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Cities4Forests Privacy Policy

Effective Date: July 2022

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes the collection, use, and disclosure of information related to the users of the website http://www.cities4forests.com (“Website”). The Website is operated by World Resources Institute (“WRI”), a global research nonprofit headquartered at 10 G Street, NE, Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20002, USA, and its affiliates and subsidiaries, (collectively, “we”, “our” or “us”).

Our organization and network of affiliates span more than 50 countries. You may interact with WRI and the Cities4Forests initiative through the Website and any other related and connected platforms and other online and offline interactions including emails and social media (collectively, the “Services”).

For each of these Services, this Privacy Policy tells you what to expect we’ll do with your Personal Information when you make contact with us or use one of our Services. In particular, this Privacy Policy explains how:

  • we use your Personal Information when you visit the Website, communicate with us, or provide us with your Personal Information in other ways; and
  • we respect your Personal Information privacy rights.

Personal Information we collect

We collect different kinds of information from you, depending on how you interact with us. When we refer to Personal Information, we mean any information that (directly or indirectly) identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated, linked or linkable with a particular individual or household, including any information that is subject to applicable data protection laws.

Online collection: We collect Personal Information from you when you register to receive email communications, create an online account, make donations, send email inquiries, register for events, or participate in other parts of our Services.

Depending on the Services you interact with, the information collected may vary and may include, for example:

  • Identifiers and contact details you choose to provide, such as your name and email address;
  • Emails, messages, posts, and other communications and information you choose to share via email or over social media;
  • Location information: location information about a particular individual or device, general location information, and geolocation data (for example, your IP address may indicate your more general geographic region);
  • Automatically collected information: We and our third-party service providers may collect information about your interaction with our Services using cookies and similar automatic data-collection technology. We use this information to improve and maintain our Services, collect aggregate site usage reports that do not identify you individually, and to optimize site users’ experience on the Services. The information we collect includes:
    • Identifiers like IP address and device and browser information.
    • Website and application activity information like clicks, content and page views, internet service provider, browser version, domain type.
  • Anonymous or aggregated information: We may use aggregated or de-identified data that doesn’t identify you for any lawful business purpose. De-identified data is not Personal Information.

Offline collection: We also collect Personal Information from you when you provide us with it at conferences or similar events. Such Personal Information will typically consist of your organizational or personal contact details, donation information, or other information you choose to give us.

Our use of your Information

We use the Personal Information we collect about you for any of the following purposes:

  • providing, developing, improving and maintaining our Services;
  • handling, processing, and communicating with you about donations and other ways to contribute to WRI’s mission;
  • registering you for a WRI Service, including on a particular WRI website;
  • providing you with updates, newsletters, data, other research, and/or donation-related communications you have requested;
  • responding to your inquiries and requests;
  • generating anonymous reports about your use of our Services and their features;
  • allowing you to take part in Service features, and WRI campaigns, projects, events, or surveys; and
  • analyzing the use of our services or technologies.

Outreach and Communications

Where you consent, we use your Personal Information to provide you with communications about WRI, including, but not limited to email communications or information about WRI projects or Cities4Forests initiatives around the world and ways that you can contribute to our efforts.

We send such communications by:

  • email;
  • phone;
  • social media messages; and
  • any other medium which becomes relevant from time to time.

You can opt-out of receiving communications from the Cities4Forests initiative or WRI at any time by writing to us at privacy@wri.org or by following the unsubscribe instructions in our communications. However, we may still need to contact you for important administrative reasons, such as in the event of a material change to our Services, related policies, or accounts you create with us.

Disclosure of information

Personal Information is disclosed to the following parties:

  • to employees and independent contractors of WRI, analytic vendors, payment processing vendors, third party agents and other service providers and suppliers if the disclosure will enable that party to perform a business, professional, or technical support function for WRI or to perform a service that you have requested;
  • to and between entities within the WRI group and the Cities4Forests initiative:
  • where you give us permission to disclose your Personal Information to third parties selected by us in connection with our projects and campaigns;
  • if we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or request from a competent court, regulator or other authority;
  • where we deem it necessary, in our sole discretion, to protect our legal rights or property or the legal rights or property of an individual who registers with an WRI service or technology or any third party or to prevent personal injury; and/or
  • in connection with a sale, merger, assignment, reorganization, joint venture or other transfer or disposition of a portion or all of our assets or our affiliated entities (including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

We also disclose non-private, aggregate or otherwise non-personal information to third parties, including social media companies like Facebook and Twitter for outreach purposes.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that any Personal Information about you that we pass to a service provider or other third party will be held securely by that party and only be used for the purposes for which it was provided to them. Except as noted above, information we collect from WRI website visitors will not be shared with individuals or other companies unrelated to WRI, or that do not perform a business, professional or technical function for WRI.

Security and Quality

The security of your Personal Information is important to us. We have put in place safeguards to protect the Personal Information we collect from unauthorized access, use and disclosure, and we take steps to ensure that all of our employees, agents, contractors and other third parties have similar adequate measures in place. We also have procedures to deal with any suspected Personal Information breach, and we will notify you and any applicable regulator when we are legally required to do so. We cannot, however, guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur. We urge you to take steps to keep your Personal Information safe, such as choosing a strong password and logging out of your User Account and closing your web browser when finished using the Services.

