Audible UK Privacy Notice

Last updated: 20 November 2024.

We know that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust in us to do that carefully and sensibly. This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and process your personal information through Audible websites, products, services, and applications that reference this Privacy Notice (together “Audible Services”).

Controllers of Personal Information

Audible GmbH of Schumannstr. 6, 10117 Berlin and Audible Limited of 26-28 Glasshouse Yard, London EC1A 4JU (together “Audible Europe”) are data controllers of personal information collected and processed through Audible Services. For certain processing activities, Audible Europe is a joint controller with other Amazon group companies. Details can be found here.

What Personal Information About Customers Does Audible Europe Collect?

We collect your personal information in order to provide and continually improve our products and services.

Here are the types of personal information we collect:

• Information You Give Us: we receive and store any information you provide in relation to Audible Services. Click here to see examples of what we collect. You can choose not to provide certain information but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of the Audible Services.
• Automatic Information: we automatically collect and store certain types of information about your use of Audible Services, including your interaction with content and services available through Audible Services. Like many websites, we use “cookies” and other unique identifiers, and we obtain certain types of information when your web browser or device accesses Audible Services and other content served by or on behalf of Audible Europe on other websites.Click here to see examples of what we collect.
• Information From Other Sources: we might receive information about you from other sources, such as updated delivery and address information from our carriers, which we use to correct our records and deliver your next purchase more easily. Click here to see examples of the information we receive.

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For What Purposes does Audible Europe Process Your Personal Information?

We process your personal information to operate, provide, and improve the Audible Services that we offer our customers. These purposes include:

• Purchase and delivery of products and services. We use your personal information to take and handle orders, deliver products and services, process payments, and communicate with you about orders, products, services, and promotional offers.
• Provide, troubleshoot, and improve Audible Services. We use your personal information to provide functionality, analyse performance, fix errors, and improve usability and effectiveness of the Audible Services.
• Recommendations and personalisation. We use your personal information to recommend content, features, products and services that might be of interest to you, identify your preferences, and personalise your experience with Audible Services.
• Comply with legal obligations. In certain cases, we collect and use your personal information to comply with laws. 
• Communicate with you. We use your personal information to communicate with you in relation to Audible Services via different channels (e.g., by phone, email, chat).
• Advertising. We use your personal information to display interest-based ads for features, products, and services that might be of interest to you. To learn more, please read our Interest-based Ads Notice.
• Fraud Prevention and Credit Risks. We process personal information to prevent and detect fraud and abuse in order to protect the security of our customers, Audible Europe, and others. We may also use scoring methods to assess and manage credit risks.
• Purposes for which we seek your consent. We may also ask for your consent to process your personal information for a specific purpose that we communicate to you. When you consent to our processing your personal information for a specified purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time and we will stop processing of your data for that purpose.

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What About Cookies And Other Identifiers?

We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, provide our services and understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. Approved third parties also use these tools in connection with our display of ads. To enable our systems to recognise your browser or device and to provide Audible Services to you, we use cookies. For more information about cookies and how we use them, please read our Cookies Notice. You can manage your cookie preferences by clicking on 'Cookie Preferences'.

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Does Audible Europe Share Your Personal Information?

Information about our customers is an important part of our business and we are not in the business of selling our customers’ personal information to others. Audible Europe shares customers’ personal information only as described below and with Amazon.com, Inc. and the subsidiaries that Amazon.com, Inc. controls that are either subject to this Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Notice.

• Third Party Service Providers: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders for products or services, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analysing data, providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links (including paid listings and links), processing payments, transmitting content, assessing and managing credit risk, and providing customer service. These third-party service providers have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes. Further, they must process the personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and as permitted by applicable data protection laws.
• Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy other businesses or services. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Notice (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise). Also, in the unlikely event that Amazon.com, Inc. or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets.
• Protection of Audible Europe and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Audible Europe, our users or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Other than as set out above, you will receive notice when personal information about you might be shared with third parties and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.

Transfers out of the European Economic Area and the UK

Whenever we transfer personal information to countries outside of the European Economic Area or the UK, we ensure that the information is transferred in accordance with this Privacy Notice and as permitted by the applicable laws on data protection. We rely on European Commission adequacy decisions or use contracts with standard safeguards published by the European Commission (you can ask Customer Service for a copy of these) and similar measures under UK laws for such transfers.

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How Secure is Information About Me?

We design our systems with your security and privacy in mind.

• We work to protect the security of your personal information during transmission by using encryption protocols and software.
• We follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) when handling credit card data.
• We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, storage, and disclosure of personal customer information. Our security procedures mean that we may ask you to verify your identity before we disclose personal information to you.
• It is important for you to protect against unauthorised access to your password and to your computers, devices, and applications. We recommend using a unique password for your account that is not utilized for other online accounts. Be sure to sign out when you finish using a shared computer. Click on the “Hi, [your name]” drop-down menu and click “Sign Out”.

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What about Advertising?

Third-party advertisers and links to other websites: Audible Services may include third-party advertising and links to other websites and apps. Third-party advertising partners may collect information about you when you interact with their content, advertising, and services. For more information about third-party advertising at Amazon Europe, including interest-based ads, please read our Interest-Based Ads notice. To adjust your advertising preferences, please go to the Advertising Preferences page.

