Privacy Policy
Based on an original by Creative Commons – adapted with thanks.
1. Preamble
This Privacy Policy explains the collection, use, processing, transferring and disclosure of personal information by NewsSocial Ltd.
This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and made part of NewsSocial’s Terms of Use (“Master Terms”) located at https://www.mushtarek.org/terms.
Unless otherwise noted on a particular website or service hosted by NewsSocial, this Privacy Policy applies to your use of all websites that NewsSocial operates. These include https://newssocial.news, https://mushtarek.org, https://argon.today, together with all other subdomains thereof, (collectively, the “Websites”). This Privacy Policy also applies to all products, information, and services provided through the Websites.
By accessing or using any of the Services, you are accepting and agreeing to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.
2. Our Principles
NewsSocial has designed this policy to be consistent with the following principles:
Privacy policies should be human readable and easy to find.
Data collection, storage, and processing should be simplified as much as possible to enhance security, ensure consistency, and make the practices easy for users to understand.
Data practices should always meet the reasonable expectations of users.
3. Personal Information NewsSocial Collects and How it is Used
As used in this policy, “personal information” means information that would allow someone to identify you, including your name, email address, IP address, or other information from which someone could deduce your identity.
NewsSocial collects and uses personal information in the following ways:
Website and Fundraising Analytics: When you visit our Websites and use our Services, NewsSocial collects some information about your activities through tools such as Google Analytics. The type of information that we collect focuses on general information such as country or city where you are located, pages visited, time spent on pages, heat-map of visitors’ activity on the site, information about the browser you are using, etc. NewsSocial collects and uses this information pursuant to our legitimate interest in enhancing the security and utility of our Services. The information we gather and process is used in the aggregate to spot trends without deliberately identifying individuals, except in cases where you engage in a transaction with NewsSocial by donating money, purchasing merchandise, or buying a ticket for an event or program. In those cases, NewsSocial retains certain information about your visit to the Services pursuant to its legitimate interest in understanding its community of supporters for fundraising purposes, and this information is stored in connection with other personal information you provide to NewsSocial.
Note that you can learn about Google’s practices in connection with its analytics services and how to opt out of it by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. If you would like to opt out of NewsSocial’s fundraising analytics, please contact info@newssocial.co.uk with your request.
Information from Cookies: We and our service providers (for example, Google Analytics as described above) may collect information using cookies or similar technologies for the purposes described above and below. Cookies are pieces of information that are stored by your browser on the hard drive or memory of your computer or other Internet access device. Cookies may enable us to personalize your experience on the Services, maintain a persistent session, passively collect demographic information about your computer, and monitor advertisements and other activities. The Websites may use different kinds of cookies and other types of local storage (such as browser-based or plugin-based local storage).
Log-In Services: When you register to obtain a user account on any of the Services, you will be asked to provide personal information to create your account and establish a password and profile. NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in establishing and maintaining your account providing you with the features we provide Registered Users. We may use your email address to contact you regarding changes to this policy or other applicable policies. The name or nickname you provide in connection with your account may be used to attribute you in connection with any content you submit to any Service.
User-Uploaded Pictures and Files Privacy: We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy and security of our users' uploaded pictures and files. As part of our commitment to safeguarding your information, we maintain strict security measures to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of the pictures and files you upload to our website. Access to your uploaded pictures and files is restricted to authorized personnel and service providers who require access to perform their job functions or provide essential services, and they are bound by confidentiality agreements.
We do not sell, rent, or share your uploaded pictures and files with third parties without your explicit consent, except when required by law or as necessary to protect our rights or comply with legal processes. It is important to note that by using our website and uploading pictures and files, you grant us a license to use, store, and display these materials in accordance with our Terms of Service. We encourage you to review our Terms of Service for further information on how we handle user-generated content. We continuously review and update our security practices to ensure the ongoing protection of your uploaded pictures and files. However, please be aware that no security measures can guarantee absolute protection, and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. By using our website and uploading pictures and files, you acknowledge and accept these risks.
Events: When you sign up for an event hosted or supported by NewsSocial, you will be asked to provide some personal information, including your name, email address, and other information as needed. NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in organizing and running the relevant event. We may share your personal information with vendors, third party contractors, partner organizations, and volunteers for the purpose of organizing and running the event and related activities.
Emails and Newsletters: When you sign up to receive updates from NewsSocial or otherwise subscribe to one of our mailing lists, you may be asked to provide some personal information. NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in providing news and updates to, and collaborating with, its supporters and volunteers.
