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Privacy Policy

GIRLTREK PRIVACY NOTICE

Last Updated: June 2025

Welcome! We are GirlTREK, Inc. (“GirlTREK”, “we”, “us”, “our”), a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supporting a global movement for Black women’s health and wellbeing. We provide both in-person and digital services for our members’ healing journeys, including GirlTREK Underground, an app that supports a habit of daily walking, self-care, connections with other GirlTREK members, engagement in movement campaigns, and access to GirlTREK’s content.

This Privacy Notice explains how GirlTREK, its subsidiaries and affiliates, collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information (as defined below) in connection with our websites, www.GirlTrek.org and shop.girltrek.org (collectively, our “Websites”), mobile applications including GirlTREK Underground (the “App”) and the related content, platform, services, products, and other functionality offered on or through our services or the events we host (collectively, the “Services”). It does not address our privacy practices relating to GirlTREK’s job applicants, employees, and other personnel.

GirlTREK is the controller of the personal information we hold about you in connection with your use of the Services. This means that we determine, and are responsible for, how your personal information is used.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

When we use the term “personal information” in this Privacy Notice, we mean any data or information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked to, directly or indirectly, a particular natural person or household or any other data or information that constitutes “personal data,” “personal information,” or “personally identifiable information.”

I. OUR COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information in a variety of ways. For example, you may provide us your personal information when you sign up and register for an account, send us messages, interact with other Users, subscribe to our mailing lists, newsletters, or other forms of marketing communications, record a walk, or use some other feature of our App or Services.

We may link or combine your activities and information collected from you on the App, our Sites, and social media sites with information we receive from third parties, as well as information we collect automatically through tracking technologies (defined below). This allows us to provide you with a personalized experience regardless of how you interact with us.

Personal Information Collected from You

We may collect the following categories of personal information submitted to us by you through the Services:

  • Account Information: If you sign up for an account through our Services, such as in the GirlTREK Underground mobile app, or to purchase merchandise from our Websites, we may collect your first and last name, mailing address, email address, profile information, and any other information you choose to provide to us. We use this information to administer your account, provide you with the relevant service and information, communicate with you regarding your account and your use of the Service, and for customer support purposes.
  • Event Registration and Attendance: If you register for an event or fill out any forms at or relating to GirlTREK events, such as signing up for an event through our Websites or Services, we may collect your first and last name, address, phone number, and email. We use this information to provide you with relevant Services and information, to communicate with you regarding the event, and for user support purposes. In addition, we may take photographs, videos, and/or audio recordings of our events and participants. We use this information to promote, manage, and facilitate our events and to communicate with you about future events or Services that may be of interest to you.
  • User-Generated Content: You may choose to communicate and interact with other users of the App by posting content and sending messages. If you do, we will collect the content of your submission, including any files, documents, videos, images, data, or information you choose to post or transmit through your communications with us or your use of the App (collectively, “User Content”). User Content and any information contained in the User Content, including personal information you may have shared or provided, is stored and collected as part of the service. Please note this information may be publicly displayed in our online community. We use the User Content to provide you with the Services and enhance Users’ experience with the App. Information shared privately by and between Users within the App, such as direct messages and photos or other media, will not be publicly displayed or otherwise communicated, transmitted, or shared with others by GirlTREK.
  • Referral Information: If you invite others to use our Services, we may retain information about your referral.
  • Contest, Testimonial, and Survey Information: We may collect information you provide when you enter a contest or sweepstakes, submit surveys, or provide any testimonials. We use this information to communicate with you, conduct market research, inform our marketing and advertising activities, and improve and grow our business.
  • Other Information: We may use information that you provide to us through the App to respond to your request, provide you the requested services, and to inform our marketing and advertising campaigns.
  • Order Information: If you purchase merchandise from our Websites, we may collect your name, email address, billing address, shipping address, items purchased, and payment information. Please see the “Personal Information from Third Parties” section below regarding how we use third-party payment processors to process these transactions. We process all orders through our third-party ordering and fulfillment service providers, who assist us in completing your transaction, shipping your product, communicating with you about your order, and for customer support purposes.
  • Donation Information: If you make a donation, we may collect your name, date of birth, mailing address, email address, phone number, employer, work address, and any other personal information you choose to provide to us. Please see the Payment Processors section below regarding how we use third-party payment processors to process donations.
  • Communications: If you communicate with us through any paper or electronic form, we may collect your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, date of birth, ethnicity, affiliations with religious institutions, or any other personal information you choose to provide to us. We use this information to investigate and respond to your inquiries, to communicate with you, to enhance the Services we offer to you, and to manage and grow our organization.
  • Opt-In to Marketing or Services-Related Messages: If you register for our newsletters, sign up for our blog, or opt-in to receive updates via text message or email, we may communicate with you through the contact information you provided (e.g., email address or phone number) and send you information about products and services we think may be of interest to you. If you choose to use the App, we may send push notifications to your device if notifications are enabled. Please note we may share your text messaging opt-in preference with our third-party service providers, who assist us with contacting you on our behalf. However, your text messaging opt-in will not be shared with our marketing partners. To unsubscribe from promotional messages, please follow the instructions within our messages and review the “Control Over Your Information” section below.

