Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 2024

The Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Campaign Foundation (together, “HRC,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) are committed to protecting the integrity and privacy of the personal information we process. This Privacy Policy is intended to describe the personal information we collect, how that information may be used, with whom it may be shared, and your choices about such uses and disclosures. It applies to the personal information we process (i) through the HRC family of websites located at hrc.org, thehrcfoundation.org, and learn.hrc.org and related portals, platforms, mobile applications, and electronic forms (collectively, our “Sites”) and (ii) your offline interactions with us as described below.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By visiting and navigating our Sites, you agree that your use of our Sites is governed by this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service.1 Within our Sites, there may be links to third-party websites or applications for which we are not responsible. The data collection and use practices of any third party will be governed by that party’s applicable privacy statement and terms that we encourage you to review.

When we use the term “personal information” in this Privacy Policy, we mean information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular individual.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide us, including when you become a member of HRC, donate to HRC online or via mail, join us at a pride event or other gathering, peruse or purchase HRC merchandise online or in-person, submit responses to a survey or questionnaire, or sign up for one of our listservs. Such personal information may include:

  • Contact information, such as your first and last name, email address, mailing address, and phone number
  • Account information and log-in credentials (e.g., account name, user ID, and password)
  • Education or employment-related information (e.g., company name and job title)
  • Demographic data
  • Certain location data if you choose to enable “Location Services” for an HRC mobile application
  • Other personal information about yourself or others that you choose to provide, including information that may be considered “sensitive personal information” under certain privacy laws, such as data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, a mental or physical health condition or diagnosis, sex life, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

Please note that we may also collect financial information, such as your credit card details, bank routing number, and checking account number a separate/third-party payment processor.

Information Collected Automatically.

We collect some personal information through automated means. For example, when you visit our Sites, we may collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, Internet service provider (“ISP”) information, browser type, zip code, city and state, and technical information about how you use our site. We may also use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect data about your interaction with our Sites, the pages you visited, the time spent on those pages, information you searched for on our Sites, access times and dates, and other statistics. As noted, we may obtain certain location data when you visit our Sites or use certain applications (e.g., our “Buy4Equality” app) in order to ship products and provide and improve location-based products and services. For mobile applications, you can turn off this functionality at any time by disabling “Location Services”; however, some parts of the application may not work without it.

Information Collected from Third Parties and Other Sources.

We may collect personal information about you from public sources and third parties (e.g., allied and like-minded organizations) that we may combine with other data. Such personal information includes identifiers like your name, email and postal address.2 We typically only use this information to contact you and send you legislative updates, action alerts, press releases, information about HRC programs, events and activities, local volunteer opportunities, and membership and renewal appeals.

Information Collected When You Visit Our Offices or Attend Our Events.

When you visit our offices or attend an HRC event, we may collect personal information about you. This could include your name, government identifier (a driver’s license or passport number), address, and telephone number, for example, when you check in, as well as visual information collected through security cameras. We use this information to manage our offices/events and to protect the safety and property of our personnel and others. We never share such information with third parties for marketing or promotional purposes.

Cookies & Similar Technologies

What are Cookies?

When you visit our Sites, we may assign your device one or more cookies to facilitate access to our Sites and to personalize your online experience. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer or device when you access a website. We may use cookies to: (i) allow you to use the Sites without having to re-enter your username and password; (ii) understand how you engage with the Sites and to enhance or personalize your experience; (iii) monitor Site usage; (iv) manage the Sites; and (v) improve the Sites and our services, including providing you with interest-based ads. More information about cookies is available at www.aboutcookies.org. We may also use web beacons, tiny graphic images with unique identifiers used to collect information about your visit to our Sites and tools.

HRC also tracks activity and click-through behavior to provide a more personalized experience while visiting our Sites and for more personalized email alerts. HRC also uses IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the web site, track End User movement and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

HRC may track personal information across sites. HRC may also permit third parties to track this activity on the site and is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties linked to or tracking on its site. Our Sites may collect information about where you, or others who are using your device, saw and/or clicked on the advertisements they deliver, and possibly associate this information with your subsequent visits to the advertised websites or profiles on these services, such as on social media sites. They also may combine this information with personal information they collect from you. The collection and use of that information is subject to the third party’s privacy policy.

