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LHON Collective Privacy Policy

LHON Collective Privacy Policy

Last Updated June 10, 2026

The LHON Collective Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of LHON Collective’s Services (as defined in our General Terms of Use) and anywhere we display or reference this policy. If you are a resident of North America or you reside outside of North America, your relationship is with LHON Collective and the laws of California and the United States apply.

If the content or information that you store in LHON Collective Services contains personal information of other individuals, you must be legally permitted to disclose the personal information to LHON Collective.

Summary of Key Points

At LHON Collective we take data privacy seriously. We believe in transparency so you can control your data and make informed choices about how it is used. LHON Collective prioritizes your control over the data you share in the following ways:

  • This policy explains when we process personal information for our legitimate interests. You can ask us to stop processing this information. Learn more about your rights and how you can exercise them.

  • This policy also explains when we will first get your consent before processing your personal information, including when doing so is required by law.

  • We use your personal information to enable you to register with LHON Collective and to provide you with further LHON-specific information based on your stated interests.

  • We provide interactive features that engage with social media sites. If you use these features, these sites may send us personal information about you.

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  • We may share information with third parties to jointly provide a service, when applicable, or when such sharing is required by law, or in certain other situations.

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  • We transfer your personal information to the US, which may be outside the country in which you live. We use government-approved contractual clauses, such as European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses, to help protect your personal information.

What does this privacy policy cover?

This privacy policy describes how LHON Collective (also referred to as "we," "us" or "our") will make use of your information in the context of:

  • LHON Collective website;

  • Services that display or include a reference to this policy; 

  • LHON Collective’s outreach and marketing practices;

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What information does LHON Collective collect about me?

LHON Collective registration and community support

When you register with LHON Collective or contact us for support, LHON Collective collects information that identifies you. This includes:

  • Identifiers and contact information, such as:

    • Name;

    • Email address;

    • Telephone number;

    • Postal or Physical Address;

    • Country;

  • Content of and information provided through follow-up surveys and other communications (e.g., stored content of your correspondence with us via our website, phone and video calls, emails, and other channels);

  • Types of Services of interest

  • Professional, education or other demographic information, such as:

    • Date of birth;

    • Company or school name;

    • Title;

    • Occupation;

    • Job function;

    • Expertise;

Inferred Information

To help keep our databases current and to provide the most relevant content and experiences, we may infer or generate information based on the information we collect or combine information provided by you with information from third party sources, in accordance with applicable law. For example, we may infer, generate, or collect and receive information from third parties, including partners, and from publicly accessible sources, for purposes that include detecting, preventing, or otherwise addressing fraudulent, deceptive or illegal activity, misuse of our Services, security or technical issues, as well as to protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of LHON Collective, our employees, our volunteers, our users, children, or the public.

LHON Collective Services

We collect information you provide to us (e.g., when you access and use our Services) or permit us to collect (e.g., as part of a third-party integration). We also collect or generate information about how you access and use our Services, including when you use a desktop or mobile app feature that takes you online (such as a photo syncing feature). Depending on the Services you access and use, this information may be associated with your device or browser or it may be associated with your LHON Collective content. It includes:

Analytics or other electronic network activity, such as:

  • IP address;

  • Browser and device information, including browser and device type, settings, unique identifiers, version, language settings, and configuration;

  • Webpage that led you to an LHON Collective website;

  • Search terms entered into a search engine which led you to an LHON Collective website;

  • Use and navigation of Services, including how you interact with LHON Collective website (collected through cookies and similar technologies, or by LHON Collective servers when you are logged into the app or website);

  • Analysis of your use and navigation of the Services;

  • Analysis of your content subject to your opt-out and consent rights.

  • Professional, Education or other demographic information, such as:

  • Profile information (e.g., account profile, public profile).

  • Commercial and transaction information, such as:

  • Content that includes personal information sent or received using an online feature of LHON Collective Services, or which is stored on LHON Collective servers, such as documents, photos, videos, activity logs, direct feedback from you, metadata about your content, user generated requests such as search terms, prompts (e.g., text, images, videos, audio, etc.), inquiries, feedback, and other information you may disclose when you access or use our Services as well as any information the Services returns in response to such requests.

  • Sensitive personal information, such as:

  • Biometric identifiers or information as defined under US laws (e.g., faceprints and voiceprints from your user Content, as defined in the LHON Collective General Terms of Use) and precise geolocation. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection. See the "LHON Collective acting on your behalf" section below for more information.

