Privacy Statement
Autodesk Privacy Statement
Updated: February 1, 2022
Protecting your privacy is important to Autodesk. This Privacy Statement explains how Autodesk processes personal data collected through websites, products, and services (“applications”), including those distributed by our resellers and other channel partners, and through in-person and digital events, webinars, surveys, marketing activities, and visits to our premises (along with applications, collectively our “offerings”). References to “Autodesk,” “we,” or “our” means Autodesk, Inc. and other entities that belong to the Autodesk corporate family and that link to this Privacy Statement. A list of entities within the Autodesk corporate family can be found here.
We may display supplemental privacy notices on occasion, such as when we believe additional transparency would help you make an informed choice about whether to provide personal data. For example, you may see a supplemental privacy notice explaining a particular data collection program, or you may see a supplemental privacy notice when registering for an event.
This Privacy Statement describes how we process personal data for our own purposes. We also process personal data on behalf of our customers subject to a written contract. We do not control the data processing or protection practices of our customers, which may differ from those set out in this Privacy Statement.
“Personal data” is information that identifies, or can reasonably be linked directly or indirectly to, an identifiable person. Personal data does not include information that is anonymous, de-identified, or aggregated, as those terms may be defined under applicable law. For purposes of this Privacy Statement, “personal data” and “personal information” have the same meaning and are used interchangeably.
What information does Autodesk collect about you?
We obtain personal data in different ways. Some personal data is collected directly from you. Other data is automatically collected or generated about how, when, and why you interact with us through our offerings, including data obtained through the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. We also obtain data about you from third parties.
Information you provide us:
We collect information directly from you, such as when you sign up for an account or use our offerings, register a product or service, sign up for our newsletter or for one of our events, interact with one of our events, surveys, activities or with social media, visit our premises, or otherwise contact us. The types of information we may collect from you include:
- Identifiers, such as your name, telephone number, physical and/or email addresses, IP address, account username, and account password.
- Professional information, such as your occupation, industry, professional licenses, work experience and employment history, and other qualifications.
- Commercial information, such as details about your subscription plans, the offerings that you have purchased, used and/or expressed interest in, and events you have attended.
- Financial account information, such as payment information you provide when making a purchase of or through an offering (a third party processes these transfers on our behalf as described below).
- Education information, such as your educational background and training records.
- Protected characteristics, such as your date of birth (where applicable).
- Visual, audio, and electronic information, such as your picture or signature; records of our interactions, such as correspondence, details of complaints and their resolutions, service records; your preferences, including your preferred tools, experience, language, and the frequency at which you wish to receive marketing communications.
When you make purchases through our websites, we use payment processors (Digital River, PayPal, Stripe, Worldpay, Adyen) and do not store credit card or other financial information (other than confirmation that payment in a certain amount has been made). We collect contact and account information from you that we pass through to the payment processor to facilitate the transaction. For more information you can contact our providers as set forth in their privacy notices.
Information we obtain or generate:
We automatically collect or generate certain personal information about you based on your interactions with us, such as when your use our offerings, and we may associate that information with your account. The information we collect includes:
- Identifiers, such as unique user identifiers, unique device identifiers, IP addresses, cookie identifiers, information about product licenses, and usernames.
- Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as the website domain visited; which activities and offerings are used, how, and for how long; posts, discussions, and other types of engagement with us, including on our blogs, discussion forums, or chat rooms; the use of any hyperlinks or downloadable content available through the offerings.
- Geolocation information.
- Electronic information, such as information about operating systems, device types, information about browsers, information relating to automatic updates and technical errors, information about your use of our offerings, including your preferred tools and experiences, and your engagement with our activities.
- Commercial information, such as records about interest in our offerings or completed purchases.
- Identifying characteristics, such as facial templates and eye movement.
- Inferences drawn from any of the personal and offering usage information available to us.
We also use cookies (small text files stored by your web browser when you use websites) and related technologies, such as pixels and beacons (collectively “Cookies”), to collect and store information when you use our applications. To learn more, see our Cookie Statement.
