Privacy principles

OUR APPROACH TO PRIVACY

We recognize the importance of our responsibility to respect and protect personal information.

Launched in 2014, the RELX Privacy Principles inform our approach and commitment to privacy. 

The RELX Privacy Principles apply to all employees as well as contractors handling personal information for us and are available on our intranet in a dozen languages.

The RELX privacy team reviews the RELX Privacy Principles annually with the business area data protection officers.

The RELX Privacy Principles are supplemented by more detailed privacy policies and guidelines developed by the RELX and business area privacy offices in consultation with other stakeholders.

RELX PRIVACY PRINCIPLES

As a trusted provider of information solutions, RELX places great value on the proper handling of personal information.  These nine Privacy Principles guide our approach to data protection and privacy across the organisation.

1. Accountability – Act as a responsible steward of personal information.
   Our business will thrive if we have an effective privacy programme and our customers, employees, suppliers and regulators trust us.
2. Design – Embed privacy protections into the design of our products, services and business practices.
   Build in privacy protections when developing our products and operational processes.
3. Purpose – Collect and use personal information only for legitimate business purposes.
   Personal information should be collected and used only to advance the business needs and as appropriate.
4. Transparency – Give notice about privacy practices as appropriate.
   Ensure that privacy statements describe how we collect, use and disclose personal information and are displayed or given when and where appropriate.
5. Choice – Offer individuals choice over the use and disclosure of their personal information for marketing purposes.
   Give people the opportunity to “opt out” from having their personal data used for marketing purposes such as marketing emails, telemarketing and the like.
6. Access – Provide individuals, upon their request, with access to their personal information as required by law.
   Comply with access requests as required by law.
7. Accuracy – Maintain reasonable procedures to keep personal information accurate consistent with legal requirements.
   Take reasonable steps to maintain the accuracy of personal information in compliance with applicable law.
8. Security – Seek to protect personal information from unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure and loss.
   No one can guarantee absolute data security but we should employ reasonable security measures to protect personal information.
9. Disposal – Dispose of personal information appropriately when it is no longer needed.
   Properly and securely delete, destroy or discard personal information when we no longer need to retain it for business or legal purposes.

View other RELX policies and downloads