Privacy Policy

General
 

Whole Kids recognizes that the protection of privacy is a major concern to many of our customers and wants you to know how we acquire personal information through our website or mobile applications (collectively, the “WK Website”) and how we use, share and protect that information. By using our services and viewing the WK Website, you are consenting to the information collection, use and disclosure practices described in this privacy policy. As used in this Privacy Policy, “Whole Kids”, “us”, or “we” refers to Whole Kids is a project of Whole Foods Market, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

Types of Information Gathered

Whole Kids may gather personal information (i) that you give to us voluntarily while using a feature of the WK Website, for example, during a registration process as described in more detail in the section titled “Registration” below; (ii) when you request information about our services using the WK Website; (iii) when you visit the WK Website as described in the section titled “Cookies” below, (iv) when you participate in interactive features of the WK Website or our Facebook page; (v) when you sign up for our e-mail newsletter, mobile messages, or social media notifications as described in the section titled “Social Media Notification” below; or (vi) when you provide us with comments, suggestions, or other input. During such activities, we may collect personal information about you that is not publicly available and can identify you, such as your name, mailing address, email address and phone number, birth date, and financial information, such as credit card number.
 

E-mail Newsletter Signup

We distribute an electronic newsletter and may launch similar products in the future. When you subscribe to our electronic newsletter, you will be asked for certain information so that we can customize your newsletter to suit your needs. Upon registering for the electronic newsletter, you will be asked for your name, email address, zip code, and other information specified in the enrollment process. You may be asked to tell us a little about your interests, including but not limited to, what sorts of articles you like to read, the sorts of wellness choices you currently make, and other questions of this nature. This information is used to deliver you a personalized electronic newsletter that we believe will be of interest to you. The more of this information you choose to share with us, the better we can craft a newsletter specifically for you. If you choose not to share information with us, the newsletter will simply be more generic.
 

Social Media Notification

To enable our push notification and other mobile communication services, we may collect and store device IDs to identify each unique mobile device that registers for our service, including for example, device tokens from iOS devices, Live IDs from Windows devices, and other similar identifications from devices running on other platforms. These IDs cannot be tracked back to you, but are tied to a specific device which may only be used by one person. WFM may collect information including what actions are taken by you on the WFM APP, location-related information, internet protocol addresses, device models, carrier information, the operating system of your mobile devices and other non-personally identifiable information.
 

Cookies

We use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with the WK Website through your computer or mobile device. This information, which includes the pages you visit on our site, which web address you came from, the type of browser/device/hardware you are using, search terms and IP-based geographic location, helps us customize the WK Website experience and make our messages more relevant. We will only use this type data in an aggregate form which does not identify you personally.
 

Use of Information

Whole Kids may use information gathered through the WK Website, mobile applications and social media to: (i) fulfill requests for information; (ii) deliver newsletters, emails and mobile messages including, for example, by push notification or other mobile communications; (iii) improve the effectiveness of the WK Website, your mobile experience and our marketing efforts; and (iv) assist law enforcement and respond to subpoenas.

Sharing of Information

Whole Kids will not sell or otherwise share personally identifying information with other people or nonaffiliated companies except for those purposes described in this Privacy Policy. In addition, Whole Kids may share this information with certain third parties to provide requested service that we do not provide directly, but we will only share personal information with these parties if they agree not to disclose the information to other parties and agree not to use this information to solicit business from you.

Also, Whole Kids may disclose specific information upon governmental request, in response to a court order, when required by law, or to protect our or others' rights, property, or safety. We do not provide information to these agencies or companies for marketing or commercial purposes.

Information from Public Forums

Any information you submit in a blog, chat room, social network or other public forum can be read, collected, or used by us and others, including, for example, to personalize your experience on the WK Website. You are responsible for the information you disclose in these forums and such information is not protected under this privacy policy.

Privacy of Mobile Applications

Whole Kids currently offers the “Awesome Eats” mobile application and may offer others in the future. Our mobile applications may collect certain information automatically, such as the type of mobile device you use, the temporary or persistent unique device identifiers (sometimes called UDID) placed by us or our service providers, the unique identifier assigned by us to your device, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browsers you use, and information about the way you use our mobile applications.

Additionally, our mobile applications may collect precise information about the location of your device. You must first provide permission through your device before our mobile applications obtain such location information from technologies like GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower proximity (or a combination of these technologies). We, and our service providers, may use and store this information, in combination with other location-based information such as IP address and billing or postal code provided by you at time of your mobile application registration, to provide enhanced location based services. You can stop all collection of information by our mobile applications easily by uninstalling the mobile applications. Also, you may at any time opt-out from further allowing us to have access to your location data by adjusting the permissions in your mobile device.

Additional Mobile Application Information

Updating Personal Information

Whole Kids understands that you may want to change or access your personal information. You may do so by sending an email to Whole.Kids@WholeFoods.com requesting to opt-out. In addition, you have the ability to unsubscribe to our newsletter and promotional emails via the opt-out link in the email.

Changes to Privacy Policy

This document was last updated in September 2013. We may update this privacy policy at any time. If so, we will post the updated privacy policy on the WK Website. We encourage you to review this privacy policy from time to time for any changes.

California Residents

Under California law, California residents who have an established relationship with Whole Kids may opt out of our disclosing personal information about them to third parties for their marketing purposes. Under California law, third parties include affiliates of Whole Kids. If you do not want us to disclose your personal information to third parties, including our affiliates please email Whole.Kids@WholeFoods.com to opt out.

Children

Parents should always supervise their children while online. The WK Website is not designed nor intended to collect personal information from children under the age of thirteen. So that we may comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, we ask that children under the age of thirteen not provide any personal information on the WK Website or to any of our mobile applications. If a child under the age of thirteen has provided us with personal information, we ask that a parent or guardian contact us at Whole.Kids@WholeFoods.com.

Links

The WK Website contains several links to other websites not controlled by Whole Kids. We have attempted to choose our linked partners with great care. However, we are not responsible for the privacy practices of any linked site. You should read the privacy policy of each linked website to understand how it collects, stores and protects your personal information. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected through the WK Website. In addition, when you browse, other websites may place their own cookies on your computer and we do not control cookies placed on your computer by third parties whose links appear on the WK Website.

Security

Whole Kids has attempted to take all reasonable steps to have physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in place to protect personal information gathered through the WK Website. This includes compliance with related federal regulations and may include use of industry-standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of personal information. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to or from our web sites, and you do so at your own risk.

Questions and Comments

Whole Kids is always interested in what you have to say. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.