Government Access Policy

Guidelines for Legal Requests for Information

All legal access requests from third parties seeking information held by Shopify should be properly filed through the Legal Access Request form. Our form requires you to create a Shopify account and verify your email address to submit a request. Creating an account allows Shopify to verify your identity for security purposes – it does not sign you up for a Shopify store. Once you have verified your email address, our form will auto-populate some of your contact information for ease of use.

These guidelines provide instructions when a third party wants to request information that Shopify holds. If you are seeking your own information, please consult our Privacy Policy for more information about your right of access.

Introduction

These guidelines illustrate how Shopify balances our legal obligations, the requesting party’s needs, and the interests of our Merchants, their Customers, or our Partners when we receive legal requests for information.

• “Merchants” are the businesses who use Shopify’s platform or services to power their stores in any capacity.

• “Customers” are people who visit or make a purchase from a Merchant's store using the Shopify platform or services.

• "Consumers" are people who us Shopify's Shop App or have a Shop Pay account.

• “Partners” are third parties who provide services to Merchants, such as: developing apps or themes that can be used in a Merchant’s store; helping Merchants build or set up their stores; building third party integrations with other platforms; or referring potential entrepreneurs looking to become a Merchant.

If we change our practices for responding to legal requests for information, we will update these guidelines. For a more detailed explanation about Shopify’s approach to third-party requests for information, please review the Shopify Legal Requests for Information Whitepaper.

Our Principles

These are the principles that guide us when we respond to legal requests:

• When a third party requests identifiable non-public information (such as personal or financial information about a Merchant), we will only share this information in response to valid and enforceable legal process in accordance with the remainder of the provisions of this Whitepaper, and we will take appropriate steps to minimize the amount of information that we disclose to satisfy the request. We will generally refuse to disclose non-public information if the legal request or court order is addressed to the wrong Shopify entity or address, or is issued by an entity that lacks jurisdiction over the Shopify entity that has possession of the responsive information.

• We will notify affected individuals and entities before we produce information about them unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

• When a third party requests information, we will only provide the specific information sought in the request. We will interpret requests for “all information” consistent with the principles described in the Guidelines.

• When a third party requests information about a Merchant’s Customers, we will first instruct the requestor to obtain that information directly from the Merchant, unless:

The requestor cannot obtain the data directly from the Merchant due to the Merchant being under a criminal investigation that would be jeopardized by the Merchant being made aware of the request; or,

• The Merchant has been terminated by Shopify for fraudulent activity or for otherwise violating our Terms of Service and no longer has access to their Shopify account.