Privacy Policy
Updated October 21, 2025
This Privacy Notice for Free DC, a fiscally hosted special project of Community Change ("we," "us," or "our"), describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you:
Visit our website at freedcproject.org, or any website of ours that links to this Privacy Notice
Engage with us in other related ways, including signing up, donating, or attending events
Reading this Privacy Notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. We are responsible for making decisions about how your personal information is processed. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at team@freedcproject.org.
1. What information do we collect?
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.
Personal Information Provided by You. The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect may include the following:
Name
Phone Number
Email addresses
Mailing addresses
Sensitive Information. We do not collect any sensitive information such as biometric data or health information.
Payment Data. Donations to Free DC are processed by ActBlue. All payment data is handled and stored by ActBlue, and at no point does Free DC have access to your personal financial account information. You may find ActBlue’s privacy notice here: https://secure.actblue.com/legal-privacy.
2. How do we process your information?
We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including:
To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users — We may process your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the requested service.
To send administrative information to you — We may process your information to send you details about our products and services, changes to our terms and policies, and other similar information.
To send you marketing and promotional communications — We may process the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes, if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. You can opt out of our marketing emails at any time. For more information, see "What are your privacy rights?" below.
3. When and with whom do we share your personal information?
We may need to share your personal information in the following situations:
Joint events — We sometimes jointly host events in partnership with other organizations. These partnerships are always named explicitly, with logos from all partner organizations displayed prominently. If you register for a co-hosted event, we might share your information with other organizational partners.
4. Do we use cookies or other tracking technologies?
We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to gather information when you interact with our Services. Some online tracking technologies help us maintain the security of our Services , prevent crashes, fix bugs, save your preferences, and assist with basic site functions.
We also permit third parties and service providers to use online tracking technologies on our Services for analytics and advertising, including to help manage and display advertisements, to tailor advertisements to your interests, or to send abandoned shopping cart reminders (depending on your communication preferences). The third parties and service providers use their technology to provide advertising about products and services tailored to your interests which may appear either on our Services or on other websites.
To the extent these online tracking technologies are deemed to be a "sale"/"sharing" (which includes targeted advertising, as defined under the applicable laws) under applicable U.S. state laws, you can opt out of these online tracking technologies by submitting a request as described below under section "Do United States residents have specific privacy rights?”
Specific information about how we use such technologies and how you can refuse certain cookies is set out in our Cookie Notice.
5. How long do we keep your information?
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting, or other legal requirements).
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
6. How do we keep your information safe?
Free DC uses Action Network and its companion CRM Action Builder to store contact information. These platforms use appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal information, including encryption of data in transit and at rest, industry-standard development practices and software update policies to keep software up to date and secure, use of web application firewalls and other security tools, regular security audits and scans, and logging and monitoring of access to personal information. See Action Network and Action Builder’s full privacy policy at https://actionnetwork.org/privacy.
That said, no electronic transmission over the internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk.
7. Do we collect information from minors?
We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly share such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent’s use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at team@freedcproject.org.
8. What are your privacy rights?
Withdrawing your consent — If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, which may be express and/or implied consent depending on the applicable law, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section "How can you contact us about this notice?" below. However, please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal nor, when applicable law allows, will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
Opting out of marketing and promotional communications — You can unsubscribe from our marketing and promotional communications at anytime by replying "STOP" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" to the SMS messages that we send, at the link included at the bottom of all promotional emails, or by contacting us using the details provided in the section "How can you contact us about this notice?" below. You will then be removed from the marketing lists. However, we may still communicate with you — for example, to send you service-related messages that are necessary for the administration and use of your account, to respond to service requests, or for other non-marketing purposes.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Information sharing to subcontractors in support services, such as customer service, is permitted. All other use case categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with third parties.
If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at team@freedcproject.org.
9. Controls for Do-Not-Track features
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates yourchoice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in arevised version of this Privacy Notice.
California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser DNT signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring DNT signals, we do not respond to them at this time.
10. Do United States residents have specific policy rights?
If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, or Virginia, you may have the right to request access to and receive details about the personal information we maintain about you and how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, get a copy of, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. More information is provided below.