Personal Information from Third Parties

We may obtain personal information from third parties, which we may combine with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from an individual. The third parties may include website and service operators, payment processors, marketing partners, and shipping providers. The information may include contact information, demographic information, information about your walks and other activities, and information about your orders. We use this information to administer and facilitate our Services, your orders and our marketing activities.

We also may use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Flickr to incorporate content on our Websites, including information you may upload or tag us in through those platforms. We may receive the same categories of personal information as described above from these social media platforms. The information we receive is based on your privacy settings with each social network. To learn more about the use of data collection technologies by social media sites, please visit each platform’s privacy policy page.

We may receive the same categories of personal information as described above from the following third parties:

  • GirlTREK Entities: We may receive personal information from other companies and brands owned or controlled by GirlTREK, and other companies under common ownership with GirlTREK.
  • Other Users or Individuals Who Interact with Our Services: We may receive your information from other users or other individuals who interact with the App and/or our Services. For example, if you engage in one of our communications hosted on third-party platforms, we will be able to see any public communications made within that platform.
  • Mobile Sign-On: We may provide you the ability to log in to our mobile applications or authenticate yourself using facial, fingerprint, or other biometric recognition technology available through your mobile device. If you choose to utilize these login features, information about your facial geometry, your fingerprint, or other biometric information will be collected by your mobile device for authentication purposes. We do not store or have access to this biometric information. Instead, your mobile device will perform the biometric authentication process and only let us know whether the authentication was successful. If the authentication was successful, you will be able to access the applicable mobile application or feature without separately providing your credentials. For more details, please refer to the biometric authentication guides offered by your device provider.
  • Social Media: When an individual interacts with our Services through various social media networks, such as when someone “Likes” us on Facebook or follows us or shares our content on Google, Facebook, Instagram, X (fka Twitter), or other social networks, we may receive some information about individuals that they permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon an individual’s privacy settings with the social network and may include your profile information, profile picture, gender, username, user ID associated with your social media account, age range, language, country, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. Individuals should always review and, if necessary, adjust their privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information and/or linking or connecting them to other services. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages about products and services that may be of interest to you.
  • Service Providers: Our service providers that perform services solely on our behalf, such as survey and marketing providers and third-party payment processors, collect personal information and often share some or all of this information with us. The information may include contact information, demographic information, payment information, information about your communications and related activities, and information about your orders. We may use this information to administer and facilitate our services, your orders, and our marketing activities.
  • Advertisers, Influencers, and Publishers: We may engage in advertising through third-party services. Advertisers, influencers, and publishers may share personal data with us in connection with our advertising efforts. For example, we may obtain information about whether an advertisement on a third-party service led you to our services.
  • Inferences: We may generate inferences or predictions about you and your interests and preferences based on the other personal data we collect and the interactions we have with you.
  • Other Sources: We may collect personal information about individuals that we do not otherwise obtain, such as from publicly available sources, third-party data providers, brand partnerships, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages about products and services that may be of interest to you.

