Privacy Policy

Our privacy standard

The Human Party collects only the information reasonably necessary for the purpose at hand. We do not collect personal information merely because it might be useful later. If additional information becomes genuinely necessary, we will ask for it then.

Personal information is not added to a general mailing, supporter, voter, volunteer, fundraising, marketing, or contact list. We do not sell personal information. We do not provide personal information to third parties for their own marketing, fundraising, political, commercial, or other independent purposes.

Information you choose to provide

Information submitted through Participate depends on the interaction you choose. Some pathways can be used without providing a name or email address. When the interaction itself requires future contact, such as asking a question, joining a discussion, offering to help, or requesting a response, we request only the contact information reasonably necessary to complete that interaction.

Depending on the pathway, you may also provide a subject, comment, question, idea, public URL or citation, general region, relevant background, skills, qualifications, availability, or other information directly related to the purpose of the form.

Please do not submit confidential, privileged, proprietary, personally identifying information about other people, or other nonpublic information unless we specifically request it and you are permitted to provide it.

How Participate submissions are handled

Participate uses Contact Form 7 to process form submissions and send them by email. The Human Party publication plugin does not install or require a submission database, CRM, mailing-list system, or participant-tracking system. We do not use Participate to create persistent participant profiles or public submission-status records.

Substantive information may be considered, researched, incorporated in whole or in part, deferred, referred for further work, or result in no change. When information contributes to a proposal or policy revision, the resulting change belongs in the appropriate revision history and archival record. The submitter’s personal information does not need to follow the substantive contribution into that record.

Contact information and confirmation messages

When contact information is requested, it is used only for the interaction for which it was provided. A one-time confirmation message may be sent after submission so you can confirm receipt and, if you wish, add our sending address to your contacts or approved-sender list. A confirmation or requested reply is transactional communication, not a subscription.

How long personal information is kept

Personal information is retained only while reasonably necessary to complete the interaction for which it was provided. When that purpose ends, we delete or remove the information when reasonably and technically possible rather than retaining it for hypothetical future use. If we need the information again later, we prefer to ask for it again.

Immediate deletion may not always be technically possible. Limited copies may temporarily remain in email systems, security logs, routine backups, or other infrastructure, or may need to be retained when required for security, administrative, or legal reasons. Those limitations do not create permission to reuse the information for an unrelated purpose.

Discussions and offers to help

Information collected in anticipation of a discussion is used for that discussion opportunity. If the discussion is not held, personal information collected for it is deleted when that determination is made and deletion is reasonably and technically possible. If the discussion proceeds but a person is not included, their personal information for that discussion is likewise deleted rather than retained for possible future discussions.

Offers to help are handled the same way: we request only what is useful for considering the offer. Credentials or additional verification are requested later only when a particular task genuinely requires them. When the purpose ends, unnecessary personal information is deleted when reasonably and technically possible.

Candidate and public-office inquiries

Candidate, prospective-candidate, officeholder, and public-office inquiries have additional boundaries because election laws and political-party rules may apply. The Candidate & Public Office Inquiry Notice is the primary supplemental notice for that pathway and should be read before submitting an inquiry.

Service providers and technical processing

Operating a website and delivering email necessarily involves technical service providers, such as web hosting, network/security infrastructure, and email-delivery systems. Those providers may process limited information as necessary to provide their services. This technical processing is different from giving personal information to another organization for that organization’s own use.

We seek to limit service-provider access to what is reasonably necessary to operate the site, protect it, and complete interactions requested by visitors.

Cookies, logs, and site administration

WordPress may use technical cookies for functions such as administrator login, security, and site preferences. The site’s hosting, network, security, and email infrastructure may also create ordinary technical logs containing information such as IP address, browser or device information, request time, and requested page. These records may be used to operate, secure, diagnose, and maintain the site.

The Human Party does not use Participate to build behavioral profiles and does not deploy advertising or behavioral-tracking systems through Participate.

Comments, accounts, and uploads

Participate is not a public comment system and does not currently accept file uploads or attachments. Public URLs and citations may be provided where a form offers that option. The site does not require visitors to create a public user account in order to use Participate.

External links

The site links to resources operated by other organizations, including government sources and voter-information resources. When you follow an external link, you leave the Human Party website and the destination site’s privacy practices apply. We do not control how an external site collects or uses information.

Requests about your personal information

You may ask what personal information we can reasonably identify as associated with your interaction, request correction, or request deletion where appropriate and technically possible. We may need enough information to verify that a request concerns you before acting on it. We will not request more information than reasonably necessary for that verification.

For a privacy question or request, use Ask a Question and identify the subject as Privacy.

Children and sensitive information

Participate is designed for general civic participation and is not intended to solicit sensitive personal information from children. Do not submit information about a child, medical records, financial-account information, government identification numbers, passwords, or other highly sensitive personal information unless a future Human Party process specifically requests that information and explains why it is necessary.

Security and legal requirements

We use reasonable administrative and technical measures appropriate to the site and the information we handle, but no website, email system, or network can guarantee absolute security. Information may be preserved, disclosed, or otherwise handled when reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law, a valid legal process, security obligations, or the protection of the site and its users.

Changes to this policy

This policy will be reviewed as the website, organization, technology, or applicable requirements change. Material changes will be reflected on this page with an updated review date. We will not treat a later policy change as retroactive permission to use previously submitted personal information for an unrelated purpose.