Privacy Policy

Updated March 2024

The Hastings Center is dedicated to service in the field of bioethics. A key component of that service is an unwavering commitment to privacy.  For over 50 years, The Hastings Center has respected the privacy of the public, our supporters and contributors, and our staff.

Our Commitment to Our Donors (“Donor Privacy Policy”)
We will not sell, share or trade our donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations. This Donor Privacy Policy applies to all information received by The Hastings Center, both online and offline, on any platform, as well as any electronic, written, or verbal communications.

Our Commitment to Our Online Visitors (“Online Privacy Policy”)

This page discloses the privacy policies and procedures of The Hastings Center website (www.thehastingscenter.org). Please read this Online Privacy Policy to understand how we will treat any personal information that you may provide to us. Your use of our website constitutes your agreement to the terms of this privacy policy.

What personal information we collect and why we collect it. You can visit The Hastings Center website without revealing personally identifiable information about yourself. Personal information is information that identifies you as an individual. We may ask you for personally identifiable information for the following purposes:

Registering for our newsletter or subscribing to our online publication, the Hastings Bioethics Forum. We may collect your name and email address to send you our newsletter and a notification about new blog posts.

Posting comments. If you leave a comment on our blog, we collect your name and email address, and the information shown in the comments form, as well as your IP address to help with spam detection.

Making an online donation. We collect your name, IP address, postal address, and billing information.  We will not share this information with third parties (except with our financial institution to ensure proper processing).

Job applications. If you apply for a job through our website, we will ask for personal information including your name, contact information, education and work history.  We will not share this information with outside organizations.

We use the personally identifiable information we collect through our website primarily for such purposes as:

  • helping to establish and verify the identity of users.
  • opening, maintaining, administering, and servicing users’ accounts.
  • processing, servicing, or enforcing transactions, and sending related communications.
  • improving our website.
  • providing users with newsletters and other information about The Hastings Center.
  • maintaining the security and integrity of our systems.

You can opt out of receiving our newsletter and other communications at any time by following the instructions on how to unsubscribe.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may choose to save your name, email address, and website in cookies. This option is for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me,” your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

Analytics

When you visit The Hastings Center’s website, like when you visit most other websites, certain anonymous information about your visit is automatically collected, including the server name and IP address, location, the pages you visited, and the amount of time spent on particular pages.

We use Google Analytics to track use of our website. To learn more about how Google use data, visit https://policies.google.com/privacy/partners. For opt-out options specific to Google Analytics, please visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Data Sharing

We share your personal information with the following third-party service providers: Mailchimp, which distributes our newsletter, Bioethics Forum notifications, fundraising appeals, and other communications, records the names and email addresses of individuals who sign up to be on our distribution lists. Mailchimp also records who open the emails and which links they click on. For more, read Mailchimp’s privacy policy https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.

We use Wufoo to create forms for online donation, occasional surveys, and for other uses. The information that you submit through these forms and surveys is stored on Wufoo’s servers in accordance with its privacy policy. Read Wufoo’s privacy policy here:
https://www.wufoo.com/privacy/2016-01-18/

  • Other than as described above, we do not disclose any personally identifiable information that we collect from our website to third parties for their marketing purposes.
  • We may disclose anonymous information in aggregated form to third parties in order to provide anonymous demographic information about our user base to in order to improve our website.
  • We may disclose personally identifiable information to unaffiliated service companies to help us maintain and operate our website, process payments or transactions, or for other reasons related to the operation of our own business or marketing. We require these service-related companies to take steps to maintain the confidentiality of any personally identifiable information they may receive from us, and require them to use such information only for legitimate business purposes.
  • We may disclose personally identifiable information about you in connection with legal requirements, such as in response to an authorized subpoena, governmental request or investigation, or as we otherwise believe, in good faith, to be required by law.
  • We may disclose personally identifiable information if we believe it is necessary to protect someone’s safety, or enforce our Terms of Use.
  • As our business develops, we may sell or buy corporate assets, and in such transactions customer information may be one of the transferred business assets. Also, in the event that our website, The Hastings Center, or substantially all of its assets are acquired, personally identifiable information may be one of the assets transferred in such acquisition.

External Links

The Hastings Center website may contain links to other websites. The Hastings Center is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites. Websites that are accessible by hyperlinks from The Hastings Center website may use cookies. We encourage you to read the privacy statements provided by other websites before you provide personally identifiable information to them. Links do not represent endorsements or sponsorship of other sites’ content or practices.

Children’s Privacy

This website is directed toward and designed for use by persons aged 13 or older. We will not approve applications of, or establish or maintain registrations for, any child whom we know to be under the age of 13. We do not solicit or knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If we nevertheless receive personally identifiable information from an individual who indicates that they are, or whom we otherwise have reason to believe is, under the age of 13, we will delete such information from our systems.

Security

The Hastings Center maintains physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to help guard your personal information. Personally identifiable information is transmitted to and from our website in encrypted form using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections to help protect such information from interception. We restrict access to personally identifiable information to those persons who have a legitimate reason to know that information and any persons you have authorized to have access to such information. While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you use these services at your own risk.

Contact us. If you have questions about our privacy policy, please contact us at:
administrator@thehastingscenter.org
The Hastings Center
21 Malcolm Gordon Rd.
Garrison, N.Y. 10524