Except as described in our Privacy Statement and our Cookie Statement, whether we collect data through the use of Cookies is up to you. You can change your mind at any time by going into your application settings or by clicking a link in the footer of our websites. The relevant link may be titled “Cookie preferences," “Privacy settings,” or something similar.
In addition, we gather certain information automatically as part of your use of our products and services via Autodesk analytics programs and tools, including third-party analytics tools, such as Google Analytics. To learn more, see our Autodesk analytics programs page.
Social Networking Data: We may include content, pixels, tags, buttons, or other tools that link to another company’s services and/or platform(s) (“Plugins”). If you use one of our offerings that contains Plugins, information can be transferred directly from your device to a third-party provider of services and/or platforms. We may not control the data collected by Plugins. If you are logged into a social network, the social network may be able to link your use of our offerings to their services and/or platform.
For example, if you interact with a Plugin by clicking on "Like," "Follow," or "Share," or by writing a comment, this information may automatically appear in your profile on the relevant social network service or platform. Even if you are not logged in, the Plugins may send your IP address to social network services and/or platforms. Please note this when using our offerings.
When you connect to a social networking service or platform on a device that is also used by others, these other users may be able to see information that is stored or displayed in connection with your profile on the social networking service page.
Information we collect from other parties:
We receive and process information from our affiliates and from third-party sources, such as employers, business partners, business contact databases, enrichment services, channel partners (e.g., resellers), marketing service providers, third-party data aggregators, and social networking services and platforms (e.g., LinkedIn and Facebook). We also receive information from publicly available sources and licensors. The categories of personal information we collect from these sources include:
- Identifiers, such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses.
- Professional information, such as occupations, industries, professional licenses, work experience and employment histories, and other qualifications.
- Education information, such as your educational background.
- Commercial information, such as events you have attended or activities you have participated in.
- Inferences, such as regarding usage information and your preferences, behaviors, and other attributes.
In accordance with applicable law, we may combine your personal data with information we collect from other parties to help keep our databases current and accurate, and to provide you with more relevant content, experiences, applications, and other offerings.
How does Autodesk use the information it collects about you?
We use your personal data mindfully, and in useful ways, including:
- To validate your identity as necessary to perform our contract with you.
- To deliver services, products, and other offerings, including information such as insights and recommendations, as necessary to perform our contract with you.
- To send you important information, such as about your account or purchases, within the scope of our contract with you.
- To send you information you requested to the extent necessary to perform our contract with you or, when not necessary to perform a contract, in furtherance of our legitimate interest, for example in responding to customer inquiries.
- To maintain and improve the security of, and to troubleshoot any issues relating to, our offerings as necessary to perform our contract with you or, when not necessary to perform a contract, in furtherance of our legitimate interest in protecting our business.
- To anonymize, aggregate, or de-identify your personal data so it can no longer identify you in furtherance of our legitimate interest in conducting research and analysis.
- To develop and improve our current and future offerings and your experience, including through the use of automated systems that analyze data using machine learning and other analytic techniques, in furtherance of our legitimate interests or, where needed, with consent.
- To understand the ways our offerings are used and who is using them in furtherance of our legitimate interest in improving our offerings and the overall user experience or, where needed, with consent.
- To analyze information about how you interact or may interact with us or our offerings in furtherance of our legitimate interest in improving our offerings and your experience with us or, where needed, with consent.
- To make strategic decisions concerning our business operations, including reporting on the performance of our business, in furtherance of our legitimate interest in making those decisions or, where needed, with consent.
- To send you learning content, tutorials, suggestions, newsletters, surveys, or other information, including information that may be relevant to your interests or preferences, in furtherance of our legitimate interest in improving your customer experience or, where needed, with consent.
- To send you promotional offers, advertising, or other marketing content in furtherance of our legitimate interest to engage in direct marketing or, where needed, with consent.
- To detect, prevent, or otherwise address non-valid use such as through fraud and software piracy (e.g., to confirm that software is genuine and properly licensed) and to protect you, Autodesk, and/or third parties in furtherance of our legitimate interests. For example, learn more about how Autodesk detects and combats non-valid software here.
