Privacy Policy

Last updated on January 26, 2024.

This Privacy Statement describes how Shutterstock manages personal data and personal information, and respects your privacy. This policy may be amended from time to time. We encourage visitors to and users of our sites to regularly review our Privacy Policy.

All "Personal Information" (which is defined as any information that identifies or can be used to identify, contact, or locate the person to whom such information pertains) that we collect and maintain will be subject to this Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time. To update your information and preferences, see the section entitled "Updating Your Personal Information and Privacy Preferences."

Shutterstock is made up of different legal entities. This privacy notice is issued on behalf of the Shutterstock group of companies. When we refer to "Shutterstock", "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice, we mean the Shutterstock entity that acts as the controller or processor of your information, as explained in more detail in the "Entities Collecting Personal Information" section below.

Collection of Personal Information

As a visitor to the Site, you can engage in many activities without providing any Personal Information.

However, when you register to use a Shutterstock site and license content, order products or services as a Shutterstock subscriber in order to provide the services to you, we may collect the following Personal Information from you:

• Contact information such as your name, phone number, address and email address; and
• Billing information such as the number, expiration date, card type and billing address of your credit card;
• Demographic information such as your job title, job description and company name and company type; and
• Profile data, including your username and password, details about your activity on the Site, including search terms, plan purchases and the Content that you license.

If you submit content to Shutterstock for licensing, you may be asked to provide the following information:

• Contact information such as your name, phone number, primary address, and email address.
• Payment and contributor information including, but not limited to, payout method, payout email, desired display name, profile information, social media accounts, and information about your skill level and creative process.

Depending upon the activity, some of the information that we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. If you do not provide the mandatory data with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.

As is true of most websites, when you use the Site, Shutterstock or third party subprocessors contracted by Shutterstock may also collect certain technical and routing information about your computer to facilitate your use of the Site and its services. For example, we may log environmental variables, such as browser type, operating system, CPU speed, and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer. We use these environmental variables to facilitate and track your use of the Site and its services. Shutterstock also uses such environmental variables to measure traffic patterns on the Site. To better understand the needs of our visitors to the Site we may occasionally match such information with your Personal Information.

In order to reduce errors in our database, authenticate our users, and prevent abuse of our system, we may on occasion supplement the Personal Information you submit to us with information from third-party sources. For example, we may supplement your contact information with address information provided by the Google Maps API or the U.S. Postal Service to qualify your information and prevent errors in our database. Where we use the Google Maps API, the Google Privacy Policy is incorporated by reference solely with regards to the personal information processed by Google. We may supplement the information that we collect directly from you with information stored in third-party databases, such as demographic information or company information in order to make it more likely that any marketing communications we send will be relevant and of interest to you. You may find a list of any third-party subprocessors that we use to process information here.

When you download and use our Mobile Apps or Services, we automatically collect information on the type of device you use, and operating system version. We do not ask for, access or track any location-based information from your mobile device at any time while downloading or using our Mobile Apps or Services.

Updating Your Personal Information and Privacy Preferences

Upon request Shutterstock will provide you with information about and access to your Personal Information that we process. To request this information please contact us through the Privacy Request form.

You have the right to access and correct, or delete your Personal Information and privacy preferences at any time. This may be accomplished by clicking on the link, "My Account", where you can view and make changes to most of your Personal Information immediately. If you wish to delete your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services by visiting the "My Account Preferences" link on the site and following the instructions under the section "Delete My Account". If you are a contributor, you can change your profile here. For security purposes, certain Personal Information can only be changed by contacting support. We will respond to your request promptly within a reasonable timeframe.

How Your Personal Information Is Used

Shutterstock collects your information in order to provide services to you, comply with our legal obligations, and to improve our products and services. We do not sell, rent or share your personally identifiable information to or with third parties in any way other than as disclosed in this Privacy Policy. Shutterstock may use this information to:

• Authenticate and provide access to the Shutterstock websites, mobiles applications, and services.
• Process your financial transactions.
• Send you order / renewal confirmations.
• Register your rights, if any, to technical support or other benefits that may be made available to registered users.
• Respond to customer service requests, questions and concerns.
• Administer your account.
• Send you requested product or service information.
• Keep you informed about special offers and services of Shutterstock and selected third parties.
• Administer promotions and sweepstakes you enter and notify you of the results.
• Investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities and/or violations of our Terms of Service.
• Meet our research and product/service development needs and to improve our Site, services and offerings; and
• Customize your experience, including targeting our services, search results, and offerings to you.

