Privacy Policy
Who we are
This Privacy Policy describes how Victims of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the “Site” or “we”) collects, uses, and discloses your Personal Information when you visit the Site. Our website address is: https://v-jw.org/vjw/vjw.
Collecting Personal Information
When you visit the Site, we collect certain information about your device, your interaction with the Site, and information necessary to respond to you if you contact us through the Site. We may also collect additional information if you contact us for advice or support. In this Privacy Policy, we refer to any information that can uniquely identify an individual (including the information below) as “Personal Information”. See the list below for more information about what Personal Information we collect and why.
Device information
- Examples of Personal Information collected: version of web browser, IP address, time zone, cookie information, what sites you came from or are going to, search terms, and how you interact with the Site.
- Purpose of collection: to load the Site accurately for you, and to perform analytics on Site usage to optimize our Site.
- Source of collection: Collected automatically when you access our Site using cookies, log files, web beacons, tags, or pixels.
- Disclosure for a business purpose: Data collected is not shared with any third party, unless you provide explicit consent.
Comments & Forms
When visitors leave comments, submit forms and/or complete surveys on the Site we collect the Personal Information shown in the submission forms, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
- Examples of Personal Information collected: name, address, email address, and phone number, religious background.
- Purpose of collection: to provide a response to requests from customers using our contact forms; to use for analysis; to publish to the Site, as applicable and with appropriate consent obtained.
- Source of collection: collected from you.
When commenting on posts, an anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Minors
The Site is not intended for individuals under the age of 18. We do not intentionally collect Personal Information from children. If you are the parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us to request deletion.
Media
If you upload images to the Site, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the Site can download and extract any location data from images on the Site.
Cookies
If you leave comments, submit forms and/or complete surveys on the Site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no Personal Information and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no Personal Information and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on the Site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who we share your data with
We do not share your Personal Information with service providers to help us provide our services and fulfill our contracts with you, as described above. However we may share your Personal Information for the following reasons:
- you gave us explicit consent to share it with third parties
- to comply with applicable laws and regulations
- to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive,
- or to otherwise protect our rights.
If you request a password reset, or you need us to respond to you via email, Personal Information you disclosed to us may be received by you in the response. Your IP address may also be included.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
If you contact us via email, your email will be retained for no longer than two years. This is so that we can follow up with you and your queries if necessary.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the Personal Information we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any Personal Information we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. If you have given us explicit consent to share your Personal Information with third parties, these third parties may include, but are not limited to:
- Academics studying Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs, doctrines, or practices, including shunning and its impact.
- Health Professionals gaining insight on the impact of shunning within Jehovah’s Witnesses.
- Law Professionals and Human Rights Experts working to learn more about the complexity of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ shunning on it’s members and former members.
- Law enforcement who may find the information helpful for the prevention of crime.
- Journalists who are investigating or reporting on Jehovah’s Witnesses shunning and its impact.
Lawful basis
Pursuant to the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), if you are a resident of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), we process your personal information under the following lawful bases:
- Your consent;
- The performance of the contract between you and the Site;
- Compliance with our legal obligations;
- To protect your vital interests;
- To perform a task carried out in the public interest;
- For our legitimate interests, which do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms.
Automatic decision-making
If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the right to object to processing based solely on automated decision-making (which includes profiling), when that decision-making has a legal effect on you or otherwise significantly affects you.
We do not engage in fully automated decision-making that has a legal or otherwise significant effect using customer data.
GDPR
If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the right to access the Personal Information we hold about you, to port it to a new service, and to ask that your Personal Information be corrected, updated, or erased. If you would like to exercise these rights, please contact us.
