Privacy Policy
Southeastern Guide Dogs
Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 14, 2008
Southeastern Guide Dogs respects the
privacy of our online visitors, donors, students, volunteers, and graduates. Our privacy policy is below. If you have any questions about this policy,
please contact us at info@guidedogs.org
or write us at Southeastern Guide Dogs,
Information we collect and how we use it
Email
addresses: We collect email addresses if shared with us
voluntarily, such as opting in as a subscriber to our e-newsletter. We will not share your email address with third
parties, other than those hired to help process this information on our behalf,
and you may opt out of receiving our correspondences at any time you
choose. We will provide a clear, easy-to-use
method for doing this in each issue of our newsletter.
Credit
Card Information: If you conduct a credit card transaction on
our website such as a donation or a purchase from our online gift shop, it will
be handled by PayPal and will therefore not be retained on our servers.
Donor
and Student Information:
We collect personal information from our donors and students, but their privacy
is very important to us. If you become a
Southeastern Guide Dogs donor or student, we will only share this information
with staff members and third parties involved in providing our services. We do not share donor and student information
with other organizations or interested parties or sell or rent our mailing
lists.
Other
information: There are times we may request personal
information such as your name, address, and phone number from you to process a
donation, fulfill a gift shop purchase or information request, or to process a
guide dog or volunteer application. This
information is generally requested in our online forms and donor areas. Because of types of services we offer, some
of the information we request from our students is of a sensitive nature,
including medical information.
To tell us in writing that you do not
wish for us to use information we have collected for following up with you,
please write to: Webmaster, Southeastern Guide Dogs,
Cookies - When you visit our website, we send a
small file, or cookie, to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser.
We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user
preferences and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Most browsers
are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to
refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. Some of our
website features may not work if your cookies are disabled.
Log
information – When you
visit our website, we will track certain user information only to understand
how our website is being used and how to improve it.
User
communications - When
you send us email or other communications we may retain those communications in
order to process your requests, respond to you, and improve our services.
Links - This privacy policy applies only to
the Southeastern Guide Dogs website. If you visit links provided on our
website, please note that each site you link to will offer its own privacy
policy and that we are not responsible for the content and privacy policies of
any website but our own. Sites you link
to from our website may place their own cookies or other files on your
computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.
Southeastern Guide Dogs only processes
personal information for the purposes described in our privacy policy. In
addition to the above, such purposes include:
- Providing our services and products to users
- Collecting user statistics to improve our services and
offerings
- Ensuring the technical functioning of our website
Choices
for personal information
When we request personal information from
you, we will ask you for your consent if we use this information in a manner different
from the original purpose for which it was collected.
If we propose to use personal information
for any purposes other than those described in this policy, we will offer you
an effective way to opt out of the use of personal information for those other
purposes. Applicants for our guide dogs
may be asked for sensitive information, such as medical information, to be used
only for admissions purposes and to help serve our students’ needs. We will not use this information for any
other reason, unless we have obtained your prior consent.
You can decline to submit personal
information, but with the understanding that we may not be able to provide you
with specific services that require this information.
Third Party Information Sharing
We will only share personal information
with other companies or individuals outside of Southeastern Guide Dogs for the
following reasons:
We may provide such information to a
trusted third party for the purpose of processing personal information on our
behalf or to provide for the medical well being of our students. We require
that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions
and in compliance with this policy and any other appropriate confidentiality
and security measures.
We may share with third parties certain
pieces of aggregated, non personal information, such as how many of our
visitors clicked on a particular link. Such information does not identify you
individually.
Please contact us at the address below
for any additional questions about how we use personal information.
Judicial Disclosure
Please note that personally identifiable
information gathered on our website can be disclosed to judicial or other
government agencies subject to warrants, subpoenas, and other governmental orders.
Information
security
We restrict access to personal
information to Southeastern Guide Dogs employees, contractors and agents, who
need such information in order to serve you.
These individuals are bound by confidentiality as per the Southeastern Guide
Dogs Code of Ethics.
Accessing
and updating personal information
If you need to update your personal
information, please contact us at info@guidedogs.org
and provide us with information required to verify your identity.
Changes
to this policy
Please note that our privacy policy is
subject to change. We will use this page
to notify you of any policy changes, or changes in the use of our users’
personally identifiable information. If the changes are significant, we will provide
a more prominent notice. If you have any
additional questions or concerns about this policy, please contact us at info@guidedogs.org or write to: Webmaster,
Southeastern Guide Dogs,
