This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, share, and transfer your personal data when you use the services provided on our sites and our apps or interact with us. This privacy policy also explains your data privacy rights for subscriptions and contributions.

“Personal data” is defined as any information about you by which you can be identified or be identifiable. This can include information such as:

• your name, date of birth, gender, email address, postal address, phone number, mobile number or financial details, such as payment cards you use to purchase products or support our reporting;

• information about your device (such as your IP address, which is a numerical code to identify your device that can provide information about the country, region or city where you are based);

• information relating to how you use and interact with our sites and services.

Sometimes our site may contain links to sites and services that are not part of our offerings. These sites and services might have their own privacy policies. If you follow links to such non-Boxford Town Democratic Committee sites, you should read their respective privacy policies.

Who we are and how to contact us

Boxford Town Democratic Committee, P.O. Box 234, Boxford, MA 01921 is the data controller in respect of the personal data that you share with us. This means that we are responsible for deciding how and why we hold and use your personal data. If you want to contact us directly, you can contact us at mail@boxforddems.org.

Types of personal data we collect about you

We collect your personal data when you visit our site, contribute to Boxford Town Democratic Committee or when you interact with us. We will only collect your personal data in line with applicable laws and in the following ways:

• directly from you, e.g., when you sign up for our services, purchase any products or services we might offer at some point in the future, and when you browse our site;

• personal data we generate about you, e.g., personal data we use to authenticate you, or personal data in the form of your IP address or your preferences; and

• personal data we collect from third parties, such as Disqus (our comment facilitator), e.g., personal data that helps us to combat fraud or which we collect, with your permission, when you interact with your social media accounts.

More details about these three categories of personal data are provided below.

Personal data we generate about you

When you sign up for an email subscription, we assign you a unique ID number. This allows us to manage your preferences, e.g., any newsletters to which you subscribe.

When you use our site we might also use cookies or similar technology to collect extra data, including:

• your IP address - a numerical code to identify your device, together with the country, region or city where you are based

• your geolocation data - your IP address can be used to find information about the latitude, longitude, altitude of your device, its direction of travel, your GPS data and data about connection with local Wi-Fi equipment

• information on how you interact with our services

• your browsing history of the content you have visited on our sites, including how you were referred to our sites via other websites

• details of your computer, mobile, TV, tablet or other devices, for example, the unique device ID, unique vendor or advertising ID and browsers used to access our content

We will not collect special categories of data from you - such as personal data concerning your race, political opinions, religion, health or sexual orientation - unless you have chosen to provide that type of personal data to us (e.g., by commenting on articles).

Personal data when you post comments about Boxford Town Democratic Committee on other social media sites

If you have mentioned Boxford Town Democratic Committee in posts on social media sites, then we may collect your social media handles. For example, when you mention Boxford Town Democratic Committee in a tweet, we may collect your Twitter handle.

When you post (comments) publicly on our sites

When you comment publicly on an article on our site, the personal data you post, including your username and any other information about yourself, will be publicly accessible. This personal data can be viewed online and collected by other people. We are not responsible for the way these other people use this personal data. When contributing to a discussion, we strongly recommend you avoid sharing any personal details, including information that can be used to identify you directly such as your name, age, address and name of employer. We are not responsible for the privacy of any identifiable information that you choose to post in our online community or other public pages of the site.

How we collect personal data

We collect personal data when you:

• become a supporter;

• make contributions to fund and support the Boxford Town Democratic Committee;

• enter any surveys we may offer in the future;

• post in our online community;

• through cookies and other similar technologies;

• when you contact us via email, social media, or similar technologies or when you mention us on social media; and

• provide us with feedback.

How we use your personal data

We use personal data collected through our site only when we have a valid reason and the legal grounds to do so. We determine the legal grounds based on the purposes for which we have collected your personal data.

Legal grounds for using your personal data

Legal grounds may include:

Consent: Often we will use your personal data because we have asked for your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. Examples of where we ask for your consent include:

• to send marketing emails to you, when we have asked your permission. You can withdraw your consent to receiving these emails at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email or through your email preferences.

• to place non-essential cookies, or other similar technology. We provide more details of how we use cookies in our cookie policy. In particular we use cookies to enable the display of advertising through Google Ad Manager and to collect analytics on how our site is used, including through Google Analytics. You can withdraw your consent to us placing these cookies at any time through our Privacy settings link on our sites in the footer of every page.

• to place non-essential cookies that allow us to personalize the advertising that you see.

• to analyze your registration data and data collected from cookies to personalize advertising. We do this by analyzing your data to predict what you might be interested in. We will also compare your registration data with trusted partners.

