Polco was designed to be a safe and civil place to provide input and feedback on issues that matter to you or affect your community. A cornerstone of that vision is keeping personal information safe. Much like the privacy afforded to votes you cast during elections, we've always believed you should not have to associate your name or any personally identifiable information with the feedback you provide. When you participate on Polco, our commitment to you is that personally identifiable information will be safe, never shared, and never associated with the feedback or input you provide.
Last revised on February 16, 2021.
Polco will not sell or distribute personal information of users, clients, respondents, or those who provide us information on our website, including:
Polco Inc. (“Polco” or “we”) respects your privacy and provides you this privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”), which is always at www.polco.us/info/privacy or by contacting us at privacy@polco.us. The Privacy Policy describes our current practices with respect to your privacy, the collection and use of personally identifiable information, and your choices with respect to our use and collection thereof. This Privacy Policy governs all visits to polco.us (the “Site”) and our related mobile apps. You should review these terms periodically as this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the date at the top and/or bottom of this Privacy Policy. Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy are set forth in the Terms of Use. This Privacy Policy is expressly incorporated into and is made part of the Terms of Use.
By using the Site, or sharing your personal information with us, you consent to and accept the privacy practices described in this Privacy Policy.
In some cases, we ask for personal information, including but not limited to email address, name, and zip code. This is the extent of personal information we collect and it is only provided voluntarily. If you opt not to provide this information, you may not be able to use the Site or some of the Site’s functions may not work correctly. Unless otherwise indicated in this Privacy Policy or in accordance with applicable law, Polco stores voluntarily personally identifiable information (PII) indefinitely on servers located in the United States.
We use personal information in three ways:
No public official, customer, or partner will ever see your name or identifiable information linked to your responses unless you specifically consent to us sharing that information (for example, by opting out of commenting anonymously or entering your email on a free text field on a survey). All information and reports on Polco are subject to our Terms of Use.
When you use our services, we may automatically collect and store information about your connection such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, information about the device you used and, if you found us via bluetooth, information about the bluetooth beacon from which you found us. This information is stored in log files on our servers, and we use it for the purposes of debugging and security. This individual level information is not shared or sold to third parties either.
We use commercially reasonable physical, technical and administrative security measures and safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information. However, since the internet is not a 100% secure environment and no security system or measures are impenetrable, we cannot guarantee, ensure, or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that emails and other communications you send to us through our Site are not encrypted, and we strongly advise you not to communicate any confidential information through these means. You should secure your password and not share it with any other individual. Be careful when using your login information on or making purchases from public computers. Always log off when finished.
Polco does not currently engage in malware scanning, vulnerability scanning, and/or scanning to PCI standards. This is because we only provide a forum for citizens to vote and comment on policies impacting their community—we do not ask for credit card numbers or other payment information.
Yes. We and our service partners may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with the Site through your computer or mobile device. Cookies are small data files that are often stored on one’s computer each time one visits a new website. Cookies may store unique identifiers, user preferences and other information. We may use cookies for various purposes, including: facilitating the sign in process to the Site; authenticate users; personalize your experience when visiting a Site; and analyze which portions of the Site are most visited or used. We use cookies to help personalize your experience when visiting the Site. These cookies also help to uniquely identify your computer or device for security purposes. You may opt to set your browser to refuse cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent. Unfortunately, refusal of cookies may affect the experience at many third party websites, including the Site.
Absolutely. There are three components to our partnerships:
We do not share personal data (phone numbers) and consent with third parties/affiliates or partners. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise communicate your personally identifiable information (PII) to outside parties except as outlined in this Privacy Policy. Any third party that Polco partners with that has access to PII must agree to keep this information confidential before entering into a partnership with Polco.
Currently, Polco partners with Intercom to assist us with providing you direct messaging for customer service purposes. You can view Intercom’s privacy policy here.
In the future we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. Additionally, municipalities and other organizations that use our site to post content may link to third-party sites within that content. These third-party sites will have separate and independent privacy policies and those policies may be different from our Privacy Policy. You should always read the privacy policy of a linked website before disclosing any of your information on such website. We have no responsibility or control of the privacy policies or content and activities of these linked sites. Nevertheless, you are welcome to provide us feedback about these sites.
We use Google Analytics and Mouseflow to to evaluate your use of the Site, compile reports on activity, collect demographic data, collect data about your computer or device, analyze performance metrics, and collect and evaluate other information related to the Site. We use Rollbar to generate automated error reports. We use these services solely to identify errors with our service and improve user experience. We do not show ads. You can view these services privacy policies at the links in the chart below.
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Third-Party Partner |
What They Do For Us |
How They Use Your Information |
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Google Analytics |
Analytics tool tracking user-website interactions |
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Mouseflow |
Analytics tool tracking user-website interactions. You can opt out of Mouseflow's service by following the instructions at https://mouseflow.com/opt-out/ |
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Rollbar |
Error reporting service |
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Heap |
Analytics tool tracking user-website interactions |
In addition to the uses described above, you also authorize us to use and/or share information as described below:
Corporate Changes. We might buy or sell businesses or assets. In the event of a corporate sale, merger, reorganization, sale of assets, dissolution, or similar event, the information may be part of the transferred assets.
In Accordance with Law. We may disclose information to others if we are required to do so by law, or whenever we believe that disclosing such information is necessary or advisable to protect and defend our rights, property or the safety of us or others.
Standard Open Authorization and similar technology (“OAuth”). With your permission, in addition to the uses of or access to your personal information discussed above, third-party applications and services may access your personal information. We use OAuth to enable you to give permission to share your Personal Information with other websites and services, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google (e.g., when you agree to a pop-up requesting you to allow another application to access your account information). We also use OAuth to allow us to share information about you that is stored by us without sharing your security credentials.
Others. We may employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf, including, for example, technical assistance, customer service, and marketing assistance. These other companies will have access to the information only as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.
Under California’s "Shine the Light" law, Civil Code Section 1798.83, California residents who provide personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us once a calendar year information about the customer information we shared, if any, with other businesses for their own direct marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of customer information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared customer information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g. requests made in 2016 will receive information regarding 2015 sharing activities).
To obtain this information, please send an email message to privacy@polco.us with "Request for California Privacy Information" on the subject line and in the body of your message. We will provide the requested information to you at your email address in response. Please be aware that not all information sharing is covered by the "Shine the Light" requirements and only information on covered sharing will be included in our response.
We do not respond if your browser sends a “do not track” signal or similar mechanism to indicate you do not wish to be tracked or receive interest-based ads.
The Site is not targeted towards, nor intended for use by, persons under the age of 13. If you are not at least 13 years of age, do not access, use, or register on the Site. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from persons under age 13 (in which case we will terminate and delete your account and all information contained therein) without prior parental consent. Unless we have knowledge to the contrary, we will presume that all PII collected by the Site is from persons age 13 and over. By using the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 years of age or older.
If you ever choose to opt-out or unsubscribe from our emails, Polco will honor that request as efficiently as we can. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, click on the link at the bottom of each and every email from Polco and we will remove you from our mailing lists.
To request data deletion, please email privacy@polco.us
If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below:
Polco
1241 John Q. Hammons Dr, Suite #203
Madison, WI 53717
United States of America
Phone: (608)-709-VOTE
Email: privacy@polco.us.