Personal Information Automatically Collected

We, and our third-party partners, use tracking technologies to automatically collect usage and device information, such as:

• Information About the Computer, Tablet, Smartphone, or Other Device You Use, such as your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, device type/model/manufacturer, operating system, date and time stamp, and a unique ID that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device, or your account (including, for example, a persistent device identifier or an Ad ID), and other such information.

• Information About the Way You Access and Use Our Services, for example, the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our Services, how frequently you access the Services, whether you open emails or click the links contained in emails, whether you access the Services from multiple devices, and other browsing behavior and actions you take on the App.

• Information About How You Use the Services, such as the pages you visit, the links you click, the videos you watch, the Users you engage with, and other similar actions. We may also use third-party tools to collect information you provide to us or information about how you use the Services and may record your mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, and keystroke activity on the Services and other browsing, search, or purchasing behavior. These tools may also record information you enter when you interact with our Services or engage in chat features through our Services.

• Information About Your Location, such as general geographic location that we or our third-party providers may derive from your IP address.

• Analytics Information. We may collect analytics data or use third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Services and to understand more about the demographics of our users. You can learn more about Google’s practices at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners and view its opt-out options at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

All of the information collected automatically through these tools allows us to monitor and improve your customer experience. For example, we may use this information to enhance and personalize your user experience, to monitor and improve our Sites and Services, and to improve the effectiveness of our Services, offers, advertising, communications, and customer service. We may also use this information and the data collected through tracking technologies to: (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the site; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information, including targeted content and advertising; (c) identify you across multiple devices; (d) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Services; (e) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our website; (f) diagnose or fix technology problems; and (g) otherwise to plan for and enhance our Services.

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies; however, doing so may negatively impact your experience using the Services, as some features and services may not work properly. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.

We and our third-party partners may also use cookies and tracking technologies for advertising purposes. For more information about tracking technologies, please see Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising below.

Additional Uses of Personal Information

In addition to the primary purposes for using personal data described above, we may use personal information for the following purposes:

• To communicate with you, including via in-app messaging, email, phone, text message, chat, and/or social media. • To market our Services to you. • Administer, improve, and personalize our Services, including by recognizing you and remembering your information when you return to our Services. • To create, maintain, improve, and operate the App and Services. • To verify your identity and entitlement to our Services. • To personalize your user experience. • To communicate with you to provide technical or administrative support. • To conduct, manage, and grow our organization. • To analyze, research, and investigate the use of our Services. • To prevent, investigate, and provide fraud notifications, unlawful or criminal activity, unauthorized access to or use of personal information, our data system services, and to meet governmental and institutional policy obligations. • To investigate and resolve disputes and security issues and to enforce our Terms of Service. • For any other lawful, legitimate business purpose as permitted by applicable law. • To comply with legal obligations.

From time to time, we may also use aggregated or de-identified personal information to support and maintain the Services and market the Services to others. For example, publicly-shared testimonials may be anonymized and used to market our Services.

Where you choose to contact us, we may need additional information to fulfill the request or respond to inquiries. We may provide you with additional privacy-related information where the scope of the inquiry/request and/or personal information we require fall outside the scope of this Privacy Notice. In that case, the additional privacy notice will govern how we may process the information provided at that time.

