Privacy Policy

Taking care of your information is important for VOY.  This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information and what steps we take to protect your information. 

Please read our Privacy Policy carefully before using our site and refer back to it regularly to check for updates. Remember, by accessing and using this site, you agree to all provisions of this Privacy Policy. 

If you are under 16 years old, we encourage you to discuss your use and engagement on this site with your parents or guardian and make sure that they consent to your sharing of information with us through this site.  

We remind you not to share publicly information that could help others to identify you on any of our sites. This includes personal information such as your name, physical address or place of residence, school name or address, phone number, email address and social media account details. Any personal information you post publicly can be viewed by others. We are not responsible for what others might do with such information, so please remember to be careful with what you post. If you post information of this kind on our site, we will remove it. If you see that someone else has done so, please contact the VOY team at [email protected] immediately so that we can remove the content. 

 

1.    What Information Does VOY Collect About You

For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means any information that enables us to identify an individual, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as name, identification number, location data, online identifier or one or more factors specific to the individual. 

We obtain Personal Information relating to you from various sources described below:

Account Information

In order to submit content on the site, you need to create an account. During account creation, we ask you for a display name, your e-mail address, date of birth, country, and gender. We encourage you to select a display name that does not disclose your real name or other information that could identify you – especially if you are under the age of 18. Other users can see your display name as well as country and age if you choose to share this information, but not your gender or email address. 

User-Generated Content

We collect any information that you provide to us when you write a blog or comment or post on our forums or submit feedback.

Communications

If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you. For example, when you contact our VOY Team, we may receive your name, email address, phone number, the contents of a message or attachments that you may send to us, and other information you choose to provide.

Awards, Contests, Surveys, Petitions, Events and Newsletters

We may collect information from you when you participate in awards, contest, surveys, petitions, pledges, or events posted on the site or when you sign up for our newsletters. 

Personal Information We Collect Automatically From Your Use of the Site

When you use our site, we and our third-party service providers may collect information about you and your device through automated means, such as cookies and web server logs. Cookies are small text files which identify your computer, phone, and other devices to our server. By using this site, you consent to the placement of cookies and similar technologies in your browser in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The information collected in this manner includes your IP address, network location, what browser you are using, device IDs and characteristics, operating system version, language preferences, referring URLs, and information about the usage of our site.

We use this information, for example, to ensure that the site functions properly, to determine how many users have visited certain pages, or to prevent fraud. We use IP address information to derive your approximate location. We also work with analytics providers, such as Google Analytics which use cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the site and report on activities and trends. We also work with Disqus which allows for commenting features on our site. These services may also collect information about the use of other websites, apps, and online resources. You can learn more about Google’s practices by going to https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. To learn more about the privacy practices of Disqus, please review https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466259-privacy-policy.

The table below identifies the cookies we may use on this site and explains the purposes for which they are used.  Please note that we may update the information contained in this table from time to time. 

Provider

Name

Purpose

voicesofyouth (Drupal)

Session cookie

Only for logged in users. Primarily keeps track of users so the system knows they are logged in.

YouTube

YouTube

Embedding videos

Twitter

Twitter

Embedding tweets

ShareThis

ShareThis

Social share buttons

Disqus

Multiple cookies

Commenting

Google Analytics

_ga

Understands and tracks engagement of users. The GA cookie we use is anonymous.

If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer to your computer of a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular site. You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html for more general information about cookies.  If, however, you do not accept our cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of this site. For example, you may not be able to submit content or comments on the site.  

 

2.    How Does VOY Use Your Personal Information

Internal and Service-Related Usage

We may use your Personal Information for internal and site-related purposes, including to operate, provide, and maintain our site.

Analytics and Improving the Site

We and our service providers may use the Personal Information that we collect on the site, such as your location and your activities on the site, to monitor and analyze usage of the site and to improve and enhance the site.

Communications

We may send emails to the email address you provide to us for user-service or technical-support purposes, to send you information about topics or content that we think may interest you, or updates about the latest developments, engagement opportunities, news, surveys, petitions, volunteer opportunities, awards, contests, events or new features on the site. We may also send a newsletter to the email address you provide to us if you subscribe to receive our newsletter.  

Aggregate Data

We may de-identify and aggregate information collected through the site for statistical analysis and other lawful purpose, including in research studies intended to improve our understanding of young people’s use of technology and digital tools, as well as the issues young people care about. The results of this research may be shared with third parties, such as our partners, supporters, educators and researchers through conferences, journals, and other publications.

