Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 16, 2024

Thank you for using Instacart! We are committed to providing you the best online shopping and delivery experience possible. This Privacy Policy explains how Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart and Maplebear Canada Inc. (“Instacart”, “we”, or “us”) collect, use and share your Personal Information. “Personal Information” is information about you that we collect when you browse or place orders for goods or services on the Instacart platform, including any websites, mobile application, device, or API where this Privacy Policy is linked (the “Services”). 

Notice to California Residents: Instacart collects Personal Information as described below in the “Information We Collect” section for the business and commercial purposes described below under “Information Use.” We describe our disclosures of Personal Information, including why and to whom we make them, below under “Information Disclosure.” As described in detail below, we “sell” or “share” (as defined in the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)) certain categories of Personal Information and you may exercise your right to opt out of such disclosures by submitting your request here.  California residents can find out more information about their privacy rights below, under “Disclosure for Residents of California.” 

Instacart is an independent business, separate from Food Universe and its affiliates (“Merchant”). This Privacy Policy, not those of Food Universe, explain how Instacart will collect, use and share information that we collect on this Instacart Food Universe Store Site. Food Universe is a trademark of Food Universe. All Rights Reserved.

We may share any information collected from this Food Universe Store Site, including your personal information, information about your order details, and information that we combine from other sources, with Food Universe. Food Universe may use this information for its own purposes, including for its own sales and marketing purposes.

Table of Contents:

1.     Information We Collect

2.     Payment Processors and Partners

3.     Information Use

4.     Information Disclosure

5.     Summary Table of Information Collected and Disclosed

6.     Children’s Privacy

7.     Third-Party Websites

8.     Information Security

9.     Cross-Border Transfers

10.     Information Retention

11.   Your Privacy Choices

12.   Disclosures for Residents of California

13.   Disclosures for Residents of Nevada

14.   Disclosures for Residents of Canada

15.   Changes to this Privacy Policy

16.   Contact Information

1. Information We Collect

a. Information you provide 

We collect the following types of Personal Information directly from you: 

• Contact information. When you use or interact with the Services, we collect or obtain relevant contact details from you, including your name, telephone number and email address.
• Account information. When you set up an Instacart account, we collect your username and password, and other relevant information we request. 
• Order information. If you place an order through the Services, we collect information necessary to fulfill the order, including your delivery address, the date and time of the order, the items you ordered and any special instructions.
• Age and identity verification information. If you order alcohol (where available) or other age- or dollar amount restricted orders, we collect information from your government ID to verify your age or your identity, including the government ID number and state or country. 
• Vehicle Information. For curbside pickup orders, we may collect your vehicle license plate number(s).
• Payment information. If you place an order through the Services, we collect your billing address and method of payment. Additional details regarding the processing of your payment information can be found below. 
• Interaction with your personal shopper. When you place an order for delivery, you may communicate with your personal shopper via the Services about product replacements and other questions you or your personal shopper may have regarding the order. We collect the information contained in those communications.
• Information you make public. If you post in a public space on the Services or otherwise choose to make your Personal Information public on the Services (e.g., by sharing a recipe publicly on the Services), we collect such information. If you choose to share Personal Information publicly through the Services, please understand that we cannot control the actions of third parties who may access or collect this information. 
• Other information you provide to us. We collect any other information that you choose to provide during your interactions with our Services, including your responses to surveys that you choose to participate in (for example customer satisfaction surveys) and information that you provide during your interactions with our customer service representatives. We may also collect information that you provide directly to us regarding an experience with one of our retail partners.
• Information you provide about others. In some cases, you may provide information to us about other people. For example, you may refer a friend to Instacart, send an Instacart gift delivery or gift card to someone. In these cases, we may collect the recipient’s name, email, and delivery address. You may also participate in Family Accounts and provide us information about your association with another Instacart customer. When you provide someone else’s information via the Services, you are responsible for ensuring that you have permission to share their information with Instacart. You may not provide Personal Information about children under the age of 16.

b. Information collected by automated means 

When you use and interact with the Services, we automatically receive certain information about your device, browser, and/or activity:

Device and usage information. Our servers will record information about the device you use to connect to the Services and your usage of the Services.

• Browser and Activity Information. When you access the Services, we collect information about your activity and interactions with the Services, including but not limited to, the products with which you engage or place in your cart, information related to your orders,  the pages that you navigate to, and the frequency and duration of your use of the Services.  We also collect information regarding your interactions with our chat bots, emails, texts, notifications or other marketing from us (e.g., whether you opened or clicked). We also may use third party services that employ software code to record users’ interactions with the Services. Session replays include users’ clicks, mouse movements, scrolls, and keystrokes/key touches during those sessions. These replays help us diagnose usability problems and identify areas for improvement.
  
