Privacy Policy

Last Updated March 6, 2025

1. legal disclaimer

This privacy policy ("policy") will help you understand how the Guardians of the Children, Gastonia Chapter ("us", "we", "our") uses and protects the data you provide to us when you visit and use http://www.gocnc.org and/or any of its subdomains (collectively referred to as "site", "website").
We reserve the right to change this policy at any given time. To make sure that you are up to date with the latest changes, we advise you to frequently visit this page. By using this website, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy, as well as the Terms and Conditions, and for the Services offered on this Website and at GOC Events, the Shipping, Returns & Refunds Policy.

2. Why We Collect Your Data

We are collecting your data for several reasons:

To better understand your needs.
To improve our services and products, and to pursue our mission statement.
To send you promotional emails including the information we think you might find interesting.
To contact you to fill out surveys and participate in other types of market research and charity engagement.
To customize our website according to your online behavior and personal preferences.

3. What User Data We Collect

Direct user data we collect

The following data may be provided to us by you directly:

Your name and other contact information details such as email addresses and phone numbers.
Additional profile information such as date of birth, gender, location, and preferred language.
Other information such as interests and preferences.
Your payment information such as debit/credit card numbers, security/CVV codes, expiration dates, and zip codes.
Your shipping address and billing address.
Your communications and contact history with us such as but not limited to communications recordings, chat and instant messages, and communications with our social media channels.
Other information such as testimonials and reviews, forum or community engagement posts or other such publications, survey responses, participation in events and promotions, and other user-generated content.

Indirect user data we collect

When you visit our website, we may collect the following data automatically:

Your IP address.
Location data.
Device information, including but not limited to browser type and version, operating system, hardware information such as phone, computer, or tablet, or any other devices technologies take us.
Data profile regarding your online behavior on our website.

4. PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED AUTOMATICALLY

As is true of most digital platforms, we collect personal information automatically when you visit our website, including but not limited to:

Location Data
To help us protect against fraud, provide services and engagement to you, and to improve our services, we may collect location data such as current and historical information concerning user geographic location, GPS location, transaction location, and IP addresses used in conjunction with our services and engagement. We may collect your precise location data with your permission, and use that information for things such as fraud protection during payment transactions that may occur from a different location in contrast to the location of your device. We may collect information about your location through GPS, Wi-Fi, wireless network triangulation, or other similar technology. We may also approximate your location using your IP address or third party applications such as Google Maps API. Third parties may use various technologies to determine your location, including IP address, GPS, and other inputs such as nearby devices, Wi-Fi access points, and cell towers. For more information, we recommend you check the privacy policies of the third party applications we may use. These third parties will be listed on this page.
Usage and Device Data Collected Automatically Through Tracking Technologies
To provide a personalized and enhanced user experience, we, and our third party partners, automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit or use our website, services, shopping functionality, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. We typically collect this information through a variety of tracking technologies, including but not limited to cookies, Flash objects, web beacons, embedded scripts, location identifying technologies, file information, and similar technology (collectively, "Tracking Technologies"). For example, we collect information about your device and its software, such as your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, platform type, device type, operating system, date and time stamp, a unique ID (that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device, or your account), and other similar information. We use Tracking Technologies to help ensure that you have a quality experience engaging with us and the services we offer on our website. We may also use Tracking Technologies to aid in the targeted advertising of our services on other platforms. From your device manufacturer, we may also collect the names of other third party applications that you have downloaded on your device.

5. Third party applications that may collect your data

Through third party applications and technologies, we collect personal information automatically when you visit our website, including but not limited to:

Google
Wix
PayPal
Social Media Platforms including but not limited to: Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and TikTok (collectively, "Social Media Platforms")

We recommend that you check the privacy policies of the above organizations.

We may obtain personal information from third parties such as the above sources, often combined with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from you.

Third Party Data may include data that we collect from fellow charitable organizations, sister organizations, business partners, marketing, and vendor partners.
Account Linking services that may be embedded into the website that may involve third party services such as Google accounts services, Social Media Platforms, and payment services such as PayPal.
Third Party Services. If you link, connect, or log in to your account with us using a third party service such as Google or Apple or password management software, these third party services may send us information such as your profile information from that service. This information varies and is controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings and agreement with that service.
Data Available to the Public may include contact information, employment related information, and other information from publicly available sources. We may combine this information with the information we collect from you directly or indirectly. This information may be used to contact you, send advertising or promotional materials, to personalize our services and engagement with you, and to better understand the demographics of our users to better serve our user base.

Safeguarding and securing the data

The Guardians of the Children, Gastonia Chapter is committed to securing your data and keeping it confidential. We will do all that is reasonably in our power to prevent data theft, unauthorized access, and disclosure by implementing the latest technologies and software reasonably available to us, which help us safeguard all the information we collect online. This may include but is not limited to industry standard encryption protocols and PCI-compliant payment systems.

We encourage you to take reasonable measures to protect your own account information and your personal devices to prevent unauthorized access to your account and communications. Remember to sign out of your account and close your browser window, especially if using a public device or a device in a public place.

Our Cookie Policy

Once you agree to allow our website to use cookies, you also agree to allow us the use of the data it collects regarding your online behavior (analyze web traffic, web pages you visit and spend the most time on).

The data we collect by using cookies is used to customize our website to your needs. Most of the time via third party vendors, we may use the data for statistical analysis. Unfortunately our control over the privacy policies of these third party vendors is limited, however to the best of our ability we will not intentionally store the data in a manual or direct manner.

Please note that cookies do not allow us to gain control of your computer or device in any way. They are strictly used to monitor your activity within the scope of our website so that we can provide a better experience for you.

If you want to disable cookies, you can do so by accessing the settings of your internet browser. This configuration can vary based on your browser and device.

Links to Other Websites

Our website may contain links that lead to other websites. If you click on these links, we are not held responsible for your data and privacy protection. Visiting these websites is not governed by this privacy policy agreement. Make sure to read the privacy policy documentation of the website you go to from our website.

Restricting the Collection of your personal data

At some point, you might wish to restrict the use and collection of your personal data. You can achieve this by doing the following.

When filling forms on our website, make sure to check if there is a box you can leave empty or unchecked if you do not want to disclose your personal information. Do not use any of the functions available on this website that may include but is not limited to registration for tickets, purchase of items, registration of accounts, account management, contact form submissions or any other type of form submissions, social media engagement.

If you have already agreed to share your information with us, feel free to contact us via email and we will be more than happy to remove what information is available to us to remove. All other third party applications, APIs, and other technologies used to manage this website may continue to hold your information in such a way that we have limited control over. You agree that we will not be held responsible for what these third parties do with your information.

We will not manually or directly lease or sell your personal information to any third parties unless we have your permission. Your personal information will remain within the organization as much as possible outside of third party technologies used to maintain this website and within the extent of the law. Your information can, however, be subject to law enforcement agencies and actions that leave us no choice. Your personal information will be used when we send you promotional materials and communications relevant to but not limited to contacting our organization, events signup and engagement, and ticketing information.

Please also review the following before using this Website or any of our Services: