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Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 12, 2024

Our Commitment to Privacy

Science Buddies is a US based 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We are committed to providing a safe and secure Platform for people of all ages. We are dedicated to safeguarding all personal information collected online and to helping our visitors learn how to exercise control over personal information while exploring the Internet.

Our goal is to collect only the information about our users and their use of our Platform that will help us provide the best online experience possible and implement Science Buddies' mission to build science literacy.

To help ensure a rewarding online experience for all visitors, we provide this summary of our information practices. This Privacy Policy governs the collection and use of information when you use our Platform, which includes our websites www.sciencebuddies.org and careerdiscovery.sciencebuddies.org. This Privacy Policy also contains information about the rights and choices you have regarding your personal information.

As we continue to offer our visitors new and different types of content and services, we may modify our practices from time to time. We may modify our Privacy Policy to reflect updates to our practices or changes in the law. We will take steps to notify you of such changes by announcing them on our Platform.

PLEASE READ OUR ENTIRE PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY BEFORE USING OUR PLATFORM.

What Information Do We Collect?

You can use most features of the Platform without registering for an account or providing any other personal information. If you create an account on the Platform, or otherwise communicate with us, you may provide to us what is generally called "Personal Information" or "Personal Data," such as your full name, email address or other information that can be used to identify you. Information which cannot be used to identify you as an individual is "de-identified" or non-personal information.

We collect information, including personal information, in a variety of ways which may vary according to your use of the Platform and your account settings. The categories of personal information we collect may include:

Below, we describe examples of the categories of information we collect from and about you when you use our Platform:

  1. Information you provide to us and information we receive about you from others

    Contact and profile information
    When you create an account on the Platform, or communicate with us, we may collect personal information including username, name, email address, grade level, and school name (for teachers only). In addition, we may ask you for personal information at other times, such as when you contact our technical support team, send us an email, complete a user survey, or otherwise communicate with us.

    For select programs, such as our online mentoring program, we ask for more detailed information, which we use to develop program requirements and to ensure the safety of all participants. To apply as a volunteer in one of our mentoring programs individuals must provide additional information so that we may better understand their capabilities and effectively assign them in our program. The types of information collected include: name, address, email address, phone number, academic background, interests, etc. In addition, student volunteers are asked to provide contact information for a parent, including an email address, parent's name, address, and home phone number.

    For purchases made on our Platform, we will collect information such as address and phone number that is necessary to complete delivery of your order. We do not store any credit card information you supply to complete a purchase.

    Information from third-party sources
    If you decide to register through or otherwise grant access to a third-party social networking or integrated service, such as Facebook or Google, Science Buddies only collects basic information needed to create an account such as name, email, and unique ID. You may also have the option of sharing additional information with Science Buddies through an integrated service, as controlled through your settings on that service. If you choose to provide such information, during registration or otherwise, Science Buddies will treat the information as Personal Information and will use it in the ways described in this Privacy Policy.

    For Science Buddies users of Google Classroom, we will collect user information from Google that allows us to deliver Google Classroom functionality through our website. Such information may include email address, name, unique ID, and whether you are a student or a teacher. For assignments made on the Platform, we collect the class information, assignment scores, student responses, and time spent on assignment. You may revoke Science Buddies' access to your account on Google at any time by updating the appropriate settings in your Google account preferences. This does not delete your account on our Platform, please see information below for deleting your account. You should check your privacy settings on Google to understand and change the information sent to us. Please review Google's terms of use and privacy policies carefully before using their services and connecting to our website.

  2. Information about how you access and use the Platform

    Information about your use of our Platform
    We may collect usage information about your use of our Platform, such as the pages viewed, links clicked, and the amount of time spent on a page. This enables us to better tailor educational experiences that are most appropriate for you.

    Location Information
    We may collect and use information about your location (such as your country) or infer your approximate location based on your IP address in order to better understand how many users we reach in various parts of US and around the world, but we don't collect the precise geolocation of you or your device. You may be able to change the settings on your computer or mobile device to prevent it from providing us with any location information.

  3. Usage and device information

    To provide a personalized learning and high-quality experience for our users, we may use various technologies that automatically record certain technical information from your browser or device when you visit our website, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us.

How We Use the Information We Collect

We may use information in the following ways:

In the case of our online mentoring programs, we use the information provided to ensure that the participants are in the correct forums. We do not share this information with outside parties. Personal information is used strictly for program administration.

