Central Office of Western Colorado Privacy Policy

The Central Office of Western Colorado operates its digital platforms in strict accordance with the A.A. Traditions, most notably the principle of personal anonymity. This policy explains how Central Office of Western Colorado collects, uses, shares and protects your personal information. This policy applies to personal information you submit to us and other information we collect about you when you interact with our website, online store, along with emails and texts forwarded to Central Office of Western Colorado or with phone calls that we receive from the public as well as A.A. members. Central Office of Western Colorado may modify this Privacy Policy at any time by updating our Privacy Policy Page on our website.

Personal Information We Collect: You may submit certain personal information in connection with your use of our website, purchase of literature, making a contribution, or participating as a volunteer. For example, if you purchase literature on our website, make a contribution or register for one of our events, you may be asked to enter your name, email, phone number, credit card information and address. You may also submit personal information when you request information or other assistance, sign up to receive our newsletter or receive communications from us, or otherwise communicate with us. If you submit personal information on behalf of someone else, you must ensure that you have their authorization and consent to provide Central Office of Western Colorado with their personal information.

Data Collection: The organization does not sell, trade, or distribute your personal information. Any data collected (such as names, emails or phone numbers, event registrations, online purchases, online contributions, contact form submissions and emails forwarded to Central Office) is strictly used for fulfilling administrative needs (such as sending newsletters, ordering and shipping literature, updating meeting schedules, etc.)

Anonymity Protection: We do not publish full names, faces, or identifying details of A.A. members in meeting lists, on our website, in our bi-monthly newsletter, in event photos posted on our website or in our newsletter, or on the Internet, or public communications. When filling out general inquiry forms on our website, you are only asked for a first name and last initial for last name plus email, and full last names are never required.

Voluntary Information: Personal contact information (like your name, email or phone number) is only collected if you voluntarily provide it when ordering literature, make a contribution, or contacting the Central Office of Western Colorado.

Use of Personal Information – We may use your personal information to:

• Process and fulfill orders, contributions and other transactions.
• Organize and coordinate your participation in events.
• Communicate with you about your account or information you have submitted, respond to your inquiries and requests for customer service or other assistance or information.
• Send newsletters and other communications.
• Notify you about changes to our policies.
• Optimize or improve our website, content, products, events, activities, communications and operations.
• Let you know about websites, content, literature, events, activities, promotions, features and functionality, that we think might be of interest to you.
• Detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our terms or policies, applicable law or regulations, or the rights of any persons, organizations or entities.

Disclosure of Personal Information:

We will only disclose your Personal Information to other organizations, companies and individuals as described here:

• Service Providers: Central Office of Western Colorado engages third-party contractors that provide services, such as credit card processing, order fulfillment, marketing, website hosting, web analytics, and providing customer service. These entities may have access to Personal Information in order to perform their functions. We do not authorize them to disclose that information we share with them for any other purpose.
• Legally Compelled Disclosures: We may disclose personal information to government authorities and other third parties when compelled to do so by law, including, without limitation, in response to court orders and subpoenas.
• Emergency Situations: We may disclose personal information if required to do so or in the good-faith belief that such disclosure is necessary to protect and defend its rights or property, the website or its members, and act under emergency circumstances to protect the personal safety of our personnel, its members, or others.
• Affiliated Entities: We may disclose personal information to our other affiliated organizations, including the General Service Office, Area 10 and A.A. Districts in Western Colorado.
• Change of Ownership or Organizational Structure: We may transfer personal information to another entity in connection with any change of ownership, change of organizational structure or similar transaction, such as, for example, a transfer to an entity with which we have merged, that we have acquired or that has acquired. Central Office of Western Colorado will require the transferee to agree to follow the practices described in this Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time.

Records: Central Office of Western Colorado does collect full names, phone numbers and emails for Hotline Volunteers, or if you are serving as an Officer, Member-at-Large or Intergroup Representative. Full names are also collected for Officers and disclosed in Form 990 (IRS Tax Return).

Security Measures: Central Office of Western Colorado implements standard security and organizational measures to safeguard your personal data during transmission and storage. Personal information is stored securely at Google with additional documents stored on a file server with a firewall and malicious file exclusion technology with all data encrypted and backed up to AWS where it is also encrypted. Due to the nature of the Internet, no transmission of data over the Internet is not guaranteed to be completely secure. It may be possible for third parties to intercept or access transmissions or private communications unlawfully, including when you contact Central Office of Western Colorado by email or utilizing one of our online forms or similar feature on the website. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee that information, during transmission through the internet or while stored on our computer system or otherwise in its care, will be absolutely safe from intrusion by others, such as hackers.

Website: The type of information collected from our website includes information about your computer, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the website, which may also include, for example, IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information. We may also collect information about your use of our website which may include, for example, a history of the pages you visit on our website. Geolocation information is only used when AA members search for meetings nearest them on the Central Office of Western Colorado website.

Cookies: Like many websites, our website may use cookies, which are files stored on your device that help us identify users and optimize their website experience. Most browsers accept cookies automatically but allow you to disable them. We recommend that you leave cookies enabled so we can offer you a better experience. Central Office of Western Colorado does not drop cookies or other tracking methods that are persistent and cannot be erased from your device. Your IP address, searches, and other usage information may be collected by Google Analytics, but only to generate aggregated data to help us improve our website. You can disable the use of cookies on your browser. If you disable the use of cookies on your browser, you may not be able to access certain functions of our website.

Meeting Confidentiality: Personal sharing and disclosures made during physical or virtual A.A. meetings in Western Colorado are understood by the fellowship to be strictly confidential.

A.A. Speakers at Events: If you participate as an A.A. speaker at one of our events, your first name, last initial, and limited biographical information will be included on our website and emails which are distributed to A.A. members, other event attendees and speakers, with copies retained in our archives.

Payment Security: If you make voluntary contributions or purchase literature through the Central Office of Western Colorado Website or Online Store, all financial transactions are processed securely through an encrypted third-party payment gateway.

Children: Our website is not directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age. If you are under 13 years of age you should not use our website, and under no circumstance should you provide personally identifiable information to Central Office of Western Colorado.