privacy policy

Effective January 1, 2025

Rootid, LLC is a branding, web development, and communications agency that believes values are not mere buzzwords; they are the guiding principles that underpin every decision.

Rootid, LLC is committed to living our values by describing, in plain language, how we collect and use your personal information and by providing clear choices for how we collect and use your personal information. We continually evaluate and improve our privacy and data governance practices to responsibly handle personal information entrusted to us. This may include information about you, whether you are a Rootid, LLC community member or not. 

This Privacy Statement (“Statement”) describes how Rootid, LLC collects, uses, shares, or otherwise processes personal information in its day-to-day operations. 

Privacy Statement Highlights 

  • Our Data Privacy Principles. Rootid, LLC is committed to your right to privacy. We follow these eight principles when processing your personal information: Transparency, Individual Participation, Purpose Specification, Data Minimization, Use Limitation, Data Quality and Integrity, Security, and Accountability. 
  • Personal Information We Collect. Rootid, LLC collects and stewards personal information about you through a variety of methods, including through direct collection (e.g., through a web form you submit) and through automated data collection (e.g., through technologies to understand how people navigate our websites.
  • Why We Use Your Information. Rootid, LLC uses your personal information to further our mission. To better illustrate why we collect this information, we have listed specific processing purposes for which Rootid, LLC uses your information, categorized by the thematic activities of digital services optimization and operations; fundraising; outreach and research; merchandise; and when required by law, to prevent fraud and protect our or others’ rights. 
  • With Whom and How We Share Your Information. Rootid, LLC does not share your personal information with business partners or any other third parties unless required by law. 
  • Your Choices and Rights. Rootid, LLC offers choices on how we process your information. You can let us know how you want us to communicate with you, to correct your information, and ask us to delete or stop using your information in certain ways. 

Personal Information We Collect 

Rootid, LLC collects and stewards your personal information through a variety of methods. This section outlines what information we collect and how we collect it. 

Information You Give to Us 

This includes information you explicitly take steps to share with Rootid, LLC. This may be through online forms or donations, for example. Through these processes, you may share the following categories of information:  

  • Account registration. For example, account username and password.  
  • Audio or visual. For example, your image or voice captured when you attend an in-person or virtual event or leave us a voicemail. 
  • Contact. For example, email address, postal address, or telephone number. 
  • Demographic. For example, age, citizenship status, ethnicity/race, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or other relationship status, and household information. 
  • Financial. For example, the amount you plan to donate or pay for services rendered to Rootid, LLC. 
  • Interaction. For example, purchase and donation history, membership status, and other actions taken. 
  • Interests. For example, nonprofit sectors or subject matter you are particularly interested in hearing about, or more general information about your personal and professional interests that are relevant to your engagement with Rootid, LLC and our work.  
  • Preferences. For example, your preferred method(s) of communication. 
  • User-created content. For example, testimonials you provide to us as part of our storytelling campaigns or messages. This also includes photos, videos, audio, and other information you may submit to us. 
  • Other. Any other information you choose to provide, which may include information deemed to be “sensitive” personal information under certain privacy laws, such as religious beliefs, information about your sexual orientation or sex life, or citizenship status. 

Information We Automatically Collect 

Rootid, LLC and our authorized third parties may use technologies to automatically receive and record information when you interact with us online on our websites and/or through other digital technologies, such as email platforms, mobile applications that link to this Privacy Statement, or over the phone (altogether, “Digital Services”). These technologies allow Rootid, LLC to improve our Digital Services, to create a better experience for our users, and to protect against fraud. 

These technologies may include cookies — small files placed on your browser that can be used to uniquely identify you and record information about the websites you visit — and other technologies, such as web beacons, clear gifs, and single-pixel gifs, that use embedded code in our Digital Services to record details about your use of those Digital Services, like whether you opened an email or clicked on a link.  

These technologies may be placed by us or by other entities we authorize. Rootid, LLC and our authorized third parties may automatically collect the following categories of information: 

  • Contact. For example, your email address or telephone number. 
  • Device identifiers. For example, your phone model, phone carrier browser version, or operating system you use to browse our sites.  
  • IP address or information that could be derived from it. For example, your approximate geolocation.  
  • Interaction. For example, the content you click on or view in our e-mails, the amount of time you spend on our websites, or the referring URL. 

