PRIVACY POLICY
Welcome to the official Web site of Girl Scout Voices. This Web site is owned
and operated by Girl Scouts of the USA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
headquartered in New York City, New York.
Girl Scouts of the USA is committed to protecting the privacy of our visitors.
This privacy policy discloses how we collect, protect, and use information you
provide us online, as well as how we protect children's privacy. By using the
pages on this site, you are accepting the practices described in the Privacy
Policy.
If our policy practices change in the future, we will let you know by posting
the policy changes on our Web site. However, we will treat all personal information
we collect in accordance with the privacy notice in effect at the time the information
is collected.
Girl Scouts' online properties comprise of, but are not limited to, all pages
found under www.girlscouts.org, including our online shop and our destination
sites for girls and teens, called GO Girls Only, STUDIO 2B, and Girl Scout Voices
respectively.
DATA COLLECTION
Girl Scouts of the USA uses its best efforts to respect and protect the privacy
of its online visitors. At our site, we do not collect personally identifiable
information from individuals unless they provide it to us voluntarily and knowingly.
This means we do not require you to register or provide information to us in
order to view our site. Girl Scouts of the USA only gathers personally identifiable
data, such as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, email addresses, etc., when
voluntarily submitted by a visitor. For example, personally identifiable information
is collected in order to process online transactions, online donations, or job
applications. This information is used solely by Girl Scouts of the USA or other
entities who are involved in the operation of this site for internal purposes.
We do not sell information you provide to us online to third parties. We will
only share personally identifiable information with third parties when (i) the
person submitting the information authorizes us to share it; (ii) sharing the
information is a necessary operation of the site, for instance, to process a
credit card transaction, or (iii) we are required to by law. Girl Scouts of
the USA has no control over or responsibility for the data collection and use
practices of third parties that process online transactions.
CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects the personal
information of children under the age of 13. This applies to individually identifiable
information about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home
address, email address, telephone number or any other information that would
allow someone to identify or contact the child. The Act and Rule also cover
other types of information—for example, hobbies, interests and information collected
through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms—when they are tied to
individually identifiable information. It is important for you to understand
this law; we encourage you to read more about COPPA.
Note to Parents on Our Privacy Policy
Girl Scouts of the USA is committed to providing a safe, secure, and fun online
experience for children who visit our site. We are dedicated to safeguarding
any personal information collected online and to helping parents and children
have positive experiences on the Internet. Consistent with the Children's Online
Privacy Protection Act of 1998, we will never knowingly request personally identifiable
information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental
consent. Parents can revoke their consent and ask that information about their
children be deleted from the site by contacting our offices by phone at (800)
GSUSA 4 U or via email. To do this or to review personal information collected
from children, we must verify the identity of the requesting parent. When a
parent revokes consent, we will stop collecting, using, or disclosing information
from that child. To respect the privacy of parents, information collected and
used for the sole purpose of obtaining verifiable parental consent or providing
notice is not maintained in retrievable form by the site if parental consent
is not obtained after a reasonable time. Girl Scouts believes it is good policy
not to collect more personally identifiable information from children under
13 than is necessary for them to participate in our online activities. In addition,
be aware that all sites that are targeted to children under 13 are prohibited
by law from collecting more information than they need. Submissions Girl Scouts
of the USA welcomes children to learn more about our organization and, where
appropriate, participate in polls and surveys, as well as submit comments, artwork,
writings, and other submissions for posting on our Web site. For this reason,
Girl Scouts of the USA follows the guidelines for interactive electronic media
published by the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Better Business
Bureau for pages targeted to children under 13. However, we encourage this be
done only with their parent's knowledge and supervision. We also encourage children
to use an alias (e.g., "Bookworm", "Skater", etc.), first name, nickname, initials,
or other alternative to full names or screen names which correspond with an
email address for any activities which will involve public posting.
In keeping with CARU's Principle regarding respecting and fostering the parents'
role in providing guidance for their children, we encourage parents to check
and monitor their children's use of email and other online activities regularly.
USE OF COOKIES
Visitors should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically
collected by the Girl Scouts of the USA Web site through the use of "cookies."
"Cookies" are small text files a Web site can use to recognize repeat visitors,
facilitate the visitor's ongoing access to and use of the site, and allow a
site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content
improvements. Cookies are not programs that come onto a visitor's system and
damage files. Generally, cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor
that has no meaning outside the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information
collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers
that allows the visitor to deny or accept the cookie feature. Girl Scouts of
the USA uses "cookie" technology only to obtain non-personal information from
its online visitors in order to improve visitors' online experience and facilitate
their visit within our site.
LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES AND SERVICES
This site may be linked to other sites and services that are not maintained
by Girl Scouts of the USA. These Web sites have their own privacy policies,
which you should review prior to visiting them. We have no responsibility for
linked Web sites and provide these links solely for the convenience and information
of our visitors.
OUR SECURITY SAFEGUARD
The safety and security of your online experience is of the utmost concern
to us. We ensure the appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures
are in place to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data
security, and correctly use the information we collect online.
Credit Card Safety
Protecting the safety of your credit card information is also important to
us. We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect the security of
your credit card information as it is transmitted to us. SSL is the industry
standard in Internet encryption technology, which is a highly sophisticated
method of scrambling data as it travels from your computer to our Web site servers.
We also encrypt your credit card number when we store your order and whenever
we transfer that information to participating merchants.
To make sure you are accessing our secure server before you submit personal
financial information, look at the lower left-hand corner of your browser. If
you see an unbroken key or a closed lock (depending upon your browser), then
SSL is active. To double-check for security, look at the URL or Address line
of your browser. If you have accessed a secure server, the first characters
of the address in that line should change from "http" to "https."
It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password
and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.
Children
If you are under 18, you need parent/guardian permission to use a credit card
to make purchases online.
HOW TO CONTACT US
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, you can contact us at:
Girl Scouts of the USA
420 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Phone: (800) GSUSA 4 U
Thank you for visiting our site.