ("TOR") with BioWare Austin LLC ("BioWare") and LucasArts, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. ("LucasArts") in the United States. Your data will be stored in the USA. Though BioWare may share your data with LucasArts and our respective affiliates in countries with varying personal data protection laws, your data is always protected by this Privacy Policy so long as BioWare operates this service. Our affiliates use your data to administer your account, provide information of interest to you, and to communicate with you. You may opt out of receiving marketing materials from BioWare and LucasArts by changing your account preferences. More information about how BioWare and LucasArts uses your data and your related rights can be found in our Privacy Policy below. By registering, you agree that BioWare and LucasArts may process your data in accordance with the following Privacy Policy and that you will abide by Terms & Conditions.

I. STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time, governs your use of the online game, service, or web site known as Star Wars: The Old Republic ("TOR Services") offered by BioWare Austin LLC, its subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, "BioWare") in conjunction with LucasArts. BioWare, LucasArts and our subsidiary companies respect the privacy rights of our online visitors and recognize the importance of protecting the information collected about you. We have this Online Privacy Policy that guides how we collect, store and use the information you provide TOR Services.

Please note that this policy applies only to the TOR Service sites maintained by BioWare in conjunction with LucasArts, and not to web sites maintained by other affiliates, subsidiaries, companies or organizations to which we link.

BioWare complies with the EU Safe Harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union consistent with the European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection that went into effect in October, 1998.

BioWare and LucasArts are licensees of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent organization whose mission is to build user’s trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Because we want to demonstrate our commitment to your privacy, we have agreed to disclose our information practices and have our privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. By displaying the TRUSTe trustmark, BioWare and LucasArts have agreed to notify TOR site users of:

  1. What personally identifiable information we collect.
  2. What personally identifiable information third parties collect through the site.
  3. What organization collects the information.
  4. How we use the information.
  5. With whom we may share user information.
  6. What choices are available to users regarding collection, use and distribution of the information.
  7. What measures we take to protect the information under our control.
  8. How users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact the BioWare Privacy Policy Administrator at http://www.swtor.com/support. If your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, you should contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns. Please note that the TRUSTe program only covers information that is collected through this Web site, and does not cover information that may be collected through any software downloaded from this Web site.
Third Party Sites.

If you click on a link to a third party site, including on an advertisement, you will leave the TOR site you are visiting and go to the site you selected. Because we cannot control the activities of third parties, we cannot accept responsibility for any use of your personal information by such third parties, and we cannot guarantee that they will adhere to the same privacy and security practices as the TOR site. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any other service provider from whom you request services. If you visit a third party website that is linked to a TOR site, you should consult that site’s privacy policy before providing any personal information.

What is personal information and when do BioWare and LucasArts collect it?

Personal information is information that identifies you and may be used to contact you on-line or off-line. BioWare and LucasArts collect personal information from our online visitors during (1) contests [registration or claiming a prize], (2) warranty registration and/or during customer support or technical service requests, (3) player match up or other online services, (4) registration for games or special game-specific event participation, (5) newsletter subscriptions, referral services, and other marketing surveys and email campaigns, (6) registration for membership on our sites, (7) when you order products or subscriptions from us online, or (8) when you request services from third party service providers on our site or (9) through use of our software or online services.

Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date, and credit card information. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information, such as email address, to tailor our offerings or web pages to your preferences or interests. Prize winners may also be required to provide a Social Security or Social Identification Number for tax purposes. We do not require personal information to obtain access to any of our sites; however, you will not be able to access areas that require registration.

If you wish to subscribe to our newsletter(s), we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you. Out of respect for your privacy, we provide you a way to unsubscribe. Please see the “Choice and Opt-out" section below.

If you choose to use our referral service to "tell a friend" about the TOR product or site, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will send your friend an email on your behalf inviting him or her to visit the site or check out our product. Your friend's name and email is stored only for a short period for the sole purpose of sending this email and for redundancy checking, to be sure that your friend does not receive multiple copies of the same email message. We do not keep or use this information for any other purpose.

Whatever the purpose may be, BioWare and LucasArts will only collect information to the extent reasonably necessary to fulfill your requests and our legitimate business objectives.

Online Chat Rooms and Profiles

You may choose to disclose information, including personal information, about yourself in our online chat rooms, message boards, user "profiles" for public view or in similar forums on our sites. Information that you disclose in any of these forums is public information, and there is no expectation of privacy or confidentiality there. You should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums. Please see our Terms of Service at http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/termsofservice on this point and for other guidelines about posting content on our web sites.