We use return addresses to answer the email we receive and/or to inquire about the user's desire for additional services. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties.

We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design our program and to share our impact with parties interested in offering financial support to our program. One of the most important uses of such information is to analyze how much traffic our Platform, and the different pages on the Platform, receives.

We may disclose personally identifiable information in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena. We also may disclose such information in response to a law enforcement agency's request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our terms of use, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Platform and applicable laws, or as otherwise required or permitted by law. In addition, we will provide a student's information to school officials when there is any known case of cheating, plagiarism, or fraud, stemming from information provided on our Platform. We may also transfer personally identifiable information about you if we or one of our business units are acquired by, sold to, or merged with another company.

If you access third-party services, such as Facebook or Google to login to the Platform or to share information about your experience on the Platform with others, these third-party services may be able to collect information about you, including information about your activity on our Platform, and they may notify your connections on the third-party services about your use of our Platform, in accordance with their own privacy policies.

We will not use or transfer personally identifiable information in ways that are materially different from the ones described above without also providing parental notification of such practices and obtaining consent for any materially different uses. Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing visitors an opportunity to opt out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses. If you would like Science Buddies to stop collecting and using your child's information, please email scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.

Cookies

To provide a personalized learning and high-quality experience for our users, we may use cookies and similar technologies that automatically collect certain information from your browser or device when you use our Platform, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us.

This information is typically collected through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons, log files, and similar technology (collectively, "tracking technologies"). These tracking technologies collect information about how you use the Platform (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions you take on the Platform), information about your browser and online usage patterns (e.g., Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, browser language, referring / exit pages and URLs, pages viewed, whether you opened an email, links clicked), and information about the device(s) you use to access the Platform (e.g., device type, model and manufacturer, and mobile device operating system, brand, and model).

While the cookies we use may change from time to time as we improve and update our Platform, they generally fall into the below categories of use:

Authentication: We use cookies to verify your account and determine when you are logged in so we can make it easier for you to access the Platform and show you the appropriate content and features. For example, we use cookies to keep you logged in as you navigate between our webpages. Cookies also help us remember your browser, so you do not have to keep logging in.

Features and Services: We use cookies to enable the functionality that helps us provide the Platform. For example, cookies help us store preferences, know when you've seen or interacted with Platform's content, and provide you with customized content and experiences.

Performance: We use cookies to provide you with the best experience possible. For example, cookies help us route traffic between servers and understand how quickly the Platform loads for different people. Cookies also help us tailor the look and feel of our site to your device and screen size.

Analytics and Research: We use cookies to understand how people use the Platform. For example, we use Google Analytics to collect and analyze information about our users' demographics and interests in order to measure and improve the Platform. For more information about Google Analytics and how to opt out, please visit Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on/.

Most web browsers are initially set to accept cookies, but you can change your browser settings to notify you when you are sent a cookie, giving you the ability to accept or reject it, or you can choose to routinely and manually delete cookies stored on your computer or mobile device. If you choose to disable or reject cookies, portions of the Platform may not be accessible to you or may not function properly. For more information on how to manage cookies, visit About Cookies.

We may also use web beacons (also known as clear GIFs or pixel tags) — which are small bits of code embedded in web pages or in emails — to deliver or communicate with cookies, to count users who have visited a web page, and to understand usage patterns.

We may include web beacons in emails to help us recognize activities such as when an email was opened, how many times an email was forwarded, which links in the email were clicked on, etc. Web beacons cannot be declined when delivered via a regular web page. However, web beacons can be refused when delivered via email. If you do not wish to receive web beacons via email, you will need to disable HTML images or refuse HTML emails via your email software.

Your Choice and Options Related to Data Collection and Use

At Science Buddies, we use Personal Information as needed for the purposes for which it was collected or where you have consented to our use of your Personal Information. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information we store and use is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. If you discover that Personal Information or other data pertaining to you is inaccurate, incomplete, or out-of-date, please update your account information or contact us as outlined below.

You can choose to not provide us with Personal Information
You may always decline to provide your Personal Information to us. Registration is not required to access most of our online resources. If you decline to register, however, we will not be able to provide to you certain features and functionalities found on our Platform. You may later enable or access those features by providing us with the necessary Personal Information. You can choose to provide only information which does not reasonably identify you to others. We recommend you select a username which is not related to your actual name, for example.

