Privacy Policy

Last Modified: May 24, 2018

Democracy Fund Voter Study Group (the “VSG” or “VSG”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) describes how we may collect, use, disclose, and retain your personal information when you visit the VSG’s websites (the “Websites”). This Privacy Policy does not address personal information that you provide to us in other contexts (e.g., through a business relationship not handled through the Websites). If you are applying to a job or consultancy at VSG, please see our Supplemental Privacy Notice for Job Applicants below.

By using the Websites, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Websites. Your continued use of the Websites following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean that you accept those changes.

Personal Information

Personal Information We Collect

The VSG collects your personally identifiable information (“PII”) through the Websites when you choose to provide such information, such as when you (i) register to be on our mailing list, (ii) access various content or features, (iii) or directly contact us with questions or feedback. The VSG also collects your IP address and web log data. Please do not disclose more personal data than is requested.

Use of Personal Information

We will use your PII only (i) to provide you occasional updates about VSG, our partners and affiliates, and our work and events that we think might interest you; (ii) to operate and enhance the Websites; (iii) to address any questions or feedback you submit; (iv) to perform research and analyses, or for other internal purposes to improve the quality of our work; or (v) as otherwise described to you at the point of collection or pursuant to your consent. If you provide your email address, we may send you emails. Where required in the relevant jurisdiction, we will obtain your consent before sending you promotional emails. If you wish to opt out of emails you receive from VSG, you may do so by following the “unsubscribe” instructions in the email.

Disclosure of Personal Information

The VSG will not sell, rent, license, or trade your PII with third parties for their own direct marketing use unless we receive your express consent to do so. Unless you give us permission to do so, we will not share your PII with third parties other than as specified in this Privacy Policy.

Disclosures to Third Parties Assisting In Our Operations. We may share your PII under confidentiality agreements and any legally required data processing agreements with other companies that work with, or on behalf of, VSG, such as those who are providing email or mail solutions, providing cloud hosting services, analyzing data and usage of the Websites, or providing support and maintenance services for the Websites, as well as legal, regulatory, audit and other professional advisors. These companies may use your PII to assist us in our operations or for our legitimate business interests. However, these companies do not have any independent right to share this information.

Disclosures Under Special Circumstances. We may provide information about you, including PII, to respond to subpoenas, court orders, legal processes or governmental regulations or inquiries, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims. We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or as otherwise required by law.

Other Parties With Your Consent or At Your Direction. In addition to the disclosures described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties when you expressly consent to or request such sharing.

Business Transfers. We may share your PII with other entities in connection with the sale, assignment, merger or other transfer of all or a portion of the VSG’s business to such entity. We will require any such successor entity to honor the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Retention of Personal Information. The VSG will retain in accordance with its data retention policy your PPI only for as long as is reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes for which it is collected.

Automatically Collected Information and Anonymous Information

Each time you visit the Websites, VSG collects some information to improve the overall quality of your online experience.

Aggregated Data. The VSG collects aggregate queries for internal reporting and also counts, tracks, and aggregates the visitor’s activity into the VSG’s analysis of general traffic-flow at the Websites. To these ends, VSG may merge information about you into aggregated group data. In some cases, VSG may remove personal identifiers from PII and maintain it in aggregate form that may later be combined with other information to generate anonymous, aggregated statistical information. Such anonymous, group data may be shared on an aggregated basis with VSG’s affiliates, business partners, service providers and/or vendors; if it does so, the VSG will not disclose your individual identity.

Web Server Logs and IP Addresses. An Internet Protocol (“IP”) address is a number that automatically identifies the computer or device you have used to access the Internet. The IP address enables our server to send you the web pages that you want to visit, and it may disclose the server owned by your Internet Service Provider. The VSG may use IP addresses to conduct Websites analyses and performance reviews and to administer the Websites, although it will not combine traffic data with user accounts.

Cookies. Cookies are pieces of information that a websites transfers to a user’s computer for purposes of storing information about a user’s preferences. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user’s computer. Many websites use cookies as a standard practice to provide useful features when a user visits the website and most web browsers are set up to accept cookies. The VSG uses cookies to improve your online experience when visiting the Website. You can set your browser to refuse or delete cookies, but some portions of a Websites may not work properly if you refuse cookies. A session cookie is one that exists for the time period that your browser is open. A persistent cookie is one that is saved on your device/computer even after the browser is closed. Like many websites, we may use both session cookies and persistent cookies.

Web Beacons. Some of the Websites’ web pages may use web beacons in conjunction with cookies to compile aggregate statistics about Website usage. A web beacon is an electronic image (also referred to as an “action tag,” “single-pixel,” or “clear GIF”) that is commonly used to track the traffic patterns of users from one web page to another in order to maximize web traffic flow and to otherwise analyze the effectiveness of the Websites. Some web beacons may be unusable if you elect to reject their associated cookies.

Response to “Do Not Track” Signals

Some web browsers may transmit "do-not-track" signals to the websites with which the user communicates, although web browsers incorporate and activate this functionality in different ways, and it is not always clear whether users intend for these signals to be transmitted. There currently is disagreement, including among participants in the leading Internet standards-setting organization, concerning what, if anything, websites should do when they receive such signals. The VSG currently does not take action in response to these signals, but, if and when a standard is established and accepted, we may reassess how to respond to these signals.

