Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to HCGEC. This policy explains what, how, and why we collect, use, manage, export, store, and how to delete your information, and what choices you have with respect to your information.

When we refer to “the Competition”, we mean the Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition, which is the event that you are registering for.

When we refer to the “HCGEC Team”, we mean the Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition Organizing Executive Team, a team within Crimson Education, that acts as the controller or processor of your information, as explained in more detail in the “Data Controller and Contacting HCGEC” section below.

“Personal Data” is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

We communicate our privacy policy to HCGEC employees and enforce our policies within the organising committee.

Applicability of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to all of HCGEC’s programs and includes the essaycomp.org, the Facebook page under the handle @globalessaycomp, the Instagram page under the handle @globalessaycomp, and all other HCGEC websites and social media platforms (collectively, the “Websites”) and other interactions (e.g., customer service inquiries, emails, newsletters, etc.) you may have with HCGEC. If you do not agree with the terms, do not access or use the Websites or interact with any other aspect of HCGEC’s programs, including attending our events either in person or online.

Why HCGEC Collects Data

You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with HCGEC. You are not required to provide the personal information that we have requested, but, if you do not provide the information, in most cases we will not be able to register you for our events or respond to any queries you may have. We use the information we collect from all our events, websites, and programs for the following purposes:

1. We use your information to ensure our services are working as intended, such as troubleshooting issues that you report to us. And we use your information to make improvements to HCGEC’s programs.

2. We use the information we collect in existing programs to help us develop new ones.

3. We use data for analytics to understand how our services are used. For example, we analyze data about your visits to our sites to do things like optimizing our programs.

4. We use the information we collect, like your email address, to interact with you directly. For example, your email address will be used to tell you when your registration is successful and release details necessary for your participation in the competition, such as essay prompt. You will also be entered on HCGEC mailing lists and will receive our frequent newsletters. We will occasionally send you information about HCGEC events, organizations, and sponsors. If you contact HCGEC, we’ll keep a record of your email in order to help solve any issues you might be facing.

5. We use the information to help improve the safety and reliability of our services. This includes detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks, loss prevention, and technical issues that could harm HCGEC, our users, or the public.

6. We use the information to bill and collect money owed to us for our programs and events. This includes sending you emails, invoices, and receipts, and alerting you if we need a different credit card number. We use third parties for secure credit card transaction processing, and those third parties process your orders and credit card payments.

Your Information

HCGEC may collect data and information in a variety of ways:

1. Registration Information. Some information is required to register for the Competition, such as your real name, email address (not a school email address), school name, country of residence, age, your telephone number. This is the only information you have to provide to create an account with us. This information is treated as personally identifiable information.

2. Usage Information:

a. Log data: As with most technology services and websites delivered over the Internet, our servers automatically collect information when you access or use our Websites or Services and record it in log files. This log data may include the Internet Protocol (IP) address, the address of the web page visited before using the Website or Services, browser type and settings, the date and time the Services were used, information about your devices, and cookie data. This information is treated as personally identifiable information.

b. Location information: We receive information from you that helps us approximate your location. Unless you provide consent specifically for a location-based service, this type of information is only collected in an anonymized or aggregated format and is not personally identifiable. We may, for example, use an IP address received from your browser or device to determine your approximate location. HCGEC may also collect location information from devices in accordance with the consent process provided by your device.

3. Cookie Information. HCGEC uses cookies and similar technologies in our Websites that help us collect other information. This type of information is only collected in an anonymized or aggregated format and is not personally identifiable.

4. Additional Information Provided to HCGEC.

a. We receive other information when submitted to our Websites if you participate in an activity or event, request help or support, interact with our social media accounts, or otherwise communicate with HCGEC. Here are some examples of situations in which you transmit data to us:

i. When you visit and use our websites. We collect certain data when you use our website or when take part in our events or reply to our surveys or questionnaires hosted on third-party sites. Certain information is collected even if you are not registered as a Competitor. This may happen when you view pages, take part in surveys, attend any of our events, share a page on a social network, etc.

ii. When you register for an event on our websites, we have to retain certain data relating to your order, such as your email and billing address.

iii. When you register for the Competition allows you to use HCGEC’s services. You need to provide us with certain data to identify yourself in the Competition and to access registrant-only events and content on our Websites. Registering for the Competition allows you to access and control the Personal Data that you provide.

Intellectual Property and recordings

By participating in the Competition, you consent to be photographed, and video-recorded during webinars/workshops, and have your essay submission and published on HCGEC’s Websites.

