Humane Society Silicon Valley’s Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Your Privacy and Security

Effective Date: November 9, 2021

Humane Society Silicon Valley (“HSSV”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect from and about you, how we use and share that information, and what choices you have with your information. This Policy applies to all information that we have about you, and to all of the services provided by us, including all of our websites (collectively, the “Services”). Your privacy matters to us, so please take the time to familiarize yourself with our policies, and if you have any questions please contact us at privacy@hssv.org. This policy is incorporated into and is subject to HSSV’s Terms of Service and Mutual Rescue’s Terms of Service.

What Information We Collect

Information You Provide to Us.

  • Online Collection. When you register for an account, make a donation, register for a class, create a fundraising page, share your adoption story with us, register for our newsletter, register to volunteer with us, or perform other actions through our Services, we may ask you for information such as your name, photo, username, email address, phone number, mailing address, and password. If you share a story with us, we will also ask you to describe your adoption experience.
  • Offline Collection. We also receive your name and contact information from you when you provide it to us in-person, through the mail or on a telephone call, at an event, or when you surrender or adopt an animal. Some of the information you provide to us offline may be used to automatically create an online account for you, which you can access via our Services.
  • Joint Data Collection. As a part of our collection of information from users both online and offline, we may collect information in combination with our partners for jointly offered services, promotions, surveys, or other activities. We may collect information solely on behalf of one of our partners in cases where users choose to provide their information to us for such purposes.
  • Donations and Payments. If you make a donation or payment to us in person, we will receive payment card information from you. We do not receive payment card information for online donations and payments. All payments are processed by our service provider, and we do not store or maintain any payment card information.
  • Educational Programs. When you register a child for an educational program, you may provide the child’s name, mailing address, phone number, email address, school name and address, grade, and age. We also request health-related information, such as the child’s doctor’s contact information, and information about the child’s immunizations and allergies. You may also be asked to provide the name and telephone number of people authorized to pick up the child from the program. This information is used only for the purposes of providing the educational program for which the child is registered and for health and safety purposes.
  • Communications. We receive information from you when you contact us or we communicate with you, including via email, phone, or social media.
  • Surveys. We may contact you to participate in surveys. If you decide to participate, you may be asked to provide certain information which may include personal information.

Information We Receive From Your Use of Our Services.

  • Usage and Device Information. When you use our Services, we and our service providers, such as website analytics, social media widgets, and online ad networks, may receive certain information from your use of our Services, including the actions you take on our Services, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after you use our Services, the dates and times that you use our Services, and device information such as your IP address, locale, operating system, and web browser. Service providers such as analytics providers may collect information about your online activities over time and across different online services when you use our Services.
  • Analytics. We may use Technologies and other third-party tools to process analytics information on our Services, including Google Analytics. For more information, please visit Google Analytics’ Privacy Policy. To learn more about how to opt-out of Google Analytics’ use of your information, please click here.
  • Events and Fundraisers. We receive the information you provide when you create fundraisers or events using our Services.
  • Cookies and Other Similar Technologies. We, and our service providers, use various technologies to collect and store information when you use our Services, and this may include sending “cookies” to your device. For more information on our use of cookies, please see the “Cookies” section below.
  • Social Media Platforms. Our Services may contain social media buttons such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram (that might include widgets such as the “share this” button or other interactive mini programs). These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Services, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Your interactions with these platforms are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Other Information We May Collect.

  • Fundraising Referrals. We may receive your name, email address, and mailing address if someone else provides it to us so we can communicate with you on their behalf about a fundraising opportunity. For example, if your friend creates a fundraising page on our Services, your friend may provide us with your email address so he/she can use our Services to notify you about the fundraising page via email.
  • Information from Third Parties. We like to know about the individuals who make donations to us, so we can communicate with them more effectively and adjust our outreach efforts. For this reason, we may collect information from third parties about our donors, including demographic and contact information, and combine it with information we collect from donors.
  • Integrated Services. You may link your account to other services you use, such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or register for our Services with them (“Integrated Services”). When you connect to an Integrated Service, we will receive information that the Integrated Service makes available to us, such as a token to authenticate your identity between these accounts, your name, email address, and date of birth. If you connect to an Integrated Service, you can share information from your account to your status feed in the Integrated Service. You should review your privacy settings and the policies for the Integrated Service to understand the information it sends to us and how it uses information it receives before connecting it to our Services.

