Privacy Notice

October 8, 2024

The Contributor Experience Project (CEP) is an open source community-led volunteer-run project dedicated to developing best practices for onboarding and supporting contributors to open source projects.

Our goal is to provide a space to reflect, engage, and offer advancements in the work of effective transfer of knowledge, contributor hospitality techniques, project leadership, and communication infrastructure.

This Privacy Notice describes the data protection practices of CEP and its website located at https://contributor-experience.org. This Privacy Notice applies to information that we collect and use about you when you access or use our websites, engage our services, or otherwise interact with us online or offline. We refer to our website and other ways of interacting with you collectively as the “Services”.

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY NOTICE CAREFULLY TO UNDERSTAND HOW WE HANDLE YOUR INFORMATION.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SERVICES.

Information we collect

We obtain information about you through the means discussed below when we provide the Services.

1. Information you provide to us

We collect a variety of information that you provide directly to us. For example, we may collect information from you through:

  • When you register for or use our services

  • Requests or questions you submit to us via online forms, email, or otherwise

  • Your participation in surveys, open comment periods, interviews, or focus groups

  • Informational calls we have with you, which may be recorded, with your consent

  • Participation in conferences and events

  • When we obtain information from publicly available websites and sources, including social media sites, which include information about or related to you

  • When you interact with us through our pages or accounts on social media sites

Information about you

The types of data we collect directly from you includes:

  • First and last name

  • Email address

  • Social media handle/account name

  • Your company or organization name

  • Your title

  • Any other information you choose to directly provide to us in connection with your use of the Services.

2. Information we collect through automated means

When you use our website, we and our service provider Plausible Analytics automatically collect certain information to analyze your use of our websites. Such information includes the website from which you visited us from, the parts of our site you visit, the date and duration of your visit, your anonymised IP address, information from the device (device type, operating system, screen resolution, language, country you are located in, and web browser type) you used during your visit, and more. We process this usage data in Plausible Analytics for statistical purposes, to improve our site and to recognize and stop any misuse.

We use cookies (small data files transferred onto computers or devices by sites) for record-keeping purposes and to enhance functionality on our site. You may deactivate or restrict the transmission of cookies by changing the settings of your web browser. Cookies that are already stored may be deleted at any time.

3. Information we collect from others

We may receive additional information such as demographic and statistical information from third parties, such as marketers, researchers, analysts, and others. We use this information to supplement the information we collect directly from you for purposes of generating our reports and providing our Services.

How we use your information

We use your information for various purposes depending on the types of information we have collected from and about you, to:

  • Provide our Services and generate our reports

  • Respond to your requests for information and provide you with more effective and efficient customer service

  • Contact you by email, postal mail, or phone regarding CEP, as well as third-party organizations, surveys, research studies, projects, and other subjects that we think may be of interest to you

  • Help us better understand your interests, and improve and customize our Services

  • Secure our Services and resolve technical issues being reported

  • Engage in research and analytics regarding the use of our Services

  • Comply with any procedures, laws, and regulations which apply to us where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of others

  • Establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of others

  • Aggregate/De-Identified Information. We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected through our Services so that such information can no longer be linked to you (“Aggregate/De-Identified Information”). We may use such information for any purpose, including without limitation for research and marketing purposes, and may also share such data with any third parties, including advertisers, partners, and sponsors.

How we share and disclose your information

CEP will share your information in the following ways:

  • Service Providers. We provide access to or share your information with select third parties who perform services on our behalf. They provide a variety of services to us, including billing and payment services, data storage, marketing, communications services, security, fraud prevention, and legal services.

  • Affiliates. We may share information with affiliated entities that assist us in managing and providing our Services.

  • Protection of CEP and Others. By using our Services, you acknowledge and agree that we may access, retain, and disclose the information we collect and maintain about you if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, retention or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process (e.g. a subpoena or court order); (b) enforce any contracts with you, if relevant; (c) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; (d) respond to your requests for customer service; and/or (e) protect the rights, property or personal safety of CEP, its agents and affiliates, its users and/or the public.

