Privacy Policy of NLS

Last updated: September 12, 2020

Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc. (hereafter, “NLS”, “us”, “we”, or “our”) operates www.nls.org (the “Site”). This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of the Site. You should review this Policy carefully, and be sure you understand it, prior to using the Site or otherwise providing information to us. Your use of the Site is deemed irrevocable acceptance by you of this Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, you should not use, and should immediately terminate use of the Site. For purposes of this Section, accessing the Site to review this Policy is not deemed to be use of the Site.

 

General principles

Here are a few general principles to keep in mind as you read through this Policy:

• This Policy covers the collection, use and/or disclosure of personal information obtained through the Site.
• The term “personal information” refers to information that identifies or is capable of identifying you as an individual. Examples of personal information collected on the Site are: your name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone numbers, your site browsing activities, and transaction history.
• This Policy does not apply to information that you may provide to us, or that we may obtain, other than through the Site, such as over the phone, by mail, or in person.
• We do not share information with unaffiliated third parties.
• If you are located outside of the United States, you should know that the information you provide to us is being transmitted to us and processed in the United States and will be protected subject to this Policy and United States laws, which may not be as protective as the laws in your country.
• Like most websites, the Site places cookies and local shared objects on your computer or device which are further described below. By using the Site, you agree to this.

 

Opt-in and opt-out

You may have the right to opt-in to or opt-out of certain of our uses and disclosures of your personal information. For example, when you are asked to provide personal information on the Site, you may have the opportunity to elect to, or not to, receive messages from us by e-mail. You may tell us that you do not want to receive our promotional messages by providing us with your name, address, e-mail and phone number via mail at Neighborhood Legal Services, 237 Main Street, Suite 400, Buffalo, NY 14203 or via telephone at (716) 847-0227. You can also opt-out of our promotional e-mails by clicking on the link within the e-mail you receive. Please understand that it may take us a few days to process any opt-out request and that even if you opt-out of receiving promotional correspondence from us, we may still contact you in connection with your relationship, activities, transactions, and communications with us.

 

Information collection and use

Here are some ways in which we collect information as you use the Site. These tracking technologies may be deployed by us and/or by our service providers or partners on our behalf. These technologies enable us to assign a unique identifier to you and relate your Site Usage Information to other information about you, including your personal information.

User provided information

While using the Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personal information in order to provide you with information about NLS, our events, our membership services and our programs. This personal information may include your name; postal addresses; e-mail addresses; telephone numbers; fax numbers; and site browsing and transaction history.

The Site may contain links to, or be accessible from, websites maintained by third parties (“Third-Party Site”). Thus, some of the personal information that you share may be collected by a Third-Party Site. If you click on a link found on the Site, you can look in the browser to determine whether you have been linked to another website. Your use of a Third-Party Site will be subject to its terms of use and privacy policy, and you are responsible for complying with such terms. This Policy does not cover the privacy policies or practices of any Third-Party Site, and we are not responsible for any information you submit to, or is otherwise collected by any Third-Party Site. You should consult each Third-Party Site for its privacy policy or practice before submitting any information to, or otherwise using, such Third-Party Site.

Site usage information

Like many Site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit the Site (“Log Data”). This Log Data may include, but is not limited to, information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of the Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, the next website you visit when you leave the Site, any search terms you have entered on the Site or a referral site, and other information.

We use Google Analytics, a third-party service that collects, monitors, and analyzes this information. Among other things, this information enables us to generate analytics reports on the usage of the Site. To opt-out of your Site usage being included in our Google Analytics reports, you may follow these instructions.

In addition, we may deploy various tracking technologies on the Site to collect additional information about your Site visits. For example:

Cookies: Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of the Site.

HTML5: HTML5 (the language some web sites are coded in) may be used to store information on your computer or device about your Site usage activities. This information can be retrieved by us to determine how the Site is being used by our visitors, how it can be improved, and to customize it for our users.

Pixel Tags: A pixel tag (also known as a “clear GIF” or “web beacon”) is a tiny image – typically just one pixel – that can be placed on a web page or in our electronic communications to you in order to help us measure the effectiveness of our content by, for example, counting the number of individuals who visit us online or verifying whether you’ve opened one of our e-mails or seen one of our web pages.

By using the Site, you consent to our use of these tracking technologies as described above.

 

How is your information used?