Categories of Personal Information We Collect
The table below shows the categories of personal information we have collected in the past twelve (12) months. The table includes illustrative examples of each category and does not reflect the personal information we collect from you.
| Category | Examples | Collected |
| Identifiers | Contact details such as name, postal address, telephone or mobile contact number, Internet Protocol address, and email address. | YES |
| Personal information as defined in the California Customer Records Statute | Name, contact information | YES |
| Protected classification characteristics under state or federal law | Race and ethnicity information, by request | YES |
| Commercial information | Transaction information, financial details, and payment information | NO |
| Biometric information | Fingerprints and voiceprints | NO |
| Internet or other similar network activity | Browsing history, search history, online behavior, interest data, and interactions with our and other websites, applications, systems, and advertisements | NO |
| Geolocation data | Device location | NO |
| Audio, electronic, sensory, or similar information | Images and audio, video, or call recordings | NO |
| Professional or employment-related information | Business contact details such as job title or company name | NO |
| Education information | Student records and directory information | NO |
| Education information | Student records and directory information | NO |
| Inferences drawn from collected personal information | Inferences drawn from any of the collected personal information listed above to create a profile or summary about, for example, an individual's preferences and characteristics. | NO |
| Sensitive personal information | NO |
We may also collect other personal information outside of these categories through instances where you interact with us in person, online, or by phone or mail.
Your Rights
You have rights under certain U.S. state data protection laws. However, these rights are not absolute, and in certain cases, we may decline your request as permitted by law. These rights include:
Right to know whether or not we are processing your personal data
Right to access your personal data
Right to correct inaccuracies in your personal data
Right to request the deletion of your personal data
Right to obtain a copy of the personal data you previously shared with us
Right to non-discrimination for exercising your rights
Right to opt out of the processing of your personal data if it is used for targeted advertising (or sharing as defined under California’s privacy law), the sale of personal data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects ("profiling")
Depending upon the state where you live, you may also have the following rights:
Right to access the categories of personal data being processed (as permitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in Minnesota)
Right to obtain a list of the categories of third parties to which we have disclosed personal data (as permitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in California, Delaware, and Maryland)
Right to obtain a list of specific third parties to which we have disclosed personal data (as permitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in Minnesota and Oregon)
Right to review, understand, question, and correct how personal data has been profiled (as permitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in Minnesota)
Right to limit use and disclosure of sensitive personal data (aspermitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in California)
Right to opt out of the collection of sensitive data and personal data collected through the operation of a voice or facial recognition feature (as permitted by applicable law, including the privacy law in Florida)
How to Exercise Your Rights
To exercise these rights, you can contact us by visiting freedcproject.org/sign-up, by emailing us at team@freedcproject.org, or by referring to the contact details at the bottom of this document.
Under certain U.S. state data protection laws, you can designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. We may deny a request from an authorized agent that does not submit proof that they have been validly authorized to act on your behalf in accordance with applicable laws. Under certain U.S. state data protection laws, if we decline to take action regarding your request, you may appeal our decision by emailing us at team@freedcproject.org.
California "Shine The Light" Law
California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the "Shine The Light" law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us by using the contact details provided in the section “How can you contact us about this notice?”
11. Do we update this notice?
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date at the top of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
12. How can you contact us about this notice?
If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at team@freedcproject.org or contact us by mail at:
Free DC, a fiscally hosted special project of Community Change
1536 U St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
United States
13. How can you review, update, or delete the data we collect from you?
You have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, details about how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please contact team@freedcproject.org.
Data Privacy Policy for
Canvasses and Community Outreach
As part of our outreach, Free DC may make limited information available to phone bank, text bank, or canvassing volunteers about individuals who have expressed interest in our organizing. Here is what all parties should know about these situations.
For Volunteers
Our work is grounded in mutual respect — The best work comes out of relationships that are grounded in respect for one another. We have a collective interest in treating each other with this value at all times.
Confidentiality — Data you access through a phone bank, text bank, or canvassing shift should not be shared, recorded, or transferred in any way.
Stated purpose — Data you access through a phone bank, text bank, or canvassing shift should be used only for the stated purpose of that shift and not other uses.
Violations — Violations of these agreements will result in a permanent ban from all future use of our data systems.
By signing up for a Free DC outreach shift you agree to this Data Privacy Policy.
For Community Members
We take privacy and security seriously. We understand that treating your personal information with care is a matter of both respect as well as safety.
When we hold phone banks, text banks, or canvasses, we take steps to make sure volunteers see a very limited amount of information about you. This information is not able to be downloaded or accessed in bulk, and Free DC’s data management team retains control over who has access to this information.
If you have questions about this policy, reach out any time to team@freedcproject.org.
Text Messaging Terms of Service
By signing up for text message updates, you agree to receive political text messages from Free DC at the mobile number provided by the user. Message frequency may vary based on your interactions, upcoming events, or important notices from Free DC. Message and data rates may apply. You can request help by responding to a text message with HELP or by emailing team@freedcproject.org. You can opt out of receiving text messages at any time by replying STOP to any message.