Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice is effective as of January 1, 2023.

PDF version of the Privacy Notice

Cengage Learning, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively referred to as “Cengage,” “we” and “us”) are committed to protecting Personal Information. We have an internal Global Privacy Policy that protects Personal Information we collect and helps ensure that Personal Information is handled properly.

This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use and share “Personal Information” from educational professionals (such as teachers, instructors, school administrators, authors, editors and contributors), students at post-secondary schools, adult learners, website visitors, app users and others with whom we interact. This Privacy Notice also explains how to contact us regarding our privacy practices and the rights and choices you may have related to your Personal Information..

For information about how we protect the privacy of children and K-12 students, please read our Privacy Statement regarding K-12 Students and Children’s Data.

If you have applied for employment or an internship opportunity with Cengage, please visit our Applicant Privacy Notice for information about our privacy practices with respect to the Personal Information collected as part of the application, interview and recruitment process.

We recommend that you read this entire Privacy Notice so that you are informed about our privacy practices. However, if you want to skip to a particular section in the Privacy Notice, please refer to the table of contents below.

1. Collection of Your Personal Information

Personal Information is any information that can be used to identify, locate or contact you. It also includes information that can identify you when combined with other information. The Personal Information that we collect falls into the following categories and may differ based on how you interact with us:

  • Contact Information that allows us to communicate with you, such as your name, mailing address, telephone numbers, email address or other addresses that allow us to send you messages.
  • Identifiers that allow us to recognize you, such as a school ID, the account number that we assign you, username and password.
  • Transaction Information about how you interact with Cengage, including information about your use of our content and information about how you use our websites and apps.
  • Internet Network and Device Information that we collect about your session and your activity when you use our websites, apps and products. In addition to any information that you submit during these sessions, we use cookies and other technological tools to automatically collect information about your computer and your use of our websites and apps. The information we collect includes IP address; internet provider, operating system and browser used; domain names of the computers you use to visit our websites; viewed webpages; links that are clicked; the keystrokes typed; movement of the mouse or pointer; type of device (such as laptop or smart phone); device and advertising identifiers; log files; URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) of the resources requested; the time of the request; the method used to submit the request to the server; the size of the file obtained in reply; the numerical status code of the server reply (successful, error, etc.); emails we send that you open, forward or click through to our websites; and other parameters concerning your operating system and computer environment and/or device cookie settings and other device details, such as MAC address. Please see “Cookies and Other Data Collection Technologies” below for additional information.
  • Other Voluntary Information includes Personal Information you provide us during your interactions with us (such as by sending an e-mail through our websites or by calling, e-mailing or writing to us).

If you use our products and services, we also collect the following categories of Personal Information:

  • Transaction Information about how you interact with Cengage, including your purchase and download history, information about your use of our content (including time spent on material and results of in-product assessments) and customer account information. We also collect payment card information as needed to process your payment when you purchase products from us.
  • Audio Visual Information, such as photographs, video images or audio recordings that are captured when taking a course and call center recordings and call monitoring records that are made when you contact us for customer support.

If you use our Cengage Academic products, for example, MindTap, WebAssign, Cengage Infuse, SAM, OpenNow, OWLv2 and Cengage Now, we also collect the following categories of Personal Information:

  • Relationship Information that helps us do business with you. For students, this may include your school affiliation, expected degree and graduation date, your courses of study, grades, learning style, how you engage with our products, languages spoken, age range, how you interact with our content and others in your classes and similar information that can help us tailor our content and offer you personalized instruction. For professionals, this may include your professional credentials and affiliations and the products and services that may interest you or your school. If you are an instructor, we may also collect information about the types of courses you teach, your teaching style and student engagement and similar information that can help us tailor our content and improve your effectiveness in the classroom.

If you use our Ed2Go or Infosec products, we also collect the following categories of Personal Information:

  • Relationship Information that helps us do business with you. This may include your employer, job title, professional credentials and affiliations, language spoken, age range and the products and services that may interest you. If you are an instructor, we may also collect information about the types of courses you teach, your teaching style and student engagement and similar information that can help us tailor our content and improve your effectiveness in the classroom.
  • Military status.