• Device  information. Our servers will record information about the device you use to connect to the Services. This information includes your device’s IP address, your device type, browser information (such as browser type and any settings), internet service provider, operating system, and unique device identifiers. 
• Location Information. When you access the Services, we may collect information about your device’s location. For instance, if you allow the Services to access location services through the permission system used by your device's operating system or browser, we may collect the precise location of your device. We use your location information to facilitate the prompt hand-off of pickup orders (where available), to improve the accuracy of deliveries, to assist you in finding nearby stores for which pickup or delivery are available, and for other similar purposes. We may also use such information for analytic purposes. You can choose whether or not your device’s location information is shared with us by adjusting the settings on your device or browser, or when prompted by the Instacart application.  We may also infer your general location, for example by using your device’s IP address.
• Cookies, Pixels, and Other Tracking Technologies. When you visit or otherwise interact with our Services, we (and our partners, advertisers, and third-party advertising networks) may automatically collect information about you using device identifiers, cookies, pixels, tags, application programming interfaces (“APIs”), software development kits (“SDKs”) and similar technologies. We use this information for various purposes, including to: make the Services function properly; understand how you use the Services; personalize your experience; and measure, manage, display, and customize the advertisements you see.

c. Information received from third parties 

We may receive Personal Information about you from third parties. For example: 

• Third Party Services. If you log in to the Services through a third-party service, we may receive some information about you and your use of that third party service. For example, if you choose to log in to the Services with your Facebook or Google account, we may receive information from these companies, such as your name and email address.
• Instacart Business Partners and Service Providers. We may also receive information from our business partners and service providers, including the following:
  • Service Providers. We receive Personal Information from partners whom we engage to perform services for us, including those that provide market research, delivery services, map services, email or SMS communication platforms, or who assist us with providing, operating or maintaining parts of our services
  • Instacart Partners. Partners who have implemented certain Instacart Services on their websites may also let us collect information about your use of their sites or applications or share such information with us.  This includes websites or applications that use Instacart’s APIs through which users can create or access their Instacart accounts. For example, if you use an Instacart Shoppable Recipe button on another site, we will receive information about your use of that button and the third-party site/app. 
  • Co-branded Partners. Partners with whom we operate co-branded businesses, offer co-branded products.
  • Marketing and Advertising.  We may receive Personal Information about you from partners to supplement the information we collect and from partners with whom we work for measurement, analytics, and attribution.
  • Payment Partners: Our payment providers, processors and partners (see below);
  • Fraud and Disputes. Partners who assist us in fraud prevention or in connection with claims or disputes;
• Other Third Parties. 
• We also may collect or receive Personal Information relating to you from:
  • Other Instacart customers if they refer you to our Services, send you a gift or other order delivery through our Services;
  • Instacart personal shoppers in connection with your delivery;
  • Law enforcement, public health, and other governmental authorities; and
  • Publicly available sources.

2. Payment Processors and Partners

When you pay for orders using a credit card or other payment method on our Services, your credit card or other payment information (e.g., Google Pay, FSA/HSA) is collected and processed by our third-party payment processors. For example, if you pay with a credit card, the payment information that you provide through the Services is transmitted directly to our payment processor. We may receive certain information about your payment card from our payment processors, such as the last 4 digits of your card number and its expiration month and year. 

We also make available opportunities to pay for orders via other payment partners that may redirect you to their websites to submit your payment information. For instance, if you use PayPal or a “Buy Now Pay Later” partner to make purchases through the Services, you will be directed to their websites to provide your payment information. These payment partners’ privacy policies apply to the information you provide to them through their website.  

3. Information Use

We use the Personal Information we collect or otherwise obtain about you for the following purposes:  

