Privacy Policy

COVID Chronicles Delaware

April 9, 2020, updated May 27, 2020

The Delaware Historical Society (hereinafter “DHS”) adheres to the Privacy Policy below for the project COVID Chronicles Delaware.

About the Project

The purpose of this project is to collect and archive the stories of Delawareans living through the COVID-19 pandemic for digital exhibition in the future. The project would not be possible without your contributions. Submissions considered for publishing will not be edited for content but may be revised to meet user requests for data omission or for clarity. Submissions that are obscene, sexually explicit, or violent in nature will not be approved for collecting or publishing.

  • Submissions will be archived in a digital collection for consideration in a digital exhibition and for long-term accession into DHS permanent collection.
  • Selected submissions may be published on CCDE blog (covidchroniclesde.wordpress.com) and promoted on DHS website (dehistory.org) and social media platforms.
  • You retain the rights to your story.
  • At any time, you have the right to request your story be removed from the blog.

Privacy and Intellectual Rights

Submissions will be collected and archived into DHS’s digital collections and some will be selected for archival preservation as part of DHS’s permanent collection; some stories will be published or “highlighted” during the active collecting part of the project. You retain copyright over stories and media submitted and also the right to determine how information is shared. DHS retains copyright to all other aspects of the project, including but not limited to design, functionality, and images, and the right to decide, based on user agreement, whether a story can be published.
  • Information can be submitted anonymously (but some information is required).
  • Only share information that you or the original author is comfortable sharing with DHS staff and err on the side of providing information that you or the original author is comfortable sharing publicly.
  • You will be given certain rights to determine privacy:
    • The right to omit some information
    • The right to provide a nickname or alternative name
    • The right to change preferences at any time, have story removed or made anonymous
  • Information will only be used for its stated purpose in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use.

We collect data submitted with entries through two different forms:

COVID Chronicles Delaware Main Portal
for those ages 18 and Up
Located on the COVID Chronicles Delaware homepage

Submissions will be collected and archived into DHS’s digital collections and some will be selected for archival preservation as part of DHS’s permanent collection; some stories will be published or “highlighted” during the active collecting part of the project. You retain copyright over stories and media submitted and also the right to determine how information is shared. DHS retains copyright to all other aspects of the project, including but not limited to design, functionality, and images, and the right to decide, based on user agreement, whether a story can be published.

  • Only those over the age of 13 may submit an entry, but stories submitted by authors under the age of 18 will not be published on our blog or social media for five (5) years unless higher level consent has been obtained for exceptional submissions (for more information, please see the Parental Review section of this Privacy Policy).
  • We do not encourage anyone under the age of 18 to use this form.
  • We do not encourage anyone to submit on behalf of a child under 13 through this form.
  • We cannot accept anything from children under 13 through this form, including, but not limited to: photographs featuring children, identifiable information about children, or content created by children.
    • If we do, depending on the nature of the submission, it will be treated as if it came through the alternative portal COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers; we will seek additional consent for collecting and sharing purposes.

COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children & Caregivers Alternative Portal
for those under 18 and families
Located on the COVID Chronicles Delaware “Activities” page

  • Parents, guardians, and teachers (with parental consent; please see Teacher Consent in Lieu of a Parent for more information) can submit entries on behalf of children under 13.
  • A child under 13 may submit an entry with the supervision and consent of a parent or guardian.
  • Stories selected for highlighting on our blog or social media will only be shared with high-level consent from a parent or guardian.
  • This portal is also for students assigned to submit an entry by teachers.In addition to obtaining consent, for submissions from those under 13 selected for public sharing, we will not share identifiable information (publication will be anonymous).
  • In addition to an Alternative Form for children and caregivers, we also offer educational activities for children to do outside of our website that can be explored on the COVID Chronicles Delaware “Activities” page.

Please Note: Both forms are subject to this Privacy Policy in full, but the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers Alternative Form has additional privacy stipulations. By using either form, you consent to the terms established in this policy.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

We invite children under the age of thirteen (13) to participate in COVID Chronicles Delaware by using the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers Alternative Portal found on our “Activities” page. We strive for full compliance with COPPA, which requires that we inform parents and legal guardians about if and how we collect, use, and disclose personal information from children under 13 years of age, and are committed to helping parents and legal guardians protect the privacy of their children. Other than through the use of the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers Alternative Portal with parental consent, we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. We do not solicit children under 13 for information to use for targeted advertising. If we become aware that a child under 13 has sent a request or email to us, we may respond, but will not retain the information after responding.

