Privacy Policy

PawPADs places a high priority on protecting your privacy. This privacy policy was created in order to demonstrate PawPADs' firm commitment to the privacy of our website users. This policy explains what types of information is collected by our website, PawPADs.org, and how this information is used. This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in PawPADs.org. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.

Compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.
We do not request personal information about children. When kids send email to us, their online contact information (email address) is not used to re-contact them and is not maintained in retrievable form.

What the heck is "Personally identifiable Information" (PII), anyway?

The United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines it as follows: Information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.

Sharing your personal information

We have a very simple and straightforward policy: We do not trade, sell, share, or rent, your personal information with outsiders without your advance permission.
There are extremely rare instances, though, when we may be required to share your information: when required to do so by law or by judicial process or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of PawPADs staff, clients, or volunteers.

What PII do we collect and how do we use it?

We collect no personal information about you when you visit the site unless you choose to provide that information to us during your visit.
If you do so, we use the information submitted to us to enable staff, employees, or volunteers managing this information to:

• respond to your request,
• assess to ability of PawPADs to meet the your needs,
• send you newsletters and e-mail updates about our work (including charitable solicitations),
  You can always refuse to supply personal identification information, except that it may prevent you from engaging in certain Site related activities (such as applying for a service dog, or making an online donation).

Donor's Privacy

PawPADs is always grateful for the support of our donors: those who make online donations, direct or mail donations, and those who provide in-kind donations. We make every effort to express our gratitude and recognition publicly whenever appropriate (such as in our annual report, or newsletters). We do not make public any other information and as a donor, you may choose to “opt-out” of making your private information available or even choose to have us discontinue contact altogether (but we hope not!). Our Board of Directors adopted POLICY ON DISCONTINUING CONTACT UPON REQUEST is available and on file at our business offices.

Online Donations
PawPADs uses third party organizations to process online donations and we do not gather or retain your credit card or personal information from these transactions.

You need to read the privacy and security policies of these services, as PawPADs cannot absolutely guarantee that the information and/or credit card data will be secure, and PawPADs is not liable for information you choose to share with them.

Cookie Policy and Technical Stuff

Our Site may use “cookies” and/or “web beacons.” These do not collect any personally identifiable information.

• Cookies
  Our Site may use “cookies” – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience and/or “web beacons”. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymity tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the What Are Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.
• Use of Web Beacons
  Web beacons, which are also known as clear GIFs or pixel tags, are often used in combination with cookies. Web beacons collect only limited information, such as a cookie identifier, time and date of a page being viewed, and a description of the page on which the Web Beacon resides (the URL). Web Beacons can be refused when delivered via email. If you do not wish to receive Web Beacons via email, you will need to disable HTML images or refuse HTML (select Text only) emails via your email software.
• Server logs
  Like most website operators, our web servers may create log files. These track data on Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to enable us to administer the site, analyze trends, track user movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

How do we protect your information?

PawPADs employs reasonable technical, administrative and physical safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information, both on-line and off-line.

Online: We use industry-recognized technical safeguards, such as firewalls, and have adopted and implemented security procedures to protect your information from loss, misuse or unauthorized alteration. Our site has been verified and is secured with the best encryption software in the industry — Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Our staff undergoes periodic training to ensure they are informed on the risks and responsibility of use of the internet and email. Our computers are protected by Norton Security Firewalls and anti-virus software 24/7.

PawPADs occasionally partners with third-party service providers such as [but not limited to] Razoo, MightyCause, PayPal Giving, Constant Contact, and Network Solutions, to process online donations, host our website, conduct email campaigns, and distribute e-newsletters and other online publications. All of our partners use industry-recognized technical safeguards, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, to protect any information you choose to provide them (such as, but not limited to, credit card information). However, in all cases, PawPADs cannot absolutely guarantee that the information and/or credit card data will be secure, and PawPADs is not liable for information you choose to share with them. Additionally, other third party websites and organizations may engage other donation services and processes (such as, but not limited to, Network for Good) to facilitate online donations for PawPADs. PawPADs does not endorse these services or guarantee their security.

Third-party service providers are not permitted to use or share any personally identifiable information that we provide to them. PawPADs does not share any of the personally identifiable information we collect with other outside parties, unless we have received your specific permission to do so.

Off-line: While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our staff and volunteers are educated about the importance of safeguarding your information and we are committed to holding them accountable for protecting your confidentiality. All of our databases are password-protected to ensure that unauthorized users cannot access sensitive data.

Notwithstanding our efforts, we cannot guarantee absolute or unqualified protection of this information due to criminal activity on our physical premises’ or breach of security on our premises, nor, given the open nature and resulting instability of the Internet and World Wide Web, do we make any representations or warranties as to the effectiveness of our security and assume no liability for security breaches or any failure in the security of your computer equipment, your internet service provider or other networks and communications providers.

Links to/from Other Websites

Our Site contains links to other third party websites, including [but not limited to] other non-profits, news organizations, and other organizations. We do not guarantee that the information on these websites is accurate, up-to-date, or relevant to your situation. PawPADs is not responsible for the privacy practice, policies, or content of such websites. PawPADs in no way endorses products contained in, advertised in, or associated with videos linked to from this website. You may have arrived at this site via a link from another website or search engine, PawPADs is in no way responsible for the content of or references from those websites.

Social Networks

PawPADs currently maintains accounts on Social Networking Services (SNS), including, but not limited to, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Your use of SNS is at your own risk and you are bound by each SNS’ terms of use and privacy policy. We do not share any personally identifiable information you may have provided to us via our Site on the SNS. PawPADs neither controls or guarantees the accuracy, relevance, timeliness or completeness of information provided by or on social network sites or any other linked site. PawPADs does not control the privacy settings of the Users accounts on SNS and has no control of information shared on SNS by users. PawPADs’ use of social network sites does not, and is not intended to, constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring of the sponsors of the sites or the information or products presented on the sites.