Privacy policy

Campaign Verify Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 30, 2024

Introduction

Campaign Verify, Inc. (“CV”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is a non-partisan, non-profit service for U.S. political campaigns, parties, and PACs to verify their identity. We operate the website located at https://www.campaignverify.org/  (the “Site”) and provide verification services for U.S. political campaigns, parties and PACs (collectively with the Site, the “Services”). This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains what Personal Information CV may collect about you and how we may use and share that information. “Personal Information” means data relating to you from which you can be reasonably identified, such as your name, email address and telephone number.

By accessing or using the Site or the Services or by otherwise providing Personal Information to CV (including through your registration), you agree to CV’s collection, use, processing, retention, transferring and sharing of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.  This Privacy Policy is incorporated into CV’s Terms of Use agreement, which is binding on all users of the Site and Services, and governs your use of the Site and Services. When you visit the Site or use the Services and agree to the Terms, you acknowledge that you have read this Privacy Policy and understand and agree with its contents.

1. 1. What Personal Information Do We Collect and How Do We Collect Personal Information?

We may collect the following Personal Information when you visit or use the Site or the Services.

A. Personal Information that You Provide to Us

CV collects Personal Information that is voluntarily provided by you. This may happen as described below.

• Register on the Site. You provide us with Personal Information when you register on the Site to become verified. Such information may include, but not limited to, your name, organization affiliation, organization type,  organization address, telephone number, and email address.
• Create an account.  To register on the Site to become verified, you must create an account, which requires you to provide your email address, password, first name and last name.
• Pay Verification Fees. You may be required to pay a verification fee. If an online payment from you is required to use our Services, we process the credit/debit card transaction through secure, third-party service providers; however, we do not retain any payment card information except a transaction authorization number, the last four digits and expiration date.
• Contact Us.  You may provide us with Personal Information when you contact us directly with your inquiries or comments. This may include your name, email address, and telephone number.

B. Information Automatically Collected by CV

If you visit the Site or use the Services, CV may automatically collect certain Personal Information about you or regarding your computer or device, such as:

• device type;
• IP address;
• browser type and version;
• geographic data;
• demographic data; and
• the pages you visit on the Site.

This information may be collected automatically through the use of cookies or log files. This automatic data is used for Site administration, statistical analysis, to monitor the use or performance of the Site, and to ensure that the content from the Site is presented in the most effective manner for our visitors. For more information on how we use cookies, see below.

C. Third Party Information

We may receive limited information about you, your organization, or a campaign from other sources and combine that information with information we collect directly from you.  For example, we may receive personal information for verification-related purposes. Personal Information is stored in our third-party service provider’s platforms or systems, and this data may be enriched or updated to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date to achieve the purpose for which it was collected.

D. Inferred Data

We may use the data that we have collected – directly from you, received from others, and automatically – to combine, compile, and infer new information about you. We and our service providers may infer the following categories of data: contact information, identity verification and demographic information, and financial information. Please note that some state privacy laws afford residents the right to opt-out of profiling or automated decision-making that have legal or similarly significant impacts; CV does not conduct these activities.

2. 2. How Do We Use Personal Information?

We may use your Personal Information for one or more of the following purposes:

• to administer and provide the Site and the Services;
• to verify your identity and manage your account; to process payments for verifications;
• to contact you, including in relation to the Services, token expiration, new or improved features and in response to your inquiries or comments;
• for the specific purpose for which your Personal Information was volunteered, including to provide verification services or to request information from us;
• to manage our business, including performing accounting, auditing, and other internal functions;
• to comply with applicable laws and regulatory requirements, or as requested by government or regulatory authorities;
• in connection with pending litigation;
• to detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecute those responsible for that activity;
• to protect and defend the rights or property of CV;
• in connection with a merger, divestiture, acquisition, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Information held by us is among the assets transferred;

• to protect and defend the rights or property of CV or its users;

• to improve the Site and the Services, including to debug, identify and repair errors in the Site and the Services and to help CV understand how users are using the Services;

• for further purposes disclosed to you at the time you provide Personal Information to us; and
• for tracking and analytics purposes described in the “Third Party Analytics Providers; Google Analytics” section below.

3. 3. How Do We Share Personal Information?

