Privacy Policy

The Policy Circle, Co. Privacy Policy

Last Modified: 9/15/2016

This Privacy Policy explains how The Policy Circle uses your information when you visit our website located at http://www.thepolicycircle.org (the “Website”). Any information you provide to the Policy Circle is subject to this Privacy Policy. Any defined terms used but not defined in this Privacy Policy are defined in The Policy Circle’s Terms of Use. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time without notice. Your continued use of the Website after we make changes constitutes your acceptance of those changes, so please check the Privacy Policy periodically for updates.

Information Collection and Use

Information You Give Us.

While you may browse certain portions of the Website without registration, certain features of the Website require you to create an account. You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted“) on public areas of the Website, or transmitted to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions“). The Website is designed so that User Contributions are only visible to Policy Circle Members who have consented to the Policy Circle Member Agreement.

Your User Contributions are posted on the Website and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although we limit access to certain pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

We refer to information that can personally identify you, such as your name and email address, as “Personal Information.” We will never voluntarily share your Personal Information with any third party outside of The Policy Circle. We may, however, use your Personal Information to contact you periodically about matters relevant to The Policy Circle.

Usage Information.

We collect non-personal statistical information that does not individually identify you. It includes non-personal statistical information about your internet connection, the equipment that you use to access our Website, and how you use our Website. We refer to this information as “Usage Information.” This information allows us to optimize the Website to the internet connections and equipment that are used to visit our Website. For instance, we may collect information on how long you use the Website, on whether you have used the Website before and on how many occasions, how frequently you use the Website, and at what points you exit the Website to make the Website better. We collect this information both directly from you when you provide it to us and automatically as you navigate through and interact with our Website, including (i) details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website and (ii) information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system and browser type. The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. We use session cookies to keep track of your login information. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you use the Website.
Pixel Tags / Web Beacons. Pages of our website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs. pixel tags and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email. We may also use these web beacons for other related Website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain content and verifying system and server integrity).
Device identifiers. When you use a mobile device like a tablet or phone to access our Website, we may access, collect, monitor, store on your device, and/or remotely store one or more “device identifiers.” Device identifiers are small data files or similar data structures stored on or associated with your mobile device, which uniquely identify your mobile device. A device identifier may be data stored in connection with the device hardware, data stored in connection with the device’s operating system or other software, or data sent to the device by us.

Third-party Service Providers

We use third party Service Providers in order to efficiently provide our Website to you. Service Providers perform tasks including, but not limited to, printing and fulfillment of orders and credit card payment processing. Some Service Providers will collect information directly from you and provide us with relevant data (such as credit card processing companies). We may use this information to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into (for instance, to collect any authorized fees). Information collected from these third-party services is governed by their privacy policies. You should view the privacy policies of Service Providers before providing information to them. Even though we do not disclose your Personal Information for these purposes without your consent, if you interact with a third party, the third party may have access to your Personal Information.

Sharing Information

We may disclose Usage Information and aggregated information about our users (that cannot personally identify any person) without restriction. We do not disclose your Personal Information except in the circumstances described here:

Your Consent: We may share or disclose your Personal Information at your direction in connection with your use of the Website.
Service Providers: We may share your Personal Information with or disclose it to contractors, Service Providers, and other third parties we use to support our business and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep Personal Information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
Business Transfers: In the event that The Policy Circle is involved in a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, your Personal Information held by us may be among the assets transferred.
Law and Harm: Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy, we may disclose or share your Personal Information in order to comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request, or if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Policy Circle, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
Enforcement: We may disclose your Personal Information in order to enforce or apply our Terms and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
Disclosed when Collected. For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You may send us an email at info@thepolicycircle.org to request access to, correct, or delete any Personal Information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

Your California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 permits users that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to info@thepolicycircle.org.

Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

Children Under the Age of 13

Our Website is not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any Personal Information on the Website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on the Service. If we learn we have collected or received Personal Information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at info@thepolicycircle.org.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

The Policy Circle may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, at its sole discretion. It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. The date the Privacy Policy was last revised is identified in this policy. You are responsible for periodically visiting our website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at: info@thepolicycircle.org.