Last updated on February 21, 2023
 

Dear Write the World community,

Write the World is dedicated to creating a global online community that connects young writers around the world.  Many countries have privacy laws that govern how organizations collect, use, and share personal information. This personal information is information that identifies or relates to you, including, but not limited to, first and last name, email address, home address, and telephone number. 

This Summary Privacy Statement outlines how Write the World complies with applicable privacy laws and tells you about the kinds of personal information Write the World collects from you and how we use or share it.  For more details, please read Write the World’s full Privacy Policy (which you can see below) as well as Write the World’s Terms of Service.

The Write the World website is not intended for children under the age of 13. 

If you are a Young Writer and need help understanding any of this, you should ask a parent (or person responsible for you). For purposes of this letter, we refer to that person as “your adult”. If you are using Write the World’s website as part of a class at your school, an after school program, or a home school network, you may also ask the teacher, staff, or home school person running the class or after school program. 

What Personal Information Do We Collect and How Do We Use It?

• Under the laws of some countries, including those in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, we may need your or your adult’s consent before you provide your personal information to us and/or register as a member of Write the World’s website. 
• When you register as a member of Write the World’s website and/or when you update your member profile, we may ask you for some basic personal information such as:
  • Your first and last name
  • Your email address
  • Your username
  • Your date of birth
  • Your gender identification
  • Your country/region/state
  • Your zip/postal code
• If you are a Young Writer, in some situations, we may need to collect personal information about your adult, such as their full name, address, email address, and telephone number.
• We may also collect other personal information from you that we think is necessary for running the Write the World website, writing competitions, writing groups, college essay programs, writing workshops, as well as other services on our website.
• We may use the personal information that you provide to set up your account with us, register you for one of our writing groups, programs, or workshops, allow you to enter one of our writing competitions, respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select or request, send you emails about Write the World, conduct research on writing that furthers our mission and legitimate interests, improve the programs and services Write the World offers, and inform you of significant changes to the Privacy Policy or our Terms of Service. 
• If you participate in a Write the World writing competition, please review the writing competition’s rules.
• We discourage you from including any personal information (e.g., first and last name, email address, home address, telephone number, social media handle) in any writing pieces unless we specifically give you permission to do so. You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, any of your writing pieces. If you share your personal information with others, please exercise caution and keep in mind that other users may misuse the information.

How Do We Share Your Personal Information?

• We do not sell or rent your personal information to others.
• We may share your personal information with employees of Write the World, third parties as we deem necessary to advance our mission and to encourage the interest, engagement, and financial support of donors and professional organizations who have a similar mission as Write the World, third parties in the context of a sale of some or all of Write the World’s business, or government or law enforcement agencies in order to respond to lawful requests. 
• When Write the World shares personal information with third parties, your personal information is provided to the third parties under written contracts, which obligate them to implement appropriate safeguards to maintain the security of the personal information in an effort to protect your personal information from loss, accidental destruction, misuse or unintended disclosure. 
• If Write the World sells some or all of its business, we will contact you before your personal information is shared. We will also attempt to notify you if we are required by law to disclose your personal information to a government or law enforcement agency. 

How Does Write the World Protect Your Personal Information?

• We are committed to protecting the personal information we collect from our community. We have security procedures in place to help protect the personal information you provide to us and help protect against its loss, accidental destruction, misuse, or unintended disclosure.

What Are Your Rights?

• Under applicable privacy laws, you have rights with respect to the personal information you share with us. Your rights may include the right to know the categories of personal information we collect, use, and disclose about you, to request Write the World to update or correct your personal information, to require Write the World to delete your personal information, and to object to Write the World’s use of your personal information. We may ask you or your adult for proof of identity or other additional information before complying with these requests.

How to Contact Us

If you, or your adult, have any questions about the personal information collected by Write the World, have a complaint or problem, or would like to exercise any of the rights listed above, please visit our Contact Us page or email us at privacy@writetheworld.org.

