Summary: We collect information directly from you when you provide it to us or automatically as you navigate through the Sites. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies, as further described below. This information helps us serve you better.

Who we are

Grey Matters Project Inc. d/b/a The Current (“The Current,” “Company” “our,” “us” or “we”) is committed to your privacy. 

This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.thecurrentga.org and any of The Current’s websites and related applications or platforms that include links to this Privacy Policy (collectively, our “Sites”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.  This Privacy Policy also applies to information we collect in electronic messages between you and the Sites.  This Privacy Policy does not apply to any website operated by third parties. 

Except as set forth herein, this Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by us offline or through any other means, or by any third party, including through any content that may link to or be accessible from or on the Sites.  

Our Sites are intended for users in the United States only.  The servers that make our Sites available are located in the United States.  If you are a non-resident of the United States, do not use these Sites or provide us with any of your Personal Information.

Please read this policy carefully.  By using our Sites and/or providing us your Personal Information, you signify your acknowledgement of this Privacy Policy.  If any term in this Privacy Policy is unacceptable to you, do not use our Sites or provide us with any Personal Information.    This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Revisions to Our Privacy Policy).  Your use of the Sites after we make changes is deemed to be an acceptance of those changes, so please check this policy periodically for updates. 

What information we collect and why we collect it

We collect information from and about users of our Sites, including information:

  • by which you may be personally identified, such as name, physical address, e-mail address, telephone number, geographic location, IP address, or any other information collected on the Sites that is defined as personally identifiable information under applicable law (“Personal Information”); and/or
  • about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Sites and usage details.

We collect this information directly from you when you provide it to us or automatically as you navigate through the Sites. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies, as further described below.

Information we collect about you automatically

As you navigate through and interact with our Sites, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Sites, including traffic data, location data, logs, language, date and time of access, frequency, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Sites.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, host domain, and browser type.
  • Details of referring websites (URL). We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).

The information we collect automatically is statistical data and may include Personal Information. We may also maintain it or associate it with Personal Information you provide to us or that we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Sites by enabling us to, among other things, estimate our audience size and usage patterns.

Information you submit to our Sites

We collect Personal Information from you on our Sites when you voluntarily submit such information to us. This information may include your name, home address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, demographic information, and other information. 

The information we collect on or through our Sites may include:

  • Personal information that you provide on our Sites. This includes information provided when you sign up for an opportunity, fill out an application for employment, make a donation, or provide feedback on our Sites, and when we process or respond to your inquiries related to requests or your application. 
  • Your responses to questions that we might ask you to complete for application purposes.
  • Your search queries on the Sites.
  • When you make a payment, donation, or initiate other financial transactions on our Sites, we may collect your Personal Information to process the transaction. Your Personal Information may be encrypted and transmitted to our payment processing vendor(s) during this process.
  • When you choose to contact us (e.g., by email or an online contact form) or request email alerts or other information, we may receive information that can identify you, such as your name or email address.  If you join our email alert services, we may send you, via e-mail, press releases or other similar messages.
  • When you choose to leave comments on the Sites, we may collect the data shown in the comments form, and also your IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the third party Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Information we receive from other sources

We may sometimes work with third parties (including, for example, third parties intermediaries with whom we partner to provide you with services such as sub-contractors, analytics providers, and search information providers) from whom we may receive data including Personal Information and information about how you use our Sites.  This third-party data may have been collected by a third party pursuant to that third party’s privacy policy.  The Current does not control the collection of such third party data and is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties. 

Additionally, you may link to or access our Sites using other third-party websites.  Use of such third party websites is subject to the terms of use and privacy policies of those third parties.  The Current does not control the use of this technology or the resulting information and is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties.