You can disconnect us from Integrated Services
You may revoke Science Buddies' access to your account on any Integrated Service, such as Google or Facebook, at any time by updating the appropriate settings in the account preferences of the respective Integrated Service. You should check your privacy settings on each Integrated Service to understand and change the information sent to us through each Integrated Service. Please review each Integrated Service's terms of use and privacy policies carefully before using their services and connecting to our Platform. To delete your information from our Platform, you must first cancel your account and then revoke Science Buddies' access to your account on the Integrated Service.

You can unsubscribe from email communications
Science Buddies may, from time to time, send you email regarding our Platform, or products and services we think you may enjoy. Only Science Buddies (or our vendors or service providers operating on our behalf) will send you these emails. You can choose not to receive these emails by clicking the unsubscribe link in any e-mail. Please note that you are not permitted to unsubscribe or opt-out of non-promotional messages regarding your account, such as account verification, changes, or updates to the Platform, or technical or security notices.

You can contact us directly to access, correct, or delete your information
You may access all the personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by emailing scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org. We use this procedure to better safeguard your information. You can correct factual errors in personally identifiable information by sending us a request that credibly shows error. You may also request to have your account deleted. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

You can cancel your account directly
If you have created an account on our Platform, you can at any time delete your account and personally identifiable information. To delete your account, log in to the Platform, use the My Account link in the menu, select Profile Settings and go to Cancel My Account at the bottom of the screen.

Science Buddies Email Policy

We will not share, sell, rent, swap, or authorize any third party to use your email address without your permission. If you feel you have received an email from us in error, please contact scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.

Account and Service-Related Email: We reserve the right to send you email relating to your account status. This includes confirmations, renewal/expiration notices, other transactional emails, and notifications about major changes to our Platform and/or to our Privacy Policy. If you have registered for online discussions or other services, you may receive email specific to your participation in those activities.

Email Newsletters: If you do not wish to receive a specific newsletter, follow the "unsubscribe" instructions located near the bottom of each newsletter or email scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org to opt out of our mailing list.

Data Security & Retention

Data security is important to you, and to us.

To protect your privacy and security, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you account access or making corrections to your information. For example, we may ask you to provide certain Personal Information to confirm your identity, and we may require that you create and use a password to access certain parts of our Platform. You should create and maintain a strong password to help ensure the security of your account.

We try to ensure that our Platform and information sent to us are safe, but no security measures are perfect.

Science Buddies uses certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards designed to preserve the integrity and security of your Personal Information and other information we maintain in connection with our Platform. We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any or all of the information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission of information, we make commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems. When you enter information, we encrypt the transmission using TLS 1.2. However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

We will maintain your personal information for as long as you have an account or as necessary to deliver our service to you. We may anonymize your personal information after you have deactivated or deleted your account so that we can use this anonymized information for our internal business purposes.

Links to Third Parties

The Platform may link to and may be linked by websites operated by other entities or individuals. If we include links to third parties and you click on that link, you will be leaving Science Buddies and the privacy policy of that third party applies. Similarly, if you see a link to Science Buddies on a third-party website, then the privacy policy of that third party applies.

For example:

If you click on a link to Home Science Tools, then you will go to Home Science Tools website and Home Science Tools privacy policy applies.

If you are on the Science Buddies Facebook page, the privacy policy of Facebook applies to that Science Buddies Facebook page.

This Science Buddies Privacy Policy does not apply to (and we cannot control the activities of) such other third-party websites.

You should consult the privacy policies of those third-party websites.

Data Transfers to the United States

The Platform is operated from and hosted on servers in the United States. If you are outside of the United States and access the Platform or submit your personal information to us, please be advised that U.S. law may not offer the same privacy protections as the law of your jurisdiction. If you visit our Platform or contact us from outside of the United States, please be advised that (i) any information you provide to us or that we automatically collect will be transferred to the United States; and (ii) that by using our Platform or submitting information, you explicitly authorize its transfer to and subsequent processing in the United States in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding our privacy policy and/or practices, please contact us at the following email address or mailing address:

Email: scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org

Mailing Address:
Science Buddies
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits
560 Valley Way
Milpitas, CA 95035

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