How We Use Information We Collect

We may use the information we collect for a variety of purposes, including to:

  • Provide, improve, personalize, and promote our Services;
  • Develop new services, features, and functionality;
  • Process and complete transactions and send you related information, including confirmations and invoices;
  • Communicate with you by email, mail, and telephone, such as to respond to your comments, questions, and requests; provide customer service and support; provide you with information about our Services and donation opportunities, administrative messages, and other news or information about us;
  • Send you marketing communications jointly with our partners;
  • Provide you with personalized online advertising, mail, email, and telephone marketing messages, and information about us and donation opportunities;
  • Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Services;
  • Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity;
  • Short-term, transient use, such as contextual customization of ads;
  • Ensuring internal quality control and safety;
  • Authenticating and verifying individual identities, including requests to exercise your rights under this policy;
  • Debugging to identify and repair errors with our Services;
  • Auditing relating to interactions, transactions and other compliance activities;
  • Enforcing our agreements and policies; and
  • Complying with our legal obligations.

Marketing and Advertising our Products and Services
We may use personal information to tailor and provide you with content and advertisements. We may provide you with these materials as permitted by applicable law.

Some of the ways we market to you include email campaigns, custom audiences advertising, and “interest-based” or “personalized advertising,” including through cross-device tracking.

If you have any questions about our marketing practices, you may contact us at any time as set forth in “Contact Us” below.

Other Purposes
We also use your information for other purposes as requested by you or as permitted by applicable law.

  • Consent. We may use personal information for other purposes that are clearly disclosed to you at the time you provide personal information or with your consent.
  • De-identified and Aggregated Information. We may use personal information and other information about you to create de-identified and/or aggregated information, such as de-identified demographic information, de-identified location information, information about the device from which you access our Services, or other analyses we create.
  • Share Content with Friends or Colleagues. Our Services may offer various tools and functionalities. For example, we may allow you to provide information about your friends through our referral services. Our referral services may allow you to forward or share certain content with a friend or colleague, such as an email inviting your friend to use our Services. Please only share with us contact information of people with whom you have a relationship (e.g., relative, friend neighbor, or co-worker).

Information Sharing And Disclosures

We may share your information in the following ways:

  • Your consent. We may share your personal information with companies, organizations, or individuals outside of our organization when we have your consent to do so.
  • Donations. When you make a donation using our Services, we may disclose your email, name, donation amount, and your comments to the person who requested a donation from you. With your consent, we may post your name and donation amount publicly on our Services, where the information is viewable by other users and the public. We are not responsible for the actions of users who view and use the posted information.
  • Donor Lists. We will not sell, share, or trade our donor lists containing personal information, including names, email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers, with any other non-affiliated organization for their own purposes, unless donors have given us specific permission to do so. This limitation includes personal information received online or offline by us from or about our donors in connection with requesting and/or processing donations. We will share information with service providers that will use the donors’ information only as necessary to provide their services to us. For example, we may use an email service provider to send newsletters and other communications to our donors. We do not send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations, unless they have given us specific permission to do so.
  • Service Providers and Vendors. We may share your information with our service providers and vendors, such as technology, direct mailing, online advertising, telephone calling, and analytics services. We also provide your payment information to our service provider for payment processing and verification.
  • Social Networks. Our Services may allow you to share information with social networking websites, such as Facebook. We do not share your information with them unless you direct us to share it. Their use of the information will be governed by their privacy policies, and you may be able to modify your privacy settings on their websites.
  • Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement Requests; Protection of Our Rights: We may disclose your information to a third party if (a) we believe that disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (b) to enforce our agreements, policies and terms of service, (c) to protect the security or integrity of our Services, (d) to protect the property, rights, and safety of us, our animals, our users, donors, or the public from harm or illegal activities, (e) to respond to an emergency which we believe in the good faith requires us to disclose information to assist in preventing the death or serious bodily injury of any person, or (f) to investigate and defend ourselves or others against any third-party claims or allegations.
  • Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, sale of assets, or other business transaction, your information may be sold or transferred as part of such a transaction as permitted by law and/or contract. We cannot control how such entities may use or disclose such information.
  • Aggregate Data. We may share aggregate information that does not directly identify you with our service providers and other third parties for business purposes.

Choices You Have With Your Information

You can modify or correct your personal information at any time by logging into your account and updating your information or contacting us directly at privacy@hssv.org. If you would like to deactivate your account or opt out of direct mailings and other solicitations, you can contact us directly at privacy@hssv.org. You can also change your contact preferences in your account settings.