We do our best to maintain the accuracy of any Personal Information you supply to us. You can help Cities4Forests update and maintain the accuracy of any Personal Information you supply by notifying us of any changes to your address, title, phone number or e-mail address. In some parts of our Services, you may do this online by following the instructions on membership profile pages. You may also do this by using the contact information provided below.

Transmission of information on the internet is not completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information sent on our Services. Transmission of such information is at your own risk.

Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies, pixels, tags, and other technologies, which may be provided by third parties, on our Services to enable certain functionality and for security and fraud detection and prevention, as well as to collect usage information about our Website and the emails that we send and to personalize content and provide more relevant ads and information. We may combine the information we collect via these technologies with other information, including Personal Information.

Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred to your computer through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. Some cookies enable you to log-in to our Services or save certain settings and preferences, while others allow us to track usage and activities on our Services, personalize content, or deliver more relevant ads. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. The “Help” tab on the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. If you block cookies, however, certain features on our Website may not be available or function properly.

Pixel tags and embedded script (aka clear GIFs and web beacons). Pixel tags are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, pixel tags are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use these, in connection with our Website to, among other things, track the activities of the users of our Services, and gather usage information about our Website. We may also use these in HTML emails to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.

Third-Party Analytics Tools. Our Website uses automated devices and applications operated by third parties, such as Google Analytics, which uses cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the Website and report on activities and trends. This service may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps and online resources. You can learn about Google’s practices by going to Google’s Practices, and you can opt of them by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at Google Opt-Out.

Transfers

Where necessary, we may need to transfer your Personal Information to another country. These transfers can take place within the WRI or Citiies4Forests groups but also may be made to selected third parties (as explained in the Disclosure of Information section of this Privacy Policy). Such transfers take place to enable us to provide you with our services and/or to communicate with you. Countries that we transfer your Personal Information to may not have the same Personal Information protection standards as the country you live in.

Links to External Websites

Cities4Forests services may contain links to other websites belonging to third parties. These websites are not covered by this Privacy Policy, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices within any other website. You should be aware of this when you leave a Cities4Forests area, including the Website, and we encourage you to read the privacy statements of other websites.

Personal Information access and deletion

You may request a copy of the Personal Information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. You may also request that we delete the information we hold about you. Please address requests (with a return email address where possible) to:

WRI Communications
privacy@wri.org

Or by post to:

World Resources Institute
10 G Street NE, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20002
Attn: General Counsel

If you are resident in the European Economic Area, please also read the ‘Information for Individuals Located in the European Economic Area’ section of this Privacy Policy. You may have additional rights in relation to your Personal Information.

Information for Individuals located in the European Economic Area

European Economic Area (“EEA”) data protection laws offer additional rights and protections for individuals located in the EEA. Further to the information set out in the ‘Personal Information access and deletion’ section of this Privacy Policy, the following additional information applies to you if you are located in the EEA:

  • Basis of processing: Where you give us your Personal Information, we process your Personal Information for our legitimate business purposes to respond to your requests (for example, providing you with access to our websites or providing you with newsletter communications that you have requested);
  • Personal Information rights: In addition to your right to access Personal Information we hold about you (as set out in the ‘Personal information access and deletion’ section of this Privacy Policy), you have the right to have your Personal Information rectified or erased, to object to its processing or to restrict access to it. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority if you are unhappy with how we process your Personal Information. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to receive a copy of your Personal Information in a machine-readable format or to have your Personal Information sent to another company.

Donation processing partner

WRI has partnered with a third-party service provider, iATS Payments, to process your online donations. Where you make a donation to WRI online, your Personal Information will be shared between WRI and iATS Payments as necessary to complete your donation, communicate with you about your donation, and as may be necessary to comply with our legal obligations. Information provided to iATS Payments is not used for any other purposes.

We encourage you to read the Deluxe Privacy Center policy for information about how they process your Personal Information. You will be given an opportunity to review their privacy policy before you make a WRI donation online.

WRI takes its donors’ privacy seriously. For more information, please see our WRI Donor Privacy Policy.

Children’s Privacy

Our Services are restricted for users of legal age and children under the age of 18 are not allowed to use our Services. Cities4Forests does not knowingly collect or maintain Personal Information from children we actually know at the time of collection are under the age of 18. Should we discover that we have collected Personal Information online from a child who is under 18, we will promptly delete that Personal Information. If you have concerns over the collection of children’s Personal Information on the Services, please contact us at the information provided below under “Contact Us.”

Changes, oversight and questions

WRI welcomes comments and questions on this Privacy Policy. We are dedicated to protecting your privacy and will make every reasonable effort to keep your information secure. Due to the rapidly evolving changes on the internet, this Policy is kept under regular review and may be updated from time to time. When we make changes to this Policy, we will change the “Last Updated” date above. If a material change is made to this Policy, we may choose to provide notice to you in advance of such change, such as by posting notice of that change on the first page of this Policy or on our homepage, or by emailing your email address of record with us.

Contact information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at:

privacy@wri.org
World Resources Institute
10 G Street NE, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20002
mailto:legal@wri.org