Information We Receive from Others 

Rootid, LLC may acquire personal information about you from third-party sources, such as data cooperatives for nonprofits; other nonpartisan organizations; coalition partners. We acquire this information to learn more about you — including how best to engage with you — to identify people like you that may be interested in hearing from Rootid, LLC. We may collect the following categories of information from third-party sources: 

  • Contact. For example, your telephone number, physical and email addresses, or social media handles. 
  • Demographic. For example, your age, gender and race/ethnicity for learning about the diversity of our community members to further our commitment to our values and decide how to most effectively engage and support their work.  
  • Interaction. For example, your engagement with other nonpartisan organizations, nonprofit organizations, coalition partners, or your likelihood to support Rootid, LLC and our community engagement work. 
  • Interests. For example, trainings, events or campaigns you may be interested in hearing about or supporting.  

Information We Infer and Model 

Rootid, LLC may use personal information we have collected — directly, automatically, or acquired from third parties — to compile, combine, and infer new information about you. We do this to tailor our communications and outreach, and to improve our programs and services.  

Rootid, LLC and our service providers may infer the following categories of information: 

  • Contact. For example, inferred members of your household. 
  • Interaction. For example, inferred likelihood to engage with the Rootid, LLC and our issue areas. 
  • Interests. For example, trainings, events or campaigns you may be interested in hearing about or supporting. 
  • Preferences. For example, your preferred method(s) of communication. 

Why We Use Your Information 

Rootid, LLC collects your personal information to further our mission through our services, community events and fundraising. When we process, use, or share that information, we apply appropriate confidentiality and security requirements. In addition, we aim to use only the information that is specific and necessary for the Rootid, LLC processing purposes we collected it for. 

  • Services. Rootid, LLC uses the personal information you provide to us when you engage in a project or retain our services to share your testimonials, to deliver your messages, and to host events. 
  • Outreach and Research. Rootid, LLC works to deliver to you information on issue areas you have identified as important to you, and to seek out new community members for our events. To do this, Rootid, LLC uses your personal information to communicate opportunities to support Rootid, LLC‘s mission through various communication channels, including targeted advertising, based on your engagement profile, social listening, and polling.
  • Services Security, Optimization, and Improvement. Rootid, LLC works to provide you with a secure and optimized experience engaging with our Digital Services, and to improve our programs and services. To do this, Rootid, LLC uses your personal information in: user-experience testing, website performance assessment, and to conduct internal research to develop and improve our services, products, and technologies.  
  • When Required by Law, to Prevent Fraud, and Protect Our or Others’ Rights. Rootid is a community engagement project with Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment. Rootid must submit donation reports to governmental entities and fulfill other legal obligations. To do this, Rose Foundation on Rootid’s behalf uses your personal information to fulfill those obligations (e.g., ensuring that your information is deleted from their systems if you so request). In addition, Rose Foundation on Rootid’s behalf may need to use your personal information to prevent fraud or to protect our or others’ rights (e.g., researching your personal information if we have reason to think you may be using our name and logo without permission). 

Processing Activities and Uses 

There is not a “one-size fits all” approach to how Rootid, LLC processes and uses personal information. Rootid, LLC strives for transparency about what personal information we collect and how we use it. In addition to the processing purposes described in this notice, we may also de-identify personal information where possible. We may de-identify existing personal information to proactively minimize the data in our possession when identifying information is no longer needed. We may also de-identify information to remove identifying information from records that must be retained for legal purposes when you request the Rootid, LLC delete your information. When we de-identify information permanently for privacy purposes, we will use it only in its de-identified form and do not attempt to re-identify the information. 

How We Protect Your Information 

Rootid, LLC has taken physical, technical, and administrative measures to safeguard the information we collect. We work to keep your data safe and protect against unauthorized access to, and improper use of, personal information we collect online.  

  • Physical measures. For example, your personal information, such as your name and address, is stored on servers subject to physical security safeguards. 
  • Technical measures. Though we do not collect credit card or other sensitive information, if/when we do, data transmitted to and from our sites, including credit card numbers, are encrypted in transit.  
  • Administrative measures. For example, we have established privacy and security policies and procedures to limit access to personal information. We also adhere to industry standards and regularly monitor our compliance. 

With Whom and How We Share Your Information 

This section provides additional information on how we share your personal information with our service providers, business partners, and other third parties.  