As a registrant in the Competition, you may be required to produce materials including, but not limited to: reports, slide presentations, and vocal presentations over video conferencing software. By participating in the Competition, you consent to such materials to assist it in developing future events and for event promotion purposes. Some examples of these uses are:

1. Publishing materials (including recordings) on HCGEC’s Websites, which include our Social Media platforms,

2. Prize-winning individuals will have their name, age, and country announced on HCGEC’s Websites, as well as through HCGEC’s media partners, such as news channels,

3. Recordings will be included in future promotional content for the Competition.

Cookies and Other Technologies

To help analyze how you and other visitors navigate the Websites, and help diagnose any problems with HCGEC’s servers, we, with assistance from third-party analytics service providers, may collect certain information when you visit our site. This information includes IP address, geographic location of the device, browser type, browser language, date and time of your request, time(s) of your visit(s), page views, and page elements (e.g., links) that you click. We may use cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, clear GIFs, or other similar tools on our websites or in our email messages to assist us in collecting and analyzing such information. We use this information to provide better, more relevant content on our site, to identify and fix problems, and to improve your overall experience on our websites.

If you do not want information collected through the use of these technologies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to automatically decline many of these technologies, or to be given the choice of declining or accepting them. If you reside in the European Union or another jurisdiction that requires us to obtain your consent to use cookies on our sites, then you will have an opportunity to manage your cookie preferences on the sites; except that certain cookies are required to enable core site functionality, and you cannot choose to disable those cookies.

In many of our email messages including HCGEC newsletters and announcements, we use a “click-through URL” linked to content on HCGEC Websites. When you click one of these URLs, you will pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our emailed communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages. Pixel tags enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they tell us whether mail has been opened.

Email and Other Communications

We may use your personal information to send important notices, such as communications about updates for HCGEC events you have registered for and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. We will do this via the email address you provide when you register. Because this information is important to your interaction with HCGEC, you may not opt out of receiving these communications.

We will also want to contact you about HCGEC programs, general competition announcements, website updates, and special offers from our sponsors and partners. This type of communication is most often conveyed through our email updates but may also include special announcements. This type of communication requires your consent, and you may opt out of such email communications at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link found at the bottom of those emails.

Sharing Your Information

This section describes how HCGEC may share and disclose Information. You determine your own practices for the sharing and disclosure of Information, and HCGEC does not control how you choose to share or disclose Information

1. Customer’s Instructions: HCGEC will solely share and disclose user Personal Data in accordance with your instructions and in compliance with applicable law.

2. Corporate Sponsors: HCGEC may share other information with its corporate sponsors, parents, and/or subsidiaries.

3. Aggregated or De-identified Data: We may disclose or use aggregated or de-identified other information for any purpose.

4. To Comply with Laws: If we receive a request for information, we may discloseOther Information if we reasonably believe disclosure is in accordance with or required by any applicable law, regulation, or legal process.

5. To Enforce our Rights, Prevent Fraud, and for Safety: We may disclose other information to protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of HCGEC or third parties, including enforcing contracts or policies, or in connection with investigating and preventing fraud or security issues.

6. With Consent, HCGEC may share other information with third parties, when we have consent to do so.

Rights to Export, Update, and Delete Data

If you reside in the European Economic Area, you have the right under the General Data Protection Regulation to request from HCGEC access to and rectification or erasure of your Personal Data, data portability, restriction of processing of your Personal Data, and the right to object to the processing of your Personal Data.

To request access to or rectification, portability, or erasure of your Personal Data, or to cancel your registration, contact us directly at: info@essaycomp.org

Please feel free to contact HCGEC if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or HCGEC’s practices, or if you are seeking to exercise any of your statutory rights.

The data collected by HCGEC will be managed by Crimson Education, an education technology company registered in NZ. It can be reached by its telephone number at +64 93030086, and its email at competitions@crimsonconsulting.org

EU Data Protection Authority

Subject to applicable law, you also have the right to restrict HCGEC’s use of other information that constitutes your personal identifiable data and lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Modifications

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time. The most recent version of the Privacy Policy is reflected by the version date located at the top of this Privacy Policy. All updates are effective immediately upon notice, which we may give by any means, including, but not limited to, by posting a revised version of this Privacy Policy or other notice on the Websites. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy often to stay informed of changes that may affect you, as your continued use of the Website signifies your continuing consent to be bound by this Privacy Policy.