The Boy Scouts of America is committed to respecting and protecting the personal privacy of its members and those who visit its Web site. It is our policy to acquire personal information from users only by overt means, only when it is in the interest of the user to provide it, and to utilize this information only for the purpose it was provided. Sites may collect the same personal information that is required on paper forms to register and become a member of the Boy Scouts of America. We do not use agents or service providers.
The information that follows explains the kinds of information BSA Web sites may collect, how it is used, and the conditions under which it is made available to third parties, how information is maintained, and our compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects the personal information of children under the age of 13.
What information does this site collect and use?
The Pathway to the Rockies Council site functions for the benefit of visitors to provide information on the membership opportunities of the Boy Scouts of America and the methods by which interested persons and organizations may affiliate with and support the program of the Boy Scouts of America.
Furthermore, program specific information may be collected, tracked and stored to help the member, their parent/guardian and the adult leader facilitate the administration of the BSA programs. Examples would include, but are not limited to an individual’s interest, participation, advancement and progress in the BSA programs. All information collected is used for the facilitation and development of BSA programs and is only shared with BSA’s business partners in aggregate form for the purposes stated above.
In some situations the user may be asked to voluntarily provide feedback on the site. The questions relate to ease of use, any problems encountered in using the site, site performance (speed) and the general look and feel of the site. Personally identifiable information is not asked for or collected through this process. This information will be used to assist in rectifying problems with the system and improving its usability and performance.
This site also collects anonymous data that is not typically indicative of and cannot be traced to an individual without the cooperation of their Internet Service Provider. This data includes information about the user’s remote IP address, referral data (which page “linked” to the present request), and the browser software’s user-agent string. This information is accepted passively from the HTTP headers that are sent from the user when requesting any file from the server. Other anonymous data entered by the user may be collected in a common repository, including terms entered into the search engine, ZIP codes entered into the council locator, etc.
The anonymous information collected is used to monitor the usage of this Web site and the interests of those who use it. Data such as the volume of traffic to the server, the number of visitors a certain section of the site receives each month, or the most popular search terms are analyzed to derive general statistics about the site’s reach and the audience’s usage patterns.
Use of Cookies
Visitors should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically collected by the Boy Scouts of America sites through the use of “cookies.” “Cookies” are small text files a Web site can use to recognize repeat visitors, facilitate the visitor’s ongoing access to and use of the site, and allow a site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements. Cookies are not programs that come onto a visitor’s system and damage files. Generally, cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor that has no meaning outside the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the visitor to deny or accept the cookie feature. Boy Scouts of America uses “cookie” technology only to obtain non-personal information from its online visitors in order to improve visitors’ online experience and facilitate their visit within our site.
Boy Scouts of America may also use a method known as “session tokens.” The “session token” is a cryptic number that identifies your browser session to our server. This “session token” is stored in the memory of your browser for up to 30 minutes after your last activity on our site and may be completely destroyed by you by closing your browser. This allows the server to continue the “conversation” with you in context of the process or transaction you are involved in. This “session token” is changed automatically during your session for security purposes and is not written to your hard drive. The “session token” does not contain any personally identifiable information; the “session token” is required to use certain systems.
Personally identifiable data is collected only by means of form interfaces on the site, into which the unit administrator must enter the personal information requested. No cookies or any other tracking technology (other than stated above) are used for the purpose of coordinating information that a user may opt to enter in various interfaces on the site.
Service-related Announcements
We will send you strictly service-related announcements on rare occasions when it is necessary to do so. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we might send you an e-mail. We may also e-mail official information as pertains to your Boy Scouts of America membership.
Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature. If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account.
Choice/Opt-out
If you do not wish to receive promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by clicking “Unsubscribe” from the bottom of any email or on any web push notification.
Providing an e-mail address ensures that you will receive notification of transactions involving your account.
Access to Personally Identifiable Information
If your personally identifiable information changes you may update it by logging into MyScouting. Select My Account and click Update Personal Information.
What organization is collecting the information?
Information entered by unit administrators is retrieved directly by the Pathway to the Rockies Council, Boy Scouts of America
With whom does the BSA share the information that is collected?
The BSA only permits access to personal information by authorized and authenticated unit and council members. The personal information collected is not shared with other third parties. Reports, statistics, and other analyses of aggregate anonymous information may be shared within the organization or provided to third parties at the sole discretion of the Boy Scouts of America. This information does not include any personally identifiable information.
Exception: the Boy Scouts of America reserves the right to use all information at its disposal and to share this information with ISPs and other third parties as necessary to investigate any incident of misuse or abuse of its site, server, or information systems. Additionally, we reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.
How does the BSA maintain the information it collects?
The security of your personal information is important to us. All communications between your browser and our system is encrypted using secure socket layer technology (SSL).You will notice the “Locked” ICON appear in the lower right corner of your browser (Internet Explorer). We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. All servers are protected and monitored by leading firewall technology 24 hours a day.
Changes in this Privacy Statement
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by e-mail, or by means of a notice on our home page.
Links to Other Sites
If you click on a link to a third party site, which includes other council sites, unit sites, and sites of BSA affiliates, you will leave the Pathway to the Rockies Council site you are visiting and go to the site you selected. Because we cannot control the activities of third parties, we cannot accept responsibility for any use of your personally identifiable information by such third parties, and we cannot guarantee that they will adhere to the same privacy practices as Boy Scouts of America. We encourage you to review the privacy statements of any other service provider from whom you request services. If you visit a third party website, you should read that site’s privacy statement before providing any personal information.
Other Information
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
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.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this 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.
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.
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 data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data 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.
