A smile says a lot in no words at all, but that’s hard to do with a privacy notice. At Align Technology, our data practices are as straightforward as the smiles we make with our products. But regulators ask us to provide a lot of detail in a certain way to meet legal obligations. This can make it hard to please everyone in a privacy notice.
We made our notice as readable as we could in light of compliance requirements. With that in mind, here is a simple breakdown of our privacy practices, with all detail and legal jargon following afterward:
| We collect some personal information about you, both from you directly and from our dental partners. Learn About What and When | Some third parties and partners process this Personal Information safely for us. Learn More About Who | Align uses website tracking technology that some regulators consider to be Personal Information selling. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information |
| We use your Personal Information to provide you services, run our business, and improve smiles world-wide. Learn More About Why and How | It’s your Personal Information, so it’s your choice as far as we are concerned. Learn More About Your Rights | If you have a question or concern, we’d love to hear from you. Contact Our Privacy Team |
Align Technology, Inc. and its associated companies (collectively, "Align", "we", "us", “our”) are committed to protecting your personal information. This notice covers requirements in the United States for all Align products, applications, services, and websites (collectively, “Sites”), including the Invisalign® system, the iTero® intra-oral scanners, OrthoCAD services, exocad™, DentalXr.ai, Ibrea, the Invisalign® Practice App and the My Invisalign™ App. Any product or service that we link to this notice is covered by this notice.
We collect personal information about several different types of individuals for our business purposes: website visitors, customers or dental providers, product consumers, and vendors (collectively referred to as “you”, “your”). We collect the personal information below about you to the extent you use our different products and services. In the last 12 months, the personal information we collected and our reasons for doing so include:
| Personal Information Category | Sources | Business Purposes |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers that are directly identify you (like name or email) and indirectly (like internet ID or device number). | Websites, Invisalign Practice App, My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications, Invisalign Provider Member Registration, On-line Forms, Transactions, Dental Products, Verbal or Written Correspondence, or Services (information collected directly from user) and other sources (Social Media, Public Databases, or Data Brokers) | Identifiers are used to process product orders, provide a dental provider network, render dental support services, all self-tracking of dental health, identify safety issues, market to potential customers, review employment applications, and manage our staff. |
| Protected Classifications like gender and national origin. | My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications, Web-based dental assessments, Invisalign Provider Member Registration, Invisalign Doctor Search On-line Forms | If you provide an image of your smile to us for a dental assessment, we may be able to infer your gender or national identity. We also collect gender data about our Invisalign providers to make potential customers aware of providers in their area. |
| Sensitive Personal Records like health and dental data. | Invisalign Practice App, My Invisalign | Health data is collected by Align from individuals wishing to use the My Invisalign App to manage their dental care and from providers using our services. |
| Employment or Professional Records like hiring, work background, and education achievement. | Invisalign Provider Member Registration | Professional data is used to aid customers in finding dental providers. |
| Commercial Purchasing Data like products bought, received, or reviewed, along with history and consumer tendencies. | Websites, My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications, Invisalign Provider Member Registration, On-line Forms, Transactions, Verbal or Written Correspondence, or Services (information collected directly from user) and other sources (Social Media, Public Databases, or Other Third Parties) | Commercial information is used to establish trends around what types of groups or places are benefiting from which of our products, to service advertisements, and to manage customer service needs. |
| Internet or Network Activity like browsing history, search, and website/application/advertisement interaction. | Websites, My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications, Dental Products, and Other Sources (Social Media, Public Databases, or Other Third Parties) | Usage activity data is used to improve our web and app design, address IT issues, and service advertisements |
| Geolocation as in physical location of personal or mobile device | My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications | Physical location may be requested and used in order to help Invisalign consumers find a nearby Invisalign provider. |
| Financial Information like bank accounts, credit and debit cards numbers, and credit score. | On-line Forms, Transactions, Verbal or Written Correspondence, or Services (information collected directly from user) | Financial information is used to process payments for our products and to evaluate the credit worthiness of those partner with. |
| Inferences drawn from other categories, like preferences, characteristics, behavior, and attitudes | Websites, My Invisalign and other Mobile Applications, Invisalign Provider Member Registration, On-line Forms, Transactions, Verbal or Written Correspondence, or Services (information collected directly from user) and other sources (Social Media, Public Databases, or Other Third Parties) | Inferences may be made to determine what products you may be interested in receiving from Align, or what Align providers may be best suited to a requesting consumer. |
Personal information is also collected about patients from dental practitioners using our products. In these cases, Align is acting as a service provider or processor for the dental provider. Providers share medical and dental data with us in order to produce our products. For patient seeking additional information, please contact your dental provider.