If at any time, you (a parent or guardian) become aware that your child under the age of 13 has submitted personally identifiable information through our website without consent, please contact us to have the information deleted at covidchroniclesde@gmail.com.

Please read the full Privacy Policy for COVID Chronicles Delaware to learn more about what information we collect and what we do with it.

Please be aware that when anyone, including those under 13, interacts with our website, certain information will automatically be collected to optimize the performance of our services and improve the user experience. This information is anonymous. There is no way to opt out of this type of data collection except to cease use of our services. Please review the Non-Personal Data section of this Privacy Policy to learn more.

Content Generated by a Child

We strongly encourage children under 13 to only use our services with supervision from a parent or guardian, but we understand that constant supervision is not always possible. For your information, certain activities on our site are designed for children to do offline. Participation in these activities does not require children to provide any personal information and therefore will not result in notice to the parent or require parental consent.

Use of our COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form to submit an entry allows a child to insert personal information and upload content, which may include drawings, writing, images, video, or audio. We require verifiable parental consent in order to complete the form. When personal information about a child is collected through the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form, we will ask for consent from parents and guardians. Children under 13 are prohibited from uploading any content through the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form, including but not limited to images, videos, or audio files featuring children’s images or voices if verifiable parental consent is absent. Consenting parents or guardians may submit content on behalf of a child under 13.

Parental Review

We will only collect identifiable information about children under 13 if it is submitted with verifiable parental consent. The form cannot be completed if parental consent is not given. In order to submit an entry to COVID Chronicles Delaware using the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form, a parent or guardian must provide an email address. We will screen submissions for personally identifiable data and follow up by that email address to confirm consent.

If we become aware of a child under 13 managing to bypass the consent agreement or falsifying information within the form, consent will be considered invalid and the entire entry and any associated data will be deleted.

Parents and guardians may review any information collected about their children or request the deletion of their child’s personal information by emailing covidchroniclesde@gmail.com.

All submissions to COVID Chronicles Delaware will be archived as part of our digital collections; some submissions will be accessioned as part of our permanent collection. If we want to publish an entry on our blog or social media, we will obtain a higher level of parental consent.

Basic Level of Consent

The COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form requires consent from a parent or guardian or else the submission cannot be completed through the form. When we receive an entry, we will review it for consent and follow up with the email address provided by the supervising parent or guardian. All entries we collect through the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form requires us to seek a Basic Level of Consent. We will confirm with you that you're comfortable with the submission being used in non-public formats, such as for use by researchers, and we will ask you to respond within a certain amount of time. If we do not receive a response to the confirmation, the entry and all accompanying data will be deleted.

If you do NOT receive an email from us upon completion of a COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers form, please contact us at covidchroniclesde@gmail.com. We will not use parent emails for marketing purposes, unless the parent requests to be added to our email list or has separately signed up through a form on our website to receive emails.

High-Level of Consent

In addition to Basic Level of Consent, you will receive a secondary notice of confirmation if we want to share a submission publicly on our blog or website. We will confirm the information to be shared and ask you for additional consent.

Please be aware that DHS reserves the right to request proof of legal guardianship for all entries completed through COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers.

Teacher Consent in Lieu of a Parent

With regard to school-based activities and assignments, COPPA allows teachers and school administrators to act on behalf of parents to provide consent for the collection of personal information from children under 13. Schools should always notify parents about these activities, and teachers who use the COVID Chronicles Delaware for Children and their Caregivers Alternative Portal as part of their curriculums are responsible for seeking parental consent. If a teacher submits an entry on behalf of a student, we will seek Basic Level Consent from the teacher who submitted under the assumption that teachers have sought appropriate consent from parents and guardians. Children under 13 submitting an entry for a school assignment are still encouraged to complete the entry with a supervising adult or guardian. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student education records. For more information about parental rights with respect to the privacy of school activities, please visit FERPA’s website.

  • Information collected from children under 13 will not be used or shared for commercial purposes unrelated to education.
  • School administrations and teachers are allowed to review the information collected on students.
  • Schools administrations and teachers may request for student information to be deleted.
  • If High Level Consent is required for public sharing and we cannot directly contact a parent, we ask that school administrations and teachers who are using this service to retain proof of consent and we may ask for proof of legal guardianship.

