Privacy Statement
Homeschool Connections of Central Maryland
Version 1.0
Effective Date: December 7, 2004
Homeschool Connections of Central Maryland (Connections) is committed to providing you with excellent services and resources related to facilitating and promoting the intellectual advancement, social development, and community involvement of our children. Additionally, we respect your right to privacy and have developed this Privacy Statement to inform you about our privacy practices for the entire Connections Web site. We encourage you to read the entire Statement and check this page periodically for any changes or updates.
Information Collection
Connections collects limited personal information when you join such as members names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. Most of this information may be entered at your option.
We do not collect any personal information from a visitor to our sites unless that visitor explicitly and intentionally provides it. Under no circumstances do we collect any personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, other memberships, health, or sexual preferences.
When you visit this site, we may automatically collect statistics about your visit. This information does not identify you personally, but rather information about a visit to the site. We may monitor statistics such as how many people visit the site, the user\'s IP address, what pages people visit on the site, from which domains our visitors reach our sites, and which browsers and operating systems people use. We use these statistics about your visit for aggregation purposes only. These statistics are used to help us improve the performance of our Web site. Aggregate statistical data may also be used to attract potential sponsors and deliver advertising messages to appropriate users.
Special note about children
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, Connections will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen without first obtaining parental consent. Children should always get permission from their parents before sending any information about himself or herself (such as their names, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else. Specifically for children under 13:
Parental approval will be required before registering as a member of the Connections Web site. Each potential member will be required to certify that he or she is over the age of 13, or obtain parental permission to proceed with the registration. In the case of a child registrant, a parent will be asked to provide an e-mail address which is not the same as the address used by the child, and will then receive an e-mail asking for confirmation that the parent approves the child's participation. The child's registration will not be activated until a response from the parent to that email is received.
Receipt of communications from Connections will be "opted out" at the time of registration. As members of the site, they will able to "opt in" to site notifications, but not into newsletters or other communications not resulting from a site event.
Parents and site administrators should remember that the Connections Web site is a private site and that the user provided content in the site is neither accessed nor monitored by Connections. Parents, site administrators, and other members of the Connections site should be sensitive to the degree that young people participate in a family site and assure that content provided by and for young people is age appropriate and used only in appropriate manners.
Parents may request information from Connections about what information their child has provided to and is being keep by Connections. We will require positive identification of the parent and their relationship before this information will be released to the parent.
Information Use and Disclosure
The Connections Family Directory may include, at the Members discretion, information such as name, address, phone number, email address, interests, birthdates, etc. This information is available to all Connections members in good standing for the purposes of furthering Connection\'s published mission.
In no case is the personal information about individual members sold or otherwise shared with advertisers, sponsors, partners or other 3rd parties. Under no circumstances is this information collected or distributed in any form without your prior knowledge and consent.
If we are required by law to disclose certain information to local, state, federal, or national law enforcement authorities, we will do so. Additionally, Connections may share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities or suspected fraud.
Preferences
We store information that you provide to personalize your settings on the Service so that you do not have to change these settings each time you use the Service. We do not share your preferences with third parties.
Cookies
A "cookie" is a piece of information that our Web site sends to your browser, that then stores this information on your system. A user will not be able to utilize our web site without cookies. The cookie is used to "remember" information about you and your preferences either until you exit your current browser window (if the cookie is temporary) or until you disable or delete the cookie. Please be aware that cookies contain no more information than you volunteer, and they are not able to "invade" your hard drive and return to the sender with personal or other information from your computer.
Communications
We send all new members of Connections a welcome e-mail and sometimes other information.
Service Announcements
We send members service-related announcements from time to time.
Customer Service
We will communicate with you via e-mail to provide requested services and support for questions and issues relating to your membership. We will reply to your requests for information by e-mail, phone, discussion forum, or through any other reasonable means.
Links
Connection\'s Web site contains links to other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Web site and to read the privacy policies of the Web sites that you frequent.
Correcting and Accessing Information
If your personally identifiable information changes, if you wish to confirm the accuracy of your personally identifiable information, or if you no longer want to be a member, we provide a way to correct that information and a way to deactivate your membership. You can correct some personally identifiable information at the "Your Info" page of the Web site. Alternately, you can contact us via admin@hccmd.org. Additionally, members may at any time delete or modify information and items such as events, forums, files, and, photos that they have personally posted to the Web site.
Retention of Information
We will maintain most, if not all, of the personally identifiable information we have collected during the time you are a member of Connections. We generally will destroy this personally identifiable information after a reasonable period of time has elapsed following the termination or expiration of your membership. Alternately, individual family members or an entire family group may request that their personal data be deleted by making such a request via admin@hccmd.org. All such request will be verified prior to execution.
Security
While Connections makes reasonable efforts to protect your personal information, communications that we receive over the Internet are not encrypted and could be intercepted by third parties. We advise you to change your password occasionally.
Contact Information
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Privacy Statement, or wish to contact us about your personal information, please contact us at: admin@hccmd.org.