Managing Cookies.

You do not need to have cookies enabled to browse our Sites unless you want us to remember your preferences when you return. If you prefer not to allow cookies, most cookies can be managed or blocked through your browser. However, if your browser is set to reject cookies or you delete cookies, you may have trouble accessing and using some of the pages and features that are currently on our Sites.

HRC’s Sites do not respond to browser Do-Not-Track settings. HRC is working to recognize the Universal Opt-Out Mechanism required under Colorado law.

How We Use Your Information

We generally use the personal information we collect for our legitimate interests and everyday business purposes, to enter/perform a contract with you, for legal compliance, and with your consent. Specifically, we may use your personal information to:

  • Send you information about our organization and the issues we care about related to your interactions with us
  • Fulfill your requests for information, services, and products
  • Receive and process your donation
  • Communicate with you, including for fundraising purposes, and respond to your requests and messages
  • Conduct marketing (including joint marketing) and develop and send promotional materials, as well as newsletters and publications
  • Administer, safeguard, and improve our Sites and tools, systems, facilities, events, and other organization operations
  • Perform statistical analyses of user behavior and characteristics in order to measure interest in and use of various sections of our Sites
  • Protect, investigate, and enforce our rights and the safety/vital interests of you and others
  • Comply with applicable law, court order, subpoena, or other legal obligation
  • Other further uses that are reasonably necessary to or compatible with these other specified purposes
  • Help you take action in support of LGBTQ+ civil liberties, such as contacting decision makers (e.g., a representative in Congress) and their staff and signing a petition or sharing a message on social media
  • Provide legislative updates, action alerts, press releases, information about HRC programs, events and activities, local volunteer opportunities, and membership and renewal appeals
  • Connect you to relevant programs, partners, products, and services
  • Solicit input and feedback to improve our products and services and customize your user experience

We may also create aggregate data and/or anonymize personal information so that it will no longer be considered personal information.

How We Share Your Information

We may share your information with the following parties:

  • Trusted partners.
    The Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation may share your information with each other in accordance with tax and other applicable laws. HRC works closely with allied and like-minded organizations, including a broad array of progressive entities, and may occasionally share your name, physical address and email with such organizations or parties. These organizations are never given direct access to HRC’s membership database. HRC itself screens each mailing or email before we allow it to be sent to our membership. Information pertaining to current HRC board members, major donors, Federal Club members, Equality Circle, Partners, and/or $250+ donors is never — under any circumstance — released to external entities for the purpose of list rentals or exchanges. You have a right to opt-out of such sharing.
  • Providers of professional advisory and information technology services.
    We may share personal information with consultants, legal advisors, accountants, and other third-party service providers that may: process credit card payments; provide IT, customer service, and marketing support; perform business and sales analysis; and support our Site functionality. These third parties are not authorized to retain, share, store, or use your personal information for any purpose other than completion of the specific services for which they were hired.
  • Users of our Sites.
    Personal information that you include in comments, responses, messages, chats, photos, videos, and other content you submit to us may be viewed by other visitors to our Sites. In some cases, those visitors may access, re-post, or use such submissions.
  • Law enforcement.
    We may share personal information with law enforcement, other government agencies or authorities, or third parties as required by applicable law, court order, subpoena, or legal process served on us.
  • Other.
    We may also share personal information to (i) investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft, (ii) when we believe it is necessary to do so to protect the rights, property, or safety of our company or other persons, and (iii) in connection with a substantial organizational change.

We never share your mobile phone information with third parties for marketing or promotional purposes. In addition, we never share or pass along any consent you provide to us to opt-into our outreach activities.

We do not sell personal information or share such data for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising and have not done so within the last 12 months. We may sell, share, trade, or otherwise disclose aggregate information collected on our Sites. As noted, no single person can be identified by such aggregate information.

Data Retention and Protection

We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, subject to your rights and legal requirements. We may dispose of any data at our discretion without notice, subject to applicable law.

