Privacy Policy

This policy explains what Baltimore Families for Safe Streets, a program of Bikemore (“we,” “us”) does with information about you when you use baltimorefss.org, fill in one of our forms, give us money, sign up for texts or email, or come to one of our gatherings. Baltimore Families for Safe Streets is a chapter of the national Families for Safe Streets movement and a program of Bikemore; Bikemore is the legal entity behind this site, and Bikemore’s own privacy policy applies to bikemore.net.

The short version above is a summary, not the policy. Where the two differ, what follows governs.

What we collect

Information you give us

Our signup, donation, and event forms are hosted by EveryAction and appear on this site inside a frame. Depending on the form, they ask for some of:

• your name;
• your email address;
• your cell or home phone number;
• your street address, city, state, and ZIP code;
• your employer, if you are telling us about a matching-gift program;
• the languages you prefer, so we can reach you in one you actually use;
• anything you write in a free-text box, including a message to our organizer.

If you give money, the payment itself is handled by EveryAction and its payment processors. We never see or store your card number. We receive the amount, the date, whether the gift repeats, and the name and contact details you entered.

Information about a crash, an injury, or a death

Some of what people tell us is among the most sensitive information there is: that they were badly hurt, that their child was killed, where it happened and when. You are never required to tell us any of it to get help from us, and we ask for as little of it as we can.

What we do with it:

• it goes to our organizer and, where it is needed, to the small number of Bikemore staff who support this program — not to a general mailing list, not to volunteers, and not to our board;
• it is never used to target you for fundraising. We do not build a “recently bereaved” segment and ask it for money;
• it is never given to a journalist, a researcher, a public official, or a partner organization unless you have said yes to that specific request;
• it is never published. See Your story, your name, your photograph below.

We are an advocacy and peer-support organization, not a medical or legal provider. What you tell us is not a protected medical record and is not covered by attorney–client privilege. If you need those protections, tell us and we will help you find someone who can offer them.

Information collected automatically

Our host records standard server information when a page is requested: the IP address, the page requested, the time, the browser and operating system, and the page that referred you. We use it to keep the site working and secure.

We also use, or may use, analytics tools that tell us how the site is being used — which pages people read, which links they follow, whether a form was abandoned partway through, roughly what part of the country a visitor is in. This is how we learn that a campaign page nobody finishes needs rewriting. Those tools work by setting cookies or similar identifiers in your browser, and the information they collect about your visit goes to the company that provides them as well as to us.

Cookies and tracking

Cookies reach this site from four places:

• Strictly necessary. Logging in to the site’s editing tool sets a session cookie. That only affects our own staff.
• Analytics and performance. We use or may use tools such as Google Analytics to measure how the site is used. These are not essential and you can refuse them; see below.
• The embedded forms, which are EveryAction’s. When a form loads, EveryAction may set cookies to make the form work, to remember a form you have already started, and — if you have used their FastAction feature elsewhere — to recognize you and offer to fill the form in for you. Those cookies are governed by EveryAction’s privacy policy.
• An Instagram feed, where one is shown, is embedded from LightWidget and loads images and scripts from Instagram, which may set cookies of their own.

How to refuse them. Every major browser can block or delete cookies, and can block third-party cookies specifically, in its settings or preferences. Blocking cookies may stop one of the forms from working. Google also offers a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site you visit.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. This site does not currently detect or respond to a Do Not Track header. If we add anything for which state privacy law gives you a right to opt out, we will honor the Global Privacy Control signal and say so here.

How we use what we collect

• to reach you back when you have asked us to;
• to get you support after a crash, and to invite you to gatherings;
• to process a donation and send you a receipt and a record for taxes;
• to send you news about our campaigns and asks, if you signed up for it;
• to tell you about a hearing, a vigil, or a deadline where your voice would matter;
• to understand, in aggregate, which of our campaigns people respond to;
• to keep records we are legally required to keep;
• to keep the site and our accounts secure.

Every email we send has an unsubscribe link at the bottom that works. You do not have to leave the organization to leave the mailing list.

When we share it

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not trade or rent our lists. We do not currently use your information for targeted advertising. If that ever changes we will update this policy before it does, and give you a way to opt out.

We do share information in these cases:

• With the services that run this operation. The companies listed under Services we use below process data on our behalf, under contracts that only let them do what we have asked them to do. An analytics provider also receives information about your visit for its own purposes as described in its policy.
• With Bikemore. Baltimore FSS is a program of Bikemore, so Bikemore staff and its systems handle our email, our finances, and our records. Bikemore does not use what you tell FSS to speak for you.
• With you leading. If you have agreed to give testimony, sign a public letter, speak at a hearing, or be quoted, we share exactly what you agreed to and nothing more.
• When the law requires it,or to protect someone’s safety. If we ever receive a legal demand for information about you, we will tell you unless we are prohibited from doing so.
• If the program moves. If Baltimore FSS were ever transferred to another organization, records would move with it, and we would tell you before that happened.