If you enroll in an Infosec bootcamp, we also collect the following categories of Personal Information:

  • Identifiers, such as your date of birth and income information.

If you enroll in Externship thru Ed2Go, we also collect the following categories of Personal Information:

  • Identifiers, including date of birth and license or passport.
  • Resume Information, such as your work history, education history, course grades and certifications/licenses.
  • Results of screenings, such as background check results (pass/fail) and drug screening results (pass/fail).
  • Certain demographic information, only if you choose to provide this information.
  • Sensitive Personal Information, such as limited vaccination information.

In many cases, we collect Personal Information directly from you. We will ask you for Personal Information when you interact with us, such as when you register on our websites, signup to receive materials electronically or make a purchase. When you access our websites and apps, we automatically collect the information set out in “Internet Network and Device Information” above.

We also collect the categories of Personal Information listed below from third parties:

  • Business Contact Information for Gale Directory Products about corporate executives, academics and professionals. We obtain this information from third-party sources, such as company websites, publications, public record providers and other commercial sources. Please see “Gale Directory Products” below for more information.
  • Relationship Information from your school, such as information about the classes you are teaching, or from third-party data suppliers who enhance our files and help us better understand our customers.
  • Legal information from third-party providers, such as fraud checks or flags raised about your transactions, payment card refusals, suspected crimes, complaints and/or claims.
  • Social Media Information if you interact with us through a social media service or log in using social media credentials. Depending on your social media settings, we may have access to your Personal Information from that social network such as your name, email address, age, gender and location.
  • Contact Information about prospective customers from third-party lead providers.

2. Uses of Your Personal Information

We use your Personal Information for the following purposes:

  • Providing you with the products, content or services selected by you or your institution and for related activities, such as customer service, account management, support and training, reporting and to provide other services related to your school’s account.
  • Communicating with you, including through ads on social media platforms.
  • Ensuring the security and integrity of our websites, apps, products, services, systems, networks and facilities, including physical security, cybersecurity, fraud detection and prevention and intellectual property protection.
  • Providing you with marketing communications and offers for products and services from Cengage and our partners, including personalized offers and to manage your communications preferences.
  • Providing you with additional information that may be of interest, such as news and announcements, study tips for students or teacher guides for professionals.
  • Administering surveys and other promotional events.
  • Determining if you are eligible for certain products, services or offers, such as rebates or content guides, offered to professionals and students for certain courses.
  • Understanding how you use our products, content and services, including associating you with the different devices you may use to access our content, for analytics and product development purposes, to understand the impact of our products and to improve your user experience and to personalize offers that we make to you.
  • Managing our everyday business needs, such as payment processing and financial account management, contract management, website administration (including to optimize our websites and apps and for information security and cybersecurity purposes), business continuity and disaster recovery, security and fraud prevention, risk management, corporate governance, training and quality control, reporting and legal compliance.
  • For relationship purposes, such as use of photos and videos for social media purposes.

3. Sharing Your Personal Information

We share your Personal Information, to the extent permitted by law, as follows:

  • Within the Cengage group of companies.
  • If you are affiliated with an educational institution, with your school and (if you are student) with your instructors. For example, we provide our institutional clients with reports about how their instructors and students use our products, including information that compares instructors and students within a school. If you are a student, your instructors will have access to the information generated by your use of the products for a class. We may also provide Personal Information to your school, as needed, to investigate possible academic fraud or cheating. Your school uses your Personal Information in accordance with its own privacy policies.
  • With our service providers to the extent necessary to perform services on our behalf.
  • With authorized partners that provide services to you through My Cengage, MindTap and similar platforms but only to the extent that you have authorized the sharing. For example, you may request that Cengage share information about the courses you’ve taken with partners to enable the partner to provide you with resume creation, skills assessments or other services. Additionally, we may share certain transactional information with our partners as needed to validate referrals and operate the platforms.
  • With the company where you are doing an externship, if you are enrolled in Externship through Ed2Go.
  • With your consent or at your direction.
  • With other third parties, as permitted by law, to enforce our rights, including our Terms of Use or Terms of Service; to protect our property or to protect the rights, property or safety of others; and to detect, prevent and respond to fraud, illegal activity and intellectual property infringement.
  • With law enforcement agencies, regulators and courts in the United States and other countries where we operate, such as in response to a subpoena or court order.
  • With third parties in connection with, or as part of the due diligence for, any proposed or actual merger, acquisition, sale or transfer of some or all our assets (including in the event of a reorganization, dissolution or liquidation).