We may share your Personal Information with the following third parties:

• with our vendors and service providers who are providing services on our behalf, such as to fulfill our Services, Site operations and security;
• when we have obtained your consent to disclose Personal Information; and
• as permitted or required by law or for our legitimate business purposes, including: (a) to comply with a law, legal process or regulations; (b) responding to or cooperating with law enforcement authorities, other government officials or other third parties pursuant to a subpoena, a court order or other legal process; (c) to protect the vital interests of a person; (d) to protect our property, services and legal rights; (e) to companies we plan to merge with or be acquired by; and (f) to support our audit, compliance and governance functions. In any such disclosure of information, your Personal Information would remain subject to this Privacy Policy.

Please note that we may also use or disclose information about you that does not identify you personally. For example, we may conduct research or publish reports that contain de-identified, aggregated and statistical data. These reports use de-identified data and do not contain information that would enable the recipient to contact, locate, or identify you.

4. Safeguarding your Information

We use physical, technical, organizational, and administrative safeguards for the Services designed to protect against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of the information we collect. Our security controls are designed to maintain data confidentiality, integrity, and an appropriate level of availability.

While CV cares about the security of your Personal Information, you must remember that the Internet is a global communications vehicle open to threats, viruses, and intrusions from others. For this reason, CV cannot promise, and you should not expect, that we will be able to protect your Personal Information at all times and in all circumstances. CV cannot guarantee the security and privacy of transmissions via the Internet, and we will not be liable for any lack of security relating to the Site or the use of the Services by you. For example, messages that you send us by email may not be secure, and use of email is not recommended for sending us any confidential or sensitive information. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, CV shall not be liable for any damages resulting from any loss of privacy or security occurring in connection with any such communications.  Please do not send CV your social security number.  Only EINs are required for the Services.

You are responsible for notifying us immediately of any known or suspected unauthorized use(s) of your token(s), or any known or suspected breach of security, including loss, theft or unauthorized disclosure of your account login information, or any other Personal Information. Any fraudulent, abusive, or otherwise illegal activity of your tokens may be reported to appropriate law enforcement agencies by us.  In the event of a confirmed security incident that involves Services user’s Personal Information, we will notify you, the respective regulator, law enforcement, and/or individuals of such incident as required by applicable law or where CV deems appropriate.

5. When you visit our Site, we may send a cookie or similar technologies such as clear gifs and single-pixel gifs (“cookie”) to your computer. A cookie is a text file which is stored on your computer or other device and allows us to distinguish you from other users of the enrollment site.
6. 5. DNTs and Similar Technologies.
7. When you visit our Site, we may send a cookie or similar technologies such as clear gifs and single-pixel gifs (“cookie”) to your computer. A cookie is a text file which is stored on your computer or other device and allows us to distinguish you from other users of the enrollment site.

Cookies we may use include:

Strictly Necessary – Some cookies are essential to enable you to move around our websites and use their features, such as accessing secure areas of the website via a personal log in. Strictly Necessary cookies are also used to manage technical processes like server load balancing, caching, and security; to anonymize user sessions; and to store your cookie preferences so that we can honor them. Without these cookies, we cannot enable appropriate content based on your permission level.

Functional/Performance – These cookies are used to enhance the performance and functionality of our Site and Services but are non-essential to their use. Functional and performance cookies store data for essential website services such as account creation, online learning modules, and media players. They may also be used to customize the user interface, and to store settings, and other user-based preferences. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services are used on our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Analytics – These cookies and other technologies allow us to understand how you interact with the Site. Analytics cookies enable us to support and improve how the Site operates.

We work with third party analytics service providers, including but not limited to Google Analytics, to help us better understand how our users use the Site and Services. We use Google Analytics to learn more about the types of users that visit the Site and to help improve the Site and Services. Google Analytics provides us with certain data regarding the demographics of the users that visit the Site and their activities on the Site and Services. To provide this service, Google Analytics may collect certain information about you from your computer, including but not limited to: information regarding your visit (such as the pages you visit and the length of your visit), information about your device (such as your IP address), how you got to the website, and other information about you. You can learn more about Google Analytics and how it collects and processes data (including how to control the information sent to Google) by visiting: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

You can opt-out of Google Analytics by using the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

Social Media – We provide a social media button on our Site that links to the social media page for CV. This social media site is not owned or operated by CV.  If you click on the social media button, you will be taken to our page and a cookie may be set by the social media service to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. It is your choice whether to log-in to your social media account. This social media site is governed by their own privacy and related policies. Please read this to understand how the social media provider may use your information.

