Privacy Policy

This policy is applicable to www.portulansinstitute.org and www.networkreadinessindex.org, both publications of Portulans Institute (PI).

As a nonprofit organization that focuses on technology and innovation issues, we know that privacy is a concern for many visitors to our websites. This page describes PI’s practices in collecting and using information from our websites, and is intended to help you to make informed choices about how you interact with us.

If you have any concerns about this policy, please contact PI at info@portulansinstitute.org. We can also be reached at 201 Vermont Ave, Suite 201, Washington DC 20005.

TL;DR

This Privacy Policy is a long document. We understand that can be intimidating, and PI wanted to provide a few key guidelines for how we collect, use, and retain information:

• We don’t employ Google Analytics in our sites. Our websites collect traffic data via our cPanel statistics.
• Some data we request and collect from you on our website, including mailing list subscriptions, records of our mass communications, and select emails are stored in our contact relationship database, MailChimp and staff Google Suit e-mailboxes. This information will be stored in our databases until the user provides an update or requests deletion.
• Our website limits use of cookies to our Social Media buttons and for site language preferences. See here for our list of cookies.   
• We do not sell, rent, exchange or otherwise share any information that we collect unless you direct us to, except to report malicious attacks or as required by law.
• You have the right to access, correct, update, or delete the information we may have about you. We will endeavor to disclose to you any information we have about you, and we will attempt to comply with your request to the best of our capabilities. Please contact us at info@portulansinstitute.org to exercise these rights.

What information does PI collect?

PI’s websites collect technical information about website visitors, including IP addresses and other data for website analytics (see below to learn more about this). We also collect non-technical data about you on occasion (e.g. for the purpose of downloading complete index data, for registering for an event or for signing up to our newsletter). The personal information we collect is generally limited to the following kinds of information:

• Name
• Email address
• Organization (optional)
• Country (optional)
• Employment and employer details (from job applicants and interns and, optionally for mailing lists)

We strive to collect the minimum amount of personal information necessary per activity to keep in touch with our network, supporters and others who reach out to us.

How and why does PI collect information?

We collect information when you visit our website, join our mailing lists, or contact us. We collect information about prospective employees and interns. We also collect information about current donors.

• Via Our Website

• Like many websites, PI collects information automatically regarding any visits to and movements within our websites (portulansinstitute.org and www.networkreadinessindex.org). This information includes your IP address, the country associated, the pages you visit, the time and date of your visit, the operating system used, if you arrived through a search engine, the name of the search engine and the search key phrases that lead the user to our websites. These data is collected via our cPanel.
• Additionally, the site makes use of cookies designed to remain on your computer for a period of time, which contain information including unique identifiers that help us associate your multiple page visits into a single session.

• • How long does PI retain this information?  Aggregated data about visitors to our websites – which is not linked back to individual visitors – is maintained indefinitely.
• Newsletter and Mailing Lists
  • To sign up for our Newsletter and mailing lists online, PI asks for your first name, surname, email address, organization (optional), and country (optional).
  • If you submit your email address to be added to a mailing list, we will use the email address for the sole purpose of sending you the materials associated with our Newsletter or mailing list you signed up for. Each email we send will contain information on how to unsubscribe from our Newsletter and a mailing list. You can also unsubscribe by contacting us at info@portulansinstitute.org  and requesting removal from a specific list.
  • How long does PI retain this information? Email addresses submitted to subscribe to mailings lists are retained until the associated users ask to remove their names from the mailing list. In the unlikely event that we have technical problems that cause us to revert to a backup copy of a mailing list, our systems may restore a previously removed address to a mailing list. Removal from our mailing list might then require the user to request removal a second time.
• Events
  • PI asks for your information when registering for our events, conferences, or working groups. We use this information to register you for events and to inform you about event logistics and updates. We also use this information to contact you about other events our staff organize or participate in. You have the option to unsubscribe at any time. When you submit information using third party forms like Zoom, Eventbrite or Google Forms, data may be collected by those vendors and processed subject to their terms of service.
  • How long does PI retain this information? Email addresses that are added to our event lists are retained until the associated users ask to remove their names from the mailing list.
• Social Media and Other Platforms
  • PI actively uses social media and other platforms to engage with the public and advance our work. Specifically, PI has a LinkedIn page, a Twitter feed, Instagram, and a YouTube channel. Information shared on those pages is governed by each platform’s respective privacy policy. We also utilize use Bit.ly or TinyURL as link shorteners on some posts on a variety of platforms.
  • How long does PI retain this information? Email addresses or other user handles that are used to contact us are retained until the associated users ask to remove their names from our databases.

• Contacting Us

• • PI welcomes your feedback. If you choose to contact us, via our website, social media, or the mail, we will not use the information for any purpose other than to respond to your inquiry or to act on your suggestion or comment. However, in your outreach to us, if you ask to receive updates of any kinds from PI, we will add your contact to our Newsletter and treat your information as per this Policy. We will not share your information with others except with your permission or upon your request.
  • How long does PI retain this information? Any information you provide us via email, social media, or our info@portulansinstitute.org  (as well as responses, if any, to your inquiry or comment) are archived after it has been addressed. However, individual employees often retain copies of any correspondence for future necessary correspondence.