4. Gale Directory Products

Gale, a Cengage Company, publishes business directories. These directories contain publicly available business contact information about corporate executives, academics and professionals obtained from third-party sources, such as company websites, publications, public records providers and other commercial sources. These directories do not contain any information collected from users of our products or websites.

These directories are used by students, researchers and other professionals to identify relevant corporate contacts, experts and sources. We respect the rights of professionals to opt-out of having their business contact information included in these directories. If you would like to remove your information from our professional directories, please complete this form

5. Cookies and Other Data Collection Technologies

When you visit our websites or use our apps, we collect information by automated means, using technologies such as cookies, pixel tags, browser analysis tools, server logs and web beacons. In many cases, the information we collect using cookies and other tools is only used in a non-identifiable way, without any reference to your Personal Information. For example, we use information we collect about all website users to optimize our websites and to understand website traffic patterns.

In some cases, we do associate the information collected using cookies and other technology with your Personal Information. This Privacy Notice governs how we use that information when we associate it with your Personal Information.

Please refer to our Cookies Notice for more information on our use of cookies and other data collection technologies and how you can manage cookies and other data collection technologies.

Third Party Advertising Companies
We have relationships with third-party advertising companies to place advertisements on our websites and other companies’ websites, and to perform tracking and reporting functions for this website and other websites. These third-party advertising companies may place cookies on your computer when you visit our websites or other websites so that they can display targeted advertisements to you.

For more information about third party advertising, please visit the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) at www.networkadvertising.org. You can opt out of being targeted by certain third party advertising companies by visiting www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/opt_out.asp or https://preferences.truste.com/truste/

If you are a California or Virginia resident, please also see “Information for California and Virginia Residents” below for more information related to third-party advertising and your rights.

Social Media Interactions
Our websites and apps may enable you to interact with us and others via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. If you use these platforms, we may collect Personal Information about you and your friends, as permitted by the platform’s privacy policies. For example, we may allow you to sign into Cengage websites and apps using Facebook Connect. If you choose to do this, we may collect information about you and your friends as needed to facilitate an interactive social experience.

We may display interest-based ads to you when you are using social media platforms. These platforms allow us to personalize the ads that we display to you. These platforms may gain insights about individuals who respond to the ads we serve.

6. Forums and Other Public Areas

Our products may provide forums and other public areas where instructors and students can communicate. Prior to posting in these areas, please read the Terms of Service carefully. All the information you post will be viewable to anyone with access to the area, and any Personal Information you include in your posting may be read, collected and used by others. For example, if you post your telephone number, you may receive unsolicited calls.

Please use caution when posting any Personal Information. Cengage is not responsible for any information, including Personal Information, you choose to submit in these forums.

7. Tell-A-Friend Functions

We may offer “tell-a-friend” functionality on our websites. If you choose to use this function, we will collect contact information for your friend. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email with the information you specified or inviting them to visit the site. We use this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and do not retain the information.

8. Retention of Data

We will retain your Personal Information in accordance with our retention policies for as long as is reasonably necessary to accomplish the purpose for which it was collected or for the period that may be required or permitted by law, such as for business, legal, accounting or reporting requirements. If you are a user of our products, we retain your Personal Information for up to five years from the date of your last interaction with us, such as your last login, or for such shorter period as required by law. If you are a user who is 18 years of age and under, we retain your Personal Information for up to one year from the date of your last interaction with us, such as your last login, or for such shorter period as required by law.

