Effective date: November 17, 2023
This privacy policy (the “Policy”) describes our practices with respect to Personal Information we collect from or about you when you use our website at https://cherokeeregistry.com, and services (collectively, “Services”) including image repair, document delivery, tribal citizenship applications, and “Our Cherokee Stories”.
CherokeeRegistry.com (“Cherokee Registry”) provides services, tools, and resources that assist our members and users worldwide in discovering their Native American ancestry, and if eligible, to become citizens of federally recognized tribes in the United States.
As used in this Policy, “personal data” or “personal information” means any information that relates to, describes, could be used to identify an individual, directly or indirectly.
Applicability: This Policy applies to personal data that Cherokee Registry collects, uses, and discloses and which may include: (i) data collected through the Services, (ii) data collected through the process of training Cherokee Registry machine learning algorithms, (iii) data collected through Cherokee Registry websites, and (iv) data collected from third party sources. Third party sources may include, but not be limited to: public databases, commercial data sources, and the public internet. When you make purchases, we use third-party payment processors to collect credit card, shipping address, or other financial information. Cherokee Registry does not store the credit card or payment information you provide, only confirmation that payment was made.
Changes: We may update this Policy from time-to-time to reflect changes in legal, regulatory, operational requirements, our practices, and other factors. Please check this Policy periodically for updates. If any of the changes are unacceptable to you, you should cease interacting with us. When required under applicable law, we will notify you of any changes to this Policy.
Definitions: Through this Policy, “You”, or “Your” means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable. Company (referred to as either “the Company”, “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to Cherokee Registry LLC. Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).
Collecting and Using Your Personal Data
We collect, process and store your Personal Information as you use our website, mobile applications, and services (collectively the “Services”). Personal Information is information that can identify you, such as your name, email or street address, or it may be information that could reasonably be linked back to you. This Privacy Statement describes our practices for collecting, storing and processing your Personal Information and the controls we provide you to manage it within our Services. In addition, we have a Cookie Policy that describes our use of browser cookies and similar tracking technologies which is considered a part of this Privacy Statement.
For users that register on our website, 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.
By creating an account you are telling us that you understand Cherokee Registry will collect, process, and share your Personal Information (including your family tree, and gedcom file) as described in this Privacy Statement and in any other documents referenced in this Privacy Statement. Account creation also requires you to agree to our Terms and Conditions and this Privacy Statement.
The information that you provide when you voluntarily create a user profile, and additional personal details that you provide in your profile (for example, a profile image, your name, age, location, etc.), will be visible to other Users. Information you provide about yourself when you voluntarily contribute to the Services, upload content or participate in community discussions, which may include information about yourself or other living persons. For example, you might contribute details (stories, images) about you or another person’s family trees, annotate related content or records. Personal data is also generated from technical processes such as contact forms, comments, cookies, analytics, and third party embeds.
Data Collected
While interacting with the Services, You may provide certain personally identifiable information that could be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:
Native American blood quantum, Tribal affiliations and citizenship,
Ancestral information about deceased and living persons, Genealogical DNA test results that could include data concerning health.
Your user name for the Services, Contact Information, Your Email, Organizational Information like your company title, Text or images you input into the Services or public chats you maintain on the service. Your communications with other Users through our communications features, chat, and forums as well as information you provide in communications with our genealogical research services, and support teams for our other Services, including audio and visual information.
We may collect information related to certain protected classifications such as gender or marital status. Other data that you elect to send to Cherokee Registry.
If you purchase a gift or membership as a gift, we will collect Personal Information, such as the recipient’s name, shipping address, email address, and the necessary purchase information to complete the gift and notify the recipient.
Information from Public and Historical Records
Cherokee Registry collects records from various sources, including government archives and other official record sources, newspapers and obituaries, census records, historical journals and diaries, as well as birth, death, marriage, clan, “Degree of Indian Blood”, and tribal records which may contain Personal Information relating to you. Public and historical records may also contain Personal Information relating to non-Cherokee or Native American users including those who were removed from certain historical or tribal rolls and census. These records are usually made available to Users as part of the Cherokee Registry membership Services. Information about deceased persons is not Personal Information under this Privacy Statement.
Information from Third Parties
We may also receive information about you from third parties. For example, we may supplement the data we collect with information licensed from third parties in order to personalize the Services and our offers to you. If you interact with social media through the Services, for example “Like,” “Tweet,” “Pin,” or “Follow Us” links to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, we will collect these interactions and whatever account information these services make available to us. Note that your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy statement of the applicable third-party company.
Information we collect automatically:
The Internet protocol (“IP”) address of your computer, mobile device, or the proxy server that you use to access the Internet, in addition to other technical information, such as:
Tracking Technologies and Cookies, Computer and Mobile Device Information that includes your computer operating system, web browser, and usage data. If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email. Your mobile device identifier provided by your mobile device operating system and your mobile operating system. The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier.
Information about your use of the Services, such as which pages you view or links you click on, or when you add people to your tree, etc., which we may use to infer details about you as a customer (for example subscriber, engaged/occasional user, etc.). With your permission we may collect geolocation information from your device.
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. Metadata associated with digital photographs including location, date, and time the photo was taken.
Cookies:
If you leave a comment on our 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 data 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 data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
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.
Google Web Fonts
For uniform representation of fonts, this page uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly.
For this purpose your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our plugin. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO.
If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer.
Further information about handling user data, can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
YouTube
Our website uses plugins from YouTube, which is operated by Google. The operator of the pages is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA.
If you visit one of our pages featuring a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. Here the YouTube server is informed about which of our pages you have visited.
If you’re logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube allows you to associate your browsing behavior directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account.
YouTube is used to help make our website appealing. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO.
Further information about handling user data, can be found in the data protection declaration of YouTube under https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.
Use of Your Personal DATA:
Cherokee Registry may use Personal Data for the following purposes:
- To provide,maintain, and improve our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service.
- To manage Your account: to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user.
- For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us through the Service.
- To contact You: To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application’s push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation.
- To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information.
- To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.
- For business transfers: We may use Your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.
- For other purposes: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience.
Who we share your data with:
We may share Your personal information in the following situations:
With Service Providers, Third Party Vendors, Consultants, and other Business Partners: We may share Your personal information with these parties in order to provide services on our behalf, monitor and analyze the use of our services, contact You, and for the reasons stated in the Agreement. Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.
For business transfers: We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
With Law Enforcement: Under certain circumstances, Cherokee Registry may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency). To the extent we receive a request from Law Enforcement for Your personal data, we will promptly notify You and provide You with a copy of the request, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.
With Other Parties in order to:
Comply with a legal obligation
Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
Protect against legal liability
With Your consent: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent.
How long we retain your data
The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.
The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
At any time, you can request that Cherokee Registry delete information you have uploaded into your account, such as a family tree. You can also delete your entire account.
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.
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 your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your information, including Personal Data, is processed by the Company’s hosted servers and in any other places where the research team members and parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those in Your jurisdiction.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.
The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
