Privacy Policy
Your privacy is important to us. Public Citizen does not automatically collect personal information from people who visit or interact with our website. This privacy policy applies to the www.citizen.org website.
If you provide your name, postal address, email address, phone number, or other information via a form on the website, we may store that information and contact you about our work. Except as outlined below, we do not sell, rent, trade, or otherwise disclose to any business, organization, individual, or other outside entity information provided by people who visit or interact with the website.
||| Taking Action
We do not disclose the information you enter on an action page to any outside entity - except as follows:
If you sign a petition, your name and state may be included in an electronic file or hard-copy printout delivered to legislators or other policymakers. If you email a member of Congress or other policymaker, submit a comment to a government agency, send a letter-to-the-editor, or take any other action that generates a communication to an outside entity, the information you enter on the action page may be passed along to that outside entity. We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to information about our online action-takers. They will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to. We may offer to connect you to other activists or volunteer organizers. Before doing so, we will notify you by email with an option to decline. ||| Once you take action, we will send you emails about our work. To stop receiving emails, complete the form at http://action.citizen.org/unsubscribe.jsp.
Signing Up for Email Lists or E-Newsletters
We do not disclose the information you enter on a sign-up page to any outside entity - except as follows: We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to such information; they will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to.
To stop receiving emails, complete the form at http://action.citizen.org/unsubscribe.jsp.
||| Making Donations or Payments
The information you enter on a donation or payment page may be shared with third-party service providers (such as services that verify credit card data).
If you donate, your contact information may be added to a donor file that is occasionally exchanged with other progressive organizations. You can opt out of such exchanges by contacting our Member Services team at (800) 289-3787 or member@citizen.org.
We may give consultants and organizations working with us on specific projects temporary access to information about people who make donations or payments; they will not retain the information or contact the people whose information they have access to.
||| Security
Public Citizen is fully compliant with PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and does not maintain credit card information on any of our servers. Public Citizen's network is protected at the perimeter by firewalls that include intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, and all servers and workstations have centrally managed antivirus software. Servers and workstations are patched regularly and monitored for signs of suspicious activity. Access to Public Citizen's network is restricted to Public Citizen-owned devices. Data in transit outside of Public Citizen's secure network is encrypted.
||| Contacting Us
If you contact us by phone or email, we may keep a record so that we can follow up with you if necessary. We do not disclose the information in that record to any outside entity unless you give us permission to do so or unless disclosure is compelled by law.
Cookies and IP Addresses
Our website uses cookies for these reasons:
so that you don't have to reenter information on action, donate, or payment pages; for tracking traffic so that we can evaluate and improve the website; and to facilitate outreach based on visitors' interests. For systems administration and troubleshooting, we log the IP address (the location on the Internet) of the computer or network from which someone visits the website. We also use IP addresses in the aggregate to track traffic so that we can evaluate and improve the website.
||| Updates to This Policy
This page reflects the current policy at any given time. It may be updated occasionally. It was most recently updated on May 21, 2015.
Questions
If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact our Member Services team at (800) 289-3787 or member@citizen.org.
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Public Citizen, Inc. and Public Citizen Foundation
||| Together, two separate corporate entities called Public Citizen, Inc. and Public Citizen Foundation, Inc., form Public Citizen. Both entities are part of the same overall organization, and this Web site refers to the two organizations collectively as Public Citizen.
Although the work of the two components overlaps, some activities are done by one component and not the other. The primary distinction is with respect to lobbying activity. Public Citizen, Inc., an IRS § 501(c)(4) entity, lobbies Congress to advance Public Citizen's mission of protecting public health and safety, advancing government transparency, and urging corporate accountability. Public Citizen Foundation, however, is an IRS § 501(c)(3) organization. Accordingly, its ability to engage in lobbying is limited by federal law, but it may receive donations that are tax-deductible by the contributor. Public Citizen Inc. does most of the lobbying activity discussed on the Public Citizen Web site. Public Citizen Foundation performs most of the litigation and education activities discussed on the Web site.
You may make a contribution to Public Citizen, Inc., Public Citizen Foundation, or both. Contributions to both organizations are used to support our public interest work. However, each Public Citizen component will use only the funds contributed directly to it to carry out the activities it conducts as part of Public Citizen's mission. Only gifts to the Foundation are tax-deductible. Individuals who want to join Public Citizen should make a contribution to Public Citizen, Inc., which will not be tax deductible.
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