9. International Transfers

We use approved Standard Contractual Clauses to assure that Personal Information is adequately protected when it is transferred to countries without an adequate level of data protection, but we may also make transfers to recipients using other approved data transfer mechanisms. To learn more about our cross-border transfers of Personal Information, please Contact Us.

10. Information Security

We use physical, technical, organizational and administrative safeguards to help protect your Personal Information against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against damage, accidental loss or destruction.

11. Privacy Policies of Third Parties

This Privacy Notice only addresses the use and sharing of Personal Information by Cengage and does not apply to your use of a third-party site. Other websites that may be accessible through our websites and apps have their own privacy policies and data collection, use and disclosure practices. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the privacy notices provided by all third parties prior to providing them with information or taking advantage of an offer or promotion. For example, our MindTap product uses the YouTube API Services. MindTap uses these services to allow instructors to add videos and the information collected and shared includes meta data that is used to describe the content of the videos delivered in the search results.

12. Your Choices and Rights

You have the following choices in relation to your Personal Information:

  • In most cases, you can choose what Personal Information to provide to us. Our data collection forms indicate where it is required that you provide Personal Information for a particular product or service. If you choose not to provide Personal Information that is required, we may not be able to provide the product or service you request or a particular feature of that product or service.
  • If you have an online account with Cengage, you can access and update certain of your Personal Information at any time by logging into the platform. You can also update your communications preferences.
  • You can always opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by clicking on the opt-out link in the emails we send. You can also have your name removed from our email marketing lists by contacting our Customer Service department by email at: [email protected] or phone at +1 800.354.9706 (M -F, 8:00 am -6:00 pm ET).

Please note that even if you opt-out of marketing emails, we may still need to contact you with important information about your account or about the products or services you purchased. For example, even if you opt-out of marketing emails, we will still send you activity or billing confirmations.

Depending on where you reside and the data protection laws that apply, you may have certain rights in relation to your Personal Information. Subject to certain conditions and applicable law, you may have the following rights:

  • To know if we maintain your Personal Information, and, if we do, to receive a copy (subject to the rights of others).
  • To correct inaccurate Personal Information, and under certain circumstances, to supplement incomplete Personal Information.
  • To object to our processing of your Personal Information, and, if we are processing your Personal Information based on your consent, to withdraw your consent at any time.
  • To delete your Personal Information.
  • To restrict the processing of your Personal Information.
  • To submit a complaint to your data protection supervisory authority.

Please refer to “Information for California and Virginia Residents” below for a description of the rights available to California and Virginia residents.

Please refer to “Exercise Your Rights” below for information on how to exercise your rights in relation to your Personal Information.

13. Additional Information for California and Virginia Residents

This section of the Privacy Notice applies to California and Virginia residents as indicated below.

Information for California Residents about Our Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

California law requires us to provide you with the information set out below about our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information:

  • We collect, and over the last 12 months collected, the categories of Personal Information from the sources indicated as set out above under “Collection of Your Personal Information.”
  • We use, and over the last 12 months used, Personal Information for the commercial and business purposes described above in “Use of Your Personal Information.”
  • We sell, and over the last 12 months sold, Business Contact Information in connection with our Gale Directory products. This information was included in directories used by students, researchers and other professionals to identify relevant corporate contacts, experts and sources.
  • We share, and over the last 12 months shared, the following categories of Personal Information with third-party advertisers and social media platforms for the purpose of cross-context behavioral advertising: Identifiers and Internet Network and Device Information.
  • We do not have actual knowledge about selling or sharing Personal Information of consumers under the age of 16.
  • We disclose, and over the last 12 months have disclosed, the following categories of Personal Information: Contact Information, Identifiers, Transaction Information, Internet Network and Device Information, Audio Visual Information, Relationship Information, Military status, Resume Information, Results of Screenings, Certain Demographic Information and Sensitive Personal Information. We disclose these categories of Personal Information for the purposes set out above in “Use of Your Personal Information.” We disclose these categories of Personal Information to the following categories of third parties: services providers, third-party business partners such as authorized partners that provide services to you and other third parties as described above under “Sharing Your Personal Information.”
  • We do not offer financial incentives for the collection or sale of Personal Information.

