Privacy Policy
Welcome to the official Web site of Girl Scouts of the USA. This Web site is owned
and operated by Girl Scouts of the USA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered
in New York City, New York.
Girl Scouts of the USA is committed to protecting the privacy of our visitors. This
privacy policy discloses how we collect, protect, and use information you provide
us online, as well as how we protect children's privacy. By using the pages on this
site, you are accepting the practices described in the Privacy Policy.
If our policy practices change in the future, we will let you know by posting the
policy changes on our Web site. However, we will treat all personal information
we collect in accordance with the privacy notice in effect at the time the information
is collected.
Girl Scouts' online properties comprise of, but are not limited to, all pages found
under www.girlscouts.org, including our online shop and our destination sites for
girls and teens, called Girls Only and STUDIO 2B respectively.
DATA COLLECTION
Girl Scouts of the USA uses its best efforts to respect and protect the privacy
of its online visitors. At our site, we do not collect personally identifiable information
from individuals unless they provide it to us voluntarily and knowingly. This means
we do not require you to register or provide information to us in order to view
our site. Girl Scouts of the USA only gathers personally identifiable data, such
as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, e-mail addresses, etc., when voluntarily
submitted by a visitor. For example, personally identifiable information is collected
in order to process online transactions, online donations, or job applications.
This information is used solely by Girl Scouts of the USA or other entities who
are involved in the operation of this site for internal purposes. We do not sell
information you provide to us online to third parties. We will only share personally
identifiable information with third parties when (i) the person submitting the information
authorizes us to share it; (ii) sharing the information is a necessary operation
of the site, for instance, to process a credit card transaction, or (iii) we are
required to by law. Girl Scouts of the USA has no control over or responsibility
for the data collection and use practices of third parties that process online transactions.
CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects the personal information
of children under the age of 13. This applies to individually identifiable information
about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home address, e-mail
address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify
or contact the child. The Act and Rule also cover other types of information—for
example, hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types
of tracking mechanisms—when they are tied to individually identifiable information.
It is important for you to understand this law; we encourage you to read more about
COPPA.
Note to Parents on Our Privacy Policy
Girl Scouts of the USA is committed to providing a safe, secure, and fun online
experience for children who visit our site. We are dedicated to safeguarding any
personal information collected online and to helping parents and children have positive
experiences on the Internet. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection
Act of 1998, we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information
from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent.
Parents can revoke their consent and ask that information about their children be
deleted from the site by contacting our offices by phone at (800) GSUSA 4 U or via
.
To do this or to review personal information collected from children, we must verify
the identity of the requesting parent. When a parent revokes consent, we will stop
collecting, using, or disclosing information from that child. To respect the privacy
of parents, information collected and used for the sole purpose of obtaining verifiable
parental consent or providing notice is not maintained in retrievable form by the
site if parental consent is not obtained after a reasonable time.
Girl Scouts believes it is good policy not to collect more personally identifiable
information from children under 13 than is necessary for them to participate in
our online activities. In addition, be aware that all sites that are targeted to
children under 13 are prohibited by law from collecting more information than they
need.
Submissions
Girl Scouts of the USA welcomes children to learn more about our organization and,
where appropriate, participate in polls and surveys, as well as submit comments,
artwork, writings, and other submissions for posting on our Web site. For this reason,
Girl Scouts of the USA follows the guidelines for interactive electronic media published
by the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Better Business Bureau for
pages targeted to children under 13. However, we encourage this be done only with
their parent's knowledge and supervision. We also encourage children to use an alias
(e.g., "Bookworm", "Skater", etc.), first name, nickname, initials, or other alternative
to full names or screen names which correspond with an e-mail address for any activities
which will involve public posting.
In keeping with CARU's Principle regarding respecting and fostering the parents'
role in providing guidance for their children, we encourage parents to check and
monitor their children's use of e-mail and other online activities regularly.
USE OF COOKIES
Visitors should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically
collected by the Girl Scouts of the USA Web site through the use of "cookies." "Cookies"
are small text files a Web site can use to recognize repeat visitors, facilitate
the visitor's ongoing access to and use of the site, and allow a site to track usage
behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements. Cookies
are not programs that come onto a visitor's system and damage files. Generally,
cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor that has no meaning outside
the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information collected through the
use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the visitor
to deny or accept the cookie feature. Girl Scouts of the USA uses "cookie" technology
only to obtain non-personal information from its online visitors in order to improve
visitors' online experience and facilitate their visit within our site.
LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES AND SERVICES
This site may be linked to other sites and services that are not maintained by Girl
Scouts of the USA. These Web sites have their own privacy policies, which you should
review prior to visiting them. We have no responsibility for linked Web sites and
provide these links solely for the convenience and information of our visitors.
OUR SECURITY SAFEGUARD
The safety and security of your online experience is of the utmost concern to us.
We ensure the appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures are in
place to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security,
and correctly use the information we collect online.
Credit Card Safety
Protecting the safety of your credit card information is also important to us. We
use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect the security of your credit
card information as it is transmitted to us. SSL is the industry standard in Internet
encryption technology, which is a highly sophisticated method of scrambling data
as it travels from your computer to our Web site servers. We also encrypt your credit
card number when we store your order and whenever we transfer that information to
participating merchants.
To make sure you are accessing our secure server before you submit personal financial
information, look at the lower left-hand corner of your browser. If you see an unbroken
key or a closed lock (depending upon your browser), then SSL is active. To double-check
for security, look at the URL or Address line of your browser. If you have accessed
a secure server, the first characters of the address in that line should change
from "http" to "https."
It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password
and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.
Children
If you are under 18, you need parent/guardian permission to use a credit card to
make purchases online.
HOW TO CONTACT US
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, you can contact us at:
Girl Scouts of the USA
420 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Phone: (800) GSUSA 4 U
Thank you for visiting our site.