Privacy Policy Stigma Action Network

Last Modified: May 5, 2011

Welcome to the Stigma Action Network, operated by the International Center for Research on Women (“SAN”) web site and online services (the “SAN Site”). SAN values the privacy of our members and others who visit and use the SAN Site (individually, “You” or collectively, “Users”). We take your privacy seriously and make it a priority to protect personally identifiable information that we obtain from and about individuals both online and off-line.

This Privacy Policy describes what information we gather from you, how we use that information, and what we do to protect it.  By using the SAN Site (whether or not you are a registered member), you expressly consent to the information handling practices described in this policy. If you do not want information about you to be used in the manner set forth in this Privacy Policy, please do not use the SAN Site.
This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and is subject to the SAN Terms of Service.  Your use of the SAN Site and any personal information you provide on the SAN Site are subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy and SAN’s Terms of Service. [Note: Insert links to Terms of Service.]

Information SAN Collects:
• User-provided Information:  When you register as a member of the SAN Site, you may provide to SAN what is generally called “personally identifiable” information (such as your name, password, gender, email address, postal mailing address, home/mobile telephone number). From time to time, SAN may also ask you optionally to provide other information. If you choose to provide such information, during registration or otherwise, you are giving SAN the permission to use and store it consistent with this policy. Therefore, please understand that when you sign in with SAN, you are not anonymous to us.
• “Cookies” Information:  When you visit the SAN Site, whether or not you are a registered member, we may send one or more cookies – small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters – to your computer. Cookies remember information about your activities on a website. SAN may use both session cookies and persistent cookies.  A session cookie disappears after you close your browser.  A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the SAN Site.  Persistent cookies can be removed.  Please review your web browser “Help” file to learn the proper way to modify your cookie settings. However, without cookies you will not have access to certain services on the SAN Site. Third party advertisements displayed in connection with the SAN Site may also contain cookies set by internet advertisers. We do not control these cookies and users of the SAN Site should check the privacy policy of the advertiser to see whether and how it uses cookies.
• “Automatically Collected” Information:  When you visit the SAN Site or open one of our HTML emails, we may record certain information from your web browser by using different types of technology, including “clear gifs” or “web beacons”.  This “automatically collected” information may include your Internet Protocol address (“IP Address”), web browser type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after the SAN Site, the pages you view on our site, and the dates and times that you visit.
• Information from Other Sources: We may also obtain information, including personally identifiable information, from third parties and sources other than the SAN Site. If we combine or associate information from other sources with personally identifiable information that we collect through the SAN Site, we will treat the combined information as personally identifiable information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. 

The Way SAN Uses Information:
• SAN uses the information that we collect to provide to you all of the features and services found on the SAN Site.  We will use your email address, without further consent, for both (i) promotional or marketing purposes, and (ii) non-marketing or administrative purposes such as notifying you of major site updates. 
• SAN uses all of the information that we collect from Users to understand and analyze the usage trends and preferences of our Users, to improve the way the SAN Site works and looks, and to create new features and functionality.
• SAN may use “cookies” information to:  (a) remember your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the SAN Site; (b) provide customized third-party advertisements, content, and information; (c) monitor the effectiveness of third-party marketing campaigns; (d) monitor aggregate site usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages viewed; and (e) track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities.
• If you have registered as a member and given SAN consent, we may share your personally identifiable information with advertisers, business partners, and other entities that are not affiliated with SAN who would like to send you information about their products and services. We do not share personally identifiable information with other third-party organizations for their marketing or promotional use without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in.
• SAN’s employees, agents and contractors must have a legitimate business reason to obtain access to the personally identifiable information you may provide to register as a member of SAN. We may share your personally identifiable information with companies that provide services to us, including outside contractors or agents who help us manage our information activities, but they may only use your personally identifiable information to provide us with a specific service and not for any other purpose.
When SAN Discloses Information:
• SAN discloses automatically collected and other aggregate non-personally-identifiable information with interested third parties to assist such parties in understanding the usage, viewing, and demographic patterns for certain programs, content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality on the SAN Site.
• SAN may also disclose User information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws (such as U.S. Copyright law) or respond to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena, or warrant.  In some cases, we may make such disclosures without first providing notice to Users.
• SAN also reserves the right to disclose User information that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to take precautions against liability; protect SAN from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; to investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; to assist government enforcement agencies; to protect the security or integrity of the SAN Site; or to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of SAN, our Users, or others.
• In the event that SAN is acquired by or merged with a third-party entity, we reserve the right, in any of these circumstances, to transfer or assign the information that we have collected from Users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control.

Your Choices:
You may, of course, decline to share your personally-identifiable information with SAN, in which case SAN will not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionality found on the SAN Site.  If you register as a member of SAN, you may update, correct, or delete your profile information and preferences at any time by [Note: describe process to update/correct/delete information].

To protect your privacy and security, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you account access or making corrections to your information.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE SECRECY OF YOUR UNIQUE PASSWORD AND ACCOUNT INFORMATION AT ALL TIMES. 

Third-Party Advertisers, Links to Other Sites:
The SAN Site may be linked to internet websites operated by other companies. Some of these websites may be co-branded with our name or logo, even though they are not operated or maintained by us. SAN may also permit other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, to serve advertisements within the SAN Site.  These third-party ad servers or ad networks may use technology to send, directly to your browser, some of the advertisements and links that appear on the SAN Site.  These advertisers may automatically receive your IP address if this happens.  These advertisers may also use other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize the advertising content.
You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party websites and third party ad servers or ad networks.  SAN’s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other third party advertisers or web sites. Please be aware that SAN does not warn you when you have chosen to link through to another website from the SAN Site.

Our Commitment to Children’s Privacy:
Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important.  For that reason, SAN does not knowingly collect or maintain personally identifiable information on the SAN Site from persons under 13 years-of-age.  If SAN learns that personally-identifiable information of persons less than 13-years-of-age has been collected on SAN without verifiable parental consent, then SAN will take the appropriate steps to delete this information.  If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child under the age of 13 has obtained a SAN Site account, then you may alert SAN at san@icrw.org and request that SAN delete that child’s personal information from its systems.

Our Commitment to Data Security: 
SAN uses commercially reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information.  We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to SAN, and you do so at your own risk.  Once we receive your transmission of information, SAN makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems.  However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

If SAN learns of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. SAN may post a notice on the SAN Site if a security breach occurs.  Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing. 

International Visitors:
The SAN Site is based in the United States and has operations worldwide, and the databases in which your personal information is stored may be located at facilities located across the world and not necessarily in the country in which you are located. If you are visiting the SAN Site from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use, please note that you are agreeing to the transfer of your information to the United States to SAN and to other countries where SAN operates, whose privacy laws may be less strict. By providing your personal information to SAN you consent to that transfer.

Changes and Updates to this Privacy Policy:
This Privacy Policy may be revised periodically without further notice to you and this will be reflected by a “Last Modified” date above.  Please revisit this page to stay aware of any changes.  Your continued use of the SAN Site constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Policy and any future revisions.

SAN Contact Information:
Please contact SAN with any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, your personal information, our third-party disclosure practices, or your consent choices by email at san@icrw.org or by mail at:  1120 20th st. NW, Washington DC, 20036