We take your privacy very seriously.

The conversation you have with a victim assistance specialist during your chat session is intended to be part of a private conversation between you and the support specialist, and will NOT be recorded, stored, saved, or cataloged.

Below is our Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 1, 2015

This Privacy Policy is intended to describe how the National Center for Victims of Crime (“National Center”, “we” or “us”) handles information gathered at victimconnect.org. By visiting victimconnect.org, or using the VictimConnect Resource Center (VCRC), you agree to follow the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. The National Center may change these terms and conditions from time to time without prior notification, so please consult these terms and conditions regularly for any such changes.

Your privacy and security are very important to us. The following information will help you understand what information we collect online, and how we handle that information once we collect it. This policy will tell you if we disclose that information to anyone, and what choices you have regarding how we use that information. Please note that this Online Privacy Policy applies only to victimconnect.org, and not to any other website of the National Center or of any other organizations to which we may link or that may link to us.

Collection of Infomation About You

The National Center for Victims of Crime operates the VCRC. The VCRC is staffed by victim assistance specialists to help you during online sessions, and the National Center provides supervisors to help monitor these online sessions. Any information that you share during a chat session will be viewed by the victim assistance specialist assisting you, and may also be viewed by one or more supervisors from the National Center for quality control purposes.

If you provide feedback through an anonymous feedback survey following your session, that feedback may be shared with the victim assistance specialist assisting you and with other personnel at the National Center. However, the feedback will be anonymous, and we will not ask for your name or any personal information, or attach any feedback to information that you provide during your online session.

“Personally Identifiable Information” is information about you that would identify you, such as your name, date of birth, or IP address. The VCRC is intended to be an anonymous service and you will NOT be asked to provide any identifying information at any time during your use of the VCRC . In fact, the National Center specifically requests, for your own safety and anonymity, that you do not provide any such Personally Identifiable Information when you use the VCRC.

Note that while no Personally Identifiable Information will be asked, victim assistance specialists may ask for your zip code or city and state in order to provide you with local referrals for ongoing support. Providing this information is strictly voluntary.

The conversation you have with the victim assistance specialists during your chat, phone, or text session is intended to be part of a private conversation between you and the support specialist, and will NOT be recorded, stored, saved, or catalogued by the National Center. Some general information (e.g., services requested, type of crime mentioned) about each session will be saved in aggregate forms.

Aggregate Data & Cookies: We automatically gather, or aggregate, certain usage information, such as the number of users of the VCRC, length of stay, and average length of sessions. This data cannot be used to identify you personally, and helps us to determine how often the VCRC is being used, at what times of the day, and other useful statistics. We may use this aggregate data for internal record keeping and service improvement purposes, and also may share it with sponsors, supporters, or the media.

The VCRC does NOT place any permanent or “persistent” cookies on your computer, although victimconnect.org does use session cookies. The cookies placed by victimconnect.org cannot be used to identify you as a user of The VCRC.

How We Protect Your Security

The National Center for Victims of Crime stores information on a secure server that is only accessible by National Center employees or contractors, pursuant to the terms described above. However, as previously noted, we may aggregate certain information and provide such aggregate reports to third parties. Again, we do not store transcripts of communications over the VCRC.

We employ different security techniques to protect your personal information from unauthorized access by users inside and outside of our organization, including standard encryption practices. You should be aware, however, that “perfect security” does not exist anywhere on the Internet. Although we believe we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that your personally identifiable information or communications with the VCRC will never be disclosed in a matter inconsistent with this policy, and make no representations or warranties regarding the sufficiency of our security policies.

Always be careful and responsible regarding your personal information. We are not responsible for, and cannot control, the use by others of any information that you provide or divulge to them, purposefully or inadvertently. Please note that the owner of any computer/device on which you access the VCRC may have the right to access the computers that it owns or has provided. We do not control the privacy policies of others.

For more information on how to keep your computer/device safe, please read our User Safety Procedures above.

How We May Share Information

We will not publish, sell, share, or rent information about you in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. However, we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances. We may be required to (or you authorize us to) reveal any information about you that we possess to law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe is necessary or appropriate, in connection with the investigation of a crime, mandatory reporting laws, fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal, or may expose us, or you, to liability. Also, if we, or a victim assistance specialist, fear that you are in danger of committing suicide, harming another individual, or have information about a child 17 years old or younger who may be in danger, we, or the victim assistance specialist, may be required to disclose whatever information you have provided to the appropriate authorities. It is possible that a court of law will not keep private, and may require us to reveal, information that you provide during your VCRC session. If you are concerned about this possibility, please call the VCRC at 1-855-4Victim. The data that we collect, and therefore may share, is limited in the manner described above.

Our Policy Toward Children

We are concerned about the safety and privacy of children who use the Internet. Consistent with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, we will never knowingly request Personally Identifiable Information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with Personally Identifiable Information through victimconnect.org without verifiable parental consent, we will use our best efforts to remove such information from our files. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with Personally Identifiable Information through victimconnect.org without verifiable parental consent, he or she should contact the National Center for Victims of Crime at (202) 467-8700 or [email protected] in order to speak with the VCRC program manager.

Analytics

Other Information Collectors

Except as otherwise expressly included in this Online Privacy Policy, this document addresses our use and disclosure of information that we collect from you. If you disclose your information to others, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of such information. We do not control the privacy policies of others. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.

Your Consent and Changes in Privacy Pledge

By using the VCRC or victimconnect.org, you consent to the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy and the Website User Agreement. We may, from time to time, make changes to this Privacy Policy, based on your comments and our need to reflect accurately our data collection and disclosure practices. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your personal information, this page will be updated, and we will post a prominent announcement on victimsofcrime.org.

If you have any questions or suggestions about this privacy policy, please contact [email protected].

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Alternatively, you can communicate by mail at:
National Center for Victims of Crime
Re: Hotline Privacy Policy
3118 Washington Blvd.
Suite 101207
Arlington, VA 22210
Please only address questions about the privacy pledge to the above addresses. If you are concerned about a specific page, please email [email protected].