Ethical Use Policy

Creating safeguards for the ethical use of technology.

In addition to building ethics and inclusion into our products, we have a responsibility to understand how our products are used and the direct impacts of our technologies in the world. This is foundational to our ability to create ethical use policies that ensure the ethical use of our products and services and reflect our commitment to building trust with our customers and users. You can find many of these policies embedded in Salesforce’s public-facing Acceptable Use Policy.

astro wearing a salesforce tee shirt, with a backpack, standing in a mountain setting

Policy work guided by principles.

At Salesforce, we are guided by our five core values: trust, customer success, innovation, equality, and sustainability. Five additional Ethical and Humane Use Guiding Principles build upon these values and underline our ethical use policies and Ethics by Design work.

Human Rights

We work to ensure the direct use of our technologies upholds equal and inalienable protections.

illustration of a computer screen and mobile phone

Privacy

We push the frontier of privacy best practice in our product design to enable customers to protect individuals’ data.

Safety

We aim to protect humans from direct harm from the use of our technology.

Honesty

We oppose the use of our technology to knowingly spread disinformation or conspiracy theories.

illustration of different types of people

Inclusion

We create opportunity through equal access to technology.

Introducing our ethical use process.

Along with our principles, a diverse field of stakeholders guides our ethical use policies. Our framework for policy decisions relies on rigorous research and intentionally engaging with various internal and external stakeholders to guide our decision-making.

For each issue that is raised, it’s important that we understand the direct product use case, how closely it's connected to any harm, where it stands in relation to our guiding principles, the effectiveness of any proposed actions, and the current geopolitical landscape, among other things.

We can’t do this important work alone, which is why we strive to actively listen to our employees, partners, customers, members of impacted communities, and experts in the field to create policies informed by multiple perspectives, humane principles, and Salesforce’s core values.

Meet our Ethical Use Advisory Council.

Our Ethical Use Advisory Council consists of a diverse group of front-line and executive employees, academics, industry experts, and society leaders. The Council meets regularly to discuss ways to arrive at balanced and thoughtful outcomes. Its guidance ensures that we address the impacts of modern technology collaboratively, consider a wide set of perspectives, and mitigate risk.