Privacy Policy - Helmsley Charitable Trust

By visiting our Website, you are accepting the practices described in our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Website.

The policies below are applicable to the website located at www.helmsleytrust.org and any other websites under the control of Helmsley (the “Website”), however the Website is accessed and/or used, whether via personal computers, mobile devices, or otherwise, and other interactive features, applications (including mobile applications), or downloads that are operated by the Helmsley Charitable Trust (“we” and “us”) that are made available by us. Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy apply only to information gathered online at our Website. They do not apply to information that you may submit to us offline or to websites maintained by other companies or organizations to which we may link.

Helmsley strives to protect the transmission and storage of any information submitted by visitors to the Website. But no transmission and storage of data is completely secure, and submissions are at your sole risk.

This Website may contain links to sites operated and controlled by third parties. Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy do not apply to information gathered through these other websites.

What Information We Collect

As a general matter, you can browse the Website without being required to provide your name, email address, and other similar personal information. However, there are a number of circumstances in which you may need to provide us with this information, including as follows:

When you register for an account via the Website, including, for example, in relation to your grant application;
- When you sign up to receive e-mail newsletters from us;
- When you participate in surveys, panels, or research;
- When you register for and participate in our programs, activities, initiatives, and events;
- When you request information or assistance;
- In conjunction with processing your grant applications;
- In conjunction with your employment inquiries or applications;
- When you participate with Helmsley’s social media accounts;
- In conjunction with any verification of your account information;
- In conjunction with investigations into any activity that may violate the law or the Website’s terms and conditions;
- When you communicate with us through the Website;
- When you provide user-generated content on any part of the Website that permits it; and
- In conjunction with any other place on the Website where you knowingly volunteer personal information.

When you interact with any Helmsley page or account on a social media platform, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Vimeo, we may also collect the personal information that you make available to us on that page or through that account, including your account ID or “handle.”

In addition, when you interact with the Website, our servers may keep an activity log that we do not use to identify you individually. This may include the following:

- Certain device information about your computer, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the Website. This information may include device type, IP address, browser type, and other transactional information;
- Usage information about visitors’ use of the Website, including a reading history of pages viewed;
- “Traffic data,” such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, IP address, session identification number, access times, and referring website addresses; and
- Search terms and search results.

We also collect and store certain other information regarding our users’ use of the Website so that third parties may provide us with reports and analysis regarding usage and browsing patterns of the Website.

How We Combine Your Information

We may combine information gathered from the Website and information that we have received, gathered, acquired, or stored from other sources, both information collected offline by Helmsley and information received from third parties to further understand the use of our Website and update our files – including information that currently exists in our files.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we learn from you to help us continually improve your experience on the Website, including in the following ways:

- For editorial purposes;
- Responding to your inquiries;
- Communicating with you about your account or transactions with us and sending you information about Helmsley;
- Communicating with you about changes to our policies;
- Sending you newsletters, mailings, and information about programs, initiatives, activities, and events by e-mail or another medium;
- Processing your grant application or employment application;
- Event or program registration;
- Optimizing or improving our programs, services, and operations;
- Research and development;
- Verifying your account and account activities;
- Detecting, investigating, and preventing activities that may violate our policies or be illegal;
- Performing statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of users of the Website and their usage patterns; and
- Managing our organization.

How We Share Your Information

Except as disclosed below, we don’t sell, rent, or otherwise permit anyone outside Helmsley to use or access your personal information except as described below, and in all cases we only share your personal information where it is in the legitimate interest of furthering Helmsley’s philanthropic aims.

We occasionally use independent contractors and third-party agents, affiliates, and partners to perform functions such as marketing, analytics, providing customer service, etc., on our behalf. These entities have access to the personal information needed to perform their functions and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of any personal information collected from the Website. They are restricted from using, selling, distributing, or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services to Helmsley.

We may also use or disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to applicable law or comply with legal process served on us or the Website; (b) protect and defend our rights or property, the Website, or our users; and (c) act under emergency circumstances to protect the personal safety of us, our affiliates, our agents, or the users of the Website or the public.

How We Use Cookies

Like many websites, we use “cookies,” which are small text files that are stored on your computer or equipment when you visit certain online pages that record your preferences. We use cookies to track use of our Website and online services. We may also use cookies to monitor traffic, improve the Website, and make it easier and/or relevant for visitors to use. This Website is functional without the retention of cookies. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.

Like some websites, we may use web beacons. A web beacon (also known as an “action tag” “tracer tag,” or “single-pixel GIF”) is an invisible graphic on a web page or e-mail newsletter that is programmed to collect non-personally identifiable information about your use of a given website or newsletter, e.g., whether you opened the e-mail. Like cookies, web beacons allow Helmsley and its technology providers to summarize overall usage patterns for our analysis and to assist us improving the Website. We do not share or provide personally identifiable information we may collect through such web beacons, such as names or e-mail addresses, without your express permission.

Personal Information

We hold your information and use it as described in this Privacy Policy and will use reasonable measures to ensure that your personal information is only transferred to third parties who do the same. We consider that Helmsley has a legitimate interest in collecting and processing your information.

We will use reasonable efforts to securely process personal information, in particular in relation to the following requests:

- Access to your personal information;
- Correction of the personal information that we hold;
- Deletion of your personal information;
- A restriction of processing your personal information;
- Transfer of your personal information to another party;
- Objection to processing of your personal information based on Helmsley’s legitimate interest (or that of a third party) to use it and there is something about your particular situation that causes you to object to such processing.

Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as is necessary for our legitimate interests, in accordance with our retention policies and applicable laws.

Additional Information

The Website is published in the United States and is subject to laws of the United States. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this Privacy Policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States and/or by our third-party service providers in the United States or elsewhere. Helmsley shall not be liable under any circumstances for damages resulting from use of information collected from visitors to the Website.

We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of this Privacy Policy from time to time without notice. Your continued use of our Website following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean you accept those changes.

Questions and comments should be directed to website@helmsleytrust.org.

If you have any questions or requests regarding this policy, if you would like to change your preferences, if you no longer wish to receive e-mail updates from Helmsley, or if you believe Helmsley has erroneous or incomplete information about you, please send an e-mail to website@helmsleytrust.org.