Cookie Policy

Web cookies are small text files that are placed on your machine to help sites retain user preferences, store information for things like language preference, shopping carts, and provide anonymized tracking data to third-party applications like Google Universal Analytics. As a rule, web cookies can make your browsing experience more seamless, but you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. If you choose to disable cookies on our website, you should notice no difference in your browsing experience. 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 About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.

Note: PI does not adopt Google Analytics for any of our sites. These are the only cookies our site tracks and they serve to help you with language preference, site navigation and social media integration.

What other information is collected by third parties on PI’s websites?

Our website contains some third-party tools and integration with Social Media via buttons. We have limited the amount of information that these third-party tools can collect about you on our website.

• Embedded YouTube Videos. On certain pages on our site, we may embed YouTube videos. Even if you don’t interact with a YouTube video, Google displays the image of the video on our site, and may collect and store log data associated with rendering that image on your device (including IP address and browser configuration). Even if you choose to play a YouTube video, we have configured the YouTube videos we embed to use the “-nocookie” option, so Google will not associate your visit with a Google cookie or account. However, they may collect additional log data associated with rendering the video on your device.
• Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Buttons for Blog posting sharing. You can share articles and blog posts from our site on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. When you click on our site’s sharing buttons, your browser will open a new window linking you to these social platforms. However, because we host the images for the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter buttons ourselves, they are not able to log the fact that you visited one of our pages merely because one of their branded buttons is on that page. They only receive information about your visit to our site if you click on the widget to share through one of those services.

What about Do Not Track?

Many browsers offer Do Not Track features that let you communicate to the sites you visit that you don’t want to be tracked around the web. Do Not Track was designed to limit tracking across different sites and services — such as by third-party behavioral ad networks who track users across unaffiliated websites. PI’s logfile and analytics collection is limited to the sites we own and operate. Since first-party data collection and use is outside the scope of a Do Not Track request, we do not limit our logfile or traffic data collection for users who have Do Not Track enabled.

How do we store and secure your information?

PI uses industry-standard security measures to protect the information we collect. All our contractors have confidentiality clauses in their contracts that also protect user and contacts data they have access to.

How does PI share or disclose information?

PI does not buy, sell, rent, exchange or otherwise disclose any information that we collect, except as described in this section or elsewhere in this policy. PI does share information about you to third parties in limited circumstances, including:

• Legal Requirements PI cannot guarantee that your personal information will never be sought by subpoena, search warrant, court order, or other lawful form of legal process. We will comply with lawful requests from government agencies that follow appropriate legal standards and procedures. If we receive a request from a governmental entity to disclose information about you, we will (unless prohibited by law or court order from doing so) attempt to contact you prior to such disclosure so that you can object. If we comply with a disclosure request from a government agency we will subsequently (unless prohibited by law or court order from doing so) attempt to contact you in order to disclose to you the fact that we have disclosed information about you and to tell you what information we have disclosed. We will object to disclosure demands that we believe are improper. If we receive a request from a non-governmental entity (such as a civil litigant) for disclosure of information about your activities on our website, we will insist that the requesting party obtain at least a subpoena, and we will (unless prohibited by law or court order from doing so) attempt to contact you prior to such disclosure so that you can object. If we comply with a non-governmental entity’s disclosure request we will subsequently (unless prohibited by law or court order from doing so) attempt to contact you in order disclose to you the fact that we have disclosed information about you and to tell you what information we have disclosed. Again, we will object to disclosure demands that we believe are improper.
• To Defend Ourselves PI may disclose information to a third party if we reasonably believe that our system has been attacked and the information is necessary to describe the attack. We also reserve the right to affirmatively share or to provide to law enforcement evidence of malicious attacks or other unlawful activity or content.
• Service Providers and Contractors PI shares information we collect to service providers and contractors that provide administrative services and support for us. While PI depends on third parties to support some of our services and operations, we strive to select vendors and contractors who have strong privacy and security policies. This includes, among others, WordPress (site development), GoDaddy (URL registration and hosting), MailChimp (to manage our email and contact databases), cPanel (site hosting and management), and Google Business Suite (for our staff emails and documents creation and sharing). These services are contractually prohibited from using that information for their own purposes.

What rights do you have? What if you want to know what information we have about you?

You have the right to access, correct, update, or delete the information we may have about you. Please contact us to exercise these rights. We will endeavor to disclose to you any information we have about you, and we will attempt to comply with your request to the best of our capabilities.

DID YOU KNOW? Children under the age of 13 have special protections under law. While PI’s content is generally appropriate for most audiences, we do not knowingly market our websites or other materials to children.

Changes to our policies.

We have most recently revised our Privacy Policy in the spirit of the  California’s CCPA and EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Whenever we make substantial changes to our Privacy Policy, we will announce the changes on our Twitter and give users 30 days’ notice in advance of the policy taking effect. Regardless, any future privacy policy changes will not apply to information we collect pursuant to an older policy; the older policy will still apply to that data.

Any complaints or concerns?

If you have any concerns about this policy, please contact PI at info@portulansinstitute.org. We can also be reached at 1010 Vermont Ave, Suite 201, Washington DC 20005.