Privacy/Cookie Policy

Last updated November 4, 2022

Humane Society International (HSI) is committed to your right to privacy and to keeping your personal information private and secure.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected by us whenever you interact with HSI, including when you visit or browse the URL http://www.hsi.org or any associated subdomain or our social media pages. This Privacy Policy applies to all visitors to our website and social media pages, and to all your other interactions with HSI and any of its affiliates anywhere in the world, unless covered by a separate privacy policy. Please contact us through the addresses under “Contacting HSI” below with any questions regarding our practices in a particular country or region. When you interact with us, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy. We may translate this Privacy Policy into other languages for your convenience; however, any inconsistencies among different language versions will be resolved in favor of the English version.

HSI reserves the right to modify or amend this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason. We keep this notice under regular review. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to this Privacy Policy.

How we collect information about you

Information you voluntarily provide

HSI collects and maintains certain personal information about you when you interact with us, such as for example, send us an e-mail or complete any of our forms, when you request information from us, make a donation, subscribe to one of our online newsletters, sign up for mobile text alerts, forward a web page, electronic postcard, electronic ballot or electronic newsletter, provide information when contacting or speaking with us or interacting with us via telephone, or social or other electronic media, participate in an HSI event, request information on leaving HSI in your will or let us know you have left HSI in your will, or give us feedback or make a complaint. Depending on how you choose to interact with us, such information may include, among other things, your name, mobile phone number, landline telephone number, mailing address, e-mail address, campaign interests and preferences donation history, images, photographs or video footage if you take part in an HSI event, or any other information you share with us; it may also include the names and e-mail addresses of those to whom you forward HSI electronic content, and any other information you provide to HSI.

You may be asked to provide credit card information to contribute to HSI, purchase certain information or materials from HSI, or subscribe to various HSI publications. To collect payment from you, we enable the collection of your payment information (which comprises the credit/debit card’s number, the card holder’s name, expiration date and CVV); however, these are provided directly to our authorized payment providers, and are not stored or accessible by us.

Other information

HSI.org also collects certain usage information to better understand how visitors use our web site, which includes your IP address, Url you are coming from before visiting the web site. HSI.org logs these IP addresses, url’s, device information such as identifier, name and type of operating system, mobile network information and web information such as browser type and pages accessed on the HSI web site, and aggregates them for system administration and to monitor the use of our site. We use the aggregated information to measure the number of visits to our site, the average time spent on our site, the number of pages viewed, and various other site statistics. This monitoring helps us to provide a more useful and engaging online experience to HSI.org visitors, and helps us to improve the quality of our content.

HSI uses cookies to make the results available for any searches you perform using the website search functionality. A cookie is a small file that is sent out by a web site, accepted by the user’s browser, and placed on the user’s hard drive. HSI does not match any information gathered by cookies with personal information you may have voluntarily submitted to HSI. You can always set your browser to warn of cookies being placed, and then chose which cookies you want to accept. If you do not accept the use of these cookies, please disable them by changing your browser settings so that cookies from the website cannot be placed on your computer. You can find more information about cookies and how to manage them at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

HSI uses cookies or similar technologies for remarketing with Facebook, Google Adwords, Google Analytics and other third-party providers to display content-specific advertisements to visitors who have previously visited our site when those visitors go to other websites that have the Google Display Network implemented or when logged into Facebook or other third-party provider network. HSI also uses Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting. The reports disclose website trends without identifying individual visitors. You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our site – for more information on opting out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites you use, visit this Google page: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

HSI and other third-party vendors, including Facebook and Google, use first-party and third-party cookies and similar technology together to inform and serve ads based on a visitor’s past visits to our website, where you may see an ad for HSI based on past visits to our website displayed on other sites you visit.

You may opt out of Facebook’s and Google’s use of cookies by visiting Facebook’s Settings and Google’s Ads Settings at any time. Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

Publicly available information

We may use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date and check for changes of address and undertake data cleaning activity. This allows us to better direct our resources and efforts, manage supporter relationships and ensure data remains accurate, up to date and compliant. We may obtain this publicly available information directly or from third parties or other trusted source lists deemed reliable in the relevant country. We may also use trusted third-party providers to undertake data cleaning activities on our behalf.