State Privacy Rights

Your California Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of California, you have the following rights, subject to certain conditions, with respect to your Personal Information: 

  • The right to know what Personal Information we have collected, used, disclosed and sold about you, including the categories of Personal Information; the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected; the business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling or sharing Personal Information; the categories of third parties to whom we have disclosed Personal Information; and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you. Please note that we are only required to honor requests to know twice in a 12-month period.
  • The right to correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information, taking into account the nature of the Personal Information and the purposes of the processing.
  • The right to request that we delete any Personal Information we have collected about you.
  • The right to opt-out of the selling or sharing of your Personal Information, which you can exercise as described below.

This Privacy Notice describes how we may share your information for marketing purposes, as described above. If you are a California resident, the Shine the Light law permits you to request and obtain from us once per calendar year information about any of your Personal Information shared with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, including the categories of information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we have shared such information. To request this information, please contact us as described below.

 

Your Virginia Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of Virginia, you have the following rights, subject to certain conditions, with respect to your Personal Information: 

  • The right to confirm whether we process your Personal Information and to access your Personal Information in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, readily usable format.
  • The right to correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information, taking into account the nature of the Personal Information and the purposes of the processing.
  • The right to delete Personal Information we have obtained about you.
  • The right to opt out of the processing of your Personal Information for purposes of targeted advertising, the sale of Personal Information, and/or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
  • If we deny your request, the right to appeal our decision.

14. Exercising Your Privacy Rights

You may exercise your privacy rights by:

Email: [email protected]
Writing: Cengage Learning, Inc.
               Privacy Office
               200 PIER 4 Blvd., Suite 400
               Boston MA 02210

You can also request deletion of your Personal Information using this form: automated deletion request form.

You can also request to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your Personal Information using this form: opt-out of sale and sharing form. We are working towards enabling Global Privacy Control (GPC) as an additional way for you to submit a request to opt-out of the sale and sharing of your personal information through browsers and/or browser extensions that support such a signal.

Where Cengage acts as a service provider to an educational institution or company, your request to exercise your privacy rights should be directed to your educational institution or employer. In such cases, we cannot fulfill such rights unless directed to do so by your educational institution or employer.

When you exercise your rights and submit a request to us, we will verify your identity and that the rights you are exercising are available under the data protection laws in your jurisdiction. We may verify your identity by asking you to log in to your account if you have one with us or asking you to provide additional information to verify your identity. We may also use a third-party verification provider to verify your identity.

Applicable data protection laws may also allow you to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. As permitted by applicable law, when we verify your agent’s request, we may verify both your and your agent’s identities and request that you directly confirm with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to make the request on your behalf. To protect your Personal Information, we reserve the right to deny a request from an agent that does not submit proof that they have been authorized by you to act on your behalf.

Applicable law may require or permit us to decline your privacy request. If we decline your request, we will tell you the reason why, unless we are not permitted by law to share the reason. Certain data protection laws may allow you to appeal a decision we have made regarding your request. To appeal a decision, you may contact us as described above.

The fact that you have elected to exercise your privacy rights will not have an adverse effect on the price and quality of our products or services.

15. Changes to this Privacy Notice

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Notice. When we update this Privacy Notice, we will revise the “Last Updated” date located at the top of this Privacy Notice and will post the updated Privacy Notice on our websites and apps. Additionally, if the changes will significantly affect the way we use or disclose previously collected Personal Information, we will notify you about the change by sending a notice to the primary email address associated with your account. 

16. How to Contact Us

Please contact the Cengage Privacy Office at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments about our privacy practices or this Privacy Notice.