• Provide and manage the Services. We use your Personal Information in connection with the provision, administration, and management of the Services. 
• Process your transactions. If you place an order through the Services, we will use your Personal Information to process your payment and facilitate the delivery of your order. This may include information provided to us by our payment processors and partners.
• Provide customer support. We use your Personal Information to respond to your customer support communications and inquiries and assist you in your use of the Services.
• Communicate with you. We use your Personal Information to provide you with relevant information about us or our Services (including details about our community affairs efforts) or to request information or feedback. These communications include sending you from time-to-time important updates about the Services, communications about changes to this Privacy Policy or other applicable terms and policies. 
• Carry out our marketing and advertising activities. We (and our partners) use your Personal Information to send you marketing and promotional materials and communications, including interest-based and other advertisements, and to analyze and measure their effectiveness. We may conduct these activities using device identifiers, cookies, pixels, tags, APIs, SDKs and similar technologies.  Details on how to exercise your choices with respect to marketing and interest-based advertisements can be found in the Your Privacy Choices section below and the “Interest-Based or Online Behavioral Advertising” section above. 
• Customize and personalize the Services. We use your Personal Information to help us understand which parts of the Services are of most interest to you and customize or personalize your experience. Based on how you browse, use, or otherwise interact with the Services, we display content, advertising, recommendations and otherwise personalize the Services to you.
• Identify usage trends and improve the Services. We use your Personal Information to help us (or our service providers and partners) conduct research and analytics about your use of the Services and identify usage trends. We also use your Personal Information to identify issues, test new features or changes in our features, and improve the Services.  
• Maintain security and prevent fraud. We use your Personal Information to (a) help maintain the security and integrity of the Services, (b) detect, prevent, investigate, and protect you, our business, our users, and others from fraud, unauthorized transactions, and other unsafe activity, and (c) protect the safety, rights, or property of any person, the public, or Instacart.
• Satisfy our legal obligations. We use your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, respond to legal process, and/or respond to requests and communications from law enforcement authorities or other government officials.
• As otherwise necessary or appropriate. We will use your Personal Information for other purposes at your direction or with your consent.

Please note that we may combine Personal Information that we collect (as described above) with information from other sources and use the combined information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. 

4. Information Disclosure

We may disclose your Personal Information to the categories of recipients listed below. 

• Our affiliates and subsidiaries. We may disclose your Personal Information to our affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership for purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy and other business and operational purposes. 
• Our service providers and third-party partners. We disclose your Personal Information to third parties that provide services to us, including: cloud storage services, system hosting, services, research partners, data security services, fraud prevention, payment processing services, delivery services, analytics services, legal services, map services, email or SMS communication services, or partners that assist us with providing, operating or maintaining parts of our services. 
• Our marketing and advertising partners. We may disclose your Personal Information to our marketing and advertising partners, including social media platforms, third-party advertising networks, other websites and publishers, and other parties  so we can both market our products to you and provide advertising services to other companies (e.g.,  to assist in serving and measuring our or their advertisements).   Some of our advertising partners may use cookies, SDKs or other trackers to collect information about your online activity over time and across different websites or online services. This means that you may see advertisements while using the Services that are tailored to you, or you may see advertisements for Instacart on other online services, based on your use of the Services or your browsing behavior across other online services. For more information on choices you may have with respect to these technologies, see Your Privacy Choices below..   
• Analytics Providers We use third-party analytics providers who may deploy cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to analyze traffic to the Services and understand the usage of the Services as well as the performance of advertisements. For example, we use Google Analytics, an analytics tool that helps us understand how our customers engage with the Services. To learn more about Google Analytics’ data practices, please visit Google’s support page.
  
• Personal shoppers. If you place an order through the Services, we will disclose your Personal Information to the personal shopper who will pick it up and deliver it to you. Please note that the shopper will no longer have access to your Personal Information once your order has been delivered.  
• Merchant. We will disclose your Personal Information to the Merchant in order to provide and maintain the Services. For example, we will disclose your Personal Information to the Merchant when you enter your loyalty card information from the Merchant so that information can be added to your loyalty card account.
• Other users of the Services. We may disclose your Personal Information to other users of the Services if you choose to make such information public or select sharing features on the Services. For example, if you share a recipe publicly on the Services, the recipe, along with your first name and last initial, will be viewable by other users. In addition, if you select to participate in a Family Account, the other Family Account member will see some of your information and carts. 
• In connection with legal matters. We may share your information when we believe that the disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or legal requests. 
• Third parties in connection with a sale or business transaction. We may sell or purchase assets during the normal course of business. If another entity acquires us or any of our assets, information that we have collected may be transferred to such entity and its advisors leading up to and/or following the transaction. In addition, if any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding is brought by or against us, information that we hold may be considered an asset of ours and may be sold or transferred to third parties.
• Other third parties. We will disclose your Personal Information to other parties at your direction or with your consent. We may also disclose your Personal Information to other parties if we believe it necessary or appropriate either: (a) under applicable law; (b) to protect our operations and those of any of our affiliates; (c) to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or those of others; or (d) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit damages that we may sustain.  

