The CareerVillage site is part of the CareerVillage.org Network. This Privacy Policy covers use of the sites on this network.
CareerVillage’s mission is to democratize access to career advice and information for underserved youth. The CareerVillage.org Network is a set of internet sites and applications designed to support that mission. Without users like you, pursuing our mission would not be possible, and it’s for that reason that we want you to feel confident and comfortable with how we are protecting and using your personal information.
We are publishing these privacy policies to help you understand what personal information we collect, how we use that information, and what options we offer you to access, update, and control it. This privacy policy only covers information collected through your use of the Network – it does not apply to information that may be collected by other means such as information you provide to us in person at events, or by phone, or by direct email. If you haven’t yet, please also take a moment to review our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, please let us know by emailing us at hello@careervillage.org.
Thanks so much!
- The CareerVillage Team
Personal information
We consider any information that we could use to identify an individual to be “personal information”. It does not include personal information that is encoded or anonymized, or publicly available information that has not been combined with non-public information.
Sensitive personal information
We consider information that meets the “personal information” criteria and also a) reveals race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, relationship status, family status, or b) concerns health or sex life, information about financial income or debts, information about social security benefits, or information on criminal or administrative proceedings other than in the context of pending legal proceedings to be “sensitive personal information”.
Non personal information
We consider information that does not personally identify an individual, unless combined with personal information, to be “non-personal information”.
We may aggregate personal information or sensitive personal information in a manner such that the end-product does not personally identify you or any other Network user, for example, by calculating the percentage of users who have a “.edu” email address. Such aggregate information is considered non personal information for purposes of this Policy.
Users who use the services primarily as a personal learning tool are called “Students” (and are also sometimes referred to as “Learners”, “Scholars”, or “Mentees”).
Users who use the services primarily to give advice are called “Professionals” (and are also sometimes referred to as “Mentors”, “Volunteers”, or “Advisors”).
Users who use the services to support students are called “Educators” (and are also sometimes referred to as “Teachers”, “Counselors”, “Educational Administrators”, or “Program Partners”).
We collect information several ways: information you provide to us voluntarily through your use of the site, information we get from your use of the network such as IP address, and we collect certain personal data by using cookies, including similar technologies such as local storage when you visit the website.
When using our services, we may ask you to provide personal information. The amount and type of information that is provided depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, if you choose to register an account we may ask for information such as your full name, your email address, and a description of your professional role (a “headline”). You can always opt not to disclose information, but then you may be unable to use certain features on our website.
Sometimes we do surveys to understand the impact of our program and the demographics of our user base. We want to make sure that we’re making the world a better place, and we want to learn more about who is using our service and how. If we do ask you to complete a survey, we’ll always make sure that it’s optional, and we’ll always preface the survey with a statement about how we’ll use and protect the information you give us in that survey.
We use automated technologies to collect and analyze certain types of information, including: (a) information related to the devices or browsers you use to access or interact with our services, such as: IP addresses, geolocation information, unique device identifiers and other information about your mobile phone or other mobile device(s), browser types, browser language, and unique numbers or codes in cookies; and (b) information related to the ways in which you interact with our services, such as: referring and exit pages and URLs, platform type, the number of clicks, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the date and time you used our services, and other similar information. We may also capture other data, such as search criteria and results, email opens, and clicks on links in emails. As we adopt additional technology, we may also gather additional information through other methods.
We use cookies to help us track visitors’ use of the network and their preferences. If you do not wish to have cookies placed on your computer, you should set your browser to refuse cookies. Please note that if your browser does not accept cookies, you will not be able to take advantage of some of our best features.
We also integrate some 3rd party services into our application that provide us with additional information. The most important is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc., which uses cookies to help. The information generated by the cookie about your use of our website (such as your IP address, the URL visited, the date and time the page was viewed) will be transmitted and stored by Google on servers in the United States or any other country in which Google maintains facilities. Your IP address will be masked by setting the last octet of your IP address to zero before it is stored by Google. Google will use this information to monitor your use of our website, and to compile reports on website activity for us. Based on our agreement with Google, Google is not allowed to use this information for their own purposes and may only transfer this information to third parties where required by law, or where such third parties process information on Google’s behalf. In addition to Google, we have also other integrations. We integrate with Sentry.io which tracks server errors so that we can debug problems as they arise. Sentry receives information about IP Address, Geolocation, and if available user account identifiers. We integrate with Facebook which tracks when you share content directly from CareerVillage to Facebook, tracks when you take an action on CareerVillage that you want shared to Facebook if you have opted-in explicitly to that integration, and tracks which pages you land on within the Network (and uses cookies to match you back on Facebook for the purpose of ad targeting). We also use the Facebook Pixel system to understand the effectiveness of advertisements we run on Facebook platforms (including Instagram). We integrate with Linkedin for SSO authentication and using LinkedIn Insights Tag, to allow you to login using your LinkedIn account, and to understand the effectiveness of advertisements we run on LinkedIn platforms. You can learn about LinkedIn’s privacy practices at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy , and you can opt out of LinkedIn Insights Tag at https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/. We integrate with QuantCast which uses cookies and other technologies to track who is using our site and then report back aggregated demographic stats to us -- you can review our QuantCast profile live at https://www.quantcast.com/careervillage.org. We integrate with MailChimp and Mandrill in order to send email messages. They receive your name, email address, geolocation, and other meta information about your level of activity on the Network. In addition, when you recevie, open, or interact with email messages we send through them, they collect information about you and the technologies you use for email. We integrate with Zendesk in order for our support team to interact with users. Zendesk stores information about your name, email address, IP address, and any information contained within the messages you provide to us or vice versa. We temporarily store information on Google Drive or Google Docs while processing the data for other uses, such as to analyze important trends, to resolve bugs, to moderate or manage user generated content, or to message users who meet certain unique conditions.