We or our service providers may use the information we collect from and about you to perform the following business functions:

• enabling users to use the Site and its features
• processing and fulfilling your transactions
• administering the Site
• responding to your requests, questions, and concerns
• market research
• developing new features and offerings on the Site
• sending you marketing and other communications, including information about NLS, events, services and programs that we think might interest you
• other purposes disclosed when personal information is submitted to us
• otherwise for research and development, analytics, and to improve, enhance and develop new products, services and other offerings

To perform the above functions, we may match information collected from you through different means or at different times, including both personal information and Site usage information, and use such information, along with information obtained from other sources (including third parties), such as demographic information and updated contact information. We or our service providers may also use your information to assess the level of interest in, and use of, the Site, our e-mails and our other messaging campaigns both on an individual basis and in the aggregate.

 

Social media/Networking

We maintain presence on several social media/networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. We may incorporate some third party social media/networking features onto the Site that may allow you to share and/or publicly post content or information from the Site to your profile on a third-party social network. Through these platforms and features, we may receive some personal information and some Site usage information about you, and this Policy applies to that information as well. In addition, third party social networking platforms and blogging platforms have their own privacy policies which explain how the third parties that provide them will use and protect your information. If you choose to use the third party social networking features on the Site, we may suggest language for you to post on your social network (such as “John Smith read our NLS News”).

 

Sharing personal information and site usage information

We may share the information we collect on the Site with organizations, companies, or persons affiliated with NLS for a variety of reasons. In addition to the kinds of information sharing you might expect, such as sharing with third parties who need your information in order to provide services to us (or on our behalf), we may share your information:

• with our service providers and suppliers that perform certain functions related to the Site
• with other third parties for their marketing and other purposes, unless you ask us not to by following the instructions in the Opt-In and Opt-Out section above
• when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or property, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud or respond to a government, judicial or other legal request, or to comply with the law
• in connection with a corporate change or dissolution, including for example a merger, acquisition, reorganization, consolidation, bankruptcy, liquidation, sale of assets or wind down of business

 

Your access rights

You may review, update, or modify certain of the personal information that is stored in our records by contacting us by phone at (716) 847-0650. We may ask you to verify your identity and to provide other details before we are able to provide you with any information, correct any inaccuracies, or delete any information.

 

Children

The Site is not intended for children under 13 years of age. However, if a parent or guardian of a child who is under 13 years of age discovers that any personal information of the child has been submitted to NLS through the Site without the parent’s or guardian’s consent, NLS will use commercially reasonable measures to remove such personal information from the Site and NLS’ servers at the parent’s or guardian’s request. To request the removal of personal information of a child under 13 years of age, the parent or guardian must contact NLS as set forth in the Contact Section, and provide all information requested to assist it in identifying the information to be removed.

 

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. We will use commercially reasonable administrative and technical measures to protect your personal information from loss and unauthorized access, alteration, destruction, disclosure and use. But, due to the inherent nature of the Internet as an open global communications vehicle, we cannot guarantee that any information, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our system or otherwise in our care, will be absolutely safe from intrusion.

If you correspond with us by e-mail or using web forms like a “contact us” feature on the Site, you should be aware that your transmission might not be secure. A third party could view the information you send in transit by such means. We will have no liability for disclosure of your information due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties during or after transmission.

If we believe that the security of your personal information in our care may have been compromised, we may seek to notify you of that development. If a notification is appropriate, we will endeavor to notify you as promptly as possible under the circumstances. If we have your e-mail address, we may notify you by e-mail. You consent to our use of e-mail as a means of such notification.

 

Applicable law

This Policy shall be governed by and construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the state of New York, without regard to its principles of conflict of laws. If there is any conflict or inconsistency between any provision of this Policy and any provision of any applicable law, the latter shall control.

 

Entire agreement

Except as set forth in this Section, this Policy contains the entire agreement, and supersedes all prior oral and written agreements, proposals and understandings, between you and NLS, with respect to information collected on this Site, including personal information. If you use the Site or otherwise have business dealings with NLS, such use or dealings will be subject to this Policy, plus any other written agreement between the parties that is applicable thereto. To the extent there is any conflict or inconsistency between any provision of this Policy and any provision of such other agreement, the former shall control.

 

Changes to this policy

This Policy is effective as of September 12, 2020, and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page. We reserve the right to update or change the Policy at any time and you should check this Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Site after we post any modifications to the Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Policy. If we make any material changes to this Policy, we will notify you either through the e-mail address you have provided us or by placing a prominent notice on our website.

 

Contact us

If you have any questions or complaints, desire additional information, or need to notify NLS of anything regarding NLS’ handling of any personal information or otherwise relating to this Policy, please promptly contact us at:

Neighborhood Legal Services
237 Main Street
Suite 400
Buffalo, NY 14203

We can also be reached by phone at (716) 847-0650.