Effective Date: August 14, 2023
We at Solving For Science, a California nonprofit corporation (“SolvingFor”) know you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy.
By using or accessing our site, registering for any of our programs or otherwise providing us with your information in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.
What does this privacy policy cover?
This Privacy Policy covers our treatment of personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) that we gather when you are accessing or using our website, registering for or participating in any of our programs or otherwise communicating with us, but not to the practices of companies we don’t own or control, or people that we don’t manage. We gather various types of Personal Information, as explained in more detail below, and we use this Personal Information internally in connection with our programs, services, research and business operations, including to personalize, provide, and improve our programs and services, to contact you and allow other members or participants to contact you, to fulfill your requests for certain information, products and services, and to analyze how you use our programs and services. In certain cases, we may also share some Personal Information with third parties as described below.
We do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register for our Programs or send any Personal Information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 13 may have provided us Personal Information, please contact us at info@solvingfor.org.
Information you provide to us:
We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us. For example, through the registration process, we may collect Personal Information such as your name, email address, phone number, mailing and permanent addresses, educational background and information, and professional CV and affiliations. Certain information may be required to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features.
We may communicate with you if you’ve provided us the means to do so. For example, if you’ve given us your email address, we may send you information regarding our programs and programs of our members or partners. If you do not want to receive communications from us, you will have the opportunity to opt-out of such communications.
Information Collected Automatically
Whenever you interact with our website or programs, we automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser or device, which may include your IP address, geolocation data, device identification, “cookie” information, the type of browser and/or device you’re using, and the page or feature you requested. “Cookies” are identifiers we transfer to your browser or device that allow us to recognize your browser or device and tell us how and when pages and features on our site are visited and by how many people. In some jurisdictions, we are not permitted to send cookies to your browser without your prior expressed consent. In this case, we will seek such consent. This section assumes that either the use of cookies is not restricted by applicable law, or if it is restricted that the individual has explicitly consented to the use of the cookies. You may be able to change the preferences on your browser or device to prevent or limit your device’s acceptance of cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our features. If you click on a link to a third party website or service, such third party may also transmit cookies to you. Again, this Privacy Policy does not cover the use of cookies by any third parties, and we aren’t responsible for their privacy policies and practices. Please be aware that cookies placed by third parties may continue to track your activities online even after you have left our Services, and those third parties may not honor “Do Not Track” requests you have set using your browser or device.
We may use this data to customize content for you that we think you might like, based on your usage patterns. We may also use it to improve our site or programs – for example, this data can tell us how often users visit a particular webpage, and we can use that knowledge to make our site or programs interesting to as many users as possible.
Information That’s Been De-Identified.
We may de-identify your Personal Information so that you are not identified as an individual, and provide that information to our partners and other third parties. We may also provide aggregate usage information to our partners (or allow partners to collect that information from you), who may use such information to understand how often and in what ways people use our Services, so that they, too, can provide you with an optimal online experience. However, we never disclose aggregate usage or de-identified information to a partner (or allow a partner to collect such information) in a manner that would identify you as an individual.
How does SolvingFor use Personal Information collected?
We use information about you for the legitimate business purposes listed below:
To provide you with access to our programs. For example, your information will be used to confirm your registration for the programs, allow you to interact with other participants, host the programs and our website, backup and restore the data, provide customer service, and verify user information.
To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our programs and services. For example, by monitoring and analyzing how participants engage with the programs or our site so we can create new content, challenges and features that we think will be of interest to our users and participants.
To protect our programs and services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of SolvingFor and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a participant’s request or terminating a program.
To fix problems with our site or programs. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
To customize the user experience.
To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, share tips for getting the most out of our programs, or keep you up to date on SolvingFor. If you don't want to hear from us, you can opt out of marketing communications at any time. (If you opt out, we'll still send you important updates and transactional information relating to your account including without limitation alerts highlighting updates to this privacy policy and our terms of service.)
As otherwise described to you at the time of collection, or with your consent.
Will SolvingFor share any of the Personal Information it receives?
We do not rent or sell your Personal Information in personally identifiable form to anyone, except as expressly provided below. We may share your Personal Information with third parties as described in this below:
Our Service Providers and Agents:
We employ other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and need to share your information with them to make our programs available. For example, we may use a payment processing company to receive and process your credit card transactions for us. Unless we tell you differently, our service providers or agents do not have any right to use the Personal Information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. Note that we may share information that’s been de-identified with our service providers and agents as described above.
