Privacy Policy For Worldchannel.org Visitors

 

Thank you for visiting worldchannel.org. As an extension of our broadcast mission, we want your visit to worldchannel.org to enlighten, inform, and entertain you. We know you don't want the information you provide us shared indiscriminately. Here we explain what information World Channel and our third-party vendors acting on our behalf to help deliver the services and operate and analyze use of the Website), collect, what we do with the information, and what controls you have over the information collected.

 

We're committed to ensuring the privacy of your personally identifiable information (or personal data), and to protecting your ability to make financial transactions and transmit your personal data with full confidence. We will deal with your personal data in compliance with all current applicable data protection laws.

 

The privacy policy explains how we will process the data relating to you that you provide to us (or that we may collect) when you visit our website at worldchannel.org.

 

The Website is operated by the WGBH Educational Foundation (GBH), a nonprofit organization registered in the US commonwealth of Massachusetts with registered office at One Guest Street, Boston, MA 02135. Where we decide the purpose and means for the processing of the personal data that you provide or that we otherwise obtain about you, we are the “data controller”. As data controller, we will comply with all applicable data protection laws.

 

This privacy policy should be read together with our Terms of Use. Please read these carefully, and if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

Our Website links to numerous other sites, such as PBS, NPR and Public Interactive, and may contain hyperlinks to other third party websites. These third party websites operate independently from us, and we cannot accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third parties nor the availability of these external sites or resources.  The appearance of such links on our Website is not an endorsement.  Should you use any of these websites, such use is at your own risk and we would advise that you consult those websites to learn more about their policies.

 

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU& HOW WE USE IT

When you visit our Website or otherwise interact with us, we may collect and process information about you, which will take the form of either personally identifiable information (PII) (also called personal data in the UK) or non-personally identifiable information (Non-PII) (which amounts to anonymous data from which you cannot be identified). This privacy policy is concerned with our collection, use, storage and other processing of your personal data.

Personal data includes personal information such as your name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number(s), credit card or bank account information and/or other identifying information. If you visit or use our Website, we may ask that you voluntarily supply some personal data, such as when you register for our website, make a donation, complete a survey, register for an online discussion, or enter a contest.

In addition to any personal data that you voluntarily provide to us, we may also collect personal data about you from others or by other means, such as via data analytics.

 

Support of WGBH:

On certain pages within the Website we may now or in the future offer visitors the opportunity to make a donation in support of World Channel or our programming. If you visit our site and choose to make a donation, we will collect and store personal data about you, which may include your telephone number, e-mail address, and billing address. We will ask for your credit card number to process your donation, but we do not store it.

 

Forums, Feedback Content Submissions and Social Media:

On certain pages within the website you can submit your own content (“User Generated Content”) to be published, make community postings, comments, suggestions, and vote. If you do so, we may collect your name, IP address, and e-mail addresses in connection with these activities along with any other personal data (including any sensitive personal data) that you may voluntarily share. We will indicate which information is required and which is optional. We may contact users regarding their submissions in certain circumstances. Before you submit any User Generated Content, you are advised to read our Terms of Use, including the section relating to User Generated Content, so that you understand and comply with our rules and requirements.

 

Our Website also contains links to WGBH’s social media pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  Should you visit those social media pages and choose to follow or connect with us on social media, we may receive personal information from the social media providers (depending on your social media privacy settings), including your name (and/or your social media unique user name), email and/or postal address, telephone number(s), IP address, gender and/or age and your general interests and preferences (e.g. Likes, Shares, Posts). We may use this information to find out more about our digital community so that we can better understand and serve our members and other visitors to our Website.

 

When you share your personal information on these social media sites, this may be shared with that social media provider which may then process that information to enable them to provide targeted marketing messages where you have indicated your agreement (for example, via your privacy settings) to receive these messages from them or where it is otherwise lawful to do so.

If we receive any personal information about you from these third party social media sites, we will only process your information for the purposes of direct marketing in accordance with laws relating to marketing directly to individuals, such as where you have provided your consent or where it is otherwise lawful for us to do so.

We may also process personal information collected via social media to improve our marketing, including the creation of custom audiences and lookalike audiences. This allows us to offer more relevant marketing to potential new customers and service users without using information that personally identifies you.

 

Your participation and contribution in our Recordings and Projects:

On occasion, we may inform visitors about upcoming projects including those for which we may be inviting individuals to become participants. If you contact us in relation to participating in a World Channel project, we will likely collect, use and store your contact details (such as email address or phone number used to contact us) as well as any other information that may be provided voluntarily at that time. We encourage public engagement and we will use our best endeavours to reply to all such requests that we receive.  If you are selected to become a participant in connection with any of World Channel’s projects, we will contact you directly to provide more detailed information about that opportunity and the use of participants’ contributions.