LHON Collective emails

Emails we send you may include a technology that collects Analytics or other electronic network activity, such as whether you have received or opened the email, or clicked a link in the email. If you do not want us to collect this information, you can opt out of receiving LHON Collective marketing emails.

Buttons, tools, and content from other companies

LHON Collective Services may include buttons, tools, or content that link to other organizations’ services (for example, a Facebook "Like" button). We may collect information about your use of these features, such as content “liked” and address information in Google Maps. In addition, when you see or interact with these buttons, tools, or content, or view an LHON Collective web page or app containing them, some information from your browser may automatically be sent to the other company. Please read that company’s privacy policy for more information.

LHON Collective social networking pages and social sign-on services

You can sign into some LHON Collective Services using a social networking account, such as a Facebook account. Where you give appropriate permissions, we will receive contact and identifier information about you from your social networking account, such as name, country, and basic demographic information.

We will collect information which you have made publicly available on your social networking account, such as name and interests in our services, when you interact with social networking pages. The social networking sites may provide statistics and insights to LHON Collective which help us understand the types of actions that people take. 

LHON Collective acting on your behalf

In certain instances, LHON Collective is acting only on your behalf for personal information collected and processed by our services (for example, the address book contacts shared by users when entering recipient information). In such cases, LHON Collective is acting only on your instructions in order to facilitate the Service requested by you, and you will be responsible for the information shared. In these instances, we will inform you through notifications or other in-time communications. If you submit any information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with your use of the LHON Collective website, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this policy.

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How does LHON Collective use the information it collects about you, and what are the legal bases for these uses?

LHON Collective uses the information we collect about you for the following purposes:

  • To fulfill a request or stated interest. This includes:

    • Providing you with the LHON Collective Services that you have requested;

    • Administering platform skill/knowledge courses and other content, including testing and certifications (as applicable);

    • Verifying your identity;

    • Processing payments or donations;

    • Sending you necessary communications (for example, related to payments or donations); and

    • Providing customer service or support.

  • As required by LHON Collective to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests:

    • Analyzing your content and its characteristics using automated techniques, in the following circumstances:

      • Operational Use. Our Services will access content that you have uploaded to our servers or shared with LHON Collective, to enable the normal running of the Services.

      • Content Analytics. We may perform analytics to help us understand how our users are using our Services to allow us to improve your Services experience, provide recommendations to you, and customize your experience. Insights from Content Analytics may be used to inform our outreach to you, subject to your opt-out rights regarding our marketing.

    • Analyzing your content and its characteristics using automated techniques or with human review, in the following circumstances:

      • Illegal and Abusive Content. Content may be automatically scanned to ensure we are not hosting illegal or abusive content. Human review may occur when your Content is flagged or reported as illegal or abusive.

      • Public and Shared Content. All public and shared Content is subject to review for intellectual property issues and safety issues (for example, violence and nudity). If you choose to share your Content with others using our Services, we may automatically review this shared Content to flag abusive behavior (such as spam or phishing). When you make your Content publicly available, additional human review may occur.

    • Providing you with the LHON Collective Services for which you have registered and any other services you have requested;

    • Analyzing your use and measuring effectiveness of our Services, including recordings, to better understand how they are being used so we can improve them and engage and retain users;

    • Sending you information about LHON Collective services, special events and similar information, and sharing your information with third parties for their own marketing purposes, where your consent is not required;

    • Analyzing your use and navigation of our Services, your profile information, your interaction with our communications (excluding your content), to:

    • Detect and prevent fraudulent, deceptive, or, illegal activity, or misuse of our Services;

    • Improve our Services, and the user experience, subject to your opt-out and consent rights, including those described here; and

    • Tailor and customize the Services through marketing communications 

    • Diagnosing problems in our Services;

    • Conducting surveys and market research about our users, their interests, the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, and customer satisfaction (unless we need consent to undertake such surveys, in which case we will only do this with your permission);

    • Investigating and responding to any comments or complaints that you may send us;

  • Checking the validity of the sort code, account number and card number you submit if you use a credit or debit card for payment, in order to prevent payment fraud or other illegal or deceptive payment practices (we use third parties for this – see “Does LHON Collective disclose my personal information to others?” below);

  • Combining with other data we may have about how you interacted with our services in order to provide a more seamless experience, show you the most relevant content and services, and for marketing purposes, with your consent where required;

  • If we merge with or are acquired by another company or if all or a substantial portion of our assets are acquired by another company, your information will likely be disclosed to the prospective purchaser, our advisers and any other prospective purchaser's advisers and will be one of the assets that is transferred to the new owner; and

  • In connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory and investigative purposes as necessary (including disclosure of information in connection with government agency requests, legal process or litigation).