We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, transparent images, and/or third party sources to create a summary of your preferences. We tie your personally identifiable information, and/or your membership usage history, to information in the summary, in order to provide tailored promotions and marketing offers, to improve the content of the site for you and/or to determine your preferences.

In certain situations, Shutterstock may be required to comply with legal obligations to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

Where required by law (e.g., to comply with a subpoena, warrant, court order, or legal process served on Shutterstock), and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, avoid litigation, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, and/or respond to a government request. We may also disclose information about you in order to comply with our legal obligations if we determine that such disclosure should be made for reasons of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance.

Legal Bases for Processing

For individuals located in European Economic Area (EEA) and UK, we rely on the following legal bases for the processing of your personal data:

• Where processing is necessary to perform our contract with you:
  • Providing access to the Shutterstock websites, mobiles applications, and services to fulfill the terms of your contract;
  • Customizing your experience, including targeting our services, search results, and offerings to you.
  • Providing information so that you can make decisions about Shutterstock services;
  • Processing your financial transactions and sending you order / renewal confirmations;
  • Register your rights, if any, to technical support or other benefits that may be made available to registered users;
  • Responding to your customer service requests, questions and concerns;
  • Administering your account.
• Processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another natural person:
  • Investigating and protecting against intellectual property infringement;
  • Confirming the validity of licenses to Shutterstock content;
  • Investigating, preventing or taking action regarding violations of our Terms of Service.
• Processing in furtherance of Shutterstock’s legitimate interests:
  • Providing, improving and customizing our website and services;
  • Administering our operations and meeting our contractual obligations to our customers and contributors;
  • Analyzing and understanding how our online platforms are being used;
  • Maintaining the security and integrity of our websites, mobile applications and other services;
  • Sending you requested product or service information and keeping you informed about special offers and services of Shutterstock and selected third parties;
  • Administering promotions and sweepstakes;
  • Research and product/service development for the improvement of our Site, services and offerings.
• Processing is necessary for compliance with Shutterstock’s legal obligations, including:
  • Investigating and protecting against intellectual property infringement, fraud, spam, harassment, crime and security risks;
  • Compliance with money laundering, bribery, corruption, and applicable sanctions laws and regulations; and
  • Meeting financial reporting and other obligations under applicable securities laws.

Information Sharing with Service Providers / Agents

Shutterstock uses one or more outside credit card processing companies to bill you for our goods and services. To the best of our knowledge, these companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

We also share Personal Information with certain companies that perform services on our behalf. We only share the Personal Information which is necessary for them to perform those services. We require any company with which we may share Personal Information to protect that data in a manner consistent with this policy and to limit the use of such Personal Information to the performance of services for Shutterstock. You may find a list of these third-party subprocessors here.

We do not sell or otherwise provide Personal Information to other companies for the marketing of their own products or services.

Data Retention and Data Portability

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active and your information is needed to provide you services, as necessary to validate or enforce the licenses to use Content, or as required to fulfill our legal obligations. If you wish to delete your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services by visiting the "My Account Preferences" link on the site and following the instructions under the section "Delete My Account". If you are unable to access your account, please contact us. We will respond to your request within 30 days. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

If you have licensed Content from Shutterstock, you may access your license history by visiting License History.

Your Choices (Opt Out)

Shutterstock does not sell your personal data or personal information to any third party. We do use third party advertising services to manage the advertisements that we place on other sites. Our third-party partner may use technologies such as cookies and trackers to gather information about your activities on this site and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here (or if located in the European Union click here) Please note this does not opt you out of being served ads. You will continue to receive generic ads.

Shutterstock will only use your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement and will not use your personal information for a purpose that is materially different without your express authorization.