II. OUR DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may share, transmit, disclose, grant access to, make available, and provide personal information with and to third parties, as follows:

  • Marketing Providers: We coordinate and share personal information with our marketing providers in order to communicate with individuals about the Services we make available, streamline the member experience, and deliver email and other promotional communications.
  • Payment Processors: We use third-party payment processors, such as Shopify and PayPal, to process payments on our Websites, including merchandise purchases and donations. These third-party payment processors collect payment information, such as bank account or credit card information, in order to process your transaction, but that information is not passed on to GirlTREK. The payment processor’s use of personal information is governed by their own privacy policy. Please review each payment processor’s privacy policy to understand how they will manage or otherwise process your personal information, including financial information. To review Shopify’s Privacy Policy, please click here. To review PayPal’s Privacy Policy, please click here.
  • Other Service Providers: In addition to the third parties identified above, we engage other third-party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf, such as website hosting, infrastructure provisioning, IT services, analytics services, employment application-related services, donation processing services, and administrative services. In order for our third-party service providers to perform their services, we may need to share Users’ personal information from time to time.
  • Business Transaction or Reorganization: We may take part in or be involved with a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets. We may disclose personal information to a third-party during negotiation of, in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership.
  • Legal Obligations and Rights: We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement: o in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims; o to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process; o to protect our rights and property and the rights and property of others, including to enforce our agreements and policies; o to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud; o to protect the health and safety of us and others; or o as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law.
  • With Your Consent: We may disclose personal information about an individual to certain other third parties or publicly with their consent or direction. For example, with an individual’s consent or direction we may post their testimonial or other public comments on our App, website, or marketing materials and other GirlTREK publications.

III. THIRD-PARTY DATA COLLECTION AND ONLINE ADVERTISING

We may participate in interest-based advertising and use third-party advertising companies to serve you targeted advertisements based on your browsing history. We may permit third-party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other third-party services, to collect information about your use of our online services over time so that they may play or display ads on our Services, on other websites or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising may be collected through tracking technologies, such as cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and similar technology, which recognize the device you are using and collect information, including click stream information, browser type, time and date you visited the Sites, AdID, precise geolocation, and other information. We may share a common account identifier (such as a hashed email address or user ID) with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party partners may use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research.

We may also use services provided by third parties (such as social media platforms) to serve targeted ads to you and others on such platforms. We may do this by providing a hashed version of your email address or other information to the platform provider.

We may engage in the following:

• Third Party Partners. We work with a variety of third-party partners to provide advertising services. For example, we use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s website, “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics. These features enable us to use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Services. You may control your advertising preferences or opt-out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at https://google.com/ads/preferences, or by visiting NAI’s online resources at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

We use or may use the data collected through cookies to: (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit our Websites and Services; (b) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Websites and Services; (c) monitor online usage and activities of our Websites and Services; (d) diagnose errors and problems with our Websites and Services; (e) otherwise plan for and enhance our Services; and (f) facilitate the purposes identified in the “Our Use of Personal Information” section of this Privacy Notice. We and our advertising partners also use the information we collect through cookies to understand your browsing activities, including across unaffiliated third-party sites, so that we can deliver ads and information about products and services that may be of interest to you.

Please note that we link some of the personal information we collect through cookies with the other personal information that we collect about you for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.

For more information about these practices and your choices regarding cookies, please see the Control Over Your Information section below.

IV. CONTROL OVER YOUR INFORMATION

You may control your information in the following ways:

  • Communications Preferences: We may periodically send you emails or text messages regarding upcoming events or other GirlTREK updates. You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe link” provided in such communications. You may also unsubscribe from receiving text messages by replying “STOP” to the number sending you the message. Please note you may not be able to opt out of Services-related communications (e.g., transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Websites, technical and security notices).
  • Push Notification Preferences: You can stop receiving push notifications from us by changing your preferences in your device’s notification settings menu or in the applicable service-specific application. Please note we do not have any control over your device’s notifications settings and are not responsible if they do not function as intended.
  • Modifying or Deleting Your Information: If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your information, you can contact us directly at info@girltrek.org. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.
  • Withdrawing Consent: If you no longer wish to provide us with your personal information, you may withdraw your consent for us to collect and process your data by sending a request to info@girltrek.org. Note that not all aspects of the App may function as fully as intended if certain information is not provided. For instance, a user that does not provide access to their device’s location information may not be able to accurately track and record walks.
  • Cookies: If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most internet browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies. Please note that doing so may negatively impact your experience using our Services, as some features and services on our Services may not work properly. Depending on your device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies. In addition, if you want to reject cookies across all your browsers and devices, you will need to do so on each browser on each device you actively use. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions within it.
  • Online Ads: To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt-out of some of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) resources and/or the Network Advertising Initiative’s (NAI) online resources, at www.aboutads.info/choices or http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings menu on your mobile device by selecting “limit ad tracking” (iOS) or “opt-out of interest-based ads” (Android). You may also be able to opt-out of some — but not all — interest-based advertising served by mobile ad networks by visiting http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.

