In-depth, underreported and high-impact journalism that promotes the public good

Privacy Policy

Who we are

The Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism, dba Eye On Ohio, is a nonprofit nonpartisan news outlet.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

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.

Contact forms

We use contact form submissions to help us stay in touch with our readers. Information provided via contact forms is not sold to third parties.

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 have an account and you log in to this site, 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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to measure site traffic. Google Analytics gathers certain non-personally identifying information over time, such as your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, referring and exit pages, time stamp, and similar data.

Who we share your data with

We only collect personally identifiable information such as your name and email address when you sign up for a newsletter, donate to our organization, or otherwise submit it to us voluntarily. We do not share your personal data with any third parties other than some common service providers, whose products use your information to help us improve our site, deliver newsletters, or allow us to offer donation opportunities. In most cases, your data remains private and cannot be shared with anyone else.

The Center limits access to all user data for the purposes of newsletter, fundraising, and customer service only. User data is not sold to or otherwise shared with anyone not working with or for the Center.

You may unsubscribe or opt-out of our email and mail communications at any time by hitting the “unsubscribe” button in any email you receive from the Center, or by emailing us at info{at symbol}EyeOnOhio.com.

The security of your personal information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. You provide us with this data at your own risk.

Donor Information

The identities of all donors over $5,000 will be listed on our website, and as a nonprofit our 990s are freely available. Eye on Ohio does not share, trade, sell, or otherwise release donors’ personal information to any third parties.

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.

Our contact information

Please contact us if you have any additional inquiries.

Additional information

Although we take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “Trojan Horses” or other destructive materials to our site, we do not guarantee or warrant that our site or materials that may be downloaded from our site are free from such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. We are not liable for any claim, loss or injustice based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies on our site, nor for any claim, loss or injustice that results from your use of this site or your breach of any provision of this privacy policy.