You may "opt out" of receiving Shutterstock's email updates, newsletters and/or partner emails by clicking on the "My Account" link on the Site and making the appropriate selections. The choice to opt out of such communications is also generally available during the sign-up process. Shutterstock will still contact you when there are changes to the Terms of Service or Submitter Terms of Service, as applicable. In addition, we will still send you service-related announcements including, but not limited to, a registration email, benefit notification emails, emails automatically triggered by actions you took on the Site and bill related notices. Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature. If you wish not to receive them, you have the option of deactivating your account

If you use a Shutterstock mobile app, we may send you push notifications from time-to-time in order to update you about any events or promotions that we may be running. If you no longer wish to receive these types of communications, you may turn them off at the device level.

You may request the deletion of your Personal Data from our systems and/or opt-out of further processing of your Personal Data by visiting the "My Account – Preferences" page and following the instructions under the section titled "Delete My Personal Data". If you are unable to access your account, please contact us.

Protection of Your Personal Information

The Personal Information that you provide in connection with the use of the Site is protected in several ways.

• Access by you to your account profile is available through a password and unique customer ID selected by you. This password is encrypted. You should strive to use a strong, alpha-numeric password which you should not divulge to anyone.
• Your Personal Information resides on secure servers that only selected Shutterstock personnel and contractors have access to via password.
• Your Personal Information is encrypted whenever it is transmitted to Shutterstock.
• When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using transport layer security technology

We strive to protect the Personal Information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we take into account the sensitivity of the Personal Information we collect, process and store, and the current state of technology to use these measures protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have any questions about security on our Web Sites, please contact us through our privacy request form.

Cookie and Tracking Technologies

The Site may automatically collect information as you browse, such as Internet Service Provider, browser type and version, operating system and device type, average time spent on our site(s), pages viewed, information accessed, the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet and other relevant statistics. Such information is sometimes referred to as web analytics and/or clickstream data.

We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve services we offer you, to improve marketing, analytics, and provide site functionality.

Technologies such as: cookies, beacons, tags and scripts are used by Shutterstock and our affiliates, analytics services and service to provide site features and functionality. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis.

• A cookie is a small, unique text file that a website can send to your computer when you visit a site. We may use session cookies, which terminate when a user closes his or her browser, and/or persistent cookies, which remain on the user's computer until manually deleted. Most web browsers can either alert you to the use of cookies or refuse to accept cookies entirely. If you do not want us to deploy cookies to your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to notify you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer. Rejecting cookies may affect your ability to use the Site.
• We partner with a third party to either display advertising on our Web site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third party partner may use technologies such as cookies to gather information about your activities on this site and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here (or if located in the European Union click here) Please note this does not opt you out of being served ads. You will continue to receive generic ads.

You can find more information about the cookies and third party advertising partners in our Cookie Statement

We use mobile analytics software to allow us to better understand the functionality of our Mobile Software on your phone. This software may record information such as how often you use the application, the events that occur within the application, aggregated usage, performance data, and where the application was downloaded from. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information you submit within the mobile application.

Changes in Privacy Policy

Shutterstock reserves the right to amend the Privacy Policy from time to time at its sole discretion and will provide notice by email or on the home page of the Site when we make material changes to this Privacy Policy prior to the change becoming effective. If as the result of such changes, you want to alter the ways in which Shutterstock is allowed to use your Personal Information, you can do so by following the procedure described in the section entitled "Updating Your Personal Information and Privacy Preferences."

You will be deemed to have been made aware of, and will be subject to, any material changes to the Privacy Policy after such notice has been posted with the following exception: If at the time you provide Personal Information to Shutterstock you are given the opportunity (as you currently are) to limit how such information will be used to communicate with you, either by Shutterstock or by third parties, Shutterstock will not change your preference in this regard without your express consent. However, if Shutterstock is acquired by or merged with another entity, Shutterstock may provide to such entity customer information that is related to that part of our business that was sold to or merged with the other entity without your consent, but Shutterstock will provide notice of such asset sales, acquisitions, or mergers on this Site.

Non-Discrimination

Shutterstock will not discriminate against any user who exercises rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act or other privacy or data protection law. We will not deny services from users who exercise rights under a privacy law and we do not charge different prices to users who choose to exercise rights under applicable privacy law.