Legal

We may use your Personal Information to enforce our Terms of Use, to defend our legal rights, and to comply with our legal obligations and internal policies. 

 

3.    How Does VOY Share your Personal Information

We disclose information that we collect through the site to third parties in the following circumstances:

  • To third-party service providers who provide services to us, such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provisions, analytics providers to deliver content targeted to your interests and to help us to better understand how you use our site, email delivery, and other services. We will never, however, sell your information to a third party. 
  • To the UNICEF National Committee in your country to support local projects, initiatives and campaigns. 
  • We may also disclose your Personal Information with your permission. We may seek your permission in various ways. For example, we may present you with an “opt-in” prompt when you set up an account or access certain content.
  • We will, at our own discretion, sometimes disclose your Personal Information in order to fulfill a legal requirement, enforce our Terms of Use, or protect anyone’s rights, privacy, safety, or property and for other lawful purposes. 

We will only transfer your Personal Information to trusted third parties who provide sufficient guarantees in respect of the technical and organizational security measures governing the processing to be carried out and who can demonstrate a commitment to compliance with those measures. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your Personal Information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your Personal Information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Some of the third parties mentioned in this Privacy Policy may be located in countries outside your country of residence. Where we transfer your Personal Information outside of your country, we take steps to ensure that your information is treated securely. You agree to us handling your information in the manner set out in this Privacy Policy and that the obligations imposed by privacy laws in other countries may be less stringent than the requirements established by the privacy laws in your country.  Where we transfer your information internationally we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and the means of transfer provides adequate safeguards.

 

4.    Controlling Your Information

If you have registered an account with us, you can access, edit, download (in JSON format) and delete most information associated with your account by logging in and using the account setting page. If you want to delete your account and/or your contributed data, you can submit a request to us via the “Delete Account” button and we will take care of it.  When submitting such a request the system will also automatically send an email to our provider Disqus requesting that the Disqus account associated with your VOY account be deleted.  Disqus will then reach out to you via email to validate the request and then process the deletion request. Further information can be found at https://help.disqus.com/commenting/delete-account-or-access-account-data#how-to-request-deletion-of-your-account.

Please note that deleting your account hides all information from public view, but does not remove all of your information from our servers. If you want to have all of your information removed from our servers, please contact [email protected] for assistance.

You may also access, edit and delete individual pieces of your content whether they are in draft or final published format under your account’s profile page. 

Please note that we have no control over reposts of your content on other sites. Therefore, if we delete your information from our servers it does not mean that your information will be deleted from the Internet. 

Both registered and unregistered users are able to delete cookies by adjusting their web browser settings. 

If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from VOY/UNICEF, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications. You may also opt out from receiving email from us by sending your request to us by email at [email protected]. Please be aware that, even after you opt out from receiving marketing communications from VOY/UNICEF, you may continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding this site.

 

5.    How Long Does VOY Keep Your Information

We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for and as specified in UNICEF’s retention policy. We use your Personal Information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements and rights, or if it is not technically and reasonably feasible to remove it. We also retain the right to store your Personal Information with parties outside of UNICEF’s direct control, such as with the servers or databases of a third-party organization. Otherwise, we will seek to delete your Personal Information within a reasonable timeframe upon your request.

 

6.    Security

We use many reasonable measures – physical and electronic – to prevent your Personal Information against unauthorized access and disclosure. However, it is always a possibility that third parties may unlawfully intercept or access your Personal Information or private communications. So, although we work extremely hard to safeguard your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee that your information or communications will always remain private. 

We also ask that you do your part to safeguard your Personal Information. Select and protect your password appropriately. Limit access to your account and sign out of your account once you have finished using our site. Also, be careful about connecting to the Site using an insecure Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi, for example, is inherently insecure — so be cautious.

 

7.    Third Parties Websites

Our site may contain links to other websites that are not covered by this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy applies only to the processing of your Personal Information by VOY. It does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any site or service to which the site links. The inclusion of a link on this site does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by UNICEF. Please be aware that the terms of this Privacy Policy do not apply to these outside websites or content, or to any collection of data after you click on links to such outside websites.

 

8.    Notifications of Changes to the Privacy Policy

We review our security measures and our Privacy Policy and we may modify our policies as we deem appropriate. If we make changes to our privacy practices, we will post a notification to our site alerting that the Privacy Policy has been amended. Such changes will be effective immediately upon posting them to our site. For this reason, we encourage you to check our Privacy Policy frequently.  The “Last Updated” date at the bottom of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued use of our site following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Policy.

 

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or VOY please contact us at [email protected].


Last Updated: 20 November 2018

 

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