Use of third-party advertising services: We provide ad companies with information that allows them to serve you with more useful and relevant Audible ads and to measure their effectiveness. We never share your name or other information that directly identifies you when we do this. Instead, we use an advertising identifier like a cookie, a device identifier, or a code derived from applying irreversible cryptography to other information like an email address. For example, if you have already downloaded one of our apps, we will share your advertising identifier and data about that event so that you will not be served an ad to download the app again. While we do not share your specific shopping actions like purchases, product views, or searches with ad companies, we may share an advertising identifier and an estimate of the value of the ads they show you on our behalf so they can serve you with more effective Amazon ads. Some ad companies also use this information to serve you relevant ads from other advertisers. You can learn more about how to opt-out of interest-based advertising by consulting the section in our Interest-based Ads Notice.

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What Information Can I Access?

You can access your information, including your name, address, payment options, membership information, and purchase history in the “Your Account“ section of the Audible websites. Click here for a list of examples that you can access.

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What Choices Do I Have?

If you have any questions or objections as to how we collect and process your personal information, please contact our Customer Service. Our service also includes settings that provides you with options as to how your information is being used.

• As described above, you can choose not to provide certain information but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of the Audible Services.
• You can add or update certain information on pages such as those referenced in the Information You Can Access? section. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of the previous version for our records.
• If you don't want to receive e-mail or other communications from us, please adjust your Email Preferences under “Your Account" > “Email Preferences”. If you don’t want to receive in-app notifications from us, please adjust your notification settings in the app or your device.
• If you don't want us to use your personal information to deliver interest-based ads to you, please adjust your settings in your Cookie Preferences
• The Help feature on most browsers and devices will tell you how to prevent your browser or device from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie or how to disable cookies altogether. Because cookies allow you to take advantage of some essential features of Audible Services, we recommend that you leave them turned on. For instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be able to add items to your Basket, proceed to Checkout, or use any Audible Services that require you to sign in. For more information about cookies, see our Cookies Notice.
• You can manage your cookie preferences by clicking on 'Cookie Preferences'.
• If you want to browse our websites without linking browsing activity to your account, you may do so by signing out of your account (click on the “Hi, [your name]” drop-down menu and click “Sign Out”) and disabling cookies on your browser.
• When you consent to our processing your personal information for a specified purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time and we will stop any further processing of your data for that purpose.
• You will also be able to opt out of certain other types of data processing by updating your settings on the applicable Amazon website (e.g., in "Manage Your Content and Devices"), device, or application. For more information click here. 
• Most non-Amazon devices also provide users with the ability to change device permissions (e.g., disable/access location services, contacts). For most devices, these controls are located in the device's settings menu. If you have questions about how to change your device permissions on devices manufactured by third parties, we recommend you contact your mobile service carrier or your device manufacturer as different devices may have different permission settings.

In addition, subject to applicable law, you have the right to request access to, correct, and delete your personal data, and to ask for data portability. You may also object to our processing of your personal data or ask that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain instances. If you wish to do any of these things, please contact Audible Customer Service or, to submit a data subject access request, go to Request My Data.

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Are Children Allowed to Use Audible Services?

Audible Europe doesn't sell products for purchase by children. We do sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you're under 18, you may use Audible Services only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. For more information on how we handle personal information for Audible services intended for children under the age of 13, please read our Children’s Privacy Notice.

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How long do we keep your personal information?

We keep your personal information to enable your continued use of Audible Services, for as long as it is required in order to fulfil the relevant purposes described in this Privacy Notice, as may be required by law such as for tax and accounting purposes, or as otherwise communicated to you. For example, we retain your transaction history so that you can review past purchases, re-download your content, and to improve the relevancy of products and content we recommend.

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EU-US and Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework

Amazon.com, Inc. and certain of its controlled US affiliates, including the parent company of Audible GmbH and Audible Ltd., Audible Inc. (together, the Amazon Group Companies, or "We") participate in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and Swiss-US Data Privacy Frameworks* regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union and European Economic Area member countries, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. We have certified with the Department of Commerce that we adhere to the Data Privacy Framework Principles. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework Principles, see here.

If you have any inquiries or complaints about our handling of your personal information under the Data Privacy Framework, or about our privacy practices generally, please contact us at: eu-privacy@amazon.co.uk. We will respond to your inquiry promptly. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://www.verasafe.com/public-resources/dispute-resolution/submit-dispute/. If neither we nor our provider resolves your complaint, you may pursue binding arbitration through the Data Privacy Framework Panel. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework Panel, see here.

As explained here we sometimes provide personal information to third parties to perform services on our behalf. If we transfer personal information received under the Data Privacy Framework to a third party, the third party's access, use, and disclosure of the personal information must also be in compliance with our Data Privacy Framework obligations, and we will remain liable under the Data Privacy Framework for any failure to do so by the third party unless we prove we are not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

You can review our Data Privacy Framework registration here. The Amazon Group Companies are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We may be required to disclose personal information that we handle under the Data Privacy Framework in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

*We will not rely on the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework until each enters into force, but we adhere to their required commitments in anticipation of their doing so.