- To enforce, and review compliance with, the legal terms that govern our offerings in furtherance of our legitimate interest in ensuring adherence to the relevant terms.
- To comply with our legal obligations under applicable laws.
- To protect the rights, safety, and property of Autodesk, you, or any third party in furtherance of our legitimate interest in protecting us, our users, and third parties.
- For other purposes for which we obtain your consent.
- As further described in our offerings, such as in a supplemental notice, or in our About Boxes (available via Settings in your application).
Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the contact details below or as otherwise indicated to you in writing. Please note that your withdrawal of consent will not affect our processing activities based on your consent that occurred before your withdrawal.
Where we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal information, we balance your rights against ours so that our interest is not overridden by the interests you have to protect your information. You may also have the right to object to that processing on the basis of circumstances specific to you. For more information, see “What Rights and Choices Do You Have?” below.
When we process personal data about you to comply with legal requirements or to perform our obligations under a contract with you or with our customer through whom you use our offerings, failure to provide such data may prevent or delay our fulfillment of these obligations.
How does Autodesk disclose your personal data?
We disclose the categories of information described above to the following categories of persons:
- Our service providers, including vendors, consultants, and other service providers who perform services or functions on our behalf, for business purposes. For example, our service providers include companies who support us with marketing, sales, consulting, communications, software maintenance and support, analytics, social media, market research, auditing for valid use, license compliance, security, user verification, localization, and payment processing. Our service providers process your information subject to contractual terms that restrict their ability to use your information.
- Our business partners, such as integration partners, channel partners (e.g., resellers), event sponsors, partners, and attendees, Ad Partners, and Autodesk’s App Store publishers, with whom you interact to facilitate your relationship with Autodesk and those business partners for any of the purposes described in our or those business partners’ privacy statements.
- Our affiliates, for any of the purposes and uses of information described in this Privacy Statement, including providing you with integrated offerings (including administering purchases, services, and payments across our integrated offerings) in furtherance of our legitimate interests. You can find a list of Autodesk entities here.
- Social networking services and platforms to connect with or share information publicly, with service providers, or with your contacts on such services or platforms.
- Persons to whom we are required by law to provide information, such as pursuant to a subpoena or a court order.
- Law enforcement, legal counsel, or other reasonably necessary parties when we have a good faith belief that the disclosure is necessary to prevent or respond to fraud or software piracy, defend ourselves against attacks, or protect the rights, property, and safety of Autodesk, our customers, and the public.
- Persons involved in the consideration, negotiation, completion of a business transaction, including the sale, merger, consolidation, acquisition, change in control, transfer of substantial assets, bankruptcy, or reorganization, and any subsequent integration.
We may also disclose your personal information to other parties when we have your consent to do so or when you direct us to, for any purposes requested or permitted by you.
We may share aggregate, anonymous, or de-identified demographic, statistical, and other information regarding use of our offerings with third parties for marketing, analytics, planning, and other purposes. Such information will not specifically identify any particular user.
How does Autodesk protect your data?
We maintain a combination of reasonable and appropriate physical, administrative, and technological controls to protect your data from unauthorized access or malicious actions. For more information about our security practices, please visit the Trust Center.
We take reasonable steps to limit the access employees, contractors, and agents of Autodesk have to your personal data to those who need to know this data to perform their assigned functions.
What rights and choices do you have?
You have the right to access, update, delete, receive a copy of, or restrict our use of your personal data. When we process personal data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw consent any time.
Please log-in to your account to manage your personal data and content using our applications. You can also delete your personal data and close your account. If you do not have an Autodesk account, you may submit a deletion request using this form. We may retain certain data about you for legal and internal business purposes, such as fraud prevention, in accordance with applicable laws.
To request a copy of the personal data in your account, please submit this form. Consistent with applicable law, we may ask for proof of your identity before fulfilling your request, and we may ask for additional forms of verification depending on the nature of the personal information requested.
