Privacy Policy

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has established this privacy policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and confidentiality. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices that apply to www.lawyerscommittee.org. Note that this site may contain links to other sites. The Lawyers’ Committee is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.

General Inforation Collection and Use

The Lawyers’ Committee is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. We collect information from our users at several different points on our Web site.

LOG Files

We do not store IP addresses. However, we do track IP addresses, geolocation, returning/unique visitors, and browser use as they come in.

Cookies

Our site uses 'cookies'. A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. Usage of a cookie enables us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site, but is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. If a user rejects the cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user may be limited in some areas of our site (for example, certain surveys or other such activities).

Various Registration

In order to receive certain updates or use certain features of our Web site, a user may have to first complete a registration form. During registration a user is required to give their contact information (such as name and e-mail address). This information is used to contact the user about the services on our site for which they have expressed interest. If asked for, it is optional for a user to provide demographic information (such as income level and gender), and unique identifiers, but encouraged so we can provide a more personalized experience on our site and our e-mail communications with respect to content and personal topics of interest.

Newsletter

If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name and email address.

Surveys and Petitions

Our online surveys ask visitors for contact information (like their e-mail or mailing address). We use contact data from our surveys to send the user information about the Lawyers’ Committee and its activities. Users may opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the choice/opt-out section below. Other data collected by online surveys is used to educate the Lawyers’ Committee about the interests and concerns of its supporters and general site visitors concerning the Lawyers’ Committee’s mission. This information is not shared with other organizations. The Lawyers’ Committee may operate e-mail discussions, and utilize contact lists to reach its members who request such information. Such services may be run both by the Lawyers’ Committee and contracted vendors. These e-mail addresses whether housed on the Lawyers’ Committee’s servers or those of a third-party contractor are never shared with any other organization and users may opt out of participating or receiving e-mail information from the Lawyers’ Committee at any time. Instructions are contained within each e-mail sent as well as on the help page of our Web site.

Sharing

We may partner with third parties to provide specific services such as processing donations and credit card payments, or mailing newsletters. When a user signs up for these services, we will share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services.

These parties are contractually prohibited from using personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services. Additionally, the Lawyers’ Committee will not trade, share, or sell a donor’s personal information to third-party organizations for the purposes of selling ads, nor any commercial vendors. Nor will we send donor mailings on behalf any other organization.

Sharing with Friends

If a user elects to use our electronic mail referral service to inform a friend about our site, we collect the friend's name and e-mail address. The Lawyers’ Committee will automatically send the friend the e-mail and an invitation them to visit the site. The Lawyers’ Committee stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this introductory e-mail. The friend may write to the Lawyers’ Committee through our Contact Us form to request the removal of this information from our database.

Security

Our Web site has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. This includes a firewall and 24 hour monitoring of site activities by our hosting service provider as well as 256-bit SSL encryption (where allowable by law) on all transaction oriented operations between you and the Lawyers’ Committee via our transaction service provider, as well as DDoS mitigation and IP address masking via a third-party security service.

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk, a customer service representative, or database administrator) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Every quarter, as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they are required to do to ensure our customers ' information is protected. Finally, the servers that we use to store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment.

Donor Information

The Lawyers’ Committee processes its donations through a third party service. This relationship is 100% confidential and secure. After a completed donation is accepted by the third party's server and authorized, credit card information is destroyed and a finalized report is sent through to the Lawyers’ Committee. No information regarding the credit card other than to diagnose problems with the transaction server is retained by the third party.

The donor’s name, address, phone number, and email address – if provided – are stored in a database on the third party’s servers. This information is used by the Lawyers’ Committee only, and the third-party does not have any access to this data. They do not resell, retransmit, or retain any information about transactions or personal contact information for donors it processes on behalf of the Lawyers’ Committee.

Additionally, no employee at the Lawyers’ Committee has access to this data, except those employees with a specific job need (ie, donation processors or database administrator). The Lawyers’ Committee will not trade, share, or sell a donor’s personal information to third-party organizations for the purposes of selling ads, nor any commercial vendors. Nor will we send donor mailings on behalf any other organization.

Links to Other Sites

Occasionally, the Lawyers’ Committee Web site may include links to other Web sites. The Lawyers’ Committee is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

Correction/Updating Personal Information

If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your zip code), or if a user no longer desires our service, we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove that user's personal data provided to us. This can usually be done at the member information page or by writing to us through our Contact Us form.

Choice/Opt-Out Online & Offline

Our Web site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us and our partners at the point where we request information about the visitor. The following options are available for removing information from our database to discontinue receiving future communications or our service.

1. You can unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences online by following the link at the bottom of any e-mail you receive from the Lawyers’ Committee.
2. You can notify us offline of your desire to be removed from our e-mail list or contributor mailing list, or by contacting dsullivan@LawyersCommittee.org or at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 1500 K Street, NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20005.

Contacting the Web Site

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of our Web site or your dealings with the Web site, you can contact us at dsullivan@lawyerscommittee.org.

Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes here so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and the circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an e-mail.