Statistical and Usage Data

When you play our games on your PC or console, we may retrieve information about your hardware system and how your game is used, including your Internet Protocol Address. We use this information to enable you to play your game over the Internet. We also use this information to better understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, so that we can improve our products and services. We will never use this information to personally identify you without your knowledge or consent.

Public Data

Your participation in tournaments or other online game events, is conditional upon your agreeing to our collecting, using, storing, transmitting and publicly displaying statistical data (such as your scores, rankings and achievements) generated through your participation.

A Special Note about Children

BioWare and LucasArts do not knowingly collect data from anyone under the age of 13.

What about cookies and other technologies?
We use cookies and other technologies to passively collect demographic information, personalize your experience on our site and monitor advertisements and other activities. Cookies are small files downloaded to your computer to track movements within web sites. We may link cookie information to personal information. Cookies link to information regarding what items you have selected for purchase at our store, pages you have viewed, or games you have played. We use cookies to deliver content specific to your interest and to monitor website or game usage. We collect information on what games are played and how much time is spent playing the games and which ads or links are clicked. Some of our sites use an outside ad company to display ads. These ads may contain cookies. Cookies received with banner ads are collected by our ad companies, and BioWare and Lucas Arts do not have access to this information. Most browsers are automatically set to accept cookies whenever you visit a website. You can disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. However some areas of our sites will not function properly if you do so. For more information concerning how to disable your cookies, please visit http://www.swtor.com/support. Please note that this privacy policy covers the use of cookies by BioWare and LucasArts only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

Other technologies used include clear GIFs and IP address logging. Clear GIFs (a.k.a. web bugs, beacons or tags) are small graphic images placed on a web page, web-based document, or in an e-mail message. Clear GIFs are invisible to the user because they are typically very small (only 1-by-1 pixel) and the same color as the background of the web page, document or e-mail message. We do not use clear GIFs to collect personal information about you. However, we may use clear GIFs capture statistical usage information for our web pages, features or other elements on a web page. We may correlate this information to a user to personalize user experience and for statistical analysis of user experiences on our web pages.

BioWare and LucasArts also maintain log files which contain Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses. An IP address is a numeric address that is assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider. In general, we only use log files to monitor traffic on our Web sites, to report aggregate information to our advertisers and to troubleshoot technical problems. In the event of user abuse of our websites, however, we may block certain IP addresses or console IDs provided by our licensed hardware manufacturers. IP addresses and console IDs may be used to personally identify you in order to enforce our Terms of Service.

What happens to the information provided?

BioWare and LucasArts do not disclose any personal information about children under 18 years of age who have registered on any of our websites to third parties, or share or disclose personal information other than as set forth in this policy, provided however, that in the event of a merger, acquisition, or the unlikely event of bankruptcy, management of BioWare and LucasArts customer information may be transferred to its successor or assign.

The personal information you provide will allow us to alert you to new products, features and enhancements; special offers; upgrade opportunities; and contests and events of interest. You may opt in to allow BioWare and Lucas Arts to share your personal information with companies and organizations that provide products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. For example, we may share your personal information with a sport licensor or sponsor of our service on our site. You would be asked at that time if you wish to participate. We see this as a value-added service helping you to find useful products or services. We strive to limit use of the information you provide to those offers that we think you would appreciate receiving. To opt out of further communications from a marketing partner or sponsor with whom your information has been shared, please contact that partner directly. You may also later opt out of this service from BioWare and LucasArts. See the "choice and opt-out" section below. We may send BioWare and LucasArts emails that may contain information regarding third-party products or services; however, this doesn’t mean that we’ve traded your personal information to any party.

We may use survey information in marketing surveys to select and direct advertising that is more likely to be of interest to a particular member. This information may be transmitted to an ad server owned by the advertising company to match members with ads that they are more likely to be interested in. However, we do not disclose any member's personal information to our advertisers without the member's consent. Participation in member surveys is entirely optional. We may share aggregate consumer data (which does not contain personal information) with the advertising companies.

From time to time, BioWare and LucasArts may employ third-party contractors to collect personal information on our behalf to provide email delivery; product, prize or promotional fulfillment; contest administration; credit card processing; shipping or other services on our sites. When requesting these services, you may be asked to supply your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address to our contractors.

