Updated 10/23/22

The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University is committed to protecting your privacy. The following Privacy Policy governs the online information collection practices of educationrecoveryscorecard.org (the “Site”). This privacy policy does not apply to any information that you may provide to us or that we may collect offline or through other means (for example, via telephone or through the mail).

This Policy applies to information we collect:

  • On this Website
  • In electronic communications, such as e-mail and text messages, between you and this Website
  • Through any third-party application by which you access data on this Website

By visiting and using the Site, you agree that your use of our Site, and any dispute over privacy, is governed by this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service. We may need to change our Privacy Policy at some point in the future; in that case, we will post the changes to our Privacy Policy on the Site and update the effective date to reflect the date of the changes. If you use the Site after we post any changes, you accept the Privacy Policy as modified.

How We Collect and Use Information
You do not have to identify yourself or provide your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address (“Personal Information”) to use the Site.

If you should choose to give us your Personal Information, you decide how much information to provide. At various points, we ask for your e-mail address, thoughts, and comments. We will use your e-mail address to provide you news and information about The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.

Our general policy is not to make your Personal Information available to anyone other than our staff and agents. We may make Personal Information available to organizations with similar political objectives and viewpoints for the purpose of advancing our own political objectives.

We treat your first name, city, state, and any comments as Public Information. We may make your comments along with your first name, city, and state available to the public.

Non-identifiable website visitor data may be collected and used in aggregate to help shape, direct, and improve the content of the Site.

We are required by state law to collect and report the name, address, occupation, and employer of individuals who make contributions to The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. This information is made publicly available by the government agencies with whom the committee files its reports.

Cookies
Our website may use “cookies” to enhance your experience. Your web browser places cookies on its hard drive for record-keeping purposes and sometimes to track information about it. You may choose to set your web browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you do so, note that some parts of the website may not function properly.

Google Analytics
We may use a tool called “Google Analytics” (or a similar tool) to collect information about the use of this site. These tools collect information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this site. We may use the information we get from such tools only to improve this site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this site, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this site by disabling cookies on your browser.

IP Addresses and Log File Data
The IP address is the location of your computer or network on the Internet. We log your IP address for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. We also use page hits in the aggregate to track the popularity of pages that people visit in order to improve the quality of the Site. There is no Personal Information collected in our log files.

How Long We Keep Information
We may keep information that will collect for an unlimited period of time.

Children’s Privacy Statement
To help ensure the safety and privacy of children, we comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. We do not knowingly allow children under the age of 13 to publicly post or otherwise distribute personally identifiable contact information through the Site. The Site is not intended to solicit information of any kind from children under 13, and we have designed it to block our knowing acceptance of information from children under 13 whenever age-related information is requested.

If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personally identifiable information from a user under the age of 13 as part of the Site, we will delete such information from our records. 

Security
We take reasonable precautions to protect your information in an effort to prevent the loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Please be aware, however, that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable and no method of data transmission that can be guaranteed against any interception or other types of misuse.

Wherever we collect sensitive information (such as credit card data), that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a closed lock icon at the bottom of your web browser or looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the web page.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

Links
The Site may provide links to a limited number of other websites whose privacy policies we do not control. The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, which pays for and authorizes this Site, is not responsible for the content or privacy policies of other websites. When you access another website through the links on this Site, the use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you are visiting, so please be sure to read the privacy statements for each website you visit.

Questions
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this site or your interaction with this website, please contact us at cepr.harvard.edu.

50 Church Street, 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA  02138