We share personal information with your consent, when you direct us to share it with others, as necessary to complete your transactions, or to provide the services you have requested or authorized. For example, when you provide credit card information to donate, we will share that data with payment card processors and other entities as necessary to process your payment and to prevent or detect fraud.  

We also share personal information with the following types of other parties: 

Service Providers 

We work with a variety of service providers who help us process your personal information, such as to facilitate the operation of our sites; support our fundraising, marketing, communications, and to deliver messages to you on other platforms.  

We require these service providers to agree to take reasonable security measures in the handling and storage of that information. When we share personal information about you with a service provider, we take steps to: (1) transmit it in a secure manner and (2) require the service provider to promise to keep that information confidential and use it only for the purpose of carrying out the activities we have directed them to perform. 

We allow some service providers to compile and use certain information related to Rootid, LLC and/or its supporters’ use of the services for internal purposes, like improving the functionality or security of the services Rootid, LLC receives from the service provider. In some instances, this may include training the service providers’ artificial intelligence tools or features for the services they provide the Rootid, LLC*. In addition, we may also permit service providers to create and use data that has been de-identified for broader business purposes, including sharing aggregated benchmarking data with their business partners, other customers, or other third parties. We will not agree to that unless the service provider has sufficiently committed to not recombine the data with other information to identify you, and will not share or sell or use any identifiable data about you for the benefit of third parties outside the Rootid, LLC-service provider business relationship. 

*Rootid, LLC  takes your agency over the use of your personal information seriously. As the artificial intelligence landscape continues to evolve, we are committed to monitoring our service providers’ artificial intelligence tooling for disproportionate privacy risks and other potential threats to civil liberties.  

Business Partners  

In some cases, we may disclose personal information to our vendors and other business partners for their own business purposes. We may also share your information with third party business partners at your request. For example, we may share information with another nonprofit organization or community partner with whom we are co-hosting an event or working in a broader coalition with.  

Other Third Parties 

We may also share certain personal information with other third parties, as follows: 

  • Where Requested or Consented to by You (including Public Disclosures) or Necessary to Fulfill Your Request.  
  • Where Required by Law or Necessary to Protect Rootid, LLC or Others. We may disclose personal information from or about you to third parties in the following circumstances:
    • To comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies; 
    • To conduct litigation, including by disclosing information to co-counsel or Rootid, LLC advisors or other parties involved in the litigation process of claims by or against the Rootid, LLC;  
    • In the event of exigent circumstances, to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury or to protect the personal safety of Rootid, LLC personnel, users of our Digital Services or other Rootid, LLC services, our visitors, or the public; 
    • To detect, investigate, prevent or otherwise address fraud or privacy issues; 
    • To operate and maintain the security of our services, including to detect, investigate, prevent, stop, or remediate an attack on our computer systems or networks; or 
    • To protect the rights or property of ourselves, our Affiliates, or others, including by enforcing our agreements, terms, and policies. 
    • Rootid, LLC considers individual privacy and government overreach to be serious civil liberties issues. If we are required by law or legal process to share your information with government agencies, law enforcement, or other third parties (e.g., plaintiffs or defendants in a legal action), we will object to legal demands for third-party access to your information that we believe to be improper. In those situations, if it is determined that we are required by law to disclose your data, we will attempt to do so under cover of confidentiality and, as long as we are legally permitted to do so, will also attempt to provide you with notice of the request by whatever method is reasonably practical prior to making the disclosure to give you an opportunity to object to the disclosure. We will not provide such notice, however, if the disclosure is pursuant to our regular government reporting obligations, such as financial disclosures required for tax law compliance.  

Your Choices and Rights 

The Rootid, LLC offers you a number of choices in relation to your personal information. Further, you may have a legal right to these choices depending on your jurisdiction. 

Communication Preferences 

We strive to communicate with you according to your preferences.  

In some instances, you can update your communication preferences directly through the communication channels where we contact you, e.g., by texting or replying “STOP” or by clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link in the footer of our emails.  