Align utilizes a number of service providers to conduct its businesses. Service providers who receive your personal information from Align are required to follow privacy and security practices in the processing of your personal information. The categories of personal information disclosed in the last twelve (12) months and the categories of recipients are below.
| Personal Information Category | Service Provider Category | Selling or Sharing for Online Advertising* |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers that are direct (like name or contact info) or indirect (like IP address). | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider, Marketing Agencies, Internet Analytic Servicers | Yes, with advertising networks and social network providers |
| Protected Classifications like gender and national origin. | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider | No |
| Sensitive Personal Records like health and dental data. | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Data Analytics Providers, Internet Service Provider | No |
| Employment or Professional Records like specialty, education and employer. | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider | No |
| Commercial Purchasing Data like products bought, received, or reviewed, along with history and consumer tendencies. | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider, Data Analytics Providers | Yes, with advertising networks and social network providers |
| Internet or Network Activity like browsing history, search, and website/ application/advertisement interaction | Marketing Agencies, Data Analytics Providers | Yes, with advertising networks and social network providers |
| Geolocation as in physical location of personal or mobile device | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider | No |
| Financial Information like bank accounts, credit and debit cards numbers, and credit score. | Cloud Service Providers, Customer Relationship Management tool, Internet Service Provider, Banking and Payment Processing Servicers | No |
| Inferences drawn from other categories, like preferences, characteristics, behavior, and attitudes | Marketing Agencies, Data Analytics Providers | Yes, with advertising networks and social network providers |
*Some jurisdictions consider targeted advertising to be a sale of data. We may “sell” (i.e. use for targeted advertising) your personal information. The categories of personal information we have “sold” and the categories of third parties we have “sold” personal information to in the preceding twelve (12) months are listed above. Other jurisdictions require us to notify you of when we process data for targeted advertisement and for us to give you an opportunity to opt-out of such processing. You can opt out of sale and targeted advertising by clicking here .
Align will retain your personal information for only as long as it has an ongoing legitimate need to do so, for example, to provide you with goods and services, and to comply with regulatory obligations. The personal information will then be either deleted or anonymized. In some cases this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), in which case your personal information will be securely stored as long as we have it.
Certain US states give their residents legal rights regarding their data privacy, like California, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, and Connecticut. These include the right to know what data we process, right to access, right to correct, the right to object and restrict data processing, and right to delete.
These rights apply to the personal information we process about you, with some legal exceptions. We do our best to extend these rights to everybody, but some patient data we receive as part of services we provide to dental providers. In those cases, we are required by law to forward your request to the business or controller for processing.
Additionally, Align, by law, will not discriminate in response to any privacy requests you make. In order to ensure that a request is genuine, we may need to take steps to verify your identity, or the identity of an agent making a request on your behalf (such as logging into an Align account or responding to message from our team using an email on file). To learn more or to exercise any of your data privacy rights, please contact privacy@aligntech.com or make a submission using our web form .
Children’s Privacy
At Align, we do not intend to collect any personal information from children under the age of thirteen (13), unless the personal information is collected from a parent or guardian. While we cannot stop a child from accessing the Sites, we do not collect any Personal Information without making it clear that the person providing the information must be at least 13 years old. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 has provided us Personal Information which you would like to review or request be deleted, or you have questions about our Sites collecting personal information from children, please contact us at privacy@aligntech.com.
Please note that the age threshold mentioned above may vary depending on applicable legal requirements in your country. If this is the case, we will indicate it accordingly at the time of collection.
Links to Other Sites
Our Sites may contain links to other websites merely as a convenience. Align is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other websites, and inclusion of links does not mean we endorse the information or company. This means that if you connect to another site through our Sites, we are not responsible for and we cannot control what they do with your personal information.
Also, you may have the opportunity to share your personal information with other websites, such as social media sites. We may provide a convenient link to let you do this easily, but we are not responsible for, and we cannot control their websites or your posts/sharing. You are encouraged to review the privacy policies and personal information collection practices of these other websites and social media sites.
Marketing and Do Not Contact
We may send you information about us from time to time if you have given us your consent (where required). Align provides you the opportunity to request to stop receiving electronic communications from either Align or our partners by withdrawing your consent. If you do not want to receive communications from us, please tell us when we collect your personal information or write us remove@aligntech.com at any time and make sure to include your country location. You may also use the convenient unsubscribe feature included with emails. Please allow us enough time to process your request.
Keep in mind, this withdrawal of consent does not apply to necessary communications, such as responding to an inquiry, and is revoked if you later request information from us, for example, if you sign up to receive news alerts from us.
Social Media
If you are a user of Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites with public account settings and you hashtag using one of our public campaigns, such as #14MillionSmiles, or one using our product names, such as #Invisalign, #InvisalignLive, or #InvisalignSmile -- we will be able to pull your reviews of our products from the social media sites and post them on our Sites. This is so that we can share your opinions about our products with the visitors of our Sites. Before being posted on our Sites, your comments will be reviewed by us. Please do not use these hashtags if you do not wish for your reviews to be made available on our Sites.
By posting or otherwise making available any content about your Invisalign® experience on a public social media platform, and responding “yes” if we ask for your permission to re-post content on our owned channels, such as Facebook (http://facebook.com/invisalign), Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/Invisalign), YouTube (http://youtube.com/invisalign), Twitter (http://twitter.com/invisalign), Instagram (http://instagram.com/invisalign & instagram.com/invisalignlive), and others, you represent and warrant that you are thirteen (13) years of age or older and that you agree to the terms and conditions listed on our page on those websites.
If a parent, guardian, or anyone else becomes aware of user-generated content shared from an individual under the age of thirteen (13) without adult consent, please email us at InvisalignTakeDown@aligntech.com.
See the full Social Media Guidelines here.
Use the contact information below to reach our privacy team with any questions, concerns, complaints, requests, or to exercise your data rights.
privacy@aligntech.com
1-888-822-5446
We may update this notice from time to time, and our privacy practices will be updated accordingly. We encourage you to periodically review this notice to stay informed about how we collect, use and share personal information.
Effective Date: January 1, 2023