  • Aggregate/De-Identified Information. From time to time, we may share Aggregate/De-identified Information about use of the Services or our user base with partners and others, but such information will not identify you personally.

Your rights and your choices

You have certain rights with respect to your information as further described in this section.

  1. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

If you would like further information in relation to your legal rights under applicable law or would like to exercise any of them, please contact us using the information in the “Contact Information” section below at any time. Your local laws may permit you to request that we:

  • provide access to and/or a copy of certain information we hold about you

  • update information which is out of date or incorrect

  • delete certain information which we are holding about you

  • restrict the way that we process and disclose certain of your information

  • revoke your consent for the processing of your information

We will consider all requests and provide our response within the time period stated by applicable law and as otherwise required by applicable law. Please note, however, that certain information may be exempt from such requests in some circumstances, which may include if we need to keep processing your information for our legitimate interests or to comply with a legal obligation. We may request you provide us with information necessary to confirm your identity before responding to your request.

  1. MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

You may instruct us not to use your contact information to contact you regarding our research, initiatives, or other relevant communications that we believe will be interesting to you by contacting us using the information below. If we send you marketing email messages, you can also opt out by following the instructions located at the bottom of such emails. Please note that, in accordance with applicable law, it may take up to ten (10) days to process your request. Also, note that you may not opt out of certain transactional emails from us, such as those confirming your requests or providing you with updates regarding our Privacy Policy or other terms.

International users

Because CEP is based in the United States, please note that your information may be processed and stored in the United States and other jurisdictions around the world where our service providers are located, and that such jurisdictions may have different privacy laws than those in your jurisdiction. By using the Services, you acknowledge that your information may be processed and stored outside of your country of residence.

We may work with external parties including legal counsel, the appropriate regulatory authorities, and/or local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding our processing of information. You can contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns regarding your rights under local law.

How we protect your information

CEP takes technical and organizational security measures to protect the information provided to us from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error free. Please keep this in mind when disclosing any information to us online.

Retention of your information

We keep your information for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collect and use it and/or as required to comply with applicable laws. With respect to our research activities, recorded interviews are erased bi-annually after research is completed.

Privacy information for California users

If you are a California resident, California law requires us to provide you with additional information regarding how we collect, use, and share your “personal information” (as defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)).

Categories of personal information we collect

Throughout this Notice, we discuss in detail the specific pieces of personal information we collect from and about our users. Under the CCPA, we are also required to provide you with the “categories” of personal information we collect.

The categories we may collect are:

  • contact information (such as name and email address)

  • internet or other network or device activity (such as operating system and usage information)

  • geolocation information (e.g., your approximate location based on the temporary collection of your IP address)

  • other information you choose to provide to us in the course of using the Services

We source, use, and share the categories of personal information we collect from and about you consistent with the various business purposes we discuss throughout this Notice. See the “Information We Collect,” “How We Use Your Information,” “How We Share and Disclose Your Information” sections above for more information. Please note that the CCPA sets forth certain obligations for businesses that “sell” personal information to third parties. We do not engage in such activity and have not engaged in such activity in the past twelve months from the effective date of this Privacy Notice.

California law gives residents of California the right under certain circumstances to request information from us regarding the manner in which we share certain categories of “personal information” (as defined by applicable California law) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. CEP does not share your personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

Changes to our Privacy Notice

We review this Privacy Notice with the CEP Steering Council annually. We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Notice at any time to reflect changes in the law, our data collection and use practices, or advances in technology. We will make the revised Privacy Notice accessible on our Services, so you should review the Privacy Notice periodically. You can know if the Privacy Notice has changed since the last time you reviewed it by checking the “Effective Date” included at the beginning of the document. If we make a material change to the Notice, you will be provided with appropriate notice in accordance with legal requirements. By continuing to use the Services, you are confirming that you have read and understood the latest version of this Privacy Notice.

Contact information

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about CEP’s Privacy Notice or our information processing practices via email at contribex-team@googlegroups.com