In other instances, you will need to contact us to update your communication preferences. To make updating your phone and direct mail communication preferences as easy as possible, we have provided three methods: 

  • Email. Send an e-mail to: hello@rootid.com
  • Mail. Send a letter to Rootid, LLC P.O. Box 2235 El Cerrito, CA 94530

Data Choices  

Your Data Choices 

The Rootid, LLC offers you several choices in relation to your personal information. These choices may be offered to you as data subject rights required by applicable law. Data subject rights established by law can differ depending on the state or U.S. territory in which you reside and may be subject to legal limitations. The choices that Rootid, LLC offers include: 

  • Opting out: You have the choice to opt out of certain types of data processing activities.  
  • Correcting what we have: You have the choice to correct the personal information we have about you. We must consider the interests of others, so this is not an absolute right.  
  • Deleting what we have: You have the choice to request that we delete the personal information we have about you, except information that is required or permitted to be kept in compliance with applicable law and obligations. If any personal information cannot be deleted, we will notify you when your request is complete. 

Note: If you choose to delete your personal information from our systems, your event attendance, services received and other interactions will be irreversibly deleted. This will also unsubscribe you from all Rootid, LLC Communications and cancel any recurring donations. You may re-subscribe to Rootid, LLC communications at any time, but doing so will not restore your past history. 

Submit a Data Choice Request 

You may submit a data choice request to us using the mechanisms below. To make submitting Data Choice Requests as easy as possible, we have provided the following methods:  

  • Email. You may submit an opt-out request for targeted advertising or sales of data by emailing hello@rootid.com.  

Further notes on making Data Choice Requests: 

  • Identity Verification. When you or an authorized agent on your behalf make a request, we will confirm your identity. We may contact you for more information to verify your identity beyond what is included in your initial request. Information collected to verify your identity will never be used for any other purpose than to verify your identity to fulfill your request. To preserve privacy and further equity, we are committed to not using biometrics, social security numbers, or commercial credit bureau information as part of our identity verification process. 
  • Children. If you are under 13, we do not want your personal information, and you must not provide it to us. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child who is under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us to have your child’s information removed. 

Manage Your Privacy Online 

The internet is not a private place. As you visit websites, use search engines, and conduct business on the internet, many different companies and organizations are gathering information about your online behavior, including your searches, visits, and transactions, and then matching that data with other information about you or leveraging algorithms to predict your behavior. There are some things you can do to prevent your information from being collected. We encourage you to read the ACLU’s blog post Easy Steps Everyone Can Take to Protect Their Digital Privacy to help protect your privacy online. 

Like most websites, our sites collect and process a range of information about their visitors to enable functionality and to deliver requested services. In addition to information we automatically collect for our purposes, our Digital Services include links to social media sites, links to other websites operated by third parties (e.g., a registration page for another organization’s event, a third-party payment processor), embedded media (e.g., YouTube videos), and embedded third-party applications that may collect information about you when you choose to interact with them. When you access this content, you are interacting directly with the third parties, whose data collection and other processing activities are governed by their privacy policies, and not by this Statement. When you view embedded media or interact with embedded third-party applications — hosted on other platforms, but viewable through the buttons we provide — you will remain on our sites but you will be interacting with these third party’s online environment. In these instances, we make clear that you are viewing external content when you click on buttons. 

How to Disable Cookies 

If you would like to reduce the web data collected about you while browsing the internet, you can purge and disable cookies in your web browser.  

For your awareness, our sites will still work if you disable cookies in your browser. Please note disabling cookies on your browser may impact the operability of other websites you visit and disabling cookies will not disable other technologies (such as web beacons, clear gifs, and single-pixel gifs), which the Rootid, LLC uses on our sites to support our operations and the security of our sites. 

About this Statement 

When This Statement Applies 

This Statement describes how we treat personal information collected by Rootid, LLC in our general operations. This includes personal information collected online and offline, including through our main website, rootid.com, which is operated by Rootid, LLC. 

Definitions 

“Data Choices” means the choices you have in relation to your personal information. These choices may be offered to you as data subject rights required by law.  

“Personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, or can be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, to a specific human, in a personal capacity. It does not include information that is considered de-identified, anonymous, or aggregated under applicable law or information relating to a person in their employment or professional capacities, including information obtained from or about an Rootid, LLC employee or job applicants looking to work at Rootid, LLC. 

“Processing” of personal information means any operation, or set of operations performed, manually or automatically, on personal information, like collection, use, organization, structuring, storage, transmission, analysis, retrieval, deletion, or modification of personal information. 

Statement Update Procedure 

Our Statement is subject to change. We will post updated versions of this Statement here and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice of changes on our website. 

Questions about this Statement 

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Statement or our privacy and data governance practices, you can reach our Operations Governance Circle by emailing hello@rootid.com.

*This statement is adapted from the ACLU of Northern California’s Privacy Statement