About The Trace

Scope of this Policy

This privacy policy applies to:

  • The Trace (“The Trace,” “we,” “us,” “our”).
  • The Trace’s online properties (including our websites, such as https://www.thetrace.org/ and https://www.uptheblock.org/, and websites or mobile applications that link to them), our social media pages or handles, our newsletter and communications, and our services (the “Services”).

This Policy applies when you interact with us through our Services. It also applies anywhere it is linked. It does not apply to third-party websites, mobile applications, or services that may link to the Services or be linked to from the Services. Please review the privacy policies on those websites and applications directly to understand their privacy practices.

We may change this Policy from time to time. If we do, we will notify you by posting the updated version.

Information We Collect

We collect information from you directly, from the devices you use to interact with us, and from third parties. We may combine information from the Services together and with other information we obtain. We may use and share information that we aggregate (compile to create statistics that cannot identify a particular individual) or de-identify (strip information of all unique identifiers such that it cannot be linked to a particular individual) at our discretion.

Information you give us

You may provide the following information to us directly:

  • Contact and professional information, including name, email address, telephone number, and job title, as well as company name and size.
  • Donation information, including information you provide when donating to the Trace.
  • Demographic information.
  • Audiovisual information, including recordings of online events.
  • Payment information, including credit card information, through our third-party payment processor.
  • Content you may include in survey responses.
  • Information contained in your communications to us.
  • Information you make available to us via a social media platform.
  • Your use of our Services.
  • Information you submit to inquire about or apply for a job with us.
  • Any other information you submit to us.

Information we collect automatically

We and partners working on our behalf may use log files, cookies, or other digital tracking technologies to collect the following information from the device you use to interact with our Services. We also create records when you make donations or otherwise interact with the Services.

  • Device information, including IP address, device identifiers, and details about your web browser.
  • Analytical information, including details about your interaction with our Services, website, app, and electronic newsletters.
  • Diagnostic information, including web traffic logs.
  • Advertising information, including special advertising and other unique identifiers that enable us or third parties working on our behalf to target advertisements to you. Please be aware that our advertising partners may collect information about you when you visit third-party websites or use third-party apps. They may use that information to better target advertisements to you on our behalf.

The following is a list of our partners who collect the information described above. Please follow the links to find out more information about the partner’s privacy practices.

Information We Collect From Other Sources

We may collect the following information about you from third-party sources.

  • Contact information, demographic information, and information about your interests, from consumer data providers.
  • Information about your interests, activities, and employment history from social networks and other places where you choose to share information publicly.
  • Information about your interaction with advertisements on our Services, or ads that we place on third party websites, from online advertising companies.

How We Use Your Information

We may use any of the information we collect for the following purposes.

  • Service functionality: To provide you with our services, including to take steps to enter a contract for sale or for services, bill or invoice for services, process donations or payments, fulfill orders, send service communications, and conduct general organizational operations, such as accounting, recordkeeping, and audits.
  • Service improvement: To improve and grow our Services, including to develop new services and understand how our Services are being used, our user base, and the effectiveness of our marketing.
  • Personalization: To offer you recommendations and tailor the Services to your preferences.
  • Advertising and marketing: To send you marketing communications, personalize the advertisements you see on our Services and third-party online properties, and measure the effectiveness of our advertising. We may share your information with online advertising partners and social media platforms for this purpose.
  • Security: To protect and secure our Services, assets, network, and operations, and to detect, investigate, and prevent theft, unauthorized use, or abuse of the Services and other activities that may violate our policies or be fraudulent or illegal.
  • Legal compliance: To comply with legal process, such as warrants, subpoenas, court orders, and lawful regulatory or law enforcement requests and to comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

How We Share Your Information

We may share any of the information we collect with the following recipients.