Vimeo –CV may embed videos on the Site using Vimeo.  Vimeo may drop a cookie on users when viewing a video. To control your privacy settings in Vimeo, please see Vimeo’s Privacy Policy. It is your choice whether to log-in to your Vimeo account. Vimeo is governed by its own privacy and related policies. Please read them to understand how they may use your information.

Other Ways to Manage Cookies:

To manage cookies, you can also instruct your browser to refuse all non-essential cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. The Help feature on most browsers provide information on how to accept cookies, disable cookies, or to notify you when receiving a new cookie. Please note, however, that many of the cookies we use are “strictly necessary” cookies. By blocking or deleting them, you will not be able to access certain features of the Site.

Do Not Track Disclosure

CV doesn’t sell personal information or target advertisements to users across the Web or include any advertising on the Site. As a result, we do not honor opt-out signals for these types of activities.  Also, certain web browsers may provide an option by which you may ask your browser to inform websites you visit that you do not wish your activities to be tracked by cookies or other persistent identifiers, commonly called “Do Not Track Signals.” The Site does not respond to automatic Do Not Track Signals.

6. How We Provide Links to Additional Services and other Websites.

Our Site may contain links to sites operated by third parties (“Third-Party Sites”). Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy do not apply to information gathered through these Third-Party Sites. CV does not endorse, review, or have any control over the content, products, or services of linked websites or their privacy policies, and CV is not responsible for the privacy practices of unaffiliated companies or organizations, and once you leave the Site, you should read the applicable privacy policy of the other organizations. If you decide to access any of the linked websites, you do so at your own risk.

7. Information About Your Choices and Rights.

We also respect your privacy rights related to your Personal Information under applicable laws. Depending on where you reside, and subject to certain legal limitations, you may have some or all of the following rights: (1) to be informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information; (2) to know if we maintain your Personal Information, and, if we do, to access this information, and if feasible receive a copy (subject to the rights of others) and to update it if it is inaccurate or out of date; (3) to object to our processing of your Personal Information, and, if we are processing your Personal Information based on your consent, to opt out of that marketing or processing of sensitive personal information (if any is processed) at any time; (4) to ask us to delete or restrict your Personal Information; and (5) to not be subjected to  any discriminatory treatment for the exercise of your privacy rights. We do not sell your Personal Information or target ads to users.

By contacting us as described below you, or your authorized representative, can send us your requests related to your Personal Information. We may require that you (or your authorized representative) verify your identity before exercising your individual rights. Additionally, please note that these rights are not absolute, for example, your deletion request does no tensure complete deletion or comprehensive removal, as the content or information may be retained subject to applicable law or where we have a legitimate interest to retain the information. If we deny your request, you may appeal our decision within a reasonable period after we have notified you by contacting us at info@campaignverify.org . We will review your appeal request and provide a written explanation for our response in compliance with applicable legal requirements.  

Shine the Light Law:  CV does not share information that identifies you personally with non-affiliated third parties for their own marketing use.

8. Can children use the Services?

The Services are not directed to anyone under the age of 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from individuals under 18 years of age or others who are not legally able to use the Services. If you believe we have mistakenly or unintentionally collected information from someone under the age of 18, please contact us as noted below and we will take steps to promptly remove it.

9. Contact Us

For questions regarding this Privacy Policy, or to update or change any of the Personal Information that you have provided to CV, please contact us at:

By Postal Mail:

‍Campaign Verify

1215 31st Street NW

PO Box 3554

Washington, DC

20007-9998

By E-mail: support@campaignverify.org

8. 10. Updates to Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy. If we do, we will note near the top of this page the date that any changes are made and when they become effective. Your continued use of the Site or the Services following the effective date of a change to this Privacy Policy signifies your acceptance of and agreement to the terms of the revised Privacy Policy. CV encourages you to regularly review this Privacy Policy so that you remain updated as to any changes.