Information We Collect:

Personal Data

Data that is personally identifiable may be collected upon submission. Although you retain the right to determine how much personal information is shared, you are discouraged from sharing information that you do not want shared either with DHS staff or publicly.

Personal data collected includes:

  • Name
  • Age
  • Geolocation (including zip code)
  • Occupation
  • Email

Be advised that should you restrict information from being shared, DHS reserves the right to determine whether your story can be published on our blog or social media.

Non-Personal Data

Some data we collect is anonymous, meaning we can see how a user accessed our form, but we do not know personal data about that user. Note that mixed data we receive (like when you use our form and include both your name and zip code) can be processed separately as personal and non-personal data.

  • Zip code
  • Age
  • IP address
  • Time of form submitted
  • Activity within web form

Our servers automatically collect anonymous data about usage of our website and services. This information is anonymous.

Implicit Data

Implicit data is identifiable or non-identifiable information included anecdotally within the submission, such as references to where you live, where you work, or family members and other people. Implicit data can be a direct reference to something or someone or an indirect reference (like a nickname that might reveal the identity of someone by context to those who know the nickname).

You are responsible for any data that you share, whether it is information about yourself or about others, regardless of whether you are the author or submitting on behalf of someone else. Consider references to other entities who become identifiable based on information within the entry before making the decision to submit. If it’s determined that information is being shared inappropriately, that may constitute invalid consent and your submission will not be considered for publishing.

About Third Parties

DHS is not responsible for the privacy policies of third parties we use for the purposes of this project. Consent to our policy is consent to their policies:

  • Google Services: Google services has its own privacy policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy/)
    • Google Forms uses Captcha for Forms by xFanatical, Inc. (https://xfanatical.com/privacy-policy/) to provide security and spam prevention.
    • Data shared with xFanatical, Inc. is only for the purpose of preventing SPAM by submission through Google Forms.
  • WordPress.com: WordPress has its own privacy policy (https://automattic.com/privacy/)
  • Social Media: Information (with consent) may be shared on social media platforms (social platforms each have their own privacy policies)
  • Other: If stories are used to build a digital exhibit in the future, DHS may work with other third-party platforms that have their own privacy policies.

 How we use your information

  • Text (stories, poems, journal entries, etc.), photographs, audio:
    • Photographs, images, audio clips, or quotes from submissions may be used for marketing purposes
    • Selected content and included information will be published on our blog
    • Submissions and content will not be shared without your consent
  • Emails will not be shared; they will only be used for communication purposes.
  • Zip codes are used to map locations, thus they are required and considered non-personal data when a name or other identifiable information is not attached or when processed separately

How information is shared

  • Information is only shared publicly with your consent
  • Information will only be used for archival, research, digital exhibition, and promotional purposes for COVID Chronicles Delaware via social media and blog posts; it will not be sold or disseminated for any other purpose unless ordered by federal, state, or local law enforcement or other government agencies pursuant to a lawful subpoena or otherwise as required by law.
    • Submissions must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security, or other laws.
    • DHS retains the right to report user-submitted content to authorities if content reveals criminal misconduct either implicitly or explicitly; personal data may be shared within such a report
      • Implicit criminal misconduct may at minimum result in deletion of the submission
      • Explicit criminal misconduct may result in reporting to authorities per the discretion of DHS staff
  • Your information may be shared in the following public and non-public ways:

Advertisements

COVID Chronicles Delaware is hosted using WordPress.com. The ads that appear on the homepage are not affiliated with or endorsed by the DHS. Ads are not chosen or created by DHS, rather they are generated by the advertising software of Automattic Inc., the parent company of WordPress.com. We do not use targeted advertising on this website, and we do not advertise to children.

No Guarantees

While we are committed to meeting the standards set forth by this Privacy Policy, we cannot guarantee full compliance with these standards all of the time as there may be situations outside of our control that result in data disclosure. Please review our Terms of Use, which governs your use of our services.

DHS does not endorse content and opinions expressed within submissions selected for accession or public sharing, nor does any one submission represent DHS.

DHS retains the right to change or update this policy at any time. Updates or changes will be posted here.

For questions or concerns, please email covidchroniclesde@gmail.com

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