  • Service providers: We engage vendors to perform specific functions on our behalf, and they may receive information about you from us or collect it directly. These vendors are obligated by contract to use information that we share only for the purpose of providing these functions, which include:
    • Supporting Service functionality, such as vendors that support event registration, customer service and customer relationship management, subscription fulfillment, freight services, application development, list cleansing, postal mailings, and communications (email, fax).
    • Auditing and accounting firms, such as firms that help us create our financial records.
    • Professional services consultants, such as firms that perform analytics, assist with improving our organization, provide legal services, or supply project-based resources and assistance.
    • Analytics and marketing services, including entities that analyze traffic on our online properties and assist with identifying and communicating with potential customers.
    • Security vendors, such as entities that assist with security incident verification and response, service notifications, and fraud prevention.
    • Information technology vendors, such as entities that assist with website design, hosting and maintenance, data and software storage, and network operation.
    • Marketing vendors, such as entities that support distribution of marketing emails.
  • Online advertising partners: We partner with companies that assist us in advertising our Services, including partners that use cookies and online tracking technologies to collect information to personalize, retarget, and measure the effectiveness of advertising.
  • Social media platforms: If you interact with us on social media platforms, the platform may be able to collect information about you and your interaction with us. If you interact with social media objects on our Services (for example, by clicking on a Facebook “like” button), both the platform and your connections on the platform may be able to view that activity. To control this sharing of information, please review the privacy policy of the relevant social media platform.
  • Government entities/Law enforcement: We may share information when we believe in good faith that we are lawfully authorized or required to do so to respond to lawful subpoenas, warrants, court orders, or other regulatory or law enforcement requests, or where necessary to protect our property or rights or the health and safety of our employees, contractors, customers, or other individuals.

Security

We use a combination of physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the information we collect through the Services. While we use these precautions to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of the networks, systems, servers, devices, and databases we operate or that are operated on our behalf.

Your Options and Rights Regarding Your Information

Email Unsubscribe: If you do not wish to receive marketing information from us or wish to opt out of future email promotions from us, please contact us. Please note that all promotional email messages you receive from us will include an option to opt out of future email communications.

Ad Choices: You have options to limit the information that we and our partners collect for online advertising purposes.

  • You may disable cookies in your browser or mobile device using their settings menus. Your mobile device may give you the option to disable advertising functionality. Because we use cookies to support Service functionality, disabling cookies may also disable some elements of our online properties.
  • The following industry organizations offer opt-out choices for companies that participate in them: the Network Advertising Initiative, the Digital Advertising Alliance, and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Initiative.
  • You may contact us directly.

If you exercise these options, please be aware that you may still see advertising, but it will not be personalized. Nor will exercising these options prevent other companies from displaying personalized ads to you.

If you delete your cookies, you may also delete your opt-out preferences.

Do Not Track: Your browser or device may include “Do Not Track” functionality. Our information collection and disclosure practices and the choices that we provide to you will continue to operate as described in this privacy policy regardless of whether a Do Not Track signal is received.

Jurisdiction-specific rights: You may have certain rights with respect to your personal information depending on your location or residency. Please see “privacy disclosures for specific jurisdictions” below. Please contact us to exercise your rights.

Special Information for Job Applicants

When you apply for a job with us, we may collect information from you, including:

  • Information you provide in connection with your application.
  • Information that you make available in your social media accounts.
  • Information about you that is available publicly.
  • Information that you authorize us to collect via third parties, including former employers or references.

In certain circumstances, you may submit your application for employment through a third-party service that displays our job posting. We do not control the privacy practices of these third-party services. Please review their privacy policies carefully prior to submitting your application materials.

Other Important Information

Data retention

We may store information about you for as long as we have a legitimate organizational need for it.

Cross-border data transfer

We may collect, process, and store your information in the United States and other countries. The laws in the United States regarding information may be different from the laws of your country. Any such transfers will comply with safeguards as required by relevant law.

Information about children

The Services are intended for users who are thirteen years old and older. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected information from anyone younger than the age of 13, we will delete that information. Please contact us with any concerns.

Privacy Disclosures for Specific Jurisdictions

California

Your California Privacy Rights; “Shine the Light” Law

California residents are entitled once a year, free of charge, to request and obtain certain information regarding our disclosure, if any, of certain categories of personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. Please contact us to obtain this information.

We do not share your personal information with third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes.

Nevada

Residents of the State of Nevada have the right to opt out of the sale of certain pieces of their information to third parties. Currently, we do not engage in such sales. If you are a Nevada resident and would like more information about our data sharing practices, please contact us.

Contact information, submitting requests, and our response procedures

Contact

Please contact us if you have questions or wish to take any action with respect to information to which this privacy policy applies.

Email: [email protected]

Making a request to exercise your rights

Submitting requests: You may request to exercise your rights by making a request using the contact information above.

We may have a reason under the law why we do not have to comply with your request, or why we may comply with it in a more limited way than you anticipated. If we do, we will explain that to you in our response.

Last updated March 7, 2025