 

Your submission of others’ Personally Data:

On certain pages within the Website you can submit information about other people. For example, you may submit a person’s name and email address to send an article. If you do submit someone else’s personal data, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have that individual’s consent to do so. We cannot accept any responsibility or liability for this, and as such you do so at your own risk. This information will only be used for your intended purpose.

 

Contests, Sweepstakes, Surveys and Special Offers:

On occasion, we may collect personal information from our Website users in connection with optional sweepstakes, surveys, contests or special offers. We will indicate which information is required and which is optional. Such information will only be used and otherwise processed for the purposes indicated at the time of collection and where you have provided your consent or it is otherwise lawful for us to process this information.

 

E-Mail and E-mail Newsletters:

We offer several e-mail newsletters and emails.  For example, on our Website, visitors may subscribe to the Thread Newsletter in order to receive our e-mail and e-newsletter updates.  If you subscribe, we may collect personal information from you in connection with this optional, free e-mail and e-newsletter service, such as your name, e-mail address, telephone number(s) as well as your interests and preferences. We will indicate which information is required and which is optional. Such information will only be used for the purposes indicated at the time of collection.

If you have subscribed to or asked to be added to our mailing list, we will provide your details to our third party email service provider, Iterable, that helps us to produce and manage our e-mail updates and e-newsletters.

We will always provide a clear and convenient method of unsubscribing to our e-mailings. If you no longer wish to receive a specific newsletter, follow the “unsubscribe” instructions located in each newsletter or email, or by going to the Website's Contact Us page and send us a message. We will update our records as soon as possible.

 

Marketing and Promotional Communications:

On occasion, we may collect personal information from our Website users in connection with optional marketing and promotional communications from World Channel, PBS, or a public broadcasting station. If you opt in to receiving these communications, we will indicate which information is required and which is optional. Such information will only be used for the purposes indicated at the time of collection.

If at any time, you decide that you do not wish to receive promotional or other marketing material from us, then you can opt-out by clicking on the unsubscribe link in those e-mails or contacting us at worldchannel@wgbh.org at any time.

 

Data Analytics and Cookies In addition to information that you provide to us, as is common practice among web sites, our Website uses “cookies” and similar technologies. In general, cookies - the informational files that your web browser places on your computer when you visit a website - are used on this Website to track and analyze how you and other visitors use our Website, to compile statistical reports on Website activity and to improve our marketing function.  This information helps us improve the experience you and other visitors have with the Website. 

To find out more about the use of cookies, please visit: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

For example, we may collect your IP address, browser information and reference site domain, as well as related information such as the date on which you visit the Website. This information does not identify you personally and is only used in the aggregate.

Our Website also uses website analytics to evaluate and improve our Website, personalize your experience and to offer the best, most accessible service possible to all of our customers. 

When you visit our Website, these cookies and analytics services may collect the following data, which will almost always be anonymized and aggregated before reporting back to us:

  • number of visitors to our Website;
  • pages visited while at the Website and time spent per page;
  • page interaction information, such as scrolling, clicks and browsing methods;
  • websites where visitors have come from and where they go afterwards (clickstream), including date and time, products or services that you viewed, searched for or hovered over;
  • page response times and any download errors; and
  • Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect, browser type and version (including any browser plug-in details) and operating system and your time zone setting and login information

We process this cookies and analytics information for a number of purposes, including:

  • to help us improve our Website and the online services to ensure that content, including marketing and promotional content, is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device;
  • to understand how, and how often, users visit and interact with our Website and social media and use our online services, as well as to understand how visitors interact with each other;
  • to offer visitors interactive and/or personalized features that would not be possible without the cookies, such as recalling specific information to save visitors time when they return to the Website or providing lists of customized videos of interest;
  • to provide visitors customized sponsorship messages and, thereby, provide our sponsors targeted sponsorship opportunities;
  • to find out statistical information about the use of the Website;
  • to monitor the technical operation of our Website (e.g. response times, downloading / uploading errors) and to obtain other technical information relating to end user devices;
  • to administer our services and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • to protect against and remove objectionable uploaded content.

This analysis is fundamental to the running of our online business and we therefore undertake such monitoring in the pursuit of our legitimate interests in improving our Website, which allows us to improve our Website and to provide you with an optimal experience and better service.

Our sponsorship service vendors, which serve sponsorship messages onto our Website, and third party vendors that measure and analyze the use of the Website for us, may also use their own cookies. At no time does the cookie reveal your name, address, or e-mail address (even if you have entered these in specific areas of the Website).

You can set your browser preferences to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. However, some parts of the Website will not function properly if you do so.

 

2. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH OTHERS

In addition to our own use of information, as described in the previous sections, we may also provide personal information to our affiliates and third-party vendors acting on our behalf to help deliver the services and operate the Website World Channel’s affiliates include GBH’s local and national productions (such as NOVA, and Forum Network), PBS, and other public broadcasting stations or programming.

We keep your information confidential, but may disclose it to our personnel, suppliers or subcontractors or third party vendors (including our independent consultants, data analytics and/or online targeted advertising providers, and cloud-based data processing and hosting providers) insofar as it is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy. However, this is on the basis that they do not make independent use of the information, and have agreed to safeguard this information. In some instances, this data sharing may involve the transfer of information outside the EU. For more information about this, please see our section on International Data Transfers below.

As mentioned, in certain cases, we contract with other companies to provide services on our behalf. Our service providers have access to your personally identifiable information as necessary to provide certain services on our behalf, and they are required to maintain the privacy of all such information in their possession or control and can only use the information on our behalf for the purpose that we have contracted them. They are not authorized to use your information for any other purpose.

These service providers maintain customer databases with personal information, such as e-mail addresses, of Website visitors who have provided the information to us, including:

  • by registering at our Website,
  • signing up for a newsletter or email,
  • e-mailing us questions about the service,
  • submitting online contributions or donations (to perform services to process the donation, or
  • online buyers who make a purchase.

We (which includes our service providers) will use this information  to respond to the general purposes for which we collected the information, to provide services and to operate the Website, including to enable  you to register and set up an account; for newsletter sign-up and to process e-mail distribution, for promotions management; and to send information about World Channel’s programs, services, or to correspond about a donation, an online purchase or product offers and/or process credit card payments, billing, and shipping in relation to donations or purchases.

For example, we engage third party vendors and service providers to assist us with the following activities:

If you would like to find out more about how the third parties listed in this policy use your information, this should be set out in their respective privacy policies. 

If we do share your information, we will only do so insofar as it is reasonable or necessary for the operation of our business, including for the purposes set out in this privacy policy, and provided that the recipients do not make independent use of the information and have agreed to adhere to the rules set out in this privacy policy.

On certain pages, we may now or in the future, offer visitors the opportunity to provide comments, messages or other user-generated text, content or materials (collectively “User Materials”). Any information that you disclose when posting a message to these areas, such as your name, screen name or ID used, becomes public. In addition, the information that you disclose in these areas may be used by us for promotional and marketing purposes. We are not responsible for any personally identifiable information that you choose to disclose in these public areas. Further, World Channel, may use, copy, sublicense, modify, transmit, publicly perform, display, create derivative works of, host, index, cache, tag, encode, and/or adapt any User Materials, and any information contained therein, in any and all media formats or channels, whether now known or hereafter devised, including, but not limited to, the Website, public broadcasting station web sites, other third party web sites, over the air (on radio or television), and on mobile platforms.

We reserve the right to send you e-mail relating to your account status. This includes order confirmations, renewal/expiration notices, notices of credit-card problems, other transactional e-mails and notifications about major changes to our Website and/or to our Privacy Policy.

In addition to the above, we may disclose your information to the extent that we are required to do so by law (which may include to government bodies and law enforcement agencies); in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings; and in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention).

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, you will be notified via email, account message and/or a prominent notice on our Website of any change in ownership or uses of this information, as well as any choices you may have regarding this information.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties in order to enforce or apply the terms of agreements between us, to investigate potential breaches, or to protect the rights, property or safety of WGBH, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

If you send us objectionable content or behave in a disruptive manner when using our Website, we may process any personal information that you have submitted to us, including in your personal messages, to respond to and stop such behaviour.  Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of the law (i.e. the content you share on the Website amounts to harassment or is defamatory), we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties about the content, such as your email or internet provider or law enforcement agencies.

 

3. YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

 

Your California Privacy Rights

Residents of the State of California may request a list of all third parties to whom we have disclosed certain information during the preceding year for the third parties' direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and want such a list, please send an e-mail to the address listed below. For all requests, you must put the statement "Your California Privacy Rights" in the subject matter of your request and include the name of the website or online service with respect to which you are requesting the information, as well as your name, street address, city, state, and zip code.

 

EU Resident

If you are an EU resident (or, in the event of the UK exiting the EU, a resident of the UK) or if the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016 applies to you for any other reason, you will have a number of rights in relation to the way we process personal data about you.  Where an individual makes a request in accordance with the data subject rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016, we aim to comply without undue delay, and within one month at the latest.  Those data subject rights include the right to make the following requests:

  • to ask for confirmation and information about the personal data that we process about you, including a copy of data we are processing about you;
  • to have inaccuracies corrected or incomplete personal data made complete;
  • to ask us to restrict, stop processing, or to delete your personal data;
  • to request a machine readable copy of your personal data, which you can use with another service provider. Where it is technically feasible, you can ask us to send this information directly to another provider if you prefer;
  • to not be subject to automated decision-making, including profiling; and
  • to make a complaint to the relevant data protection supervisory authority; in the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

To make a request, please let us know by contacting our Data Protection Manager on the details below.