Certain jurisdictions grant individuals additional rights with respect to their personal data. Depending on where you live or applicable law, you may also have the right to:
- Object to our processing of your personal data
- Have us block or anonymize your personal data, as appropriate
- Receive a copy of your personal data to transfer it to a third party
- Opt-out of certain direct marketing communications
- Opt-out of certain disclosures of your personal information to third parties
- Not be denied a good or service for exercising your rights, though you may be provided a different level of service or charged a different rate or price consistent with applicable law
- Lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority in the jurisdiction in which you are located
These rights may be limited in some circumstances by local law. For example, even if you ask us to delete your personal information, we may need to retain it to complete transactions you have requested, to comply with our legal obligations, or for other limited business purposes as required or permitted by law. To exercise applicable rights, please contact us.
Where we process personal data on behalf of our customers, we may refer the request to the relevant customer and cooperate with their handling of the request, subject to any special contractual arrangement with that customer.
California residents, please read the “Your California Privacy Rights” section for additional disclosures and information regarding your rights under California law.
Individuals in Brazil, please read the LGPD FAQs for additional information regarding the LGPD and your rights under the law.
Individuals in China, please read the PIPL FAQs for additional information regarding the PIPL and your rights under the law.
What are Autodesk’s storage and data retention practices?
We store your personal data and content on our servers and the servers of our service providers. Because we and our service providers maintain servers in global locations, your personal data may be transferred across national borders and stored on the servers outside of your country or region. We will retain your personal data for as long as necessary to provide you with the offerings that you are using or have requested, for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, and as needed to comply with our legal obligations. Data may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time.
Does Autodesk transfer your personal data across national borders?
Because we are a global company, we transfer personal data across national borders to other countries, in compliance with the laws that apply to that data. Where required by law, we have put in place measures (such as standard contractual clauses) to adequately protect personal data that we transfer across borders. If you wish to obtain a copy of the safeguards that we use to protect personal data transferred across borders, please contact us using the information in the “How to contact us?” section below.
Autodesk has certified to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (“Privacy Shield”) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal data transferred from the EEA, the United Kingdom and/or Switzerland to the United States in reliance on Privacy Shield. Autodesk has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles with respect to such information. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Statement and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern with respect to personal data transferred in reliance on Privacy Shield. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/ and read our Privacy Shield Notice.
Due to the invalidation of Privacy Shield, Autodesk no longer relies on Privacy Shield to transfer personal data from the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland to the United States. We will continue to apply the safeguards afforded by Privacy Shield to personal data that we have transferred to the United States in reliance on Privacy Shield.
What are Autodesk’s marketing and advertising practices?
We use analytics tools and also work with one or more advertising networks (our “Ad Partners”) that use Cookies or other technologies to collect information about application visitors, to serve ads, and to help us track results of advertising and marketing campaigns. Through these means, we and/or our Ad Partners may be able to collect information from application visitors, including websites visited, how and when applications are used, marketing preferences, IP addresses, device IDs, and browser information. This information is used to display personalized advertising in websites and other applications, to calculate and control the number of unique and repeat views of a given ad, to deliver ads that relate to a visitor’s interests, and to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns. We process your personal data for the above activities in furtherance of our legitimate interests or, where required, with your consent.
You can opt out of the use of your information by Ad Partners for online behavioral advertising by using the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Your AdChoices tool. The Your AdChoices tool may not work if your browser does not accept third-party Cookies, and if you delete Cookies, use a different browser, or use a different computer, you will need to use the tool again to renew your opt out.
As described above, you can change your Cookie preferences. Cookie choices are generally application-, browser-, and device-specific, so you may need to refresh your choices if you visit a different application, use a new browser or device, or clear your browser’s cookies.
Autodesk currently does not respond to “do not track” signals.
How does Autodesk protect children and student data?
At Autodesk, we care deeply about children’s privacy and protecting their data.
Most of our applications are made for the general public and are designed for adult users. We refer to these applications as “general interest applications.” We do not knowingly collect personal data from children in connection with general interest applications. Certain applications are appropriate for and are intended for use by children. We refer to these applications as “Children’s applications.”