We may disclose your Personal Information for other reasons that we will describe at the time of information collection or prior to sharing your information. 

5. Summary Table of Information Collected and Disclosed

The table below provides a summary of the categories of Personal Information we have collected about you in the past twelve (12) months, the sources from which we’ve collected the information, the categories of recipients to whom we have disclosed the information, and the categories of recipients to whom we have sold or with whom we have “shared” the information for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising (“Behavioral Advertising”).

We also disclose your information as explained above to law enforcement or government agencies.

6. Children's Privacy

We understand the importance of protecting the privacy of children, especially in the online environment. The Services are not designed for or intentionally directed to children under the age of 16, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 16. If we become aware that we have received Personal Information from an individual under the age of 16, we will take reasonable steps to remove the individual’s Personal Information from our records.

7. Third-Party Websites

Some links on the Services may redirect you to third-party websites and services that we do not operate. We may also offer social sharing tools that let you share actions on the Services with other websites and vice versa. The privacy practices of these websites and services will be governed by their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review and understand their privacy policies before disclosing any Personal Information to them.

8. Information Security

We employ and maintain reasonable administrative, physical, and technical measures designed to safeguard and protect Personal Information under our control from unauthorized access, use, and disclosure. 

9. Cross-Border Transfers

Instacart operates a global business, and we use vendors located around the world to help us run our business. Accordingly, the disclosures described above may result in the transfer of your Personal Information outside of the country or region in which you reside. For example, the Personal Information of customers located in Canada will be transferred outside of Canada (and for residents of Quebec, outside of Quebec), including to the United States. 

When we transfer your Personal Information outside of your country or province of residence, we do so in accordance with applicable law and take appropriate steps to ensure your information is protected. However, please note that while outside of the jurisdiction in which you reside, some of your Personal Information will be subject to applicable local laws, which may permit government and national security authorities in those jurisdictions to access your Personal Information in certain circumstances. 

10. Information Retention

We keep Personal Information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we have collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. 

To determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Information; the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the Personal Information; the purposes for which we use the Personal Information; whether we can achieve those purposes through other means; and the applicable laws that require us to retain information for regulatory purposes or permit us to retain the information to preserve our legal rights. 

11. Your Privacy Choices

Depending on your place of residence, under applicable law, you may be able to, you can make certain choices and exercise certain rights with respect to our use of your Personal Information. Please note that rights and requests may be subject to applicable exceptions. We will not discriminate against you if you decide to exercise these rights:

a. Correct or update your account information and settings 

If you have created an account through the Services, you may review, correct, or update your information (including your name, telephone number, delivery address, and payment information) at any time by logging in to your account and visiting the “Account Settings” page. Please note that changes to your settings may require some time to take effect.  If you do not have or no longer have access to your Instacart account, please email us at [email protected] to submit your requests.

b. Exercise your marketing choices 

We may send you periodic marketing and promotional emails, push notifications and/or text messages to your mobile device, and where required by law we will obtain your consent to do so. If you no longer wish to receive our marketing and promotional communications, you may opt out of receiving them by following the opt-out instructions included in any communication that you receive from us or by visiting your Account Settings. Please note that even if you opt out of receiving marketing and promotional communications from us, we may still send you administrative and transactional messages from which you cannot opt out.    

c. Request to Access or Delete your Personal Information

You may request that Instacart provide you with a copy of your Personal Information or request that we delete your Personal Information. Prior to processing your requests, we must verify the identity of the requestor to help ensure that we do not for example provide your information to another person. To do so, we require you to submit up to three pieces of Personal Information that we then match against the account information we have on file for you. 

• Account Holders. If you have an active Instacart account, click here to submit a request to access or delete your Personal Information. You will be prompted to re-log in to the Services.
• Non-Account Holders. If you no longer have access to your Instacart account, please email us at [email protected] to submit your requests. 
• Authorized Agents. In certain jurisdictions you may authorize another person or entity to submit an access or deletion request on your behalf (an “Authorized Agent”). As part of our verification process, we will require proof concerning their status as an Authorized Agent. We will also require you to directly confirm with us that you provided the person or business entity with permission to submit the request. Authorized Agent can submit access and deletion requests by emailing us at [email protected]. 

d. Opt-out of the Sales or Sharing  (Behavioral Advertising) (not available in all states)

In certain states, you have the right to opt out of the sale and sharing of your information for Behavioral Advertising (also referred to as targeted advertising). If available in your state, you can exercise your right to opt out by visiting this link. Sharing and sales can occur, for example, where Instacart shares information about you with certain partners, including social media publishers, to enable Instacart or its partners to provide you with personalized ads on third party sites or applications and to better understand engagement with such advertising. 