You can update or remove individual pieces of personal information in the account section of our website (for example, at https://careervillage.org/settings/account/) or by contacting us directly. To delete your data, you may contact us directly to have it removed immediately. At any time you may contact us to request assistance with updating or removing personal information at hello@careervillage.org
This Policy only applies to information collected by us. It does not apply to the practices of companies that we don’t own or control, or employees that we don’t manage. The network contains links to third party websites (for example when a user posts a piece of career advice that links to a completely different website), and any information you provide to those sites will be covered by any privacy policies they may have. Please be sure to read the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit. It is those sites’ responsibility to protect any information you give them, so we can’t be held liable for their wrongful use of your personal information.
When we collect your information, we’ll tell you how we’re using it, any types of third parties to which we might disclose it, (other than moderators or “agents,” such as vendors or contractors, who are only processing such information for us or at our direction), and the choices we offer you to limit the use of your information.
How we use your personal information
Here are some of the ways we use personal information we collect:
How we use your sensitive personal information
We avoid collecting sensitive personal information unless absolutely necessary. When we do collect sensitive personal information, we use it sparingly. Typically we try to anonymize it (to turn it from sensitive personal information into non personal information). In the unlikely event that we consider sharing your sensitive personal information with a non-agent third party, we will first notify you of the opportunity to opt-out of such disclosure. For this purpose, it’s important that we have updated contact information for you, so please keep your email address updated in your profile!
How we use non personal information
We use non personal information in order to better understand how visitors use the service and where possible, to improve their experience. For instance, we may use your page view information to recommend content we think you will enjoy, or to customize other elements of our services for you. In some cases, we may publicly display information that is not personally identifying in the aggregate, (e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of the network, or displaying the number of people who have viewed a piece of content) or may provide it to third parties. If you are a student in a cohort, we may show summaries of the amount of content or topics of content you have read on the Network to help your educators support your learning goals. We may also use non personal information to analyze how our services are used, evaluate their quality, diagnose service or technical problems, and maintain security.
You also provide us information in User Content you post to the Service. Your questions, answers, comments, goals, tasks and other contributions on the Service, and metadata about them (such as when you posted them), are publicly viewable on the Service. If you’re a professional or an educator, any content you do not post anonymously will include your full name, your location, your occupation, and your profile photo and will be listed on your profile page. If you are a student, any content you do not post anonymously will include your first name and last initial, your location, and sometimes your education level. This information may be searched by search engines and be republished elsewhere on the Web in accordance with our Terms of Service.
We had a great idea to build a referral feature so you could refer content to other people you know. In order to use that feature, you may give us the contact information for someone you know, so we know who to send the referral to. We have not yet built a contact importer tool, but we might. We use the contact information you provide to keep track of whether the referral is successful or not (if it is we usually want to send you a ‘congratulations’ note). You don’t have to use this referral feature at all, but we hope you do. We think it’s cool.
We may send you emails to inform you of updates to content you have submitted or follow, to inform you of content that we think you would like, to tell you about new features, to solicit your feedback, or just keep to you up to date with what’s going on with our organization and our services. If we do send you information that you did not expressly request, we will provide you with a way to request that you don’t get any similar notices (opt-out).
If you do not wish to receive e-mail from us, please visit the settings section and/or follow the instructions contained in the unwanted e-mail message. However, please note that you will continue to receive all system e-mails (e.g. password reset emails) and legal notices (e.g. updates to our policies) from us.
If you make a donation (which we would greatly appreciate!), we may use a payment gateway to collect, use, and protect your financial information to facilitate those donations. We do not control or operate the payment gateways, so this policy does not cover personal information provided to initiate and process a financial donation.