Please note that when you opt out of receiving interest-based advertisements, this does not mean you will no longer see advertisements from us or on our online services. It means that the online ads that you do see from DAA program participants should not be based on your interests. We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third parties’ opt-out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs. In addition, third parties may still use cookies to collect information about your use of our online services, including for analytics and fraud prevention as well as any other purpose permitted under the DAA’s Principles.

V. CHILDREN’S PERSONAL INFORMATION

Any use or access to the Service by anyone under 13 is strictly prohibited and in violation of this Agreement. If you are a minor (which is under the age of 18 in most states), you may use our Service only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian and their consent and agreement to this Agreement. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a User under the age of 18, by allowing your child to use our Service, you are subject to this Agreement and responsible for your child’s activity on our Service. The Service is not available to any Users previously removed from the Service by GirlTREK.

Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not use our Services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information. If you believe that we might have received information from a child under 13, please contact us at info@girltrek.org

VI. DATA HANDLING, RETENTION, AND DELETION POLICIES

We implement reasonable data protection measures to help secure the information we collect through the Services. We retain the data we collect through the Services for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by applicable law. We periodically review our data retention practices to ensure that they comply with our legal obligations and operational needs. We also periodically conduct reviews of retained User data and may delete information that no longer serves the purpose(s) for which it was collected. To add, modify, delete, or request access to the personal information about you that we hold, please see the “Contact Us” section below.

Users may delete their account by submitting a request within the App or the Websites, as applicable. When we delete an account in response to a user’s request, we also delete all user data and personal information associated with that account. We do not delete such information to the extent its retention is otherwise required to comply with applicable laws and regulations, uphold contractual obligations, protect against fraud, or for other security reasons.

VII. EMBEDDED LINKS TO THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES OR SERVICES

Our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Except where we post, link to, or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Notice, this Privacy Notice does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.

VIII. UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will change the date at the beginning of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will notify individuals by email to their registered email address, by prominent posting on our Services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.

IX. CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, the App, or the Services, please contact us at info@girltrek.org, via our website at https://www.girltrek.org/about-us/contact/, or at our mailing address below.

530 S. Union St Montgomery, AL 36104

X. REGION-SPECIFIC DISCLOSURES

We may choose or be required by law to provide different or additional information relating to the processing of personal information (as defined below) about residents of certain countries, regions or states. Please refer below for additional information that may be applicable to you:

CALIFORNIA

Shine the Light Disclosure

The California “Shine the Light” law gives residents of California the right under certain circumstances to request information from us regarding the manner in which we share certain categories of personal information (as defined in the Shine the Light law, Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

DELAWARE

Other parties may collect personally identifiable information about a user’s online activities over time and across different internet websites, online or cloud computing services, online applications, or mobile applications when a user uses the App.

“Do Not Track” Signals

Certain web browsers provide an option by which you may have the browser inform websites or internet services you visit that you do not wish to have your activities tracked by cookies or other persistent identifiers across time and across third-party internet websites, online or cloud computing services, online applications, or mobile applications. These are commonly called “Do Not Track” signals. At this time, we do not respond to “Do Not Track” or similar signals from web browsers. To find out more about “Do Not Track” signals you can visit www.allaboutdnt.com.