Our Children’s Privacy Statement applies to personal data collected from certain child and student users of Autodesk offerings, including Children's applications. If there is a conflict between our Children’s Privacy Statement and our Privacy Statement, the Children’s Privacy Statement sets the standard for how we process children’s personal data. For more information, please refer to our Children’s Privacy Statement.
Is the personal data you give us ever displayed publicly?
As always, we urge you to be mindful when deciding to disclose personal data, including on our offerings. Our offerings may allow you to post content, including comments and “likes,” that can be visible to the public.
In some cases, you can limit who can view or access the information and content you post. In other cases, the information and content might be available to registered members of the offering, or even to the general public. Your name, username, profile image, or email address (particularly if this is your username) may be posted along with any message or other content you post through some of our offerings.
If you are posting information you do not want to be disclosed publicly, make sure you are using an offering that allows you to control who sees information you have posted.
Will this Privacy Statement change?
We may change this Privacy Statement to reflect changes in the law, our data handling practices, or the features of our business. The updated Privacy Statement will be available at our Trust Center here. We will show the date the Privacy Statement was last updated to help you know when we change it. If we make material changes to our Privacy Statement, we will endeavor to provide you with notice before such changes take effect, such as through prominent notice on our website or services or by email.
How to contact us?
To contact us, please use the following contact information. When you do so, please tell us the name of the offering about which you are contacting us:
By email at: privacy.questions@autodesk.com
By postal mail:
Autodesk, Inc.
Privacy Questions
The Landmark @ One Market Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Data protection officer: To contact our data protection officer, please use the following contact information: DPO@autodesk.com.
Who can I contact with questions or concerns?
We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority of the United States of America and/or with a competent European supervisory authority or your local equivalent.
Your California Privacy Rights
California law treats certain disclosures of personal information with third parties in exchange for something of value as “sales,” even when no money changes hand. Autodesk does not exchange your personal information for money. However, some of the technologies we use to provide our offerings involve transfers of personal information that may be considered a “sale” under California law. You have the right to opt-out of these transfers by submitting this form or by emailing us at privacy.questions@autodesk.com.
We described several types of rights in “What Rights and Choices Do You Have?” above. If you reside in California, you have rights to access the specific pieces of your information, the right to know details about our processing of your information, the right to request deletion of your personal information, and the right to not be denied goods or services for exercising these rights. You can exercise these rights by emailing us at privacy.questions@autodesk.com. To request a copy of the personal information in your account, you can also submit this form. To request deletion of your personal information, you can also submit this form.
We may need to verify your identity before completing your CCPA rights request. How we verify your identity depends on whether you hold an account with Autodesk:
- Individuals with Autodesk accounts can verify their identity by logging into their account.
- Individuals without Autodesk accounts (non-accountholders) will need to provide information establishing their identity to the degree of certainty required by law. We may ask non-accountholders to provide information such as name, e-mail addresses, and information relating to their use of the Autodesk websites or other offerings.
Persons authorized to submit requests on behalf of a consumer (“agents”) can submit a request by email to privacy.questions@autodesk.com. We may notify the consumer and require the consumer to independently verify their identity before fulfilling the authorized agent’s request. For additional information, please see our CCPA FAQs.
We will retain certain information relating to your CCPA request to demonstrate compliance with the CCPA and to improve our consumer request process.
The following table provides a description of the personal information that we have disclosed for our business purposes, the personal information that we have sold, and the categories of third parties that received the personal information.
Category of Personal Information |
Categories of Third Parties to which we Disclosed that Personal Information for business purposes |
Categories of Third Parties to which we “Sold” that Personal Information |
Identifiers |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
Commercial Information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and Ad Partners |
Financial Account Information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
None |
Education Information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
None |
Protected Characteristics |
Service Providers Affiliates |
None |
Visual, Audio, and Electronic Information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
Internet or other Electronic Network Activity Information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
Geolocation information |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
Inferences |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
Social Networking Data |
Service Providers Affiliates |
Social networking services and platforms and Ad Partners |