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EU General Data Protection Regulation And UK Data Protection Law – Legal Basis

The EU GDPR and UK data protection law requires a legal basis for our use of personal information. Our basis varies depending on the specific purpose for which we use personal information. We use:

• Performance of a contract when we provide you with products or services, or communicate with you about them. This includes when we use your personal information to take and handle orders, deliver products and services, and process payments.
• Our legitimate business interests and the interests of our customers when we improve Audible services, when we detect and prevent fraud and abuse in order to protect the security of our customers, ourselves, or others, and when we provide you with interest-based advertising.
• Your consent when we ask for your consent to process your personal information for a specific purpose that we communicate to you. When you consent to our processing your personal information for a specified purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time and we will stop processing of your data for that purpose.
• Compliance with a legal obligation when we use your personal information to comply with laws. For instance, we retain transactional records in order to comply with tax requirements.
• These and other legal bases depending on the purpose for which we use personal information.

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Contacts, Notices & Revisions

If you have any concern about privacy at Audible Europe or want to contact one of our data controllers, please contact Customer Service with a thorough description and we will try to resolve the issue for you. Further, the data protection officer for the above mentioned data controllers can be contacted at privacy-eu@audible.de and privacy-eu@audible.co.uk. You can file a complaint with the Berlin Data Protection Authority for Audible GmbH, or the Information Commissioner’s Office for Audible Limited, or with another local authority.

Our business changes constantly and our Privacy Notice will change also. You should check our website frequently to see recent changes. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Notice applies to all information that we have about you and your account. We stand behind the promises we make, however, and will never materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of customer information collected in the past without the consent of affected customers.

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Related Practices & Information

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Examples of Information Collected

Information You Give Us When You Use Audible Services

You provide information to us when you: 

• search for products or services;
• place an order through Audible Services;
• download, stream, view, or use content on a device, or through a service or application on a device;
• provide information in Your Account (and you might have more than one if you have used more than one e-mail address or mobile number when shopping with us) or your Listener Page;
• talk to or otherwise interact with Audible Services via the Amazon Alexa Voice service;
• configure your settings on, provide data access permissions for, or interact with Amazon device or service;
• communicate with us by phone, e-mail, or otherwise;
• complete a questionnaire, a support ticket, or a contest entry form;
• upload or stream images, videos or other files to Audible Services;
• compile Wish Lists;
• participate in community features, like providing reviews and ratings;
• employ Product Availability Alerts, such as Pre-Order Notifications.

As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as: your name; address and phone number; IP address; payment information; your age; your location information; people to whom you’ve sent Audible gifts or products; e-mail addresses of your friends and other people; content of reviews and e-mails to us; your Listener Page; credit history information; VAT numbers; and device log files and configurations, including Wi-Fi credentials, if you choose to automatically synchronise them with your other Amazon devices.

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Automatic Information

Examples of the information we collect and analyse include:

• the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet;
• login, e-mail address, password;
• device application or browser type and version, browser plug-in types and versions;
• the location of your device or computer;
• content interaction information, such as content downloads, streams, and playback details, listening behaviour like start and stop points, listening duration, reading behaviour on your Kindle devices and apps (so we can provide our WhisperSync for Voice functionality and award badges based on your listening and also calculate royalties), including duration and number of simultaneous streams and downloads, and network details for streaming and download quality, including information about your internet service provider;
• Device metrics such as when a device is in use, application usage, connectivity data, and any errors or event failures;
• Audible Service metrics (e.g., the occurrences of technical errors, your interactions with service features and content, your settings preferences and backup information, location of your device running an application;
• version and time zone settings);
• purchase and content use history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from other customers to create features such as Best Sellers;
• the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through, and from our website (including date and time); cookie number; products and/or content you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs); and
• phone numbers used to call our customer service number.

We may also use device identifiers, cookies, and other technologies on devices, applications and our web pages to collect browsing, usage or other technical information for fraud prevention purposes.

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Information From Other Sources

Examples of information we receive from other sources include:

• account information, purchase or redemption information, page-view and clicks information, or other information about your interactions with businesses with which we operate co-branded offerings, who assist us in our targeted marketing, or for which we provide technical, fulfillment, advertising, or other services;
• information about your interactions with products and services offered by our ultimate parent company Amazon.com, Inc. and its subsidiaries;
• search results and links, including paid listings; and
• credit history information from credit bureaus, which we use to help prevent and detect fraud.

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Information You Can Access

Examples of information you can access through Audible Services include:

• status of recent orders (including subscriptions);
• your complete order history;
• personally identifiable information (including name, e-mail, password, communications, and personalised advertising preferences);
• payment settings (including payment card information and gift membership balances);
• e-mail notification settings;
• recommendations and the products you have purchased or added to your Wish List that are the basis for recommendations;
• your Wish List and purchased content, services, and related settings, and
• communications and interest-based advertising preferences;
• content that you recently listened to; and
• Your Listener Page (including any Reviews and ratings).

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