Cookies

Our Sites may use “cookies” or other technologies to help us deliver content specific to your interests, to process your requests, and/or to analyze your visiting patterns.  We may collect the following types of information about your visit including: the domain from which you access the Internet; IP address; operating system and information about the device or browser used when visiting the site; date and time of your visit; content you visited or downloaded; and website (such as google.com or bing.com) and website referral source (email notice or social media site) that connected you to the website.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me,” your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

How we use and disclose your information

We may use or disclose information collected about you, including Personal Information, in the following ways:

  • To complete any transactions you request online such as enrolling in programs, payment processing, signing up for email alerts, processing donations, determining eligibility for volunteer opportunities, services, or employment, or any other action you request online.
  • To operate the Sites and to improve our Sites and services, which may include communicating with you.
  • To service providers that assist us in the maintenance, improvement, and optimization of the Sites (e.g. service providers who provide automated spam detection services). 
  • To ensure that content from our Sites is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer or mobile phone and as part of our efforts to keep our Sites safe and secure.
  • To measure or understand the effectiveness of communications we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant communications to you and to provide you with communications from The Current, surveys, newsletters, and other information. 
  • To facilitate your registrations for events, volunteering opportunities, or other activities or programs.
  • To process your donations to The Current.
  • To send you information about The Current’s services, events, and programs, or to send you information we think may interest you related to our partners’ services, events, and programs.
  • To answer your inquiries about our Sites, organization, and other services or activities.
  • To notify you about changes to our Sites.
  • For any purpose where you have given your consent (where legally required). 
  • To comply with applicable federal and state law.

We may disclose aggregated, anonymized information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. The Current does not sell, rent, or otherwise provide your information to third parties for profit.

You agree that we have the right to disclose Personal Information that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:

  • To provide access to The Current’s services.
  • To service providers that assist us in the maintenance, improvement and optimization of our Sites.
  • To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you sign up for certain services or provide information for a certain purpose, we may share your information in order to provide those services and fulfill that purpose. 
  • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information or with your consent.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Information in order to comply with applicable law.

Embedded data, third party websites and embedded content from other websites

If you upload images to our Sites with embedded location data (EXIF GPS), third party visitors to the website may be able download and extract any location data from those images on the website.  The Current is not responsible for any such extraction of location data by third party visitors from images you have uploaded to our Sites.  If you desire to upload images to our Sites, we encourage you to remove any embedded location data.

Our Sites may contain links or references to other websites outside of our control. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to these websites.  The Current encourages you to read the privacy statements and terms and conditions of linked or referenced websites you enter.  These third-party websites may send their own cookies and other tracking devices to you, log your IP address, and otherwise collect data or solicit Personal Information.  

Additionally, articles on this site may include third party embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from third party websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the third party website.

These third party websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that third party website.

THE CURRENT DOES NOT CONTROL AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT THIRD PARTIES DO IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR WEBSITES, OR HOW THEY HANDLE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.  PLEASE EXERCISE CAUTION AND CONSULT THE PRIVACY POLICIES POSTED ON EACH THIRD-PARTY WEBSITE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

Google Analytics 

Our Sites may use Google Analytics to collect non-personal information regarding your use of the Website.  Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit the Sites, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they visit prior to or after coming to this site.  The data collected through these tools is not tied to any Personal Information about you.  To know more about data collected by Google, visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. You may prevent the use of Google Analytics by disabling cookies as described above.  You may also prevent Google from recording the data generated by the cookie and pertaining to your use of the Sites (including your IP address), or processing these data, by downloading and installing the following browser plug-in available through Google at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

How long we retain certain of your Personal Information

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata may be retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

If you register on our website, we also store the Personal Information you provide in your user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their own Personal Information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

How we protect your Personal Information

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect Personal Information that is submitted to us, both during its transmission and once we receive it.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Sites; any transmission is at your own risk. 

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Sites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Contacts

If you have questions or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy, feel free to contact Margaret Coker, editor in chief, at margaret.thecurrent@gmail.com or Susan Catron, managing editor, at susan.thecurrent@gmail.com.

Revisions to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time.  Any changes we make will be posted on this page.  If we make material changes to how we treat your Personal Information, we will notify you via the Sites.  The date this Privacy Policy was last updated/reviewed is identified below.  You are responsible for periodically monitoring and reviewing any updates to this Privacy Policy.  Your continued use of the Sites after such amendments will be deemed your acknowledgement of these changes to this Privacy Policy.

Effective Date

This Privacy Policy is effective dated September 14, 2020.