Privacy, Consent and Terms of Use

Users/Signers/Members:

Any information you provide for public viewing on a petition signatures page is accessible by anyone on the Internet. Please exercise normal caution in making your personal information public, as you would with public information on your own web page, or any other. Your confidentiality will be maintained to the degree permitted by the technology used. Specifically, no guarantees can be made regarding the interception of data sent via the Internet by any third parties.

If you are signing the charter, you may be sent a signature receipt by email that confirms that you have signed the petition. The receipt is for your records. Your email address may be used for signature verification by POVC when we conduct quality control of a signature list.

Your information

POVC will not give or sell your information to any third party. POVC agrees to use signatures responsibly and legally. This may involve POVC contacting you about the violence prevention charter campaign you have supported at POVC. Petition targets may also ultimately view signature details provided by each signer.

Signature and Signature Comment Display and Search Engine Access to Signature Lists and Signature Comments

If you are signing a petition your signature and signature comment (excluding your email address and street address) may be publicly displayed in a signature list (and signature comment page). Our public lists do not include email or street addresses, but may include your town/city. Comments made with a signature will appear on a charter declaration page and can appear on a dedicated signature comment page.

Please note that search engines such as Google and Yahoo may be able to view your signature and signature comment and may index your signature and signature comment (if made).

Facebook comments

If you use the facebook comment facility on any petition then your name and facebook photo may appear on the POVC site. POVC uses a facebook plugin for the facebook comment facility. POVC does not guarantee that attempts to edit facebook comments by users of this facility will result in the desired editorial results. Any use of the facebook comment facility is at the user's own risk.

POVC’s use of Google Maps software

POVC generates signature maps powered by a special application of Google Maps known as MarkerClusterer. This software collects signature markers into different clusters and displays the number of markers in each cluster with a label, creating new clusters as the map zoom level changes. Signature maps at POVC can be used for a variety of purposes, electoral and otherwise. Maps at POVC do NOT label any particular signer, nor are they intended to. The maps are simply designed to give a geographical overview of supporter interest. You should be aware that any geographical information you provide may be used to generate maps at POVC.

Signature Details and Personal Information

Signatures will include the signer's IP address which will be available to the author and POVC administrators for security reasons. Other information provided to POVC in the signature process will be treated according to international standards.

POVC provides personal data access rights to all signers and others who leave personal information on the POVC website. POVC respects the data access rights of those who entrust information to the POVC website. POVC complies with International protocols in this regard. International standards allow for small administrative fees to be applied in some cases where records are requested or edits requested in relation to personal records.

Terms of Use

(1). User/Member Agreement: Users/Members agree that Users/Members will not:

A. Use petition or forum facilities for any purpose in violation of local, provincial, or national laws of any country;

B. Post material that is copyrighted, unless User/Member owns them or has the permission of the copyright owner to post it;

C. Post material that reveals trade secrets, unless User/Member owns them or has the permission of the owner of the trade secrets to post it;

D. Post material that infringes on any other intellectual property rights of others or on the privacy or publicity rights of others;

E. Post material that could be construed by a reasonable person as obscene or defamatory in relation to a User/Member or any other person or entity;

F. Post advertisements, solicitations of business, chain letters or pyramid schemes;

G. Post personal information of targets or email addresses of other people (including employees of targets) that could not be construed as either directly relevant to a public campaign or that may infringe on the personal rights of the people so named (via disclosure of personal information or personal contact information e.g. private or work email addresses). POVC in its discretion can remove such information from the charter site without notice.

H. Impersonate another person.

I. Submit false User/Member information when opening an account or signing a petition. POVC reserves the right to edit, change or remove an account, petitions or signatures or any other information when untruthful or inaccurate User/Member information is supplied. This includes but is not limited to Name, Address, City, Province, (postal) code and e-mail address.

J. Signature Management and Signature Edits. Members must not edit a signature in any way that compromises the intent of the signer. POVC agrees to edit signatures only to remedy a spelling or grammatical error, remove an obscenity or remove spam, or delete illegal material.