Where we process your information based on legitimate interests, you can object to this processing. In such cases, we will cease processing information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons.

If legitimate interest is not an available legal basis in a particular jurisdiction, we will engage in the processing activities described above on a legal basis that is available in that particular jurisdiction.

  • Where required, when you give LHON Collective your consent or otherwise consistent with your choices:

    • Sending you information about LHON Collective services and similar information, and sharing your information with third parties for their own marketing purposes;

    • Placing cookies and using similar technologies in our Services and in email communications, in accordance with our Cookies Policy and the information provided to you when those technologies are used;

    • Analyzing your use and navigation of the Services or your content and its characteristics using automated techniques or human review in order to:

      • Detect and prevent fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal activity or misuse of the Services;

      • Respond to your request (e.g., customer service).

On other occasions where we ask you for consent, we will use the information for the purposes which we explain at that time. Where we rely on consent to process information, you can withdraw your consent to such activities at any time.

  • For legal reasons:

    • Responding to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.

    • Using or disclosing information as reasonably necessary to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, potential deceptive or illegal activities, misuse of Services, or technical issues helping to protect you as well as LHON Collective.

Where this processing and these disclosures are not strictly required by law, LHON Collective may rely on its legitimate interests, where available, and those of third parties described above.

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Does LHON Collective disclose my personal information to others?

Disclosing to other Data Controllers

We will disclose your personal information with other third-party data controllers with your consent (where necessary) or to provide any service you have requested (e.g., third-party integrations). The types of third parties your information may be disclosed to include: our sales and advertising partners, information service providers, fraud monitoring and prevention providers, and publishers. In some cases, in order to show you more relevant information, we disclose with social media platforms and other advertising partners, information about actions you take on our website, such as which pages you visit. These parties may be joint controllers for this processing. Learn more about advertising and marketing practices.

Disclosing for Fraud Prevention, Safety, and Security Purposes

We will disclose personal information to companies that help us run our business to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, deception, illegal activity, misuse of LHON Collective Services, and security or technical issues.

Additionally, we will disclose personal information to companies, organizations, government authorities, or individuals outside of LHON Collective if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to detect, prevent, or protect against such fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal activity, misuse of our Services, or security or technical issues, or where it is reasonably necessary to protect from harm the rights, property or safety of LHON Collective and our employees, our volunteers, our users, children, or the public as required or permitted by law.

Disclosing to other Data Processors

We will also disclose your personal information to companies that help us run our business by processing personal information on behalf of LHON Collective for the purposes identified above. Such companies (including those that may record or store communications) include providers of customer support services, chatbots, session replay partners who provide services which recreate a web or app session showing meaningful insight into a visitor’s experience, providers of analytics technologies that record and analyze your interaction with our website to help us improve your experience, providers of artificial intelligence technologies that record and analyze your content or communications, payment processing services, fraud monitoring and prevention, detecting and preventing deceptive or illegal activity or misuse of our Services, email, social media, and other marketing platforms and service providers, and hosting services. We require these companies to protect your personal information consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Other Information Disclosure

LHON Collective may also disclose your personal information:

  • When you agree to the disclosure;

  • When we have a good faith belief that we are required to provide information in response to a subpoena, court order, or other applicable law or legal process or to respond to an emergency involving the danger of death or serious bodily harm;

  • If we merge with or are acquired by another company, sell the LHON Collective website, or if all or a substantial portion of our assets are acquired by another company, your information will likely be disclosed to the prospective purchaser, our advisers and any prospective purchaser's advisers and will be one of the assets that is transferred to the new owner.

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We may disclose or publish aggregate information that doesn’t specifically identify you, such as statistical information about visitors to our website.

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Is my personal information secure?

We work hard to protect your personal information. We employ administrative, technical, and physical security controls where appropriate, such as encryption, 2-step verification, and appropriate contractual confidentiality obligations for employees and contractors.

Where does LHON Collective store my personal information?

Your personal information and files are stored on the servers of companies we engage to provide services to us.

