July 2020 Privacy Policy

Because Public Citizen respects individual privacy, we do not automatically collect personal information from people who visit or interact with our website. To advance our programs and provide you with a more user-friendly experience on our website, we allow some tracking to take place. This privacy policy applies to the citizen.org website.

If you provide your name, postal address, email address, phone number, or other information via a form on the website, we may store that information and contact you about our work. Except as outlined below, we do not sell, rent, trade, or otherwise disclose to any business, organization, individual, or other outside entity information provided by people who visit or interact with the website.

Cookies and IP Addresses

Our website uses cookies for these reasons:

• so that you don’t have to reenter information on action, donate, or payment pages;
• for tracking traffic so that we can evaluate and improve the website; and
• to facilitate outreach based on visitors’ interests.

For systems administration and troubleshooting, we log the IP address (the location on the Internet) of the computer or network from which someone visits the website. We also use IP addresses in the aggregate to track traffic so that we can evaluate and improve the website.

Taking Action

We do not disclose the information you enter on an action page to any outside entity — except as follows:

• If you sign a petition, your name and state may be included in an electronic file or hard-copy printout delivered to legislators or other policymakers.
• From time to time, we may partner with another organization to promote one of our online actions to supporters of that organization. In those instances, we may share with that organization the information you enter on our action page. When we do that, we will give you a heads up by noting on the action page that the information may be shared with the other organization.
• If you email a member of Congress or other policymaker, submit a comment to a government agency, send a letter-to-the-editor, or take any other action that generates a communication to an outside entity, the information you enter on the action page may be passed along to that outside entity.
• We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to information about our online action-takers. They will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to.
• We may offer to connect you to other activists or volunteer organizers. Before doing so, we will notify you by email with an option to decline.

Once you take action, we will send you emails about our work. To stop receiving emails, complete this form.

Signing Up for Email Lists or E-Newsletters

We do not disclose the information you enter on a sign-up page to any outside entity — except as follows: We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to such information; they will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to. To stop receiving emails, complete this form.

Making Donations or Payments

The information you enter on a donation or payment page may be shared with third-party service providers (such as services that verify credit card data).

If you donate, your contact information may be added to a donor file that is occasionally exchanged with other progressive organizations. You can opt out of such exchanges by contacting our Member Services team at (800) 289-3787 or member@citizen.org.

We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to information about people who make donations or payments; they will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to.

Security

Public Citizen takes steps to protect information collected online from unauthorized access and improper use. Public Citizen is fully compliant with PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and does not maintain credit card information on any of our servers. Other personally identifiable information, such as your name and address is stored on secure servers. Public Citizen’s network is protected at the perimeter by firewalls that include intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, and all servers and workstations have centrally managed antivirus software. Servers and workstations are patched regularly and monitored for signs of suspicious activity. Access to Public Citizen’s network is restricted to Public Citizen-owned devices. Data transmitted to and from our website are encrypted.

Contacting Us

If you contact us by phone or email, we may keep a record so that we can follow up with you if necessary. We do not disclose the information in that record to any outside entity unless doing so is required to resolve a technical problem with our website or you give us permission to do so, or if we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect your safety or the safety of others, respond to a legal request, or comply with the law.

Updates to This Policy

This page reflects the current policy at any given time. It may be updated occasionally. It was most recently updated in July 2020.

Questions

If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact litigation@citizen.org.