Privacy Policy

Democracy Engine, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to respecting the privacy rights of persons who visit and/or make or receive contributions (“you” or “your”) using our services, web sites and/or online forms (“Services”).   If you have registered or are using such products and services as or on behalf of any entity, “you” refers to the entity.  The Services include our web sites such as http://democracyengine.com and all landing pages that we own or control.

We created this Privacy Policy to give you confidence and describe how we treat personal information as you visit and use our Services.

Collection of Personal Information

Services.   When you make a contribution using our Services, we generally are required by law to collect your name, postal address, telephone number, email address, occupation, employer, and employer’s address, and to send this information along with your contribution to the recipient of the contribution.  (The specific information we collect will vary depending on the law that applies to the recipient.  For example, we are required to collect more information concerning contributions to political candidates and committees than we must with respect to non-profit organizations.)  We collect your credit/debit card information for processing your contributions and are responsible for the security of your cardholder information.  If you are a recipient of contributions, we collect your name, address, federal tax ID number, campaign finance entity ID, information about your Beneficial Owners (as defined by FinCEN) and bank account information for your receipt of contributions.  In all cases, we also may ask you for further information to manage risk and verify your identity and information, such as confirming your email address or ordering a credit report, or to comply with campaign finance disclosure laws, and may obtain information about you from third parties such as credit reporting agencies.

Web Sites.  We also collect information volunteered by visitors and contributors using our Services and recipients receiving contributions, such as by completing and submitting our online forms or emailing us. When visitors, contributors or recipients visit our web sites or online forms (including via Application Program Interface or API), our servers automatically collect certain information that their web browser sends when visiting web sites in general. This log file information may include the URLs (domain names) you visited; your Internet Protocol (IP) address; date, time, and time spent on pages visited; and information about your browser and computer.

Cookies.  From time to time, our Services may use the standard cookies feature of major browser applications which allows us to store a small piece of data on your computer about your use of our Services. Cookies help us learn which portions of our Services are useful and which need improvement, among other things. You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings on your web browser. However, if you choose to disable or limit cookies, your experience with our Services may be significantly diminished and many features may not operate.

Children.  Contributors using our Services and recipients receiving contributions must be of legal age to form a contract.  Thus, we do not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifying information from children under the age of 13.

Information Uses

We use the personally identifiable information and aggregate information we collect to market and provide the Services to you, including processing your contributions, sending notices about your contributions, and processing contribution payments to recipients, to collect fees and resolve disputes and the like, to manage risk and verify your identity and information with third parties such as credit reporting agencies, to improve our offerings and to create new offerings.  We may use your phone number or email address to reach you should further verification of your identity or credit/debit card or bank account information be required.

We do not use your personally identifiable information to send commercial or marketing messages to you (such as offers regarding Services or potential contribution opportunities) without your consent or opt-in. We may send you certain service and administrative notices, which are not subject to opt-out.

We use cookies and log file information to administer and monitor usage of our Services.

Information Sharing

We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the following limited circumstances.

We share contributors’ information with recipients of your contribution.  For most contributions, the information we share includes name, postal address, telephone number, email address, occupation, employer, and employer’s address.  Recipients may also be required to include some or all of this information in their public reports. In particular, most political candidates and committees must include this information in their public campaign finance reports.  The use of this information by a Recipient is limited by their own privacy policy.

By agreement with us, many third-party providers and sites link to or display our web pages and/or online forms (including via Application Program Interfaces or APIs) from their or their customers’ or members’ online properties (“Sponsors”).  We also provide reports to these Sponsors, which can include all of the information described above.  Each Sponsor’s use of this information is governed by its own privacy policy.

We securely and confidentially transmit contributors’ credit/debit card payment information to our payment processor(s), and do not store this information unless instructed.  We securely and confidentially store and use recipients’ bank account information for contribution payments to recipients.  We may share your information with third parties such as credit reporting agencies and financial institutions to manage risk and verify your identity and information.

We also may share such information if we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to: (a) comply with any law, regulation or order, such as campaign finance or public disclosure law, subpoena, court order or search warrant; (b) provide the Services using our affiliates or subcontractors; (c) protect and defend our rights or property, including investigations and defense of third-party claims; (d) otherwise ensure compliance with our contributor and/or recipient terms and conditions, rules and policies; and/or (e) prevent physical harm or financial loss and report suspected illegal activity.  Aggregate information, such as log file information, may be shared with others only on an anonymous aggregate basis.  In the event all or any relevant portion of our stock, business or assets is transferred to, acquired by or merged with any third party, we reserve the right to transfer or assign as part of such transaction any or all of the information we have collected.

Destruction of stored information

We are required by law and Credit Card industry rules to maintain much of your personal information in our records for up to 7 years.  If you wish us to permanently remove what can be removed from our system, just drop us a note using our contact form at http://democracyengine.com/contact.html and we’ll take care of it.

Corrections

If you need to correct your information with us, please see http://democracyengine.com/contact.html for our contact information.

Links

The Services and content on them may contain links to other sites and resources controlled by third parties. We are not responsible for privacy practices or content of these other sites or resources, and you should consult the privacy statements of such other sites and resources. We reserve the right to engage third party ad server companies whose policies may govern access to any ads or links made available to you.

Data Security

Our Services include security measures (including PCI compliance for credit/debit card payments) intended to prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of your information, but we make no warranty about our ability to prevent any such loss, misuse or alteration.

Changes

We may amend this Privacy Policy, including the use of your information for new, unanticipated purposes, at any time by posting a revised version available via the Services, and/or by sending information regarding the amendment to your e-mail address in our records. You are responsible for regularly reviewing the Services to obtain timely notice of such amendments. You shall be deemed to have accepted such amendments by continuing to use the Services as a contributor and/or receiving contributions as a recipient after such amendments have been posted or information regarding such amendments has been sent to you. If you do not agree to any of such changes, you may immediately cease all access and use of the Services or receipt of contributions. You agree that such termination will be your exclusive remedy in such event.

International Users

The Services are provided, contribution payments are made to recipients, and our web sites and online forms are hosted, in the United States of America and are intended for and directed to users in the United States. If you are attempting to visit or access the Services from the European Union, Asia, or any other jurisdiction with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure, which differ from United States laws, please be advised that through your use of the Services, you are transferring your personal information to the United States of America and you consent to that transfer.

Effective Date of this version: July 18, 2022