Last updated February 21, 2023

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, store, use, and share your Personal Information that you may provide while using writetheworld.org (the “Site”) and other online services (collectively, “Service”) Write the World, Inc. (“WTW”, "we", "us", or "our”) offers. WTW strives to ensure the security and confidentiality of your Personal Information on the Site as detailed in this Privacy Policy. This Policy applies to all users of the Services who are 13 years of age or older. For information about WTW's collection, storage, use or disclosure of Personal Information about individuals under 13 years of age, please see the Children's Privacy (COPPA) section below. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, Personal Information includes any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly with a particular individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, email address, a home, postal or other physical address, an IP address, and telephone number. 

If you need help understanding any of this, you should ask a parent (or person responsible for you). This may include a teacher, teacher’s aide, school administrator, academic counselor, guidance counselor, technical coordinator, librarian, tutor, after school program staff, home school parent or other role authorized in writing by WTW staff that works at an educational institution, in a home school setting, or at an after school program (“Educator”) if you are a member of a writing group on the WTW Website created by an Educator or are using the Service in connection with a class run by an Educator. We call that person “your adult”. This document covers Services aimed at children; however, if you are an adult using these Services, this Privacy Policy also covers data collected about you. If you are a parent or guardian of a child who is using these Services, this Privacy Policy explains how we process Personal Information we collect in relation to your child.

When WTW provides our Services to students, teachers and schools, our collection, storage, use and disclosure of student data, including any Personal Information, is governed by and in compliance with our Terms of Service, any agreement with the school or district, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and other applicable laws that may relate to the collection and use of Personal Information of students, including applicable laws schools may be subject to, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting Personal Information maintained by a school, please contact your school directly. Under the laws of some countries, including those in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, we may need your or your adult’s consent to our processing of your Personal Information set forth in this Privacy Policy. Subject to any indications you or your adult may give us to the contrary, such as opting out or not opting in if asked, and where permitted by law, by providing your Personal Information or otherwise interacting with our Services, you or your adult consent to our use of your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.  

By visiting and using the Site, you affirm that you are of sufficient legal age to create and are fully able and competent to form a binding contract. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to the Terms of Service governing the use of this Site. We recommend that you read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not accept the terms of this Privacy Policy, you are directed to discontinue accessing or otherwise using the Site or any materials obtained from it.

What Personal Information Do We Collect?

While you may access the Site without giving us any Personal Information about yourself, most of the specific Services, features and tools require registration. If you choose to register with the Site, we require you to submit some basic Personal Information, and you are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personal Information you submit to WTW. Inaccurate Personal Information will affect the information you receive when using the Site as well as our ability to contact you as described in this Privacy Policy. If, for instance, your email address is not current, we may be completely unable to contact you. When you register for the Site, we may ask for the following Personal Information:

• Your first and last name
• Your email address
• Your username
• Your date of birth
• Your gender identification
• Your country/region/state
• Your zip/postal code

In addition to the Personal Information identified above, other Personal Information WTW collects and processes, including if you do not register with the Site, includes:

• Cookies and similar tracking technologies. When you use the Site, we may use "Cookies", small text files placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit our Site, in any one or more of the following ways: (1) to generate dynamically the content we display for you; (2) to monitor how many users open our emails; (3) to monitor how many users explore which pages of the Site; (4) to monitor how many users click on which advertisements and to generate dynamically advertisements that are most relevant to you; (5) to facilitate the login process; (6) to aid with navigation of the Site; and (7) to serve as session timers. For example, session cookies enable you to move from page to page on the Site, and allow information you enter to be remembered. A session cookie is deleted when you close your browser or after a short period of time. Cookies can be disabled by changing the settings on your browser. If you do decide to disable cookies, certain areas and features of the Site may not perform as designed.
• Advertising Trackers. We utilize third-party analytics providers, such as Google Analytics, to review how visitors use the Site. This information helps us improve our website navigation and the content we offer. Google and other service providers use cookies as part of this process to collect anonymous information, including the number of visitors to our Site, how visitors are entering our Site, the pages they visit and the length of time they spend on our Site, and to determine how many people open our emails.
• Computer and Connection and Log Files. We also reserve the right to determine what type of computer and web browser you are using, what website referred you to the Site, and what your connection speed is. This information is collected purely to enhance your experience on the Site. In addition, WTW may use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the Site, analyze users’ behavior on the Site and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. We do not link your IP address to other Personal Information about you.
• Payment information. We utilize third-party payment providers, such as Stripe, Inc., to process payments for workshops, online courses, review services, and webinars. When you make a purchase on the Site, we collect Personal Information you provide and payment information (e.g., credit card or debit card information). This information will only be passed on for the purpose of payment processing and only to the extent necessary. Please review Stripe, Inc.’s privacy policy to learn more about how they use and share this information.