We implement administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access or use. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system is completely secure. If you have reason to believe that your personal information is being misused or is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the Contact Us section below.

Manage Communications from HRC

You may receive communications from us if you have: (i) expressly signed up to receive emails or other communications from HRC; (ii) taken action on behalf of or expressed interest in HRC either online or in person; (iii) signed up to receive HRC communications at pride events, HRC stores, public outreach or canvassing, and at many other hosted HRC events; (iv) become an HRC member; or (v) your contact information was provided by an allied partner organization.

Some personal information—names, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, and social media usernames—may be added to HRC’s databases and used for future outreach (including mailings) regarding membership, fundraising, marketing, or promotions. You will be given the opportunity, in any commercial e-mail, mailing or text that we send to you, to opt out of receiving such messages in the future. It may take up to 10 days for us to process an opt-out request. We may send you other types of transactional and relationship e-mail communications, such as service announcements, administrative notices, and surveys, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them. Please note that changing information in your account, or otherwise opting out of receipt of promotional email or text communications will only affect future activities or communications from us. If we have already provided your information to a third party before you have changed your preferences or updated your information, you may have to change your preferences directly with that third party.

Data Subject Rights

Residents in U.S. states with comprehensive privacy laws (such as California), as well as individuals outside the U.S. in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and other jurisdictions, have certain data subject rights. If you do not live in a jurisdiction with such rights, we will still consider any request you make to exercise such rights. These rights vary by jurisdiction but they may include the right to:

  1. (i)request additional disclosures about the personal information we collect, use, and disclose, i.e., a “Request to Know (Categories of Information”);
  2. (ii) obtain a copy of personal information in a portable format, i.e., a “Request to Know (Specific Pieces of Information),” sometimes called the Right to Access or Right to Data Portability;
  3. (iii) request erasure of personal information, i.e., a “Request to Delete Information,” sometimes called the Right to Be Forgotten;
  4. (iv) request the correction/rectification of personal information;
  5. (v) restrict or object to certain processing of personal information; and
  6. (vi) opt out of the sale of personal information, sharing of personal information for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising, targeted advertising, and profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, i.e., a “Request to Opt Out.” You may opt out of all such uses or any particular use.

Individuals may also have the right to not be discriminated against for exercising applicable data subject rights and may lodge a complaint about the processing of personal information with an applicable data protection authority or other regulator. If you would like to review, correct, update, or delete personal information that you have provided to us or that we have collected automatically or from other sources, you may contact us as indicated in the Contact Us section. We will respond to your request as required by applicable law. The rights described herein are not absolute and we reserve all of our rights available to us at law in this regard.

Before processing your request, we may need to verify your identity, in which case we may request additional information from you. You may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf by providing that agent with your written permission. If an agent makes a request on your behalf, we may still ask that you verify your identity directly with us before we can honor the request. We will process your request within the time provided by applicable law.

California - Shine the Light

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, known as the Shine the Light law, permits California residents to annually request, free of charge, data about personal information (if any) disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. If applicable, this data would include a list of the categories of personal information that was shared and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please contact us using the information below.

Children

Although our Sites do not target children, we are concerned about the safety and privacy of minors who use the internet. We do not knowingly collect personal information about individuals under the age of 13. If a parent or guardian informs us that their child under the age of 13 provided personal information to us without our knowledge, we will delete it from our database, subject to applicable law.

U.S. Website

If you access our Sites from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. By sending us your personal information, you consent to its transfer to and storage within the United States under United States law and acknowledge that our processing of personal information is subject to U.S. law.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personal information, we will notify you by sending an e-mail to the e-mail address you most recently provided us in your account, profile or registration (unless we do not have such an email address), and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on our Sites. We recommend that you check our Sites from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy.

Contact Us

If you would like to submit a request or exercise a right regarding your personal information, please email us at membership@hrc.org. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data processing practices, please email us at privacy@hrc.org. You can also reach us via U.S. mail or telephone at:

Membership
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-3278
Phone: 202.628.4160

Privacy Office
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-3278
Phone: 202.628.4160