Welcome to the official website of Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia. This website is owned and operated by Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Girl Scouts' online properties comprise of, but are not limited to, all pages found under www.comgirlscouts.org, including our online shop and certain partner sites. This privacy policy applies to these sites and other sites, mobile apps or other online services we operate that link to this policy (collectively, referred to below as the site).
Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia is committed to protecting the privacy of our visitors. This privacy statement 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 Statement.
If our statement practices change in the future, we will let you know by posting the statement changes on our website. However, we will treat all personal information we collect in accordance with the privacy notice in effect at the time the information is collected.
Data Collection
Personally Identifiable Information. Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia 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 Commonwealth of Virginia only gathers personally identifiable data, such as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, email 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 Commonwealth of Virginia or other entities who are involved in the operation of this site for internal purposes. Once collected, we may combine this information with information collected from external sources.
Non-Personally Identifiable Information. Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia may automatically collect certain technical information from your computer such as your Internet service provider, your Internet Protocol address, your browser type, your operating system, the pages viewed, the pages viewed immediately before and after accessing the Web site, and the search terms entered to get to our site. This information allows us to improve and customize our services. We and our service providers may collect this information using "cookies," which are small text files that many websites save on your computer, or similar technologies. See the section on "Use of Cookies and Similar Technology" below for more information.
Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information. The personally identifiable information you provide is used by Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia and other entities who are involved in the operation of this site or who provide support for the Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia mission and programs, for general business purposes and for the purposes for which you provided the information. General business purposes include, for example, Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia membership activities, program participation, marketing, promotions, and fundraising activities and communications. The purposes for which you provide information includes our use of your personally identifiable information to process online transactions, purchases, and donations, facilitate participation in Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia programs, promotions and services, or process job applications.
We do not sell information you provide to us online to third parties. We may share personally identifiable information with third parties including (i) when the person submitting the information authorizes us to share it; (ii) when sharing the information is a necessary operation of the site, for instance, to process a credit card transaction, or (iii) to comply with legal processes such as a subpoena or court order or when otherwise required by law. Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia has no control over or responsibility for the data collection and use practices of third parties that process online transactions. If you wish to submit a data privacy request, please use the Girl Scouts Privacy Portal. For assistance submitting a request please contact gshelper@comgirlscouts.org
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, email address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child. COPPA and its associated regulations 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 Statement
Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia 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. With parental consent, we may collect information from children under the age of 13 such as: name, address, email address, account information, and user generated content. This information allows us to fulfill a requested transaction and facilitate participation in online programs, keep records, undertake certain marketing activities, or to otherwise customize or enhance the Web site experience for children.
Children under the age of 13 may be able to make certain content such as user generated content visible to others or the public. This could include, for example, a webpage or parts of webpages operated by children that have been designed for group or public viewing. However, absent parental consent, children under 13 would be allowed to display only limited information such as a first name or unique user name or other information that does not allow for online contacting by third parties.
Regardless of what information is displayed, parents can revoke their consent and ask that information about their children be deleted from the site by contacting our offices by phone at 800-4-SCOUT4 or 800-472-6884 or through the Contact Us page. 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.
Submissions
Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia 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 or publishing on our website. However, we encourage this be done only with their parent's knowledge and supervision.
In keeping with the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureau (CARU) 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 Commonwealth of Virginia website through the use of "cookies." "Cookies" are small text files a website 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 Commonwealth of Virginia 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 Websites and Services
This site may be linked to other sites and services that are not maintained by Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia. These websites have their own privacy policies, which you should review prior to visiting them. We have no responsibility for linked websites 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 website servers. We also encrypt your credit card number when we store your order and whenever we transfer that information to participating merchants.
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 Statement, please contact us at 800-4-SCOUT4 or 800-472-6884.
Thank you for visiting our site.