When you connect accounts with other social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to your account on our services, we use the information we gather from those services to setup your account, improve your experience on our site, and make it easy for you to share your activity and achievements on our Network. If you are a professional, we may also take the opportunity to post messages on social media thanking you publicly for the help you’ve provided to our students (we will make sure only to do that for content you do not post anonymously and you can opt-out of this kind of public appreciation at any time). We may share or disclose your information with your consent, such as if you choose to sign on to the services through a third-party service. We cannot control third parties' use of your information.
When you connect your corporate account to your account on our services, we use the information we gather from that corporate account to setup your Network account, improve your experience on our site, and make it easy for you to share your activity and achievements on our Network. We may gather your full name, your email address, your location, your department, your field, your job title, skills your company has listed for you, your profile photo, ERGs or other groups you may be affiliated with, and any other information that your employer has requested to provide to us. We use this information in order to set up an account for you in our Network, and in order to provide you with the best match information possible for career advice rquests for you to respond to.
Any information you voluntarily post to public areas of our site (for example in optional profile fields or in the form of your User Content) will be available publicly. If our services provide you with the option to post content anonymously, we will not include any personal information with the content and the content will not show up in your profile page.
Sharing student personal information
If you are a student, educators at your school may see any information you provide to us including your personal information. This allows every educator in a cohort to contact and coordinate with any student in the cohort. If the service permits you to post anonymously, we may not include any personal information about you in connection with that post other than your location and education level, and we will not include the anonymously posted content in any information we share with other users or partners.
Sharing educator personal information
If you are an educator, other administrators and educators at your school may see any information you provide to us including your personal information. This allows every educator in a cohort to contact and coordinate with any other educator in the cohort.
Sharing professional personal information
If you are a professional, any company you work for or have worked for in the past with whom we have an agreement to conduct a volunteering partnership may see any information you provide to us including your personal information. We may learn about the companies you work for or have worked for in various ways including when you enter those companies into your profile, when you tell us those companies, when you email us support requests declaring those companies, when you use your companies' email addresses to register, when you access the service using channels only available to those companies, or in other ways. If the service permits you to post anonymously, we may not include any personal information about you in connection with that post other than your industry and location, and we will not include the anonymously posted content in any information we share with other users or partners.
Sharing with law enforcement
We may release your personal information to authorities if required by law.
3rd party hosting
We may store personal information in locations outside our direct control (for instance, on servers or databases co-located with hosting providers).
Sharing with agents or partners
When a service on the Network is provided in partnership with a third party, any information we collect may be shared with that partner. In that event, we will ask those partners to safeguard information in accordance with this policy or we will provide you with the opportunity to review the partner’s privacy policies and terms before agreeing to use the service. Prior to providing any agents or partners with any information, we will obtain assurances that they will safeguard it in accordance with this policy. In the unlikely event that we should discover that an agent or partner is using personal information in way that conflicts with this policy, we will take all reasonable steps to stop them immediately.
Sharing with researchers
On occasion we work with researchers (for example academic researchers at the University of Michigan) to analyze the impact of our programs. Prior to providing any agents or partners with any information, we will obtain assurances that they will safeguard it in accordance with this policy. We will also anonymize any information we provide to researchers or seek your opt-in permission to disclose any personal information or sensitive personal information to researchers. In the unlikely event that we should discover that a research partner is using personal information in way that conflicts with this policy, we will take all reasonable steps to stop them immediately.
We do not sell, rent or trade your personal data.
Nothing more to say on that :)
We retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collect or receive the personal data, except if required otherwise by applicable law. Typically, we will retain most of the personal data for the duration of your use of the Network, until you have deleted your account, unless a longer applicable statutory retention period applies.
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
We use commercially reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information. We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or guarantee that your information on our services may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. In the event that personal information is compromised as a result of a breach of security, we will promptly notify those persons whose personal information has been compromised.
Network data is stored in the US (AWS datacenter). More on AWS security.
We maintain backups that exist both offline and on development machines we maintain.
The location of data maintained by 3rd parties is specified in their privacy policies and terms of service documents.
We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to or from our services, nor the information or content contained therein. Please remember that when you use a link to go from our services to another website, our Privacy Policy is no longer in effect. Your browsing and interaction on any other website, including those that have a link on our website, is subject to that website's own rules and policies.
If we change our privacy policies and procedures, we will post those changes on this page to keep you aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
If you haven’t yet, please also take a moment to review our Terms of Service.
If you have any concerns or complaints about how you think we’ve handled your personal information, please let us know by emailing us at hello@careervillage.org or by mail at:
CareerVillage, Inc.
Attn: Privacy
1475 Columbia Ct
Palo Alto, CA 94304
We will work hard to investigate and resolve any complaints you might have. We hope you enjoy using our services!