Sometimes, we may need to collect Personal Information, such as full name, address, email address, and telephone number, about your adult. We do this so we can let them know about your interest in the Services, ask them for permission so you can access parts of our Services,  tell them how to start some of the features for you, or verify their identity to act upon requests. 

How We Use Your Personal Information

When you register as a member of the Site and/or when you update your member profile, we will have access to any Personal Information or other information that you submit to us. We may use the information that you provide to set up your account with us, register you for one of our Services, allow you to enter one of our writing competitions, respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select or request, send you emails about the Site, and inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy. 

For example, when you send us Personal Information by email, we may use that Personal Information to appropriately address your specific request or concerns, and may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. By emailing us, you are explicitly giving us permission to use your Personal Information at our discretion to attempt to find a response to your inquiry. 

In particular, WTW may use your Personal Information (1) to provide you with the products, services or procedures that you request; (2) to communicate with you in general; (3) to respond to your questions and comments; (4) to measure interest in and improve our products, services, and the Site generally; (5) to notify you about special offers and products, services or procedures that may be of interest to you; (6) to otherwise customize your experience with the Site; (7) to enforce our Terms of Service; and (8) as otherwise described to you at the point of collection. In addition, we may ask you to confirm your Personal Information when you contact us, as this will allow us to protect your confidentiality by verifying your identity.

You can always decide not to provide Personal Information to us, but in order to register with the Site some Personal Information about you is required. We may store any information you enter on the Site or provide or make available to us in any other way, whether by email, postal mail, phone, or any other means, including Personal Information. We do not sell or rent your Personal Information to others.

We discourage you from including any Personal Information in your submissions unless we explicitly request you to do so. You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, any of your submissions. To the extent you share your Personal Information with others, please exercise caution and keep in mind that this information may be misused by a user of the Site.

Composite Data

WTW may combine any information that users of the Site provide to us in order to create Composite Data (as defined below) that may be disclosed or otherwise provided to third parties. "Composite Data" does not contain any Personal Information that could be used to contact or identify you, but rather refers to information your computer automatically provides to us and which is not tied back to a specific individual, as well as aggregated or compiled data such as the type of information that users of the Site may have requested in the past or the ways in which users use the Site. Examples include referral data (the websites you used to link to our Site), the pages viewed on the Site, time spent on the Site, and IP address, which may be used to create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers and other partners, and for purposes of system administration. For example, WTW may use the information we gather from you and other users to create a composite profile of all the users who have selected to write essays for a particular writing prompt. The third parties we share Composite Data with may use this information to understand the needs of our users as an aggregate whole, in order to design appropriate programs and activities on their websites. WTW will not disclose your Personal Information to any third party without your prior permission, except as otherwise permitted by this Privacy Policy.

How We Share Your Personal Information

Personal Information collected on the Site may be shared with:

• Employees internally within WTW, including IT staff if access is necessary for the performance of their duties at WTW.
• Service providers and other third parties under contract who help with our business operations (e.g., email delivery, marketing communications, bill collection, payment processing and Site analytics and operations).
• Third parties as we deem necessary to advance our mission and to encourage the interest, engagement, and financial support of donors and  professional organizations who have a similar mission as WTW. WTW requires that these entities protect Personal Information in the same manner as WTW.
• Third parties in the context of a sale of some or all of WTW’s business. In those circumstances, we will provide notice before your Personal Information is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.
• Government or law enforcement agencies in order to respond to lawful requests, including where disclosure is required by applicable laws, court orders, or government regulations. Should we be legally compelled to disclose your Personal Information to a third party, we will attempt to notify you about such an action unless doing so would violate the law or court order. 

Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, in the Terms of Service, WTW will not disclose any Personal Information about you unless you specifically direct us to do so, either on the Site or otherwise.

The Site may include links to third party organizations in banner advertisements, or placed on or beside the names or logos of sponsors, partners, or advertisers, including links to third-party websites where WTW is hosting a blog or forum. If you click on one of these links to a third-party website, any Personal Information you provide on those third party websites will not be governed by this Privacy Policy, and we strongly encourage you to review the privacy policies of those websites before submitting any Personal Information.

Will WTW Transfer My Personal Information Across Borders?

WTW may transfer certain Personal Information across geographical borders to outside companies working with us or on our behalf. WTW may also store Personal Information in a jurisdiction other than where you are based and such jurisdiction may not provide the same level of protection for your Personal Information as your home country. WTW will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other Personal Information. By providing your Personal Information to WTW, you are consenting to this transfer and/or storage of your Personal Information across borders.

WTW is based in the State of Massachusetts in the United States of America. Privacy laws vary from country to country, and your own country’s privacy laws and regulations may be different than US law. If you are unsure whether this Privacy Policy is in conflict with applicable local rules, you should not submit your Personal Information. 

How You Can Access Your Personal Information

You can access your Personal Information by logging into your account on the Site using the username and password you provided during the registration process. You also can review, correct, change, add, delete or update Personal Information on your account page at any time. As discussed above, you can choose not to provide us with certain Personal Information beyond the Personal Information required to register and establish a member account, although such additional information may be helpful to take advantage of certain features on the Site. Even if you registered as a member of the Site, you will still be given the opportunity to unsubscribe from marketing-related messages in any such email we send. Please note that we reserve the right to send you other communications, including service announcements, transactional emails, administrative messages, and surveys relating to your account, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving such communications, if your account with WTW is active.

Social Media Platforms

At various times, WTW may host blogs, forums, crowd-sourcing and other applications or services (collectively, “Social Media Platforms”). Any information you share on these Social Media Platforms may become public on the internet and we cannot prevent further use of this information. You can control what data you share through privacy settings available on some Social Media Platforms. Please refer to those third-party sites’ privacy policies and terms of use to learn more about their privacy practices, which we do not control.

Your Choices

You can control how and when you want to receive notifications regarding marketing-related emails for services described on WTW’s website by opting-out within the notices. If you opt-in for particular services or communications, you will be able to unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions included in each communication.

If you wish to prevent cookies from tracking you as you navigate our Site, you may be able to do so by changing your browser settings. Note, however, that some portions of the Site may not work properly if you elect to refuse cookies.

Your Rights

You have a number of rights with respect to your Personal Information collected by WTW. Specifically, you, or your adult, may have the right to:

• Right to Know:
  • You have the right to know the Personal Information we collect, use, and disclose about you. You have the right to request in writing from us a copy of the categories of Personal Information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which we collected that Personal Information, why we collected that Personal Information about you, the categories of third parties with whom we share your Personal Information, the categories of Personal Information that we disclosed about you for a business purpose, and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you in a readily useable format. 
• Right to Rectification:
  • You have the right to require WTW to update incorrect or incomplete Personal Information. 
• Right to Deletion:
  • You have the right to require WTW to delete or stop processing your Personal Information, for example, where the Personal Information is no longer necessary for business purposes.
• Right to Opt Out of the Sale of Your Personal Information:
  • You have the right to opt out of having your Personal Information sold. As noted above, WTW does not sell Personal Information to third parties.
• Right to Object:
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Information where WTW is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.
• Right to Non-Discrimination:
  • WTW will not discriminate against those who exercise their rights. Specifically, if you exercise your rights, we will not deny you goods or Services, charge you different prices or rates for goods or Services or provide you a different level or quality of goods or Services. While you can always decide not to provide Personal Information to us or to delete your Personal Information, some Personal Information about you is required to maintain a membership with the Site or to obtain certain Services.

