Innocence Network Privacy Policy

The Innocence Project, Inc., acting on behalf of an international coalition of litigation and exoneree support organizations dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals, supporting such individuals upon their release, and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices (the “Innocence Network,” “we,” “our” or “us”) understands that privacy is important to our online visitors to our website.  This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information that we collect on our website.  By using our website, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use Agreement. 

1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE? 

The categories of information we collect can include:

Information you provide to use directly:

We may collect personal information such as your first and last name, phone number, business name, and e-mail address when you contact us through the website.  We may combine this information with information collected from third party sources, such as third parties we partner with to provide our legal services.

We use this information to operate, maintain, and enhance our organization and our services.  We may use this information to communicate with you, such as to send you email messages or to follow up with you to offer information about the Innocence Network. We may also send you service-related emails or messages (e.g., transactional communications, change or updates to features of the service, technical, and security notices).

2. HOW WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGY TO COLLECT INFORMATION.

We and our third-party partners may automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit our website or use our online and/or mobile services, website, and software provided on or in connection with such services (collectively the “Service”).  For instance, when you visit our website, we may send one or more cookies—a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters—to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser and lets us enhance your navigation through the site.  A cookie may also convey information to us about how you use our website (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, how frequently you access the Service, and other actions you take on the Service), and allow us to track your usage of our website over time.  We may collect log file information about your browser or mobile device each time you access the Service.  Log file information may include anonymous information such as your web request, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, information about your mobile device, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks, and how you interact with links on the Service, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed, and other such information. We may employ clear gifs (also known as web beacons) which are used to anonymously track the online usage patterns of all visitors, users, and others who access the Service (“Users”). In addition, we may also use clear gifs in HTML-based emails sent to our Users to track which emails are opened and which links are clicked by recipients.  The information allows for more accurate reporting and improvement of our website.  We may collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for our website.  These tools collect information sent by your browser or mobile device, including the pages you visit, your use of third party applications, and other information that assists us in analyzing and improving our website and services.  

Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our Users, we are not able to respond to Do Not Track signals from your browser at this time, as we believe that there is no consistent industry standard for how to respond to Do Not Track browser settings.

When you access our Service by or through a mobile device, we may receive or collect and store a unique identification number associated with your device (“Device ID”), mobile carrier, device type and manufacturer, and phone number.

We may use the data collected through cookies, log file, device identifiers, location data, and clear gifs to:  (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the site; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information, including advertising; (c) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Service; (d) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our website and our Service; (e) diagnose or fix technology problems; and (f) otherwise to plan for and enhance our service.

Third Party Tracking and Online Advertising:  We may permit third party ad networks, social media companies, and other third party services, such as YouTube, to collect information about browsing behavior from visitors to our website through cookies, social plug-ins, or other tracking technology.  We may permit third party online advertising networks to collect information about your use of our websites over time so that they may play or display ads that may be relevant to your interests on our Service as well as on other websites or services.  Typically, the information is collected through cookies or similar tracking technologies.  The only way to completely “opt out” of the collection of any information through cookies or other tracking technology is to actively manage the settings on your browser or mobile device.  Please refer to your browser’s or mobile device’s technical information for instructions on how to delete and disable cookies, and other tracking/recording tools.  (To learn more about cookies, clear gifs/web beacons, and related technologies and how you may opt-out of some of this tracking, you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org and/or the Network Advertising Initiative’s online resources, at http://www.networkadvertising.org).  Depending on your mobile device, you may not be able to control tracking technologies through settings.  If you have any questions about opting out of the collection of cookies and other tracking/recording tools, you can contact us directly at info@innocencenetwork.org.

3. SHARING OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may share your personal information in the instances described below.

We may share your personal information with:

·        Organizations within the Innocence Network;

·        Third parties who partner with us to help provide our services, such as legal organizations and student groups;

·        Third parties as required by law or subpoena or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (b) to enforce our Terms of Use or to protect the security or integrity of our Service; and/or (c) to exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the Innocence Network, our Users, or others.

We may also aggregate or otherwise strip data of all personally identifying characteristics and may share that aggregated, anonymized data with third parties.

4. HOW WE STORE AND PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

Storage and Processing:  Your information collected through our website may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which the Innocence Network or its affiliates or service providers maintain facilities.  If you are located in the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, please note that we may transfer information, including personal information, to a country and jurisdiction that does not have the same data protection laws as your jurisdiction, and you consent to the transfer of information to the U.S. or any other country in which the Innocence Network or its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, or service providers maintain facilities and the use and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy.

Keeping Your Information Safe:  The Innocence Network cares about the security of your information and uses commercially reasonable physical, administrative, and technological safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of all information collected through our website.  However, no security system is impenetrable and we cannot guarantee the security of our systems 100%.  In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security, the Innocence Project will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and, where appropriate, notify those individuals whose information may have been compromised and take other steps, in accordance with any applicable laws and regulations.

5. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

The Innocence Project does not knowingly collect or solicit any information from anyone under age 13.  In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.  If you believe that we might have any information from a child under 13, please contact us at info@innocencenetwork.org.

6. LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES AND SERVICES

Our website may integrate with or contain links to other third party sites and services.  We are not responsible for the practices employed by third party websites or services embedded in, linked to, or linked from our website and your interactions with any third-party website or service are subject to that third party’s own rules and policies

7. HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the website, please contact us at info@innocencenetwork.org.

8. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

The Innocence Network may modify or update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect the changes in our business and practices, and so you should review this page periodically.  When we change the policy in a material manner, we will update the ‘last modified’ date at the bottom of this page.

This privacy policy was last modified on August 20, 2021.