DIGITAL LIFE COLLECTIVE PRIVACY POLICY

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Thanks to the team at Automattic for licensing its privacy policy under a Creative Commons Sharealike license. Made compiling this one much less painful.

References to “we”, “our” and “us” refer to the Digital Life Collective (hereafter “the Collective”). You can ask questions about this policy by emailing info@diglife.com.

Scope

This privacy policy describes the data we collect and how it is used for anyone interacting with systems we host. These include our website at diglife.com and our member chat facility at chat.diglife.com.

In pursuing our mission, we may recommend using services that are hosted by third parties. Links to the respective privacy policies are included here accordingly.

You may know that privacy is core to the Collective’s mission. You may know how difficult it is for anyone interacting with digital services to maintain a grasp on where and how their desire for privacy is being honored or dishonored. The Collective takes a pragmatic approach. If we were to take things to extreme right here and now, co-operating digitally would be challenging to the point of impossible. We are focused constantly on selecting those third party services with privacy policies more rather than less aligned with our mission and values, and we regularly review how we might host services ourselves, within our financial and technical means.

Third parties

There are separate third party privacy policies for some of the tools and systems we use, for example:

Discourse (powers discuss.diglife.com)
Google Drive and Docs (for document collaboration)
Stripe (payment services)
Zoom (video conference calling)
Trello (task tracking)
Kumu (ecosystem mapping)

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, we collect non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Our purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how our visitors use the website. From time to time, we may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of our website.

We also collect potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users and for users leaving comments. We only disclose logged in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that we use and disclose personally-identifying information as described below.

We will only ever employ web analytics that run entirely within our domain. In other words we will never implement centralizing analytics-as-a-service such as Google Analytics.

Stripe Online Payment Integration

We use a third party to collect payments from our site. The data we collect is necessary to complete the transaction and will not be used for any other purpose than the payment process and the corresponding issuance of shares, and to send you occasional emails relating to your membership of the Collective and payment matters.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to our website choose to interact with us in ways that require us to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that we gather depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask those commenting at discuss.diglife.com to provide an email address and Collective members to add some information to their profile. In each case, we collect such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfil the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with us. We do not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

We may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, we may monitor website use with web analytics software or use an anti-spam service. We may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, we never disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

We disclose personally-identifying and potentially personally-identifying information only to those of our directors, select volunteer members, employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on our behalf or to provide services available at our websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of these may be located outside of your home country; by using our websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. We will not rent or sell personally-identifying and potentially personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than as described above, we disclose personally-identifying and potentially personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena or court order, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect our property or rights, third parties or the public at large. If you have supplied your email address, we may occasionally send you an email to keep you up to date with what’s going on, but rarely more than once per calendar month and always with the option to refuse future emails. We take all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. We may use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their usage of our website, and their website access preferences. We might do this to enhance visitors’ experience and to understand how we might improve our services and for no other reason. Visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using our websites, with the drawback that certain features of our websites may not function quite so well. The third party services we use will employ cookies. Please refer to the corresponding privacy policies list above (“Third parties”).

Business Transfers

If we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, or if we merge with a similar organisation, or in the unlikely event that we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that may be transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.

Privacy Policy Changes

We do not anticipate changing this privacy policy, however the unexpected does occur including, for example, new regulatory requirements. If we do change this policy, it will happen subject to the normal co-operative member deliberation process within the Collective. Any changes that are made will be prominently announced on the front page of diglife.com for a period of one month after taking effect.

Data Protection Officer

Article 37 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation requires the appointment of a Data Protection Officer where “the core activities of the controller or the processor consist of processing operations which, by virtue of their nature, their scope and/or their purposes, require regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects on a large scale.” We take this to include co-operatives with thousands of members. The Collective will appoint a Protection Officer as we acquire large scale, a scale that will also afford us the opportunity to make such a hire.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our site. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

Our services may be hosted in the USA, in which case the COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) applies. COPPA concerns those under the age of 13. Our site, products and services are not directed to people under 13 years of age. If you are under 13, do not use this site.