K. Members must use signature lists (including email addresses) responsibly, legally and in compliance with our Privacy Policy which forms part of these Terms. Members undertake not to spam their signature list. Members may forward their signature list to their petition's target but must not re-publish their petition's signature list on their own or any 3rd party website. Republication of signatures is in breach of our terms, our intellectual property rights (see Term (4) below), and our privacy undertaking to signers.

L. Will not hold POVC responsible for the consequences of any search engine access to public signature list details.

M. Hold POVC liable in relation to third party search engine activity. Listings of POVC content by search engines are possible because POVC has a general data transparency policy. Urgent requests to search engines for content removal can be made by users to those search engines through the various request channels of those search engines.

N. Members may receive periodic emails from POVC which relate to site functions.

(2.) (a) Users agree that their petition(s), signatures, and member profile(s) will be stored for a minimum of two years in the POVC database. Members agree that their petition(s) will be retained on the POVC website for historical record. Members agree that if a petition is closed it will be publicly archived for signers and/or the general public to view so as to ascertain the status of the petition and/or the results of the petition. A closed version of all petitions will remain live on the site as an historical record. Archived petitions allow for data access by signers and targets. Archived petitions also allow the general public to ascertain the status of a petition. Archiving also has other historical and social benefits. Members are not permitted to forward or refer an open or closed petition to another petition site either by way of URL forwarding or by notation (text direction). User signatures are retained in the POVC database for legal reasons. Retained data, however, will be subject to fair usage and the reasonable consents of users in relation to publication.

(b) Users acknowledge that the signature list URL can be made available by POVC and sent (emailed) to the petition target for viewing of the signature list at any time and on completion of the petition.

(c) Users acknowledge that they are responsible for their own content and any associated comments or forum comments related to their petition(s). POVC shall moderate comments associated with the charter. Users shall report abuse to POVC if they become aware of it.

(3.) License and copyright: By posting petitions and other communications, User/Member grants to POVC a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, moderate, publish, translate, distribute, perform and display those communications, inclusive of signatures, alone or as part of other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or hereafter developed. POVC reserves any and all intellectual property rights, including copyright or otherwise, attached to the publication of the charter authored by users, on the POVC website. POVC shall retain copyright over all signature lists generated on the POVC website.

(4.) Indemnity: Every User/Member agrees to hold harmless POVC and its officers and directors from any and all claims, actions or demands, resulting from User/Member material or personal information posted to any facilities provided by POVC. Users agree to indemnify POVC for any legal claims against POVC resulting from member content posted on the POVC website, or any content endorsed by a member on the member's petition. The indemnity shall include all legal costs pre, during and post litigation resulting from any action by an aggrieved party. The indemnity operates regardless of whether the legal action is successfully defended by POVC or not. All and any court costs orders, regardless of a case's outcome, are included in this indemnity.

(5.) Listings of POVC content by search engines such as Google are the responsibility of those engines as POVC has a general data transparency policy. POVC, however, allows and encourages Members to control their own data. POVC seeks to balance the interests of data transparency, data control, Privacy, data access and search engine exposure for the benefit of our users and the general public.

(6.) POVC at its absolute discretion may release member or signer contact and other identifying details to third parties without notice or reasons to the member or signer. This clause would be occasionally invoked, for example, when POVC forms an opinion that the release of such information would be fair or equitable or may help in a legitimate legal investigation, criminal or civil.

(7.) Construction: Nothing in the policy shall be construed as reducing or limiting POVC's rights or interests, or as expanding POVC's duties, obligations or liabilities beyond those provided for in these Terms and Conditions.

(8.) POVC reserves the right to amend or change these terms of service so as to improve the services of POVC.

(9.) POVC has the right to moderate site content so that POVC's Terms are complied with. Due to the magnitude of content on the site, POVC does not warrant that all content is actively moderated. POVC does not warrant that its moderation of content complies with the laws of relevant jurisdictions. POVC has the right to remove any site content, including petitions and forums, without notice or reasons. Any content removal shall be at POVC's absolute discretion. Users may submit a request for removal of petition or signature information, subject to POVC's discretion.

(10.) POVC does not necessarily endorse any website or advertiser displayed on the site. Ads served by a Google robot are not selected by POVC.