Links to third party sites

Our Site includes links to other Web sites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Shutterstock. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any Web site you visit.

Social Media Widgets

Our Web sites may include Social Media Features, such as the Facebook Like button and Widgets, such as the Share this button or interactive mini-programs that run on our site. These Features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the Feature to function properly. Social Media Features and Widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Site. Your interactions with these Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Single Sign-On

You may be able to log in to our site using sign-in services such as Sign in with Apple, Facebook Connect, Sign in with Google, or an Open ID provider. These services will authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal information with us such as your name and email address to pre-populate our sign up form. Services like Facebook Connect give you the option to post information about your activities on this Web site to your profile page to share with others within your network.

Referral Program Emails

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a colleague about our Site, share a Collection, or invite someone to join a team account, we will ask you for your colleague's name and email address. We will automatically send your colleague a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the Site. Shutterstock stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email, tracking the success of our referral program, and managing access to Collections.

Your colleague may contact us to request that we remove this information from our database.

Children

We do not intend to solicit or collect Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are under 18, do not enter information on this site or engage our services. If you believe a child of yours under the age of 18 has entered Personal Information please contact us to have the data removed and terminate the child's account.

Entities Collecting Personal Information

Data Controller (Location of Incorporation or Organization)

For individuals located in the US, Canada, and India:

For individuals located outside of the United States, Canada and India, the data controller is:

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) for the Shutterstock Group who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions, concerns, or requests about this privacy notice, how we manage your Personal Information, or any other issue relating to your Personal Information, please contact our DPO.

Other members of the Shutterstock group of companies may be involved in the processing of Personal Information, as described in our information about sub-processing within the Shutterstock Group.

EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework with UK Extension, and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework

Shutterstock, Inc. complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Shutterstock has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and from the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) under the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. Shutterstock, Inc. has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.

Shutterstock, Inc. is responsible for the processing of personal data it receives, under the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. Shutterstock, Inc. complies with the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles for all onward transfers of personal data from the EU, UK, and Switzerland, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over Shutterstock, Inc.’s compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF. In certain situations, Shutterstock, Inc. may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, Shutterstock, Inc. commits to refer unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF to TRUSTe, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your DPF Principles-related complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your DPF Principles-related complaint to your satisfaction, please visit https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request for more information or to file a complaint. These dispute resolution services are provided at no cost to you.

For complaints regarding EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF compliance not resolved by any of the other DPF mechanisms, you have the possibility, under certain conditions, to invoke binding arbitration. Further information can be found on the official DPF website: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/ANNEX-I-introduction-dpf?tabset-35584=2.

Privacy Complaints

Individuals located in certain countries, including the European Economic Area, have certain statutory rights in relation to their personal data. Subject to any exemptions provided by law, you may have the right to request access to Personal Data, seek to update, delete or correct this Information, and request to restrict further processing of your Personal Data.

To the extent that Shutterstock's processing of your Personal Data is subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation, Shutterstock relies on its legitimate interests, described above, to process your data. Where Shutterstock processes certain Personal Data for Shutterstock's own direct marketing purposes, you have a right to object to Shutterstock's use of your Personal Data for this purpose at any time by clicking on the link, "My Account" and opting out from receiving all email. If you are a contributor, you can change your profile here.

You may request the deletion of your Personal Data from our systems and/or opt-out of further processing of your Personal Data by visiting the "My Account – Preferences" page and following the instructions under the section titled "Delete My Personal Data"

If you wish to make any other objection to the processor of your personal data, you may also object to processing by submitting your objection through our Privacy Request form.

Shutterstock takes its users' privacy concerns seriously. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you believe that Shutterstock has not complied with this Privacy Policy with respect to your Personal Information, you may contact the Data Protection Officer.

Data Controller (Location of Incorporation or Organization)

For individuals located in the US, Canada, and India:

For individuals located outside of the United States, Canada and India, the data controller is:

Subject to applicable law, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority or the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is Shutterstock’s lead supervisory authority in the European Union. If you are a resident of the European Economic Area and believe we maintain your Personal Data within the scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you may direct questions or complaints to your local data protection authority or our lead supervisory authority: