Our Commitment To Privacy

Internet Safety - What You Should Know

Donor Privacy Policy 

The Houston Area Women’s Center places the highest priority on protecting the privacy of our donors and holds all donor information in strict confidence. All employees and members of the Board of Trustees sign a confidentiality statement attesting to the confidentiality of the records. 

The Houston Area Women’s Center does not and will not sell, rent or trade a donor’s personal information to any other entity, nor send mailings on behalf of other organizations. 

If you have questions about our donor privacy policy or if you wish to be removed from our mailing/emailing list, please send an email to info@hawc.org or write to: 

Our Privacy Promise

The Houston Area Womens Center has created this Privacy Policy to explain why we collect particular information and how we will protect your personal privacy within our Web site. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for the Web site located at the URL www.hawc.org.  

In order to fully understand your rights we encourage you to read this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use. Houston Area Women's Center reserves the right at any time and without notice to change this Privacy Policy simply by posting such changes on our Site. Any such change will be effective immediately upon posting.

1. What personally identifiable information will be collected? 
2. How is my information used? 
3. How and when is my information shared? 
4. What are my choices regarding collection, use and distribution of my information?
5. What security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information?
6. How can I correct any inaccuracies in my information?

Questions regarding this statement should be directed to Houston Area Women?s Center by sending an email to info@hawc.org. Please reference this Privacy Policy in your subject line.  

What Information We Collect and How We Use That Information:
Our registration forms require users to give us contact information that may include name, email address, format preference (HTML vs. Text), address, interests, and similar information. We do not request or store sensitive information from our visitors, such as credit card or social security numbers.

If you do not register, we do not collect any personal information from you.  Please visit our instructions on how to clear your internet history if you are concerned about other people knowing that you have visited our website.

If you do register, we do not share your personal information with any third parties.  We do not sell, rent, or otherwise exchange information about any of our supporters. 

Internet Protocol Address:
We collect an IP address from all visitors to our Site. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. We use IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server, administer our Site, analyze trends, track users' movement, gather broad demographic information for aggregate use in order for us to improve the site, and deliver customized, personalized content. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Use of "Cookies":
Our Site may use cookies to enhance your experience while using our Site. Cookies are pieces of information that some Web sites transfer to the computer that is browsing that Web site and are used for record-keeping purposes at many Web sites. Use of cookies makes Web-surfing easier by performing certain functions such as saving your passwords, your personal preferences regarding your use of the particular Web site and to make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly. Many consider the use of cookies to be an industry standard.

Your browser is probably set to accept cookies. However, if you would prefer not to receive cookies, you can alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies. If you choose to have your browser refuse cookies, it is possible that some areas of our Site will not function properly when you view them.

We never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.

Data Security:
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. All information provided to Houston Area Women's Center is transmitted using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. SSL is a proven coding system that lets your browser automatically encrypt, or scramble, data before you send it to us. We also protect account information by placing it on a secure portion of our Site that is only accessible by certain qualified employees of Houston Area Women?s Center. Unfortunately, however, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of such information.

Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.

Tell-A-Friend:
If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our Site, we ask them for the friend's name and email address. Houston Area Women's Center will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the Site. Houston Area Women?s Center stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email.

Other Web Sites:
Our Site contains links to other Web sites. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are entering another Web site for which Houston Area Women?s Center has no responsibility. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on all such sites as their policies may be different than ours.

How You Can Access Or Correct Your Information

You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by logging in to our web site using your log in name and password. We use this procedure to better safeguard your information.

You can correct factual errors in your personally identifiable information via this method, or by sending us a request that credibly shows error.

To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

Internet Safety - What You Should Know

Computer usage can be monitored and cannot be completely cleared. The following suggestions are meant as safety precautions, but do not guarantee complete removal of tracking information from your computer.

If you feel you are in danger, access a safer computer or call your local or national hotline for help and information.

Houston Area Women's Center's 24-Hour Hotlines:

Domestic Violence 713-528-2121

Sexual Assault 713-528-7273 (RAPE)

National Domestic Violence Hotline

1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224

If you are using a home, business, or public computer, others have the ability to retrace your internet usage and view web sites visited and emails sent by you. Nothing viewed or written on the internet is 100% safe or private, and programs exist to recover deleted emails, temporary internet files, cookies, and files on your computer.

To increase your computer usage privacy from the average web user, there are some cleaning processes you can practice to increase your safety. Additionally, software programs exist to further reduce your risk by making deleted computer files unrecoverable.

Cookies are small text files stored on your computer containing tracking information on which web sites you visit, including passwords and preferences.  You can disable cookies on your computer, but some web sites you visit may not work properly without them enabled.  

Clear Your History

1. Click Tools on your Internet Explorer task bar. Select Internet Options from the drop-down menu.
2. From the General tab, click Delete Files button from the Temporary Internet Files section. Next, click Clear History button from the History section.
3. Check your History to ensure proper removal by clicking the History icon in your Internet Explorer browser window, which should be next to your Email icon. 
   

View Cookies

1. Click Tools on your Internet Explorer task bar. Select Internet Options from the drop-down menu.
2. From the General tab under Temporary Internet Files section, click on Settings button, and then click on View files button.

Delete Cookies

1. Click Tools on your Internet Explorer task bar. Select Internet Options from the drop-down menu.
2. From the General tab under Temporary Internet Files section, click on Delete Cookies button.

Disable or "Turn Off"  Your Cookies

For Windows 98:

1. Click Tools on your Internet Explorer task bar. Select Internet Options from the drop-down menu.
2. From the Security tab, click Custom Level button.
3. On the box that appears,  scroll down to Cookies using the down arrow on the side of the box. Left-click the circle to the left of Disable under Cookies and click  OK. If you prefer to have a prompt to accept or not to accept cookies, left-click the circle next to Prompt instead of Disable.
4. If at any time you want to turn your cookies back on, return to this display and click Enable and then OK.
   

For Windows XP:

1. Click Tools on your Internet Explorer task bar. Select Internet Options from the drop-down menu.
2. From the Privacy tab, click on Advanced button. Click to check box beside Override automatic cookie handling, and then mark circle beside Block under both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. Click OK to complete. 
   

Delete Email from Outlook Express 

1. To empty deleted items folder:  Scroll within left-margin menu to Deleted Items folder. Right-click this folder and select Empty. 
2. To set options to delete email: Click Tools, then Options. Click on Maintenance button and place check next to Empty messages on exit from the Deleted Items.

Clear Chat History

Some chat sites maintain a log file that you can clear by deleting information from the log folder under the program file.

ICQ 2000:

1. Download and install ICQ Message Archive file, which will allow you to manage your messages file. Left click My ICQ on your ICQ window and look under Message Archive. This program enables you to view and delete messages by left-clicking on My ICQ on your ICQ window and then click Message Archives.