Email Analytics: When you receive communications from NewsSocial after signing up for the NewsSocial newsletter, campaign updates, or other ongoing email communications from NewsSocial, we use analytics to track whether you open the mail, click on the links, and otherwise interact with what we send. You may opt out of this tracking by choosing to get plain-text emails from NewsSocial. NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in understanding the interests of its community of supporters and volunteers in order to provide more relevant news and updates.
Donations: When you donate money to NewsSocial, pay for using some of NewsSocial services, or pay for attendance at an event or participation in the NewsSocial Certificate program, you will be asked to provide personal information, including payment information. NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in raising funds to ensure the sustainability of our nonprofit organization and, where applicable, to provide you with the merchandise, event, or program you purchased.
Other Voluntarily Provided Information:
When you provide feedback to NewsSocial, sign a petition distributed by NewsSocial, or otherwise submit personal information to NewsSocial, NewsSocial collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in better understanding our community of supporters and volunteers and in furtherance of the particular program or activity to which you provided feedback or other input.
4. Retention of Personal Information
The majority of the personal information collected and used as explained in Section 3 above is aggregated and stored in a central database provided by a third party service provider. NewsSocial aggregates this data pursuant to its legitimate interest in having information stored in a single location to minimize complexity, increase consistency in internal practices, better understand its community of supporters and volunteers, and enhance the security of the data.
NewsSocial erases the web browser logs described above on a regular, rolling basis.
5. Access to Your Personal Information
You are generally entitled to access personal information that NewsSocial holds and to have inaccurate data corrected or removed to the extent NewsSocial still maintains it. In certain circumstances, you also may have the right to object for legitimate reasons to the processing or transfer of personal information. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please write to info@mushtarek.org explaining your request.
6. Disclosure of Your Personal Information
NewsSocial does not disclose personal information to third parties except as specified elsewhere in this policy and in the following instances:
NewsSocial may share personal information with our contractors and service providers in order to undertake the activities described in Section 3.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties in a good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) take action regarding suspected illegal activities; (b) enforce or apply our Master Terms and this Privacy Policy; (c) enforce our Charter, including the Code of Conduct and policies contained and incorporated therein, or (d) comply with legal process, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order.
7. Security of Your Personal Information
NewsSocial has implemented reasonable physical, technical, and organizational security measures for personal information that NewsSocial processes against accidental or unlawful destruction, or accidental loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, in compliance with applicable law. However, no website can fully eliminate security risks. Third parties may circumvent our security measures to unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. If any data breach occurs, we will post a reasonably prominent notice to the Websites and comply with all other applicable data privacy requirements including, when required, personal notice to you if you have provided and we have maintained an email address for you.
The NewsSocial Login Services account systems have security risks in addition to those described above. Among other things, they are vulnerable to DNS attacks, and using any NewsSocial Login Service may increase the risk of phishing.
8. Children
The Services are not directed at children under the age of 13. Consistent with the U.S. federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personal information from anyone under the age of 13 without requiring parental consent. Our Master Terms specifically prohibit anyone using our Services from submitting any personally identifiable information about persons under 13 years of age. Any person who provides their personal information to NewsSocial through the Services represents that they are 13 years of age or older.
9. Third Party Service Providers
NewsSocial uses many third party service providers in connection with the Services, including website hosting services, database management, credit card processing, and many more. Some of these service providers may place session cookies on your computer, and they may collect and store your personal information on our behalf in accordance with the data practices and purposes explained above in Section 3.
10. Third Party Sites
The Services may provide links to a wide variety of third party websites. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other websites.
11. Transferring Data to Other Countries
If you are accessing or using the Services in regions with laws governing data collection, processing, transfer and use, please note that when we use and share your data as specified in this policy, we may transfer your information to recipients in countries other than the country in which the information was originally collected. Those countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information.
The Services are currently hosted in the United States and the United Kingdom, which means your personal information may be located on servers in the United States and/or the United Kingdom. The majority of contractors that NewsSocial is using as of the effective date of this Privacy Policy are located in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, but this may change from time to time.
Data transferred from the European Union to the United States or outside the European Union will be made on the grounds of a certification to the E.U./U.S. Privacy Shield regime and/or a data transfer agreement based on the Standard Contractual Clauses approved of by the European Commission respectively, consistent with applicable data privacy requirements.
12. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When we do, we will provide you with notice of such update through (at a minimum) a reasonably prominent notice on the Websites and Services, and will revise the Effective Date below. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about how we are protecting, using, processing and transferring the personal information we collect.
Effective Date: 25 July 2021.