Privacy Policy

Global Blue Privacy Policy



What information will we use?


By joining, interacting or tax-free shopping with Global Blue, we will collect and use information about you. This information includes your personal details, information about the use of your SHOP TAX FREE Card, shopping and travel purchases and other information that you give us or that we collect (including about your use of internet connected devices).


How will your information be used and what is the basis on which we use it?


We will use your information to process your tax refunds and administer your participation in the Global Blue Tax Free Shopping network so that we can fulfill our contractual obligations to you and / or to comply with our legal obligations (e.g. in relation to relevant taxation authorities).


We may be required by law to collect certain personal information about you, or as a consequence of any contractual relationship we have with you.  We will inform you at the time your information is collected whether certain data is compulsory. Failure to provide the required information may prevent or delay the fulfilment of these obligations.


We will use your e-mail address, phone number or other communication channel contact details to send you information about our services and offers from Global Blue or Global Blue’s partners for the products or services, which are most likely to interest you.  Where required, we will obtain your consent first.  If we ask for your consent to process your information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details at the end of this privacy notice.


We will also analyse your information to see how you use Global Blue's services, to understand your shopping and travel behaviour and to select personalized offers, discounts or recommendations to send you based on your shopping history and in some cases, your, browsing history. It is in our legitimate interest to use the information provided to us for these purposes, so that we can improve the services we provide, understand how they are used and so that we can personalise the offers we send to you to make them more relevant and interesting. These types of decisions will not have legal or similar effects for you.


When we process your information to meet our legitimate interests, we put in place robust safeguards to ensure that your privacy is protected and to ensure that our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.


Your sensitive personal information (including your passport details, refund receiving bank account number and details (if you choose to provide such information to us), and transaction and tax return records) will be collected and processed by us, in each case, for the purpose of providing you with the requested tax refund services. Our processing of your sensitive personal information will be equipped with adequate security measures and be conducted in a manner of having the least impact on your personal rights and interests. By using our services and providing your information us, you acknowledge and consent to our collection and processing of sensitive your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy.

Where your personal information is collected and processed by us to meet out legitimate interests as indicated above, you will also be deemed as having consented to our processing of such personal information for these purposes.

Where we collect your personal information from a third party, we will take steps to ensure that the third party has obtained your requisite authorization and consent if required by law.


Who will we share your information with?


We will share your information within the Global Blue group of companies and with our shopping, hotel, travel and payment partners globally – further details are provided in the Tax Free Shopping FAQs section of www.globalblue.com.


We will also share your information with:

  • relevant tax authorities, customs officials, refund offices and your bank and / or credit card companies as necessary to process your tax refunds.

  • other organisations and service providers that we work with or partner with from time to time including, for example: third party websites, analytics providers and advertising and media companies to enable them to show you adverts or offers which may interest you, including online, and mailing houses so that we can send you information or offers in the post;

  • our professional advisors;

  • any law enforcement agency, court, regulator, government authority or other third party where we believe this is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, or otherwise to protect our rights or the rights of any third party; and

  • any third party that purchases, or to which we transfer, all or substantially all of our assets and business. Should such a sale or transfer occur, we will use reasonable efforts to try to ensure that the entity to which we transfer your information uses it in a manner that is consistent with this policy.

By using our services and providing your information to us, you acknowledge and consent that (a) our processing of your personal information primarily takes place within Europe and your personal information will be primarily stored within Europe, and (b) we may share your personal information with recipients, whose categories are described above, in accordance with this privacy policy. You may contact us as specified in the “Contact Us” section below to obtain information regarding the third-party recipients with whom we share your personal information. Such sharing will always be conducted to the extent necessary and will not exceed or alter the purposes and means of processing that you have originally consented or based on a non-consent legal basis.


Information storage


We will keep your personal information for as long as we have a relationship with you. Once our relationship with you has come to an end, we (and in some circumstances our retailers) will retain your personal information for a period of time that enables us to:

  • Maintain business records for analysis and/or audit purposes

  • Comply with record retention requirements under the law

  • Defend or bring any existing or potential legal claims

  • Deal with any complaints regarding the services

We will delete your personal information when it is no longer required for these purposes. If there is any information that we are unable, for technical reasons, to delete entirely from our systems, we will put in place appropriate measures to prevent any further processing or use of the data.


International data transfer


Your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in a country that is not regarded as ensuring an adequate level of protection for personal information under applicable law. We have put in place appropriate safeguards (such as contractual commitments) in accordance with applicable legal requirements to ensure that your data is adequately protected. For more information on the appropriate safeguards in place, please contact us at the details below.


Your choices and rights


In certain circumstances you have a right to access or object to the use of personal data held about you (including in relation to direct marketing and profiling).  You can also ask us to rectify, erase, restrict or to share your information in a usable format with another company. 

If you would like to discuss or exercise such rights, please contact us at the details below. 

If you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.



Contact Us


We are the Global Blue Group.  Our head office and data controller is Global Blue S.A, based in Switzerland.  You can contact us at privacy@globalblue.com or Global Blue, P.O Box 363, 81000 Bratislava, Slovakia.