Effective date: March 17, 2020
This short-form privacy notice summarizes the personal information collected, used, and shared by Pro Bono Net through Closing the Gap. This notice is only a summary of our practices. Please refer to the full RemoteLegalServices Online Privacy Notice for users below for more information.
In order to create an account and receive or provide services through Closing the Gap, you must provide your name, physical address, and email address or phone number, and you may need to upload documents and other information as your particular case requires. This information is saved on Pro Bono Net's servers, and Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York servers, and the volunteer attorney who advises you will have access to this information.
In addition, Pro Bono Net uses cookies and analytic services to automatically collect information about your device, your location, and your browsing activity. This automatically-collected information allows us to provide you better service. For information on how to opt-out, visit here.
Pro Bono Net may allow third parties access to this information stored on our servers. Service providers may have limited access to your personal information to the extent necessary to provide their services, and they may only use or disclose your information to provide these services or comply with legal requirements. Researchers, analysts, and funders may also have access to your information for research or analysis purposes, and information provided for these purposes will always be aggregated and not personally identifiable.
By using Closing the Gap, you agree that Pro Bono Net may collect and manage the information above and the personal information described in the Privacy Notice pursuant to Pro Bono Net's Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.
At Pro Bono Net, Inc., we respect your privacy concerns. Please read this Notice to learn about:
This Notice also describes how we protect your personal information, and how to contact us to learn more about our privacy practices.
Click on any topic:
What We Do With Your Information
The information you provide at a Site may be used to:
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If you wish to use the services provided on this Site, you must first create an account with us, or have an account created for you by the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York.
If you agree to create an account, you must enter the following information (or it must be entered for you by Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York:
This information will be saved on PBN's servers.
Additionally, you may upload documents onto the Site, which may be viewed by your volunteer attorney and Legal Aid administrators. Your volunteer attorney or Legal Aid administrator may also upload documents containing your personal information. These documents are also saved on PBN's servers.
You may communicate with the volunteer attorney using the Site's messaging system or videoconferencing system. The contents of these communications are not saved by the Site, but Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York will be retaining a copy of this communication whenever possible in your client file (outside of PBN).
If you are a volunteer attorney or a Legal Aid staff member:
If you wish to use the services provided by this Site as a volunteer attorney or Legal Aid staff member, you must create an account with us and provide the following information:
This information will be saved on PBN's servers.
You may upload documents onto the Site in connection with a particular client who has agreed to use the Site's services. Those documents may be viewed by that client.
You may communicate with a particular client using the Site's messaging system or videoconferencing system. The contents of these communications are not saved by the Site, so we encourage saving these notes to document any advice given.
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Information Collected Automatically
Our website collects information that helps us serve you and lets you use certain features of our services. To do this, we may use cookies, web server logs, web beacons, and JavaScript.
Cookies: Our website may use the web, HTML5, and Flash cookies. These allow us to identify your browser and remember your information, settings, and your visits at the site. We may also use other types of local storage, such as browser- or plugin-based local storage. Most browsers give you the option of enabling, restricting, and disabling cookies. You can control Flash cookies by visiting Adobe's FlashPlayer Settings or Settings Manager.
Note: If you disable cookies, you will not be able to use all the features of our services. For example, cookies are required for the system to remember you and remember the information you provided before.
Our web server log may:
To control which servers collect information, we may place tags (web beacons) on our pages. We also may send software instructions to your device that collect details of your interactions with our website, such as the kind of general information listed above.
Analytics
We may use analytic services from other companies, such as Google Analytics, to learn how visitors use our Site. These services will know your IP address, and they share information with us about how you use our Sites.
Your usage information helps us to:
California Do Not Track Disclosure
Other than recording the page that referred you to our site, we do not track you over time and across third-party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore the Site does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third-party services do keep track of your browsing activities over time and across third-party websites when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you.
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Who May Have Access To Your Information
Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York Staff Members and Volunteer Attorneys
We have partnered with Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, an organization that can provide not-for-profit legal assistance to you through the Site. Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York will assign a pro bono or volunteer attorney to you. The volunteer attorney, and Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York administrators, may have access to your personal information, any information you choose to share with the volunteer attorney, and any documents you upload.
We are not responsible for how Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York or the volunteer attorney uses your information. In particular, certain parts of this website accessible only to Legal Aid and volunteer attorneys use embedded content built on the LawHelp Interactive platform to help with the generation of forms and other documents. If the volunteer attorney uses these features and enters information you provide them on the LawHelp Interactive platform, the LawHelp Interactive Privacy Policy governs the safeguarding of information entered into that platform.
Information Accessible to Clients If you are a Legal Aid staff member or volunteer attorney, your personal information, any documents you upload for a client or information you share with a client through the Site may be accessible to that particular client. We are not responsible for how your client uses your information.
Service Providers
We use a number of outside service providers, such as cloud storage providers who store the information we collect, software developers we hire to debug or improve our program, providers who support certain features of our services (such as live chat providers). These outside service providers may have limited access to your personal information to the extent necessary to provide their services. All of these service providers may only use or disclose your personal information to provide services to us or comply with legal requirements.
Researchers / Data Analysts
We may also share personal information for research, academic studies, data analysis, and reports. Information for these purposes is always aggregated and not personally identifiable. That means none of the information is linked to you or any other particular person. For example, the data we share may be used to say how many users (not the names of) live in New York. We may also share with others how many people (not who) visited our site.
We do not share information: from:
Funders
We may share information about our users to our non-profit funders for research purposes. Information for these purposes is always aggregated and not personally identifiable.
We do not share information from:
When Information Sharing Is Required
For legal reasons - We may share your personal information if we have good reasons to believe we need to do so to:
If our organizational structure changes - If we sell or transfer some or all of our business or assets, such as during a reorganization, dissolution or liquidation, we may transfer your personal information to a third party. But that third party must agree to protect your personal information according to the terms of this Notice.
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You May Change Your Information
You may change your personal information on the profile page for your account(s) at the site.
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If you do not access your account for twelve months, your account and any information you have entered may be deleted. However, Legal Aid may still have access to your information even after the account has been closed. You may also request that we close your account by contacting us at mgibson@lasnny.org using the e-mail address you used to register. If you registered using a mobile phone number, you may send your request by first-class mail, return receipt requested, to the following address: Closing the Gap Project Coordinator, Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, 95 Central Ave, Albany, NY 12206
How We Protect Personal Information
We have administrative, software, and physical safeguards to protect the personal information you provide at our site against accidental, unauthorized, or illegal access, disclosure, destruction, loss, change, and other illegal use. To protect Social Security numbers, we limit who may access SSNs, and only allow disclosure for legally allowed purposes. Nevertheless, although we take reasonable precautions to protect your information, please be advised we cannot guarantee the safety of your information. We shall have no liability for any loss or damage that results from interception and/or unauthorized use by third parties of any information on the Site.
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Our site lists links to other websites that are not part of our organization. We list those links to make it easier for you to get information at their sites. We may not have control over the content or privacy policies at those sites. It's a good idea to look at the Privacy Notices of those websites before you use them.
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If we change our privacy policies, we will post a notice on the Site. The date of the change will appear at the top of the Privacy Notice.
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