Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 5, 2026

Outside Inside Connections Foundation (“OICF,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website (https://oicf.org) and use our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and communication tools.

1. Information We Collect

A. Information You Provide to Us

• Account Registration: When you register on our platform, we store the personal information provided in your user profile (e.g., name, email address, username).
• Comments & Public Interactive Features: If you leave a comment on our site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as your IP address and browser user agent string to assist with spam detection.
• Media Uploads: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included, as other visitors can download and extract this data.

B. SaaS & Communication Data (Including SMS)

When you opt-in to receive SMS messages from OICF or interact with our system via text, we collect:

• Your mobile phone number and name (if provided).
• Any information or content provided in your message responses.
• Message delivery and interaction data (such as timestamps and delivery status).

C. Automated Data & Cookies

• Login & Authentication: If you visit our login page, we set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies (contains no personal data; discarded when you close your browser). When you log in, we set cookies to save your login info (lasts 2 days, or 2 weeks if you select "Remember Me") and screen choices (lasts 1 year).
• Site Activity: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your details in cookies for your convenience (lasts 1 year). If you edit or publish an article, a temporary cookie indicating the post ID is saved (expires after 1 day).
• Gravatar Service: An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to check if you use it. (View their privacy policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy/).

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the data we collect to operate our platform efficiently and securely. Specifically, we use it to:

• Deliver, maintain, and improve our SaaS services.
• Send transactional SMS alerts (e.g., notifying you when a new email message is received in our system).
• Respond to your inquiries and provide customer support.
• Detect, prevent, and mitigate spam, fraud, or security vulnerabilities.

3. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or share your SMS opt-in data or personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes.

We only share your information in the following limited circumstances:

• With Trusted Service Providers: We share data with contractually obligated vendors who help us deliver our services (such as SMS gateway providers, phone carriers, and customer support platforms). These vendors are forbidden from using your data for any purpose other than providing services to OICF.
• Automated Security Checkers: Visitor comments may be verified through an automated third-party spam detection service.
• Password Resets: If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
• Legal Compliance: We may disclose information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with legal obligations or protect safety.

4. Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website directly.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account and are logged in to that specific third-party website.

5. Data Retention & Security

• Comments: Comments and their metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically.
• User Profiles: Registered users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
• SMS & SaaS Data: SMS and operational data are retained only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy or to comply with specific legal and regulatory requirements.
• Security Measures: We implement industry-standard technical and organizational security measures designed to safeguard your personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, or alteration.

6. Your Rights & Choices Over Your Data

• Access & Erasure: If you have an account on this site or have left comments, you can request an exported file of the personal data we hold about you. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold. This does not include data we are legally or administratively obligated to keep for security or compliance purposes.
• SMS Opt-Out: You can opt-out of SMS messages at any time by replying “STOP” to any text message you receive from us.
• Data Requests: To request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal or SMS-related data, please contact us using the information below.

7. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices or legal obligations. If we make material changes, we will notify you via email or through a prominent notice on our platform. Your continued use of our services indicates your acceptance of the revised policy.

8. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or data privacy requests, please contact the Outside Inside Connections Foundation at:

• Email: [email protected]