How does LHON Collective transfer my personal data?

Your information, including Personal Data, is processed wherever authorized representatives of LHON Collective and any third 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.

LHON Collective will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your personal data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

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Does LHON Collective transfer my personal information across national borders?

The main location where we process your personal information is the United States.

LHON Collective uses a limited number of third-party service providers to assist in operating our services. These providers may access, process, or store personal information on our behalf. We require such providers to process personal information only for the purposes of providing services to us and to implement appropriate safeguards to protect that information.

9. Trade Sanctions and Export Control Compliance

The Services and Software, and your use of them, are subject to laws, restrictions, and regulations of the United States and other jurisdictions that govern the import, export, and use of the Services and Software. By using the Services and Software, you agree to comply with all such laws, restrictions, and regulations, and you warrant that you are not prohibited from receiving the Services and Software by the laws of any jurisdiction. Additionally, you agree not to upload to or transmit over any Services or Software any content that is controlled for export from the United States (including technical data controlled under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations and technology controlled under the US Export Administration Regulations) without prior written approval from LHON Collective.

What rights do I have regarding my personal information and how can I exercise these rights?

When provided for by applicable law, you have the right to ask us for a copy of your personal information; to correct, delete or restrict (stop any active) processing of your personal information; and to obtain the personal information you provide to us or with your consent in a structured, machine readable format, and to ask us to share (port) this information to another controller. You may be entitled to additional rights based on applicable data privacy laws in your jurisdiction.

In addition, you can object to the processing of your personal information in some circumstances (such as where we are using the information for direct marketing).

 

These rights may be limited, for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal personal information about another person, or if you ask us to delete information which we are required by law to keep or which we need to defend claims against us. 

To exercise any of these rights , you can get in touch with us using the details set out below. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to report them to your local privacy regulator or data protection authority.

When you are asked to provide personal information, you may decline. And you may use web browser or operating system controls to prevent certain types of automatic data collection. But if you choose not to provide or allow information that is necessary for certain services, those services may not be available or fully functional. For example, to register with LHON Collective and to use some LHON Collective Services, the provision of some information is mandatory: if relevant information is not provided, then we will not be able to provide you with the Services requested. Other optional information, if not provided, may impact our ability to provide a personalized experience or tailored content or offerings.

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What rights do I have in my state?

In addition to the rights above, see Additional US State Privacy Rights for more information.

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What rights do I have under GDPR?

In addition to the rights above, see the GDPR Privacy Policy for more information.

Withdrawing consent or otherwise objecting to direct marketing

LHON Collective and companies we hire to help market our Services on our behalf may use your information to provide you with information and offers related to LHON Collective.

Where we rely on your consent, you will always be able to withdraw that consent, although we may have other legal grounds for processing your information for other purposes, such as those set out above. In some cases, we are able to send you direct marketing without your consent, where we rely on our legitimate interests. You have an absolute right to opt-out of direct marketing, or profiling we carry out for direct marketing, at any time by:

  • clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails; or

  • contacting us using the details provided at the end of this privacy policy.

How long does LHON Collective retain my information?

When you register with LHON Collective we process and keep most personal information we process on your behalf for as long as you are an active user of our Services. Additionally, there is some personal information we need to retain to comply with business and legal requirements, such as personal information related to our business transactions with you.

Where we process personal information for marketing purposes or with your consent, we process the information until you ask us to stop and for a short period after this (to allow us to implement your requests). We also keep a permanent record of the fact that you have asked us not to send you direct marketing or to process your information so that we can respect your request in the future.

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Can children use the LHON Collective website?

LHON Collective Services are not intended for children under the age of 13. If you do not meet applicable age requirements, please do not use those Services.

Will this privacy policy change?

Occasionally, we may update this privacy policy (or other documents in the LHON Collective Privacy Center) to allow LHON Collective to accommodate new technologies, industry practices, regulatory requirements or for other purposes. If we do, we will change the "last updated" date at the top of this policy and the revised policy will be posted to this page so that you are aware of the information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we may disclose it. We encourage you to periodically review the LHON Collective Privacy Policy for the latest information on our privacy practices. Under certain circumstances (for example with certain material changes or where it is required by applicable privacy laws) we will provide notice to you of these changes and, where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent. Notice may be by email to you, by posting a notice of such changes on our Services, or by other means consistent with applicable law.

Who can I contact with questions or concerns?