Business Transfers:
We may choose to buy or sell assets, and may share and/or transfer customer information in connection with the evaluation of and entry into such transactions. Also, if we (or our assets) are acquired, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, Personal Information could be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.
Legally Required Disclosures
We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our Terms of Service and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of SolvingFor, our employees, our users, or others.
Is Personal Information about me secure?
We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Information we hold in our records, but unfortunately we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time. We do use our commercially reasonable efforts to have safeguards in place to protect your Personal Information.
SolvingFor is a United States based company. The information about you that we process when you participate in our programs in your country may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals or organizations operating outside your country. By accessing or participating in our programs, you expressly consent to the transfer of your information outside of your country. Such countries may have laws which are different, and potentially not as protective, as the laws of your own country. Where required by an applicable law, we will take additional safeguards with respect to your information in connection with such transfers.
What Personal Information can I access?
If you have any questions about viewing or updating information we have on file about you, please contact us at info@solvingfor.org.
What choices do I have?
You can always opt not to disclose information to us, but keep in mind some information may be needed to register for our programs or to take advantage of some of our services.
You may be able to add, update, or delete information as explained above. When you update information, however, we may maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records. We may use any aggregated data derived from or incorporating your Personal Information after you update or delete it, but not in a manner that would identify you personally.
Under certain circumstances, by law, you have the right to request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data and to stop processing it. To request the deletion of personal data, please contact info@solvingfor.org
California Residents
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides California consumers with the right to request access to their personal data, additional details about our information practices and deletion of their personal information (subject to certain exceptions). California consumers also have the right to opt out of sales of personal information, if applicable. We describe how California consumers can exercise their rights under the CCPA below. Please note that you may designate an authorized agent to exercise these rights on your behalf by providing written materials demonstrating that you have granted the authorized agent power of attorney. Please note that if an authorized agent submits a request on your behalf, we may need to contact you to verify your identity and protect the security of your personal information. We will not fulfill your CCPA request unless you have provided sufficient information for us to reasonably verify you are the consumer about whom we collected personal information. We will not discriminate against you if you choose to exercise your rights under the CCPA.
You may request, no more than twice in a twelve (12) month period, access to the specific pieces of personal data we have collected about you in the last twelve (12) months. You may also request additional details about our information practices, including the categories of personal information we have collected about you, the sources of such collection, the categories of personal information we share for a legitimate business or commercial purposes, and the categories of third parties with whom we share your personal information. You may make these requests by contacting using the contact information provided below in the “How to Contact Us” Section below. After submitting your request, please monitor your email for a verification email. We are required by law to verify your identity prior to granting access to your data in order to protect your privacy and security.
You may request, no more than twice in a twelve (12) month period, transportable copies of your personal information that we have collected about you in the last twelve (12) months. You may make these requests by contacting using the contact information provided below in the “How to Contact Us” Section. After submitting your request, please monitor your email for a verification email. We are required by law to verify your identity prior to granting access to your data in order to protect your privacy and security.
You may request that we delete the personal information we have collected about you. Please note that we may retain certain information as required or permitted by applicable law. You may make these requests by contacting us using the contact information provided below in the “How to Contact Us” Section below. After submitting your request, please monitor your email for a verification email. We are required by law to verify your identity prior to granting access to your data in order to protect your privacy and security.
California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of personal information which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California Resident and would like to exercise your rights under CCPA, please submit a written request using the information provided in the “How to Contract Us” section below. Our privacy team will examine your request and respond to you as quickly as possible.
Will SolvingFor ever change this Privacy Policy?
We’re constantly trying to improve our business, so we may need to change this Privacy Policy from time to time as well, but we will use commercially reasonable efforts to alert you to changes by placing a notice on the Services, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means. Please note that if you’ve opted not to receive legal notice emails from us (or you haven’t provided us with your email address), those legal notices will still govern your use of the Services, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them. If you use the Services after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted, that means you agree to all of the changes.
How to contact us?
If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message at info@solvingfor.org, and we will try to resolve your concerns. You can also attempt to contact us via telephone at 703-772-5466 or via the postal service at 1263 Stanyan Street, San Francisco, CA 94117.