Who we are
Loudoun Valley Raptor Center, Inc. (LVRC) is a wildlife rehabilitation center dedicated to the rescue, release, and rehabilitation of sick, injured, or orphaned birds of prey, and educating the public about them.
LVRC places a high priority on protecting your privacy. This privacy policy was created in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to the privacy of our website users. This policy explains what types of information is collected by LVRC’s website, www.loudounvalleyraptors.org, and how this information is used.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture (if any) is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Cookies
Tracking Technologies and Cookies
www.loudounvalleyraptors.org uses cookies to automatically help provide better services. They remind us who you are and your preferences for our website based on what you’ve done and told us before. Cookies let us take you to the information and features you’re particularly interested in. They also let us track your usage of this website, so we know which parts of our sites are most popular. You can reject cookies or cancel them by instructing your Web browser accordingly. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our service. The technologies we use may include:
- Cookies or Browser Cookies. A cookie is a small file placed on your device. You can instruct your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept Cookies, you may not be able to use some parts of our Service. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse Cookies, our service may use Cookies.
- Web Beacons. Certain sections of our Service and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of a certain section and verifying system and server integrity).
Cookies can be “Persistent” or “Session” Cookies. Persistent Cookies remain on your personal computer or mobile device when you go offline, while Session Cookies are deleted as soon as you close Your web browser. LVRC may use either or both of these types of cookies in various areas of our website and for various purposes, as detailed below.
We use a cookie to show success and failure messages to logged-in users, in response to certain actions, like joining a group. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted immediately after the next page load.
We use cookies on group, member, and activity directories to keep track of a user’s browsing preferences. These preferences include the last-selected values of the sort and filter dropdowns, as well as pagination information. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted after 24 hours.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, 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.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
We use cookies also to support Google Analytics, which helps us understand how people use our website, and how our website is performing. These cookies may persist from visit to visit. Information sent to Google, or contained in these cookies may include information such as:
- City
- Latitude (of city)
- Longitude (of city)
- Browser minor version
- Browser User-Agent string
- Device brand
- Device model
- Device name
- Operating system minor version
- Platform minor version
- Screen resolution
For additional details on how Google uses this data, please see https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
Google Ads
As a non-profit, Google has approved LVRC for the Google Ad Grant, which gives us access to free Google Ads (in the form of search results in Google), to help promote our website, increase public awareness, and encourage people to support us, including using our merchandise shop.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
What personally identifiable information is collected
Individuals that sign up to receive LVRC e-communications voluntarily provide us with contact information (such as name and email address). We may use this information for specific, limited, internal purposes. You may always “opt out,” either now or at any time in the future, if you do not wish to receive our messages.
IP addresses
LVRC uses your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website, and for statistical metrics used to track website visitor traffic, including geographic location.
Profile Data
When you register for the site, you may be asked to provide certain personal data for display on your profile. The “Name” field is required as well as public, and user profiles are visible to any site visitor. Other profile information may be required or optional, as configured by the site administrator.
User information provided during account registration can be modified or removed on the Profile > Edit panel. In most cases, users also have control over who is able to view a particular piece of profile content, limiting visibility on a field-by-field basis to friends, logged-in users, or administrators only. Site administrators can read and edit all profile data for all users.
Activity
This site records certain user actions, in the form of “activity” data. Activity includes updates and comments posted directly to activity streams, as well as descriptions of other actions performed while using the site, such as new friendships, newly joined groups, and profile updates.
The content of activity items obey the same privacy rules as the contexts in which the activity items are created. For example, activity updates created in a user’s profile is publicly visible, while activity items generated in a private group are visible only to members of that group. Site administrators can view all activity items, regardless of context.
Activity items may be deleted at any time by users who created them. Site administrators can edit all activity items.
Who we share your data with
It is LVRC’s policy not to disclose, sell or rent your Personal Information, including email addresses, to any individual, business, government entity or outside parties except: (i) to provide products or services you’ve requested through us; (ii) in response to a validly-issued subpoena, court order, or other legal process; (iii) when necessary to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal action; or (iv) where you request us to do so.
From time to time, LVRC may use return email addresses to answer the email we receive from you. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose. Your Personal Information will not be collected for use that is in violation of the law, or unrelated to that discussed in this Policy, unless you are also provided an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How Your Information May Be Used
We use your personal information to provide you with personalized service; to send email alerts to you; to contact you; to answer your requests; etc. You may choose to opt out at any time, which will cease all communications from us. We may use your information to track visitors of our website. This lets us see which of our features are the most popular so we can better serve our users’ needs. It also lets us provide aggregate data about our traffic (not identifying you personally, but showing how many visitors used which features, for example) to outside parties, potentially including sponsors or advertisers. LVRC may retain the details of purchases, donations, and other transactions made with us or the partners affiliated with our website, and we may use this information to contact you, to provide a donation receipt, and to solicit future donations.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Encryption
All user account pages are protected with Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.2 or greater) & Secure Socket Layer (“SSL”) encryption.
Policy Scope
This Policy does not apply to companies that LVRC does not own or control, or to individuals that are not under LVRC’s supervisory control.
Children’s Privacy
Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.
If we need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your information and your country requires consent from a parent, we may require your parent’s consent before we collect and use that information.
Voluntary Service
LVRC is a volunteer-served organization. While LVRC makes reasonable efforts to ensure that our volunteers will behave as we expect and conform to our policies, LVRC cannot guarantee nor be responsible for the behavior of volunteers.
Information Security
LVRC website and all retained data is hosted by third party systems we consider trustworthy and secure, primarily Microsoft. Please understand that no inline system can be perfectly secure, and in some cases, that information can be intercepted, collected and used by others. LVRC cannot and will not be responsible for any security breaches, unintentional information disclosures, or “hacking.”
Privacy Laws
LVRC is in compliance with the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, by assuming consent and opt-in to our use of cookies and policies as set forth herein, because we do not meet the minimum threshold of the act, which is to control or process the personal data of at least 25,000 consumers per calendar year. Further, LVRC is explicitly exempted from the VA CDPA (per § 59.1-576.B.iv) as a Nonprofit organization.
LVRC is in compliance with GDPR because we automatically assume opt-out for all cookies outside of the United States.
LVRC is in compliance with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) because CPRA does not apply to Nonprofits.
External Links
www.loudounvalleyraptors.org includes links to external websites. These links do not fall under the www.loudounvalleyraptors.org domain, and LVRC is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of external websites. Your use of any linked website is solely at your own risk.
Modifications
We may amend this privacy policy from time to time; please review it periodically. We maintain the option to modify this privacy at any time by electronic notice posted on our website. Your continued use of our website after the date that such notices are posted will be deemed to be your agreement to the changed terms.
Contact
You may contact LVRC directly at should you have any questions regarding this policy
Created 04/06/2018
Updated 01/28/2024