You may opt out of receiving promotional email communications from us by using the unsubscribe link included within each email. Even after you opt out from receiving promotional messages from us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding our Services.

Text Messages. You may opt out of receiving text messages from us by following the instructions in the text message you have received from us or by otherwise contacting us.

How We Protect Your Information

We and our service providers maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your personal information. This includes the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to protect credit card processing information and access controls to protect against unauthorized access to your personal information. Please be aware, however, that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other type of misuse.

By using our Services or providing information to us, you agree that we may communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy, and administrative issues relating to your use of our Services. If we learn of a security system’s breach, we may attempt to notify you electronically by posting a notice on our Services or sending an email to you. You may have a legal right to receive this notice by mail.

Links To Other Websites

Our Services contain links to other websites operated by third parties that we think may be of interest to you. This includes forms you may complete for discounts or free products from third parties. Please remember, however, that we are not responsible for the actions of those other sites, the content of their sites, or any products or services they may offer.

Cookies and Other Technologies

Our Services use cookies, pixel tags/web beacons, and similar technologies (“Technologies”) which are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your device. We may use other technologies to collect and store information such as the dates and times you visit our Services and the pages or content that you visit, and to provide and improve our Services, and better understand how you interact with our Services.

Our uses of these Technologies fall into the following general categories:

    • Operationally Necessary. This includes Technologies that allow you access to our Services, applications, and tools that are required to identify irregular website behavior, prevent fraudulent activity and improve security or that allow you to make use of our functionality;
    • Performance-Related. We may use Technologies to assess the performance of our Services, including as part of our analytic practices to help us understand how individuals use our Services (see Analytics below);
    • Functionality-Related. We may use Technologies that allow us to offer you enhanced functionality when accessing or using our Services. This may include identifying you when you sign into our Services or keeping track of your specified preferences, interests, or past items viewed;
    • Advertising- or Targeting-Related. We may use first party or third-party Technologies to deliver content, including ads relevant to your interests, on our Services or on third-party websites.

If you have set your browser to reject Technologies,, you can still use our Services, although some functions of our Services may not work.

You may stop or restrict the placement of Technologies on your device or remove them by adjusting your preferences as your browser or device permits. However, if you adjust your preferences, our Services may not work properly. Please note that cookie-based opt-outs are not effective on mobile applications. However, you may opt-out of personalized advertisements on some mobile applications by following the instructions for Android , iOS and others.
The online advertising industry also provides websites from which you may opt out of receiving targeted ads from data partners and other advertising partners that participate in self-regulatory programs. You can access these and learn more about targeted advertising and consumer choice and privacy by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative, the Digital Advertising Alliance, the European Digital Advertising Alliance, and the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada.

Please note you must separately opt out in each browser and on each device.

“Do Not Track.” Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. Please note that we do not respond to or honor DNT signals or similar mechanisms transmitted by web browsers.

Children’s Privacy

Our Services are intended for a general audience and not directed to individuals under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will promptly take steps to delete such information. If you become aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at privacy@hssv.org.

Retention of Personal Information

We store the personal information we collect as described in this Privacy Policy for as long as you use our Services or as necessary to fulfill the purpose(s) for which it was collected, provide our Services, resolve disputes, establish legal defenses, conduct audits, pursue legitimate business purposes, enforce our agreements, and comply with applicable laws.

Supplemental Notice for Nevada Residents

If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of certain Personal Information to third parties who intend to license or sell that Personal Information. You can exercise this right by contacting us as described below with the subject line “Nevada Do Not Sell Request” and providing us with your name and the email address associated with your account. Please note that we do not currently sell your Personal Information as sales are defined in Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A. If you have any questions, please contact us as set forth below.

International Users

Our Services are hosted in the United States. If you choose to use our Services from other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that we will transfer your information outside of those regions to the United States for storage and processing. By providing your information, you consent to such storage and processing in the United States and the collection, transfer, use, storage, and disclosure of your information in accordance with this privacy policy.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any changes, we will notify you by revising the “Effective” date at the top of this privacy policy. In the event that the changes materially alter your rights or obligations hereunder, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the change. For example, we may send a message to your email address, if we have one on file, or generate a pop-up or similar notification when you access our Services for the first time after such material changes are made. Your continued use of our Services after the revised policy has become effective indicates that you have read, understood, and agreed to the current version of this policy.

How To Contact Us

HSSV welcomes your questions and comments about privacy. Please contact us at privacy@hssv.org.