VERITAS INSTITUTE
Veritas Institute is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, EIN 42-3062268. This policy covers https://verinst.org and nothing else. If you follow a link from here to another company's site, their policy governs from that point on.
The short version
We collect what you type into a form on this site, and nothing more. We do not sell, rent, trade, or share your information for anyone else's marketing. We do not run advertising trackers. This site sets no cookies of its own.
What you give us
There are three forms on this site, and each one is optional.
- Contact form. Your name, email address, organization if you enter one, and your message. We use it to answer you.
- Journal signup. Your email address, used only to send you the Veritas Journal. No more than monthly, and every issue has an unsubscribe link.
- Principles endorsement. Your name, your title or role if you enter one, your university or organization if you enter one, and your email address.
If you sign the Principles
The endorsement form has a box, ticked by default, that says "List my name publicly on this page." If you leave it ticked, your name, and your title and affiliation if you gave them, appear on the public signatory list at https://verinst.org/principles/. If you untick it, you are counted in the signature total and your name is never shown.
Your email address is never published in either case. We use it only to confirm a signature is genuine. Every endorsement is read by a person before any name goes on the page, and you can ask us to remove your name at any time.
What is collected automatically
Our host keeps standard server logs, the same as any website: the IP address of the device making the request, the browser and operating system it reports, the page requested, and the time. These are used to keep the site running and to defend it against abuse. We do not use them to build a profile of you.
There is no analytics or visitor-tracking service running on this site at all.
Cookies
This site sets no cookies of its own, and there is no advertising or cross-site tracking on it. The donation tools described below may set a cookie when you actually use them, in order to process your gift.
Donations
Donations are not processed on this website. When you give, you are handed to Givebutter, which uses Stripe to move the money, or to PayPal or Stripe directly if you choose one of the alternatives on the donate page.
Your card number never reaches us and is never stored on this site. Those companies handle it under their own privacy policies and their own security certifications. What comes back to us is the record of the gift itself: your name, your email address, the amount, and the date, which we need in order to thank you, to issue your tax receipt, and to keep the books a 501(c)(3) is required to keep.
Companies that handle data for us
We use a small number of outside services to run this site. Each one sees only what it needs to do its job, and none of them is permitted to use your information for their own marketing.
- Netlify, which hosts the site and receives form submissions.
- Cloudflare, which manages the domain and screens malicious traffic.
- Givebutter, Stripe and PayPal, which process donations.
- Google Fonts, which serves the typefaces. Loading a font tells Google the IP address that requested it.
We will also disclose information if the law requires it of us, which has not happened and which we would resist where we properly could.
How long we keep it
Contact messages are kept while the conversation is useful and then deleted. Journal subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. Signatures on the Principles are kept as a permanent record of the endorsement unless you ask us to remove yours. Donation records are kept as long as the IRS requires a 501(c)(3) to keep them.
What you can ask us to do
Write to info@verinst.org and we will, within a reasonable time and at no charge:
- tell you what we hold about you,
- correct anything that is wrong,
- delete it, except where we are legally required to keep a donation record,
- take your name off the public signatory list,
- or take you off the Journal list, which you can also do from any issue.
We extend these to everyone who writes to us, wherever you live, rather than only to residents of states and countries whose law compels it.
Children
This site is meant for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has sent us something, write to us and we will delete it.
Security
The site is served only over an encrypted connection. We hold no payment card data at all. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise, but we keep the amount of information we hold deliberately small.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes we will post the new version here and move the date at the top. Material changes to how we use information already collected will be announced in the Journal as well.
Contact
Veritas Institute
Phoenix, Arizona
info@verinst.org
EIN 42-3062268