Compliance with law: In some cases, we may have a legal obligation to use or keep your personal data.

Our legitimate interests: We may process your personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate interests in a way that might be expected as part of running Boxford Town Democratic Committee and in a way which does not materially impact your rights and freedoms. For example, it is in our legitimate interests for us to understand our readers, promote our services, events, and operate our site efficiently for the creation, publication and distribution of news or other content online.

Adding to or combining the personal data you provide to us

When you sign up to our services, we may add to the personal data you give us by combining it with other personal data shared with us by other trusted organizations. This includes, for example, the region that you are located in, so that we can show you the prices for subscriptions or other products in your local currency. We may also add personal data to improve the accuracy of your delivery address when we send out mail. We may also obtain your personal data from partners whose offers we include in some of our marketing communications, and we use this personal data to ensure that we do not send you irrelevant marketing and to ensure the accuracy of the information we hold.

We also use personal data based on the content you have viewed on our site and your interaction with the content to add you to groups with similar interests and preferences, so that we can make our online advertising more relevant. Sometimes we use data about your interests or demographics that some of our global third parties have collected from you online to add you to these groups. Please refer to our cookie policy for more information on how we use cookies.

Children’s personal data

We do not aim any of our products or services directly at children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal data about children under 13 in providing our services. Some of our services may have a higher age restriction and this will be shown at the point of registration.

Security of your personal data

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational controls to protect your personal data against unauthorized processing and against accidental loss, damage, or destruction. You are responsible for choosing a secure password when we ask you to set up a password to access parts of our sites or apps. You should keep this password confidential, and you should choose a password that you do not use on any other site. You should not share your password with anyone else, including anyone who works for us. Unfortunately, sending any information, including personal data, via the internet is not completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of any personal data sent to our site while still in transit and so you provide it at your own risk.

When we share your personal data

Agencies and authorities if required by law - We may reveal your personal data to any law enforcement agency, court, regulator, government authority, or in connection with any legal action if we are required to do so to meet a legal or regulatory obligation, where the request is proportionate, or otherwise to protect our rights or the rights of anyone else (for example, in response to a valid and properly served legal process such as subpoena or warrant). If we have your contact details, we will take reasonable steps to attempt to notify you prior to disclosing your data unless (i) prohibited by applicable law from doing so, or (ii) there are clear indications of unlawful conduct in connection with your use of our services.

Social media organizations - We may share your personal data with other organizations when our web pages use social plug-ins from these organizations (such as the “Facebook Recommend” function, Twitter’s retweet function, Google+ function). These other organizations may receive and use personal data about your visit to our sites or apps. If you browse our site or view content on our apps, personal data they collect may be connected to your account on their site. For more information on how these organizations use personal data, please read their privacy policies.

When we share your personal data, as specified above, with any organisation which accesses your data in the course of providing services on our behalf, they will be governed by strict contractual restrictions to make sure that they protect your data and comply with applicable law. We may also independently audit these service providers to make sure that they meet our standards.

How long we keep your personal data

We keep your personal data for only as long as we need to. How long we need your personal data depends on what we are using it for, as set out in this privacy policy. For example, we may need to use it to answer your queries about a product or service and as a result may keep personal data while you are still using our product or services. We may also need to keep your personal data for accounting purposes, for example, where you have bought a subscription. If we no longer need your data, we will delete it or make it anonymous by removing all details that identify you. If we have asked for your permission to process your personal data and we have no other lawful grounds to continue with that processing, and you withdraw your permission, we will delete your personal data. However, when you unsubscribe from marketing communications, we will keep your email address to ensure that we do not send you any marketing in future.

How we may contact you

If we have your permission or you have not opted out, we may send you materials we think may interest you, such as new Boxford Town Democratic Committee offers and updates. Depending on your marketing preferences, this may be by email or regular mail.

Responding to your queries or complaints

If you have raised a query or a complaint with us, we may contact you to answer your query or to resolve your complaint.

Cookies and similar technologies

When you visit our sites or when you use our apps, we may collect personal data from you automatically using cookies or similar technologies.

This privacy policy includes our cookie policy, where you can find more information about our use of cookies.

Personal information we collect and use

When we refer to “personal data” throughout this policy, we are also referencing “personal information,” as it is defined under Australian law, which you can read about here.

Details about the personal information that we collect, use and disclose is set out throughout this privacy policy. You can navigate these relevant sections by going to the contents section at the top of the page.

Changes to this privacy policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, the updated privacy policy will be posted on this page. If the changes are significant, we may also choose to email all our registered users with the new details. If required by law, we will get your permission or give you the opportunity to opt out of any new uses of your data.

Last updated on June 6, 2024.