PRIVACY POLICY
Last Revised JANUARY 22, 2024
Thank you for choosing to be part of our community at Transparency Texas d/b/a Transparency USA. We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about our policy, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us at https://support.transparencyusa.org/.
When you visit our website, and use our services, you trust us with your personal information. We take your privacy very seriously. In this privacy notice, we describe our privacy policy. We seek to explain to you in the clearest way possible what information we collect, how we use it and what rights you have in relation to it. We hope you take some time to read through it carefully, as it is important. If there are any terms in this privacy policy that you do not agree with, please discontinue use of our Sites and our services.
This privacy policy applies to all information collected through our websites (such as https://www.transparencyusa.org), and/or any related services, sales, marketing or events (we refer to them collectively in this privacy policy as the “Sites”).
Please read this privacy policy carefully as it will help you make informed decisions about sharing your personal information with us.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
3. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
4. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
5. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?
6. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
7. CONTROLS FOR DONOTTRACK FEATURES
8. DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY
RIGHTS?
9. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?
10. HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS POLICY?
1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
Personal information you disclose to us
In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us such as name, address, contact information, passwords and security data, and payment information.
We may collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when registering at the Sites expressing an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and services, when participating in activities on the Sites or otherwise contacting us.
The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Sites, the choices you make and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect can include the following:
Name and Contact Data. We may collect your first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other similar contact data.
Credentials. We may collect passwords, password hints, and similar security information used for authentication and account access.
Payment Data. We may collect data necessary to process your payment if you make purchases or donations, such as your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number), and the security code associated with your payment instrument. All payment data is stored by our payment processor and you should review its privacy policies and contact the payment processor directly to respond to your questions.
All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.
Information automatically collected
In Short: Some information – such as IP address and/or browser and device characteristics – is collected automatically when you visit our Sites.
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate the Sites. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Sites and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Sites, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.
Information collected from other sources
In Short: We may collect limited data from public databases, marketing partners, social media platforms, and other outside Sources.
We may obtain information about you from other sources, such as public databases, joint marketing partners, social media platforms (such as Facebook), as well as from other third parties. Examples of the information we receive from other sources include: social media profile information (your name, gender, birthday, email, current city, state and country, user identification numbers for your contacts, profile picture URL and any other information that you choose to make public); marketing leads and search results and links, including paid listings (such as sponsored links).
2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
In Short: We process your information for purposes based on legitimate business interests, the fulfillment of our relationship with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and/or your consent.
We use personal information collected via our Sites for a variety of business purposes described below. We process your personal information for these purposes in reliance on our legitimate business interests, in order to enter into or perform a contract with you, with your consent, and/or for compliance with our legal obligations. We indicate the specific processing grounds we rely on next to each purpose listed below.
We use the information we collect or receive:
To facilitate account creation and logon processes.
To send you marketing and promotional communications. We and/or our third party marketing partners may use the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes, if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. You can optout of our marketing emails at any time (see the ” WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS ” below).
To send administrative information to you. We may use your personal information to send you product, service and new feature information and/or information about changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
Fulfill and manage your orders. We may use your information to fulfill and manage transactions made through the Sites.
Deliver targeted advertising to you. We may use your information to develop and display content and advertising (and work with third parties who do so) tailored to your interests and/or location and to measure its effectiveness.
Request Feedback. We may use your information to request feedback and to contact you about your use of our Sites.
To protect our Sites. We may use your information as part of our efforts to keep our Sites safe and secure (for example, for fraud monitoring and prevention).
To enforce our terms, conditions and policies.
To respond to legal requests and prevent harm. If we receive a subpoena or other legal request, we may need to inspect the data we hold to determine how to respond.
For other Business Purposes. We may use your information for other Business Purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Sites, products, services, marketing, and your experience.
3. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
In Short: We only share information with your consent, to comply with laws, to protect your rights, or to fulfill business obligations. It is our policy to maintain the privacy of our donors and subscribers to the maximum extent allowed by law. We will not sell, trade, or distribute the names or contact information of anyone who donates to our organization or subscribes to our publications.
Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific purpose.
Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements). However, it is our policy to protect your information from disclosure to the maximum extent authorized by law.
Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:
Vendors, Consultants and Other ThirdParty Service Providers. We may share your data with third party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: payment processing, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service and marketing efforts. We may allow selected third parties to use tracking technology on the Sites, which will enable them to collect data about how you interact with the Sites over time. This information may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity. Unless described in this Policy, we do not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes.
4. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy policy unless otherwise required by law.
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements).
5. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION
SAFE?
In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.
We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, please also remember that we cannot guarantee that the internet itself is 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Sites is at your own risk. You should only access the services within a secure environment.
6. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
In Short: You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time.
If you are resident in the European Economic Area and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm
Account Information
If you would at any time like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can contact us or use the account settings available to update your user account.
Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account. Some information may be retained in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our Terms of Use and/or comply with legal requirements, and to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy policy.
Opting out of email marketing: You can unsubscribe from our email lists at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send or by contacting us using the details provided below. You will then be removed from the email lists – however, we may still need to send you servicerelated emails that are necessary for the administration and use of your account. To otherwise optout, you may contact us or use the account settings available to update your user account.
7. CONTROLS FOR DONOTTRACK FEATURES
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a DoNotTrack (“DNT”) feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. No uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this Privacy Policy.
8. DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?
In Short: Yes, if you are a resident of California, you are granted specific rights regarding access to your personal information.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine The Light” law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact information provided below.
If you are under 18 years of age, reside in California, and have a registered account with the Sites, you have the right to request removal of unwanted data that you publicly post on the Sites. To request removal of such data, please contact us using the contact information provided below, and include the email address associated with your account and a statement that you reside in California We will make sure the data is not publicly displayed in California. We will make sure the data is not publicly displayed on the Sites, but please be aware that the data may not be completely or comprehensively removed from our systems.
9. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?
In Short: Yes, we will update this policy as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Revised” date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we may notify you. We encourage you to review this privacy policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
10. HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS POLICY?
If you have questions or comments about this policy, you may email us at tmarshall@transparencyusa.org or by post to:
Transparency USA
6125 Luther Ln PMB 262
Dallas, TX 75225-6202
HOW CAN YOU REVIEW, UPDATE, OR DELETE THE DATA WE COLLECT FROM YOU?
Based on the laws of some countries, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, change that information, or delete it in some circumstances. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please contact us in writing to initiate your request. We will respond to your request within 30 days.