 

4. DATA RETENTION

In accordance with data protection laws and good commercial practice, we do not retain data in a form that permits identification of the person(s) to whom it relates for any longer than is necessary.

If you would like us to stop using your personal information, please email us through our Contact Us page at https://worldchannel.org/about/contact-us/ or worldchannel@wgbh.org 

 

 

5. SECURITY OF INFORMATION

We will take commercially reasonable, appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk that could be encountered via the use of our Website and services, taking into account the likelihood and severity those risks might pose to the rights and freedoms of our Website visitors.

In particular, we will take precautions to protect against the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss or alteration, and unauthorised disclosure of or access to the personal information transmitted, stored or otherwise processed by us.

Credit card information provided on the Website is protected against unauthorized use by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security features. The SSL protocol is the industry standard method for creating an encrypted, secure connection between your web browser and a web server, such as the Website’s server.

Please be aware that, while we make the security of our Website and your personal information a high priority and devote considerable time and resources to maintain robust IT security, no security system can prevent all security breaches. You should, also, keep in mind that no Internet or e-mail transmission is ever fully secure or error free.  Additionally, because most e-mail is not encrypted, you should take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail.  When you choose to share your personal information with us, you accept the aforesaid and provide your information at your own risk.

 

6. CHILDREN’S GUIDELINES

Worldchannel.org is a general audience site and does not knowingly collect or store personal information about children under the age of 13.

Any portions of our Website that are directed to children under the age of 13 comply with COPPA (U.S.Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) standards, which are in addition to worldchannel.org policies. For complete guidelines on children’s information collection, please visit the WGBH KIDS PRIVACY POLICY .

 

If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has been visiting portions of our general audience website that do not form part of the Kids and Family section and may have provided us with information or may be receiving communications from us or otherwise interacting with us, we ask that this be brought to our immediate attention. In such an event, please contact us through our Contact Us page at https://worldchannel.org/about/contact-us/.

 

 

7. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS (FOR TRANSFERS OUTSIDE OF THE EEA)

If you reside within the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or are providing your personal data from within the EEA, the personal data that we collect from you (or obtain about you) may be transferred to, and stored at, or accessed from a destination outside the EEA.  For example, it may be transferred to and processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers or third party service providers, many of whom may operate from multiple locations including non-EEA based operations or engage sub-processors located outside the EEA

Where such international transfers of personal data occur, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are put in place that meet the requirements of application data protection laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016.

If you would like to find out more about these safeguards or if you have any other queries or comments in relation to this policy, please let us know by emailing us through our Contact Us page at https://worldchannel.org/about/contact-us/.

 

8.  CORRECTIONS TO PERSONAL DATA; OPTING OUT

Please Contact Us  at https://worldchannel.org/about/contact-us/, to a) correct or update any personal information in the World Channel database that you state is erroneous, or b) opt-out of future communications from World Channel. This will not necessarily remove User Generated Content submitted for public display on the Website or our social media pages. You should understand that it may be impossible to delete personal information entirely.

 

9. ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY FOR Worldchannel.org

By using this Website, you signify your agreement to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy for worldchannel.org (as well as those in the Terms of Use). If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, please do not use this Website. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this policy at any time. Please check this webpage periodically for any changes. Your continued use of worldchannel.org following the posting of any changes to these terms shall mean that you have accepted those changes. If you have any questions or concerns, please Contact Us  at https://worldchannel.org/about/contact-us/ or worldchannel@wgbh.org.

 

10. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time, and such changes will be effective immediately upon posting. We will notify you of any changes to this policy by posting the new version of the policy on our Website. You are advised to consult this Privacy Policy webpage regularly for any changes. If you do not agree to the changes, please do not continue to use the Website. Under certain circumstances, we may also elect to notify you of changes or updates to our Privacy Policy by additional means, such as sending you an e-mail if we have your e-mail address.

 

11.  TERMS OF USE

Please also make sure to read WGBH.org’s Terms of Use to understand the additional terms and conditions which apply to your use of our Website.

 

12.  CONTACT US

If at any time you would like to check or update our record of your information, please let us know by using the worldchannel.org Contact Us page, calling the GBH Member Hotline (617-300-3300, Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm EST), or writing to us (WGBH, Box 200, Boston, MA 02135).

 

 

 

Questions, comments and requests in relation to this privacy policy are welcome and should be addressed worldchannel@wgbh.org. Alternatively, you may address these to our Data Protection Manager at WGBH, Box 200, Boston, MA 02135.

Last updated: [November 2020]