Text message consent is never shared or sold to anyone, for any purpose.

Text messages

If you give us your cell phone number and opt in, we may text you about gatherings, hearings, deadlines, and campaigns — roughly two messages a month, more in the week of a hearing or a vigil. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any message to stop them, and HELP for help. Consent to texts is never a condition of getting support from us, and we do not text people about donations after they have told us about a death in their family.

Your story, your name, your photograph

This is a promise as much as a policy, and it comes straight out of how this chapter works:

• We do not publish your name, your words, your photograph, or your family member’s name without your permission.
• You can withdraw permission at any time. We will take the material down from anything we control, and we will ask partners who reshared it to do the same. We cannot promise to erase something that has already been copied elsewhere on the internet, and we will be honest with you about that.
• We do not lift a photograph of your family member from a news story or social media. We ask you which photo you want used.

How long we keep it

We keep supporter and member records for as long as you have a relationship with us, and then for as long as we need them to comply with the law — donation records, for example, have to be kept for tax and audit purposes, generally seven years. Free-text messages and notes about a crash are kept only as long as they are useful to supporting you, and you can ask us to delete them sooner. Server logs are kept for a short period and then discarded. If you unsubscribe, we keep a minimal record of the fact so that we do not accidentally add you back.

How we protect it

Access is limited to the people who need it. Our accounts require strong passwords and two-factor authentication. The site is served only over HTTPS, and the forms are hosted by a vendor whose payment handling meets the PCI-DSS standard. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise; if a breach ever affects your information, we will notify you and the Maryland Attorney General as Maryland law requires.

Your rights

Everyone, wherever you live. You can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, correct anything wrong, delete it, stop emailing or texting you, or send you a copy. We will do it. There is no fee and you do not have to give a reason.

If you live in Maryland,the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act gives you the rights to confirm whether we process your personal data and access it, correct it, delete it, obtain a portable copy, and opt out of targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, and certain profiling. We do not sell personal data, and we do not currently use it for targeted advertising or profiling of that kind — but the right to opt out stands whether we do or not, and you can exercise it below. Maryland also restricts the collection of sensitive data, and the sensitive information described above is collected only where you have given it to us for a purpose you chose.

If you live in California,you have the rights under the CCPA as amended by the CPRA to know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, the sources, the purpose, and the categories of third parties involved; to delete it; to correct it; to limit the use of sensitive personal information; and not to be discriminated against for exercising any of these. You also have the right to opt out of the sale of personal information and of sharing it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not sell personal information. Some analytics cookies can amount to “sharing” under that law depending on how they are configured, so if you send us a “Do Not Sell or Share” request we will act on it and confirm in writing what we have done.

Similar rights apply in a growing number of other states. We apply the same answer to everyone rather than checking where you live first.

How to exercise them. Email amril@baltimorefss.org or call 443-475-0350. We may need to confirm you are who you say you are before we hand over or delete records, and we will ask for as little as possible to do that. We answer within 45 days, and we will tell you if we need a single further 45-day extension. An authorized agent may act for you if you confirm it in writing.

If we say no, we will tell you why, and you may appeal by replying to that email with the word appeal. We will reconsider and respond in writing within 60 days. If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Maryland Attorney General.

Children

This site is not for children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect it from anyone under 16 for marketing. Young people are part of this movement, and young people are killed on these streets — a parent or guardian should be the one making contact, and we will talk to any family that reaches out. If you believe a child has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.

Services we use

• EveryAction / Bonterra (NGP VAN)— signup, donation, and event forms, our supporter database, our email, and our text messages, and payment processing through its processors.
• Vercel— hosting and server logs, including the image and file storage behind this site.
• Neon— the database holding this site’s own content: the words and pictures on these pages. It holds no supporter data.
• Google Workspace— our email, including anything you send to an @baltimorefss.org address.
• Google Analytics, or a comparable analytics service— measuring how the site is used. How Google uses information from sites that use its services.
• LightWidget and Instagram— where an Instagram feed is shown on a page.
• Squarespace— our domain registration and DNS. It holds no information about you.

Some of these companies process data outside Maryland and outside the United States. We use vendors that commit to protecting it wherever it sits.

Other websites

We link out to the city, the state, the national Families for Safe Streets office, Bikemore, and coalition partners. Once you follow a link you are on their site under their policy, and we have no control over what they do.

Changes

If we change this policy we will change the date at the top, and if the change is significant we will say so on the site and tell the people on our email list before it takes effect. Previous versions are kept in this site’s source history.

Contact us

Baltimore Families for Safe Streets, a program of Bikemore
2209 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218
amril@baltimorefss.org
443-475-0350

If any part of this site is hard for you to read or use, tell us and we will fix it. That is not a courtesy: many of our members are living with injuries from a crash, and a page they cannot read is a page that failed.