Effective Date: December 30, 2019

The Reveal website located at revealnews.org is operated by the nonprofit The Center for Investigative Reporting (“CIR,” “we,” “us,” and “our”), which also publishes the Reveal podcast and other news programming (our “Services”). We wrote this statement (the “Privacy Policy”) to explain how we handle your information on the Services and by using the Services, you accept and agree to this Privacy Policy.

Protecting your personal information is very important to us.  We do not collect, use or share your personal information except as set forth in this Privacy Policy.  Upon request, we provide our users, with access to any personal information that we maintain about them. Users may correct this information or have themselves removed from any list of users or subscribers that we may share with others by contacting us by postal mail at our Emeryville office or by email. (For more information on contacting us, please see below.)

SITE USAGE AND OTHER INFORMATION WE COLLECT
HOW WE USE INFORMATION
WHEN WE SHARE INFORMATION
THIRD PARTIES
YOUR CHOICES
HOW WE SECURE INFORMATION
INTERNATIONAL USERS
CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

  • SITE USAGE AND OTHER INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Information you provide directly to us.  For certain activities, such as when you subscribe to our newsletter, respond to surveys, submit a donation, or engage with interactive features on the Services, we may ask you to provide some of the following types of information, including contact information (e.g., name, email address, telephone number, and address); demographic information (e.g., age, city, state, zip code, and similar survey data); and payment information, (e.g., where needed to complete a transaction).

Basic Usage Information. We collect certain information automatically when you use our Services, including your IP address, Internet protocol (IP) address, user settings, MAC address, cookie identifiers, details about your browser, operating system or device, pages that you visit before, during and after using the Services, information about the links you click, and other information about how you use the Services.  CIR also collects information about listener interactions with CIR podcasts and other media files. 

Cookies. The Services use cookies. (A cookie is a small amount of data—sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive—that may be accessed when you use a website.) Cookies are used primarily as follows: (1) to store information so that you will not have to reenter it during your visit or the next time you visit the Site; (2) to track usage throughout the Site (e.g., tracking where traffic comes from, how traffic flows within the Site, etc.); (3) to monitor aggregate metrics, such as the total number of visitors, pages viewed, etc. Most web browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, certain features of the Site may not work if you delete or disable cookies.

Information from Other Sources. We may obtain information about you from other sources, including through third party services and organizations to supplement information provided by you.  For example, if you access our Services through a third-party application, such as an app store, a third-party login service, or a social networking site, we may collect information about you from that third-party application that you have made public via your privacy settings.  Information we collect through these services may include your name, your user identification number, your user name, location, gender, birth date, email, profile picture, and your contacts stored in that service. This supplemental information allows us to verify information that you have provided to us and to enhance our ability to provide you with information about our business, products, and Services.

Analytics.  We may use Google Analytics and other service providers to collect information regarding visitor behavior and visitor demographics on our Services.  For more information about Google Analytics, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.  You can opt out of Google’s collection and processing of data generated by your use of the Services by going to http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Comments you post on our site. The Services may allow you to submit and post comments on our Site (collectively “Comments”). User Comments that you submit, including any personal information you submit, becomes publicly available and can be seen, collected, and used by others.

  • HOW WE USE INFORMATION

General.  We use the information we collect from you to, provide, improve and develop our content and Services; send newsletters, news updates, personalized content, opportunities to support CIR, and other information you might be interested in; analyze the use of our Services and user data to understand and improve our Services; detect security incidents, prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities and act otherwise in accordance with our Terms of Use; and for any other purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your information.

Use De-identified and Aggregated Information.  We may use personal information and other data about you to create de-identified and aggregated information, such as de-identified demographic information, de-identified location information, information about the computer or device from which you access our Services, or other analyses we create.

  • WHEN WE SHARE INFORMATION

We do not share, disclose or sell information except as set forth in this Policy.  We want you to understand when and with whom we may share the information we collect:

  • Authorized third-party vendors and service providers.  We share your information with third-party vendors and service providers that help us with specialized services, including email deployment, processing and fulfillment of credit card transactions, collection and processing of survey responses, and website analytics and data processing. 
  • Partners.  We may share your information with partner news organizations. For example, we may share your information with local public radio stations when you respond to our surveys in order to assist with our news gathering.  
  • Marketing and Advertising Our Services.  We may disclose email addresses and information regarding your activities and your device (e.g., your IP address, mobile identifiers, page(s) visited, location, time of day) to third parties to deliver targeted advertisements to you about our Services.  If you prefer not to share your personal information with third party advertising partners, you may follow the instructions in the Cookies and Similar Technologies section below.
  • Business transfers.  We may share your information in connection with a substantial corporate transaction, such as an acquisition, a merger, consolidation, asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy. 
  • Legal purposes.  If we believe it is reasonably necessary, we may read, preserve, and disclose your information to comply with the law, including to respond to law enforcement; to protect and defend ourselves (including enforcing our Terms of Use) or others; and to stop any activity that we consider illegal, unethical, or legally actionable. If we receive a subpoena, warrant, discovery order or other request or order from a law enforcement agency, court, other governmental entity, or litigant that seeks data relating to the Services, we will make reasonable attempts to direct the requesting party to seek the data directly from you. Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal defenses or objections that you may have to a third party’s including a government’s, request to disclose your information.   

With your consent.  We may share information for any other purposes to which you consent.

  • THIRD PARTIES

Some of our Services may contain links to content maintained by third parties that we do not control. We may allow third parties to place and read their own cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect information automatically through our Services.  If you access third-party services, such as Facebook, Google, or Twitter, through the Services—e.g., to share a story—these third-party services may be able to collect information about you, including information about your activity on the Services.  We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties, and we recommend that you visit the privacy policies of each website that you visit.  

  • YOUR CHOICES

Emails.  We may periodically contact you with offers and information about our Services or our affiliates, including in connection with your accounts, online surveys, legal notices, news stories, and other important information.  You may opt out of receiving commercial email messages from us by following the instructions contained in those email messages.

Cookies and Similar Technologies.  You may be able to refuse or disable cookies by adjusting your web browser settings.  Because each web browser is different, please consult the instructions provided by your web browser (typically in the “help” section).  If you choose to refuse, disable, or delete these technologies, some of our Services’ functionality may no longer be available to you.

Do-Not-Track.  Our Services do not recognize or respond to “Do Not Track” signals.

  • HOW WE SECURE INFORMATION

We use reasonable measures to help protect information that we possess.  You should understand that no data storage system or transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be 100 percent secure and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you provide to us.  To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we do not accept liability for unintentional disclosure.

Please note that information collected by third parties may not have the same security protections as information you submit to us, and we are not responsible for protecting the security of such information.

By using the Services or providing personal information to us, you agree that we may communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy, and administrative issues relating to your use of the Services.  If we learn of a security system’s breach, we may attempt to notify you electronically by posting a notice on the Services, by mail or by sending an e-mail to you.

  • INTERNATIONAL USERS

Our Services are designed for and targeted to United States audiences and are governed by and operated in accordance with United States law, which may not be equivalent to the laws in your country of residence.  We make no representation that our Services are operated in accordance with the laws or regulations of any other nations.  By using our Services and providing us with information, you understand and agree that your information may be transferred to and stored on servers located outside your resident jurisdiction and, to the extent you are a resident of a country other than the United States, that you consent to the transfer of such data to the United States for processing by us in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

  • CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Protecting the privacy of young children is important to us.  The Services are not directed to children under 13 (or other age as required by local law), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.  If you learn that your child has provided us with personal information without your consent, you may contact us as set forth below.  If we learn that we have collected any personal information in violation of applicable law, we will promptly take steps to delete such information and terminate the child’s account.

  • CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.  When we update the Privacy Policy, we will revise the “Effective Date” date above and post the new Privacy Policy.  We recommend that you review the Privacy Policy each time you visit the Services to stay informed of our privacy practices.  You understand and agree that you will be deemed to have accepted the updated Privacy Policy if you continue to use the Services after the new Privacy Policy takes effect.

  • STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our practices, or you wish to submit a request to exercise your rights as detailed in this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

The Center for Investigative Reporting
1400 65th Street
Suite 200
Emeryville, CA  94608
privacy@revealnews.org