If you have a privacy question, concern, or request, please email connect@lhon.org.

What is LHON Collective’s Cookie Policy?

Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small text files stored by your web browser when you use websites. You can control how websites use cookies by configuring your browser's privacy settings (please refer to your browser's help function to learn more about cookie controls). Note that if you disable cookies entirely, LHON Collective website may not function properly.

LHON Collective and the companies that help us run our business use cookies in several ways, such as:

  • Keeping track of information you have provided to us — 

  • Providing you the LHON Collective website that you use

  • Remembering your preferences or where you left off in your use of an LHON Collective website

  • Measuring your use of LHON Collective website so that we can improve it, tailor our website to your likely interests, and conduct market research. Learn more LHON Collective marketing and advertising, or opt out.

Technologies similar to cookies

Technically speaking, cookies are called “HTTP cookies.” There are other technologies that can be used for similar purposes, such as HTML5 Local Storage and local shared objects (LSOs). We may use HTML5 Local Storage, LSOs, and similar technologies for authenticating you, keeping track of information you have provided to us, and remembering your preferences (see bullet points above). When you are using an LHON Collective application offline, we may store information related to how you used that website on your device and then transfer it to our servers the next time you connect online to our service.

Web beacons and embedded scripts

Web beacons and embedded scripts are other technologies that we use in our websites, as well as in some of our emails and ads. 

 

Web beacons (or “tags”) are bits of programming code included in web pages and emails that notify LHON Collective (or the companies that help us run our business) when those web pages or emails  have been viewed or clicked on.

Embedded scripts are bits of programming code included within some of our web pages that measure how you use those web pages, such as which links you click. We use this information to improve our website, tailor our website to your likely interests, conduct market research, and for anti-fraud monitoring purposes. You may be able to turn off scripting functionality, such as JavaScript, within your browser (please refer to your browser's help function). Note that if you disable scripting functionality, some LHON Collective web pages may not function properly.

How can I manage my use of LHON Collective’s Services?

We may collect information about how you use LHON Collective services.

LHON Collective web-based services

Some LHON Collective web-based services use cookies and similar technologies to collect usage information to provide you with a more personalized experience and improve our services. To change your collection settings, navigate to your browser settings, go to the "Privacy and Security" section, and choose to "Block all cookies" or adjust settings to only allow necessary cookies; be aware that blocking all cookies may disrupt some website functionalities on certain sites.

How can I Opt Out of Emails from LHON Collective?

Tell us your marketing preferences by telling us to stop sending you marketing emails by clicking the unsubscribe link included at the bottom of LHON Collective’s marketing emails.

Please note that even when you exercise this choice, you may still receive communications from LHON Collective in the form of “transactional” emails relating to normal business operations. For example, we may email you to inform you that your donation has been received.

What are LHON Collective marketing and advertising practices?

We may reach out to you in different ways, for example, to tell you about a new LHON event we think you would be interested in. However, you can also let us know that you would rather not hear from us with this type of communication.

What is the LHON Collective email, telephone, text, and postal mail marketing policy?

If you agree to receive email, telephone, text, or postal mail marketing from us, we try to make it useful for you based on your likely interests. For example, we check to see if you have opened emails so we can measure their effectiveness. We also send you recommendations for events based on the way you engage with LHON services. This includes presenting you information about our services personalized to your interests on third-party platforms, like social media. Please let us know if you’d rather not hear from us by emailing connect@lhon.org. We do not share personal information about consumers with third parties for their own marketing purposes unless the consumer agrees to that sharing.

What are LHON Collective’s Government Request Guidelines?

As a service provider, LHON Collective is legally required to turn over user data that it hosts when it receives valid legal process from government authorities with proper jurisdiction. While we have full respect for the seriousness of law enforcement investigations, LHON Collective believes in users’ rights to due process and transparency, and because of this philosophy we don’t give governments direct or unfettered access to user data. Every request we receive is carefully reviewed to determine the validity of the legal process, to assess the proportionality of the request, and to ensure compliance with international data protection commitments made by LHON Collective.

Valid Legal Process Is Required

All LHON Collective users are subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

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For LHON Collective users in North America and outside North America, disclosure is governed by U.S. law, including the Federal Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712. In general, we will turn over “basic subscriber” records (e.g., name, length of service, billing information, email address, registration IP address, and so on) in response to a valid subpoena that is issued in connection with an official criminal investigation. However, we require a search warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause under relevant state or federal law before we will turn over user content, such as photos, videos, documents, or email messages.