When administering legacy gifts, we may occasionally be required to collect information relating to non-professional (lay) executors who are administering estates in which we have a legacy entitlement. Executors may provide their details to us themselves or, where appropriate, we may access the probate registries in order to obtain their details as listed within a deceased’s will. We may also receive this information from third parties who undertake searches of probate registries on our behalf.

We may collect information about you from publicly available sources to help us understand more about you as an individual and your ability to provide financial support for our charitable programs and activities; including, by carrying out wealth screening, a process which uses trusted third-party partners to automate some of this work. We may use information gathered from public sources alongside the information you provide to undertake analysis of who might be willing to financially support HSI and to understand the preferences of our supporters about events, communication and services. By doing this, we can focus conversations we have with you about fundraising in the most effective way, and ensure that we provide you with an experience as a donor or potential donor which is appropriate for you.

Ways information about you is used

We may use the information you voluntarily provided to contact you regarding animal-related issues we feel you may be interested in, to keep you updated regarding HSI’s programs, and to extend an invitation to you to support our programs. We may also directly upload voluntarily provided information into third-party platforms that have provided us with assurances that they process personal information under suitable data protection arrangements and security controls, such as Facebook and Google, in order to serve content-specific advertisements. We participate in Facebook’s “Custom Audiences” and “Lookalike Audiences” which enables us to display advertisements to our existing or potential supporters via Facebook or to suppress certain HSI advertisements from our existing supporters’ Facebook feeds (e.g. an advertisement directed at signing a petition when you have already signed it). In order to do this, we provide supporter name, email address, city, zip and telephone number to Facebook to enable them to determine if you are a registered account holder with Facebook. Your data is sent in an encrypted format that is deleted by Facebook if it does not match with a Facebook account. Before the data is uploaded by Facebook for the matching process, the information is hashed and will be unidentifiable at an individual level. Hashing is a type of cryptographic security method that turns your identifiers into randomized code and cannot be reversed. Depending on your settings our advertisements may then appear when you access Facebook and on your Facebook feed, as well as on other third-party websites and applications. For more information please read the Facebook Business page about Custom Audiences and Facebook’s Data Policy.

We may use your device’s physical location to provide you with personalized location-based services and content.

We may also send information to the people whose e-mail addresses you provide when forwarding HSI electronic content. When we do so, our sole intent is to enlarge our family of informed animal advocates and organizational supporters. Every recipient of our electronic communications can quickly and easily “opt out” of future such communications by following the instructions on any electronic communication we send.

From time to time, we may make the information you have voluntarily given to us (excluding credit card information and text messaging originator opt-in data and consent, neither of which will be disclosed to third parties), available to third parties for marketing purposes, including HSI’s affiliate organizations or sponsors and licensees that provide special programs or services we think you might find interesting or beneficial. HSI uses very strict standards in determining which reputable companies become sponsors and licensees, to ensure that such organizations are committed to the protection of visitors’ privacy and committed to the goals of HSI. If your volunteered personal information will be used in any manner other than as stated above, such use shall be specifically posted. If you wish to update or remove your information, or if you do not wish your information to be shared with affiliated third parties, please e-mail us at dpo@humanesociety.org. You may also unsubscribe at any time in every issue of our newsletters.

Other

From time to time, HSI may link to other websites not affiliated with HSI. HSI attempts to link only to those websites which also respect a visitor’s privacy and the goals of HSI. However, HSI cannot be responsible for the content or policies of third-party websites. Please check with these third-party organizations or companies for their specific privacy policies. If you find inoperable links or are concerned about any of the sites that HSI currently links to, please inform HSI by contacting us at dpo@humanesociety.org.

Security

HSI uses generally accepted, industry-standard security systems, software, and encryption technologies — Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) — for the secure transfer of personal and financial data and to protect against unauthorized access to HSI servers, equipment, and other components of our online presence. This includes using industry-standard security systems to protect credit card processing information. Our web servers are hosted off-site at multiple, physically secure facilities with limited access.

Contacting HSI

If you would like to contact HSI about correcting information we might have collected, or if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please e-mail us at dpo@humanesociety.org or write to us at Data Protection Officer, HSI, 1255 23rd Street, NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20037 USA.

How we collect information about you

Ways information about you is used

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