Children's Privacy Protection

Under Age 13. The VSG does not knowingly collect or retain personally identifiable information about persons under 13 years of age. Any person who provides their personal information to VSG via the Websites represents that they are 13 years of age or older. The Websites do not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifiable information online from children under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If we learn that a child under the age of 13 (or such legally required higher age) has submitted personally identifiable information online without parental consent, we will take all reasonable measures to delete such information from our databases and to not use such information for any purpose (except where necessary to protect the safety of the child or others as required or allowed by law). If you become aware of any personally identifiable information we have collected from children under 13, please contact us through our contact page at info@voterstudygroup.org.

Under Age 18. Minors under 18 years of age may have the PII that they have provided to us through the Websites deleted by contacting us at info@voterstudygroup.org and requesting deletion. Please note that, while we make reasonable efforts to comply with such requests, deletion of your personal information does not ensure complete and comprehensive removal of that data from all our systems and back-up systems.

Privacy Settings/Opt Out/Changes/Access

You have the right to request that your PII be removed from our database, changed or updated, and can do so by contacting us at info@voterstudygroup.org. If requested, we will promptly verify, amend, and/or delete your account and you will no longer receive emails from VSG. Your removal from the mailing list or database will not remove records of past transactions or delete information stored in our data backups and archives where we are required to keep your data for legitimate business reasons or to fulfill any legal requirements. Data on past transactions and data stored in backups and archives will be deleted in the normal course of our business. You have the right to access or, if required by applicable laws, receive a copy of your PII held by us by making a written request by sending an email to the contact link below.

In addition, you have the right to make a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority in your home country if you have concerns about VSG’s handling of your PII.

Referrals/Links

The Websites and materials available through the VSG’s Websites may contain links to other websites. The VSG is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those websites. Users should be aware of this when they leave our Websites, and review the privacy statements of each third-party website. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by the VSG’s Websites.

Security

The VSG understands that storing our data in a secure manner is essential. The VSG stores PII and other data using reasonable physical, technical and administrative safeguards to secure data against foreseeable risks, such as unauthorized use, access, disclosure, destruction or modification. Please note, however, that while VSG has endeavored to create a secure and reliable website for users, the confidentiality of any communication or material transmitted to/from the Websites or via e‑mail cannot be guaranteed.

Website Visitors from Outside the United States

The VSG and its servers are located in the United States and are subject to the applicable laws of the United States (where data privacy laws are less stringent than in the European Union and some other jurisdictions). Some of the recipients of PPI as specified above may be located in countries (including the United States) that do not provide a level of data protection equivalent to that set forth by the European Union and some other jurisdictions. The VSG will take appropriate steps to ensure that such recipients act in accordance with applicable law. To the extent that the VSG transfers PII to recipients which are located outside the European Union, VSG will implement appropriate contractual measures to secure such transfer, in compliance with applicable law. If you choose to access or use the services, you consent to the transfer, use and disclosure of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and subject to such applicable laws.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be revised from time to time as we add new features and services, as laws change, and as industry privacy and security best practices evolve. If we update the Privacy Policy, we will let you know about the changes we consider material by placing a note on the relevant web page you use to access the services or you may receive an email with notification of the updated Privacy Policy. By accessing or using the Websites or the services after we have placed such a notice, you consent to the new practice(s) identified in the update. The most current version of the Privacy Policy will always be available at info@voterstudygroup.org. You can check the "effective date" posted at the top to see when the Privacy Policy was last updated. Small changes or changes that do not significantly affect individual privacy interests may be made at any time and without prior notice.

Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about our handling of your information, please contact us at info@voterstudygroup.org.

Supplemental Privacy Notice for Job Applicants

This policy supplements the VSG’s Privacy Policy and describes how we collect, use, disclose, and retain additional personal data when you apply for a job or consultancy at VSG, and how you can access and control this additional data.

When you participate in the VSG’s job application process, we will ask you to provide personal data such as: your name, email address, mailing address, and telephone number; your resume/CV, and cover letter outlining your work experience, educational history, and skills.

Please do not send us any sensitive personal data such as government-issued ID numbers, financial information, photos, or dates of birth. We do not need or want that data in a resume.

We may receive personal data about you from other sources, your references, prior employers, a person or company/organization authorized by you to submit an application on your behalf, and/or publicly-available sources.

If VSG makes an offer of employment, we will ask you to authorize us to obtain a consumer report or consumer investigative report. If you choose not to provide this authorization upon request, we will not be able to offer you employment.

In order to comply with federal law, all persons hired by VSG will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire.

In addition, we will ask you to voluntarily provide information regarding your gender, veteran status, ethnicity, and disability status. This information, or your decision not to provide this information, will not impact your application in any way.

Use of Personal Information

In addition to the uses specified under the Privacy Policy, we may use personal data we collect in this context to: identify and contact applicants; evaluate applicants and make hiring decisions; match applicants to other career opportunities within VSG; prepare applicants for employment if a job has been offered and accepted; keep records related to our hiring practices; comply with applicable employment-related laws such as checking names against anti-terrorism lists, complying with immigration restrictions, or assisting the government in an investigation. If you are hired as a VSG employee, this information may be used for additional employment and business purposes subject to any internal privacy policies and notices.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We may share your personal data with service providers (including recruiters) that assist us with recruiting, application, and employment processes and our affiliates and other third parties with whom you might work if you are offered and accept the job.