There continues to be misreporting of Mastercard data practices. We want to be clear: we do not sell individual transaction data. We never have and never will. This is the backbone of all of our data practices.

Mastercard operates a global network that facilitates hundreds of millions of transactions every day to drive commerce. Those transactions rely on moving data between thousands of banks and millions of merchants worldwide.

When processing transactions, we see the card number, the merchant name, location and the date and amount of transaction. When cardholders use their cards: we don’t know who they are – because we only see an account number - or what they purchased – because we don’t know what’s in their cart. We don’t know if they bought red or pink lipstick or any lipstick at all, simply the total amount spent at a merchant on a particular date.

We build world-class products and services. We pride ourselves in being leaders in technology, security and privacy and have incorporated the highest privacy standards into our product design. In fact, we have implemented the EU-GDPR standards globally as our privacy by design methodology.

We recognize that earning and maintaining the trust of our customers and cardholders is critical for our future.  We’re proud of our record and will continue to deliver on the foundation that we’ve built on that trust.