If a government authority outside North America issues a request for a North American user (and it is consistent with LHON Collective’s policies), we may respond in the following circumstances: First, if the request is issued by a U.S. court by way of a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) or a letter rogatory. Second, if the request is consistent with (a) LHON Collective’s policies, (b) the laws of the requesting country, and (c) the principles of necessity and proportionality.

Valid Legal Process Is Required

All LHON Collective users are subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

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For LHON Collective users in North America and outside North America, disclosure is governed by U.S. law, including the Federal Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712. In general, we will turn over “basic subscriber” records (e.g., name, length of service, billing information, email address, registration IP address, and so on) in response to a valid subpoena that is issued in connection with an official criminal investigation. However, we require a search warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause under relevant state or federal law before we will turn over user content, such as photos, videos, documents, or email messages.

Preservation Requests

When we receive a preservation request from an agency investigating a crime, LHON Collective will preserve then-existing user data for 90 days in anticipation of receiving a valid legal process. We require the request to be:​

  • Issued and signed by or on behalf of a government entity, and

  • On official letterhead.

Data Retention

The length of time LHON Collective keeps different types of user data varies depending upon the nature of the service and type of data at issue.

Provide Specific Information

We cannot comply with overly vague or broad requests. At a minimum, we typically need the name of the user whose data you seek (or an email address associated with the person in question) and a specific statement of the type of information sought.

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For more information on the categories of data that may be available in response to a valid legal request, please refer to our Privacy Policy (specifically, the section What information does LHON Collective collect about me?).

Notice to Users

It is LHON Collective policy to give notice to our users (and enclose a redacted copy of the request) whenever a government agency seeks access to their information unless we are legally prohibited from doing so. 

For requests where U.S. law applies, make sure any Non-Disclosure Order (NDO) served on LHON Collective is time-limited and expires on a specific date or after a specific period (such as 90 or 180 days). For example, if we receive an NDO under 18 U.S.C § 2705(b), we will delay notice for the time period specified in the order and then notify the user once the order expires. Indefinite NDOs are not constitutionally valid in the U.S., and we challenge them in court. For requests subject to laws outside the U.S., we review and analyze our obligations on a case-by-case basis.

As a courtesy, we generally try to provide notice to the requesting party one week before the NDO is set to expire. Ultimately it is up to the requesting party to calendar the nondisclosure period and notify LHON Collective of any extensions. Once the statutory period has ended, LHON Collective provides notice to our users when they are the subject of an NDO.

Exceptions Allowing for Voluntary Disclosure

Emergency Requests

If law enforcement provides LHON Collective with information that gives us a reasonable, good faith belief that there is a risk of imminent harm (i.e., death or serious physical injury) to a person, and that we have information in our possession that may avert that harm, we may choose to disclose limited information we have to protect human life, provided that such disclosure is consistent with LHON Collective’s policies and applicable law.

When issuing an emergency request, please provide the following information:

  1. The requesting agency and name of the law enforcement officer.

  2. A detailed description of the nature of the emergency and why the emergency is imminent (and, if known, the target of the threat).

  3. The email address associated with a registered LHON Collective participant of the subject account whose information is necessary to prevent the emergency.

  4. The specific information requested and why that information is necessary to prevent the emergency.

  5. All other available details or context regarding the circumstances.

  6. The signature of the submitting law enforcement officer.

Preventing Child Exploitation

We report any images that appear to involve child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). If you are a law enforcement agent reporting a child exploitation or child safety matter where there is a good faith belief that there is imminent harm, please let us know by following the procedure for reporting an Emergency Request (outlined above) so that we can address the matter as quickly as possible.

Cost Reimbursement

By law, we are entitled to recover costs associated with responding to requests for information. Fees apply on a per account basis. If your request is unusually broad or burdensome, additional fees may apply. It is LHON Collective policy to waive fees in matters involving child exploitation or imminent harm.

Service of Legal Process

Legal process can be served in-person or mailed to the appropriate LHON Collective office, or via fax as outlined below.

 

Preservation requests, subpoenas, court orders, or search warrants seeking data regarding LHON Collective’s users may be personally served at or mailed to our San Diego address:

LHON Collective

Attn: Law Enforcement Requests

PO Box 3680, San Diego, CA 92163

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