Our Commitment to Privacy

HCDExchange is committed to protecting our visitors’ privacy. This policy describes how we collect, use, maintain, protect, and disclose the personal information we collect on HCDExchange.org, social media, newsletters, and any affiliated websites. Please read this policy carefully to understand our policy and practices regarding your personal information.

We last revised this policy on August 7, 2020.

Your consent

By accessing or using our websites, social media platforms, and newsletters, you agree to and understand this privacy policy.

Information collection

We may collect personally identifiable information, such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, or phone number when you provide it. In some instances, we may also collect other information such as your job title, gender, username, and password. We may receive information about how and when you use our sites and store it in log files. This information might include, for example, your IP address, time, date, browser used, and actions you have taken within the site. We may receive information about how you use our newsletters and other features you may subscribe to, such as whether you opened a message, what articles you viewed, and similar information.

We maintain a public blog on this website (News & Events). Any information you include in a comment on this site may be read, collected, and used by anyone. If your personal information appears on this website and you want it removed, contact us at community@hcdexchange.org . If we are unable to remove your information, we will tell you why.

Our website includes social media features, such as Facebook and Instagram buttons. These features may collect information about your IP address and which page you are visiting on our website, and they may set a cookie to make sure the feature functions properly.

We also maintain presences on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Your interactions with those features and platforms are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide them. Any information or material you submit to us via these or other social media platforms is done at your own risk without any expectation of privacy.

HCDExchange collects email addresses of people who communicate with us by email or apply for a job online. Email addresses are also collected when people fill out online forms, including contributing a resource, applying to be a member of the HCDExchange Community, or signing up to receive email updates. HCDExchange never sells, trades, or rents email addresses to other individuals or companies.

If you would like to view, update, or delete your personal information, please contact us at community@hcdexchange.org .

Information Use

The personal information we collect is used to provide the services or products that you have requested, to help improve our websites, and to manage and improve communications with you and all of our users. We also use the information we collect to respond to your requests.

Information Sharing

We may share personal information with companies, organizations, or individuals outside HCDExchange if we have a good-faith belief that sharing the information is necessary to:

  • Meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
  • Enforce applicable Terms of Use or other potential violation of contracts or rules, including investigation of potential violations.
  • Detect, prevent, investigate, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues.
  • Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of HCDExchange, our staff, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We may also share your personal information with organizations or individuals we contract with to help us provide our services and products. Before sharing your personal information with any organization or individual we contract with, we will require they protect your information in a manner consistent with this policy.

Other than the cases listed above, your personal information is never shared with outside organizations or individuals. HCDExchange staff have access to your personal information only as required to accomplish the purpose for which it was collected.

Cookies & web beacons

We use cookies to collect non-identifying information about you as a user, such as Web-surfing behavior or user preferences for a specific website. Cookies are small text files that are downloaded by a browser when a site is visited. Cookies are returned to an originating site and/or third-party site on subsequent visits. Cookies may serve several functions, including remembering user preferences, visited pages, time and dates, and other metrics. HCDExchange does not link information obtained through cookies to individual user’s personal information. You may disable use of cookies on this site through your browser settings. However, please be aware that disabling cookies may adversely affect the operation of some features of our sites.

We may also use small pieces of code called “web beacons” to collect such things as page views and email responses.

We use Google Analytics — a service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to allow us to see how you use our site. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to our sites is described by the Google Analytics Terms of Use available at https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html and the Google Privacy Policy available at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. We have no control over either of these Google policies, and they may change at any time.

You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to our sites by disabling cookies in your browser. Google also provides an “opt-out” tool (which must be installed in your browser) which will prevent your browser from making your site activity available to Google Analytics. The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on is available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. We are not responsible for this tool. If you choose to use it, you do so at your own risk.

Security

While the security of information transmitted over the Internet cannot be guaranteed, we use commercially reasonable physical, electronic, and procedural measures to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. These measures include—but are not limited to—encrypting transmissions of personal information to or from our websites using Secure Socket Layer technology.

External Links

Our websites contain links to other sites, but we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any site that you visit.

Children’s privacy

The HCDExchange’s website is not intended for children. Generally, we define this as anyone under 13. That said, we are a global community, and the age of consent in different countries varies from 10–18 years of age.

HCDExchange does not intentionally or knowingly collect any information from anyone under 13 or defined as a child by the laws in the jurisdiction where they reside. If you are a child, we will require the consent of your parent or guardian in order to collect your information and/or admit you as a member of the HCDExchange community. If we learn that we have collected or received a child’s personal information without parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child, please contact community@hcdexchange.org . Please view the child safeguarding and protection section of our Community Participation Guidelines.

Policy Changes

If we change this policy, we will post those changes here, on the homepage of our various sites, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

Contacting HCDExchange

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or HCDExchange digital practices contact us at community@hcdexchange.org.