We may ask you or your adult for proof of identity or other additional Personal Information before complying with the above requests. If you would like to remove your Personal Information entirely from the Site and our database, we may require you to verify your identity before removing your Personal Information, such as by requiring you to reply to an email message sent to the email address you registered with, and also may require you to confirm your authority as the account owner by requiring you to respond with your account name or by using other means. After we receive your confirmation and verify your authority with respect to the account, we will make every attempt to remove your Personal Information within thirty (30) days after which you will no longer be actively associated with the Site. Nonetheless, it may be impossible for us to remove every instance of Personal Information associated with you from all of our records, including log files, history digests, competition submissions and winners, and collaborative works. In addition, you understand that, even after removal, copies of content provided by you may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored such content.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions relating to the Personal Information collected by WTW, have a complaint or problem, or would like to exercise any of the rights listed above, please visit our Contact Us page or contact us using one of the following methods:

Email: privacy@writetheworld.org

By mail: One Mifflin Place, Suite 400, Cambridge, MA  02138, USA

How We Protect Your Personal Information

We are committed to protecting the Personal Information we collect from our users. While no website can guarantee complete security, we have implemented appropriate administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to help protect the Personal Information you provide to us and in an effort to ensure that your Personal Information is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties for WTW. Only a small handful of authorized employees are permitted to access your Personal Information, and these individuals may do so solely for business functions as outlined in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Service, or as we deem reasonably appropriate. In addition, we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized parties from gaining access to your information by hacking into our system, and use the servers and cloud infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for storage of Personal Information which cannot be accessed except by authorized personnel. 

All credit card transactions are routed through a secure server. We use industry-standard encryption technologies when transferring and receiving financial data. This includes the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for processing payments. Where WTW engages third parties to process Personal Information on its behalf, your Personal Information is provided to the third parties pursuant to written contracts, which obligate them to implement appropriate technical measures to maintain the security of the Personal Information in an effort to ensure that your Personal Information is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed.

Retention of Your Personal Information

We will retain your Personal Information as long as necessary to provide you with the services via the Site, or as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy. We will also retain and use Personal Information as necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and protect our legal rights.

Children’s Privacy (COPPA)

The Site does not cater to children under the age of 13, and we are deeply committed to protecting the privacy of children. Should a child whom we know to be under the age of 13 send Personal Information to us, we will use that Personal Information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her Personal Information. Neither WTW nor any of its affiliates nor services are designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. Should a person under the age of 13 request the use of the Site, we encourage that child's parent or legal guardian to establish an account to be used by such parent or legal guardian on behalf of such minor, and it becomes that parent's or guardian’s responsibility to monitor the use of such an account. The parent or guardian is also responsible for maintaining the accuracy of any Personal Information so submitted. Furthermore, any Personal Information that WTW or any of our affiliates provides is directed at the parent or guardian, whom we hold responsible for interpreting and using that Personal Information. We take no responsibility for a child who knowingly falsifies his or her Personal Information in order to obtain information from us or from any of our Provider’s or other partner’s websites.

Links to Other Websites

Please be aware that the Site contains links to other websites ("External Links"). WTW is not responsible for the privacy practices of the other sites to which we link, so we encourage you to carefully read and fully understand the privacy policies of every website you visit through an External Link contained on the Site. Additionally, if and only if you give your explicit and direct consent, WTW may share Personal Information among websites with which we partner, but we will never do so without your prior consent.

Changes to this Policy

We reserve the right to make non-material changes to this Privacy Policy that do not affect your Personal Information, in which case WTW is under no obligation to notify you of such changes. We will inform you if we make a significant change to this Privacy Policy (i.e. a change that expands the permissible uses or disclosures of Personal Information) by either sending a notice to the email address you provided to us or by placing a prominent notice on the Site. Your continued use of the Site following the provision of such notice will indicate your acceptance of these changes.