We may use third party contractors, such as credit agencies or market research firms, to supplement personal information that you provide to us for our own marketing and demographic studies, so that we can consistently improve our sites and related advertising to better meet our visitors' needs and preferences. To enrich our profiles of individual customers, we tie this information to the personally identifiable information they have provided to us.

When our third-party contractors collect and/or have access to the personal information you provide to BioWare and LucasArts, BioWare requires that they adhere to our stated privacy policies and protect the confidentiality of personal information they collect or have access to in the course of their engagement by BioWare and LucasArts. These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose without your specific consent.

You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party. If you do share your information, to opt-out from receiving further communications from any third party that is not our agent/service provider, please contact that marketing partner or affiliate directly.

To enforce legal rights and comply with the law, or to comply with an order from a government entity or other competent authority, or when we have reason to believe that a disclosure is necessary to address potential or actual injury or interference with our rights, property, operations, users or others who may be harmed or may suffer loss or damage, we may also disclose personal information to law enforcement, or the appropriate civil authorities when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our site.

Products Offered in Partnership with Third-Party(s)

Members may register for other services from our site(s). Certain products and/or services available on our site are provided to you in partnership with third party(s) and may require you to disclose personally identifiable information in order to register for and access such products and/or services. Such products and/or services shall identify the third party partners at the point of registration. If you elect to register for such products and/or services your personally identifiable information will be transferred to such third party(s) and will be subject to the privacy policy and practices of such third party(s). We are not responsible for the privacy practices and policies of such third party(s) and, therefore, you should review the privacy practices and policies of such third party(s) prior to providing your personally identifiable information in connection with such products and/or services.

Where is the information held?

BioWare is a global organization and many of the computer systems on which BioWare collects, stores, and uses the information it collects or receives are based in Australia, Europe, the United States and elsewhere. Your personal information may be transferred to, used, processed or held by BioWare and LucasArts in the United States and in other countries, including countries both in and outside the European Union, and used for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

Choice and Opt-out

When we first collect information about you, we will offer you the opportunity to opt-out of having your personal information shared with parties outside of BioWare and LucasArts or its subsidiaries (except to the extent required by law, court order, or as requested by other government or law enforcement authority). In addition, if you do not want BioWare and LucasArts to send you e-mail or postal mail about our products and services, you can opt out at the time of registration or information collection. If, at a later date, you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and marketing communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication, visiting the site in which you provided your information and changing your preferences, or by contacting the Privacy Policy Administrator at http://www.swtor.com/support.

Safeguarding Your Personal Information

The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can contact the Privacy Policy Administrator at http://www.swtor.com/support.

Review, Correction of Your Information and Requesting Removal from Mailing Lists and Deactivating Your Account

You can correct or update your account information at any time by logging on our site and navigating to “My Account.” Should you be unable to log in or wish to have your account(s) deactivated contact the Privacy Policy Administrator at http://www.swtor.com/support. We will be happy to review, update or remove information as appropriate. We may still retain your information in our files however, to resolve disputes, enforce our user agreement, and due to technical and legal requirements and constraints related to the security, integrity and operation of our websites.

Some BioWare and LucasArts sites or services may collect personal information that is not accessible via our site. However, in such cases, you may be able to access that information through alternative means of access described by the service or by writing the Privacy Policy Administrator at Privacy Policy Administrator, BioWare Austin LLC, 8300 North Mo-Pac Expwy, Suite 300, Austin, Texas 78759 and you will be contacted within 30 days regarding your request.

By using this site, you signify your assent to the TOR Online Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use the site. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page. If you choose to opt-out of our changed practice, our e-mail will contain instructions on how to opt-out. Your continued use of our site will signify your acceptance of the changes to our Online Privacy Policy.

California Residents: Your California Privacy Rights

Under California law, California Residents who have an established business relationship with BioWare, LucasArts or one of its subsidiaries may choose to opt out of BioWare or LucasArts’ disclosure of personal information about them to third parties for direct marketing purposes. As detailed above, our policy is not to disclose personal information collected online to a third party for direct marketing purposes without your approval. If you choose to opt-out at any time after granting approval, email privacy_policy@swtor.com or write to Privacy Policy Administrator, BioWare Austin LLC, 8300 North Mo-Pac Expwy, Suite 300, Austin, Texas 78759.

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