Depending on your place of residence, under applicable law, you can use certain preference signals to exercise your sale and sharing opt-out right automatically with all businesses that you interact with online, including Instacart. If you enable a browser-based opt-out preference signal that complies with applicable law, such as Global Privacy Control (GPC), upon receipt or detection, we will treat the signal as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of Personal Information linked to that browser and any consumer profile we have associated with that browser. Please note that if you use different browsers or browser profiles, you will have to enable the signal on each one that you use.

Please note that even if you opt-out of the sale of your information and the sharing of your information for Behavioral Advertising,  you may continue to see advertisements from Instacart and/or our partners; however, these advertisements will not be as relevant or personalized to you.

e. Appeals

If you submit a request to exercise any of the rights described above and we do not take action on the request, you may appeal our decision if you are in an eligible jurisdiction. To appeal our decision, please email us at [email protected] with the subject line “Rights Request Appeal.”

f. Do Not Track.

“Do Not Track” (“DNT”) is a developing standard for web browsers that aims to inform the websites you visit that you do not want information about your online activity collected over time and across third-party websites or online services. Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our users, we do not interpret or respond to DNT or other similar signals from your browser at this time. For more information, visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

12. Disclosures for Residents of California

This section is only applicable if the Merchant offers goods and services to California residents

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) provides California residents with certain rights. Please refer to our chart in Section 5 of this policy for details regarding the categories of Personal Information that we collect, use, and disclose relating to California residents as required under the CCPA. 

a. Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

As described above, we share your Personal Information for Behavioral Advertising and may also disclose it to certain analytics or other vendors in a manner that could be considered a “sale” under California law. Please see Your Privacy Choices above for information on how to opt-out of such sharing or sales. 

Alternatively, where available, you can use certain preference signals to exercise your sale and sharing opt-out right automatically with all businesses that you interact with online, including Instacart. If you enable a browser-based opt-out preference signal that complies with the CCPA, such as Global Privacy Control (GPC), upon receipt or detection, we will treat the signal as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of Personal Information linked to that browser and any consumer profile we have associated with that browser. Please note that if you use different browsers or browser profiles, you will have to enable the signal on each one that you use.

b. Use and disclosure of sensitive Personal Information

We only use or disclose sensitive Personal Information as necessary to provide the Services; resist malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal actions directed at our business; ensure the physical safety of natural persons; and verify, maintain, and improve the quality of our Services. 

c. Consumer Affairs 

Under California Civil Code Section 1789.3, California residents are entitled to the following specific consumer rights notice: If you have a question or complaint regarding our website, please send an email to [email protected]. You may also contact us by writing to us at the address provided below under Contact Information. California residents may reach the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs may be contacted in writing at 400 R Street, Suite 1080, Sacramento, California 95814, or by telephone at (916) 445-1254 or (800) 952-5210.

13. Disclosures for Residents of Nevada

This section is only applicable if the Merchant offers goods and services to Nevada residents. 

We do not “sell” Personal Information as defined under Nevada law. 

14. Disclosures for Residents of Canada

This section is only applicable if the Merchant offers goods and services to Canadian residents. 

For information about the transfer and storage of your Personal Information outside of Canada, or if you are a resident of Quebec, outside of your province of residence, please see the Cross-Border Transfers above.

For some of the uses described in Information Uses above, we may use technological tools that render decisions about you automatically. These include tools that detect fraud, which may lead to account deactivation.

If you are a resident of Canada, you may submit an access or deletion request as explained in the Your Privacy Choices section above.  Requests may be submitted by Authorized Agents as described in Your Privacy Choices.

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices with respect to the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information and/or changes in applicable law. 

The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. If we make changes, we will revise the date at the top of this Privacy Policy and, in the case of material changes to this Privacy Policy, we may provide you with additional notice (such as a notice posted on the Services or a message delivered to the email address that we have on file for you).

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to remain informed about our information handling and privacy practices. 

16. Contact Information

Questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or our information handling practices? Contact Instacart’s Global Privacy Team at:

Instacart

50 Beale Street, Suite 600

San Francisco, California 94105

[email protected] 

1-888-246-7822

For customer service inquiries, visit our Help Center.

If you have a disability and would like to access this Privacy Policy in an alternative format, please contact us at (888) 317-8968. Instacart is committed to making its electronic and information technologies accessible to individuals with disabilities.

If you have comments concerning this website’s accessibility, please contact us at the email address [email protected].