Privacy notice

One shared list

Each person has one account. It is the same record whether you joined on chicagouhs.com, on chicagouhs.org, in the app, or at an event with a volunteer.

Two separate consents

When you join you see two boxes. Both start unticked:

• “Chicago Urban Honor Syndicate (nonprofit): programs, events, surveys and help.”
• “Chicago Unified Holdings & Systems: offers, marketplace and app rewards.”

You can tick one, both or neither. An account works without either. Each box is stored on its own, with the date and time, where you ticked it (a site, the app or an event) and the version of the wording you saw.

What each organization may do

Each organization contacts only people who ticked its box. Messages about something you asked for, such as a claim link or a coat pickup reminder, still go out either way. The nonprofit may contact you about programs, events, surveys and help. The business may contact you about offers and the marketplace. App rewards are planned and not live.

Survey answers and program records, such as a coat you received, are collected for the nonprofit's programs. The business may use them to plan services. Neither organization sells them.

Staff can see your sign-up details (your name, phone or email, your address if you gave one, your community area, your two choices, whether your address was confirmed, and when and where you signed up) and individual survey answers, so they can run programs. A volunteer at a check-in table sees only your name and the last 4 digits of your phone number.

Outside organizations get neighborhood totals only, never anything about one person, except for petition names (below).

Petitions: if you tick “Include my name when this petition is delivered.”, your first and last name go to whoever the petition is addressed to. Without it, you are counted but not named.

What is published is totals, never anyone's answers:

• Survey results appear only once at least 10 people have answered, and any answer's count under 5 is hidden.
• Petition signature totals are exact.
• Other community-voice counts under 5 are hidden and shown as “a few”.
• Vote results appear only after a vote closes, and only with at least 10 votes.

What is collected

Online sign-up collects your name, phone or email (at least one), and a password. You may add an address, a community area, a bio, interests, skills, and a referral code. You also give a date of birth or confirm that you are 18 or older. Organization sign-up collects the organization name and type, an email, a password, and the organization's community area, and optionally a description, website and phone.

At an event, a volunteer may enter your name, phone or email, and if you agree your address, your survey answers and your two consents. You get a claim code to take the account over yourself. If you reserve a coat, your coat size and, for each child you add, the child's first name, school grade and coat size are stored.

An address is checked against the map of North Lawndale (Chicago community area 29). A ZIP code never counts. A volunteer may also confirm where you live in person; no image of an ID is stored.

To check an address, we look it up on a map. The address (with “Chicago, IL” added if you left the city out) is sent to one public service: the US Census Bureau's geocoder, which returns a point on the map. Our server then works out the community area from that point. Your name, phone, email and survey answers are never sent to it, and the Census Bureau has its own privacy policy. It finds street addresses only, so some addresses cannot be placed; that does not count against you. If you would rather not have your address looked up, leave it blank and a volunteer can confirm where you live in person.

Where it is stored

The account is stored in one database on our server, run by the business. The password is stored only as a hash. A date of birth is used to check your age and is not stored. The referral code is not stored.

The business also keeps a small copy in a separate internal records system, for people who ticked at least one box. It holds only an account id, your two choices, your community area, whether and how your address was confirmed, and where you joined. It never holds your name, phone, email or address. Neighborhood totals made from that copy never show a group of fewer than 10 people. If you later untick both boxes, only the id and the two “no” answers remain there.

Change your mind

You can withdraw either consent at any time, or give it later. Use the two boxes under “Who may contact you” on your profile. Each change is saved at once and recorded with its date.

Your profile

Deletion

To ask for deletion of your account and the information stored with it, use the Request account deletion button on your account page.

When staff act on your request, we delete your name, phone, email, address, password and profile, the children on your household record, your coat reservations, event RSVPs and badges. You are signed out and cannot sign in again. Petition signatures on petitions that are still open are removed.

Some records stay so that totals already counted do not change, with nothing left that links them to you:

• your survey answers, counted in the survey totals;
• votes you already cast;
• your signatures on petitions that have closed (your name is not delivered again);
• your “I'd use this” answers on ideas that have closed;
• counts of the events and programs you took part in;
• a closed record of each consent answer you gave and when, under an account number with nothing else attached. The internal records copy keeps only that number and two “no” answers.