Privacy Policy

Updated January 2026

This website is owned by Girl Scouts of San Jacinto, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered Houston, TX. [Our online properties comprise of, but are not limited to, all pages found under www.gssjc.org. This privacy policy applies to these sites and other sites, mobile apps or other online services we operate that link to this policy (collectively, referred to below as the site).]

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of our visitors. This privacy policy discloses how we collect, protect, and use information you provide, or we collect online, as well as how we protect children's privacy. If our policy practices change in the future, we will let you know by posting our revised privacy policy on our Web site. By using the pages on this site or other services covered by the posted Privacy Policy, you are accepting the practices described in the Privacy Policy.

Information Collection

Personally Identifiable Information. At our site, we do not collect personally identifiable information from individuals unless they provide it to us voluntarily and knowingly. This means we do not require you to register or provide information to us to view our site. Girl Scouts of San Jacinto only gathers personally identifiable data on our site, such as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, email addresses, etc., when voluntarily submitted by a visitor. Once collected, we may combine this information with other information collected from external sources.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information. Girl Scouts of San Jacinto may automatically collect certain technical information from your computer such as your Internet service provider, your Internet Protocol address, your browser type, your operating system, the pages viewed, the pages viewed immediately before and after accessing the Web site, and the search terms entered to get to our site. This information allows us to improve and customize our services. We and our service providers may collect this information using “cookies,” which are small text files that many websites save on your computer, or similar technologies. See the section on “Use of Cookies and Similar Technology” below for more information.

Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information

The Personal Data we collect is used and processed by Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council and other entities we involve in the operation of this site or who provide support for the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council mission and programs, for general business purposes and for the purposes for which you provided the information. General business purposes are Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council membership activities, program participation, marketing, promotions, sales, merchandising, and fundraising activities and communications. The purposes for which you provide information includes, for example, our use of your Personal Data to process online transactions, purchases, and donations, facilitate participation in Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council programs, promotions and services, or process job applications.

We may share any of the Personal Data we collect with the following categories of third parties: (i) Girl Scouts of the USA or Girl Scout Councils; (ii) service providers (e.g., email providers, shipping services, advisors, data storage providers, and data security vendors) in furtherance of our operations or the operation of the site, for instance, to process a purchase or other transaction you make, facilitate participation in Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council programs, promotions, and services, or engage in Girl Scouts fund raising, marketing communications and promotions; (iii) with law enforcement, government agencies, and other entities as necessary to comply with legal processes such as a subpoena or court order or to otherwise protect your or our legal rights; (v) advertising vendors (which may receive names, email addresses, information about transactions and online activities, and demographic information that does not include race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation); or (vi) other third parties at your direction or for other purposes for which you provided the information.

We do not sell Personal Data to third parties in exchange for money and we do not sell your information in a way that most people would think of as a sale. However, we may make certain Personal Data available to third parties, which those third parties can use for their own purposes. If you visit the site and request to be connected to local Girl Scout activities, you are asking us to share your Personal Data with the relevant third party, which will then be subject to the third party’s privacy policy.

Please note that Girl Scouts of the USA provides operational support for the site and may collect and use personally identifiable information you provide to the site and other information collected by the site as described in this policy. Girl Scouts of the USA will use any information it collects for the purposes described in this policy and in a manner consistent with its own privacy policy, which is available here. Girl Scouts of San Jacinto and Girl Scouts of the USA are each responsible for their own information handling practices.

Children’s Privacy

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto is committed to providing a safe, secure and fun online experience for children who visit our site. We are dedicated to safeguarding any personally identifiable information collected online and to helping parents and children have positive experiences on the Internet.

We will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. With parental consent, we may collect information from children under the age of 13 such as: name, address, email address, account information, and user generated content. This information allows us to fulfill a requested transaction and facilitate participation in online programs, keep records, undertake certain marketing activities or to otherwise customize or enhance the website experience for children.

Children under the age of 13 may be able to make certain content such as user generated content visible to others or the public. This could include, for example, a webpage or parts of webpages operated by children that have been designed for group or public viewing. However, absent parental consent, children under 13 would be allowed to display only limited information such as a first name or unique username or other information that does not allow for online contacting by third parties.

Regardless of what information is displayed, parents can revoke their consent and ask that information about their children be deleted from the site by contacting our offices by phone at 713-292-0300 or 800-392-4340 or via email at customerservice@sjgs.org. To do this or to review personally identifiable information collected from children, we must verify the identity of the requesting parent. When a parent revokes consent, we will stop collecting, using, or disclosing information from that child. To respect the privacy of parents, information collected and used for the sole purpose of obtaining verifiable parental consent or providing notice is not maintained in retrievable form by the site if parental consent is not obtained after a reasonable time.

Submissions

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto welcomes children to learn more about our organization and, where appropriate, participate in polls and surveys, as well as submit comments, artwork, writings and other submissions for posting on our website. For this reason, Girl Scouts of San Jacinto follows the guidelines for interactive electronic media published by the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Better Business Bureau for pages targeted to children under 13. However, we encourage this be done only with their parent's knowledge and supervision. We also encourage children to use an alias (e.g., "Bookworm", "Skater", etc.), first name, nickname, initials or other alternative to full names or screen names which correspond with an email address for any activities which will involve public posting.

In keeping with CARU's Principle regarding respecting and fostering the parents' role in providing guidance for their children, we encourage parents to check and monitor their children's use of email and other online activities regularly.

Use of Cookies and Similar Technologies

Visitors should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically collected by the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto website through the use of "cookies" or other similar technologies such as web beacons. "Cookies" are small text files a website can use to recognize repeat visitors, facilitate the visitor's ongoing access to and use of the site and allow a site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements. Cookies are not programs that come onto a visitor's system and damage files. Generally, cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor that has no meaning outside the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the visitor to deny or accept the cookie feature. “Web beacons” are a small snippet of code embedded in webpages typically used to monitor activity on a webpage and transfer or collect information, such as information about your Internet Protocol address, the URL of the page on which the beacon is located, the browser type that is accessing the site, and the ID number of cookies placed on your computer.

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto uses "cookie" technology only to obtain non-personal information from its online visitors in order to improve visitors' online experience and facilitate their visit within our site. Girl Scouts of San Jacinto may use web beacons to improve website services, conduct website analytics, first party advertising relating to us and our sponsors and to optimize the browsing experience.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (that is, not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you on this or other websites. Read more information about this practice at http://www.networkadvertising.org and http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies.

Links to Other Websites and Services

This site may be linked to other sites and services that are not maintained by Girl Scouts of San Jacinto. These websites have their own privacy policies, which you should review prior to visiting them. We have no responsibility for linked websites and provide these links solely for the convenience and information of our visitors.

Our Security Safeguard

The safety and security of your online experience is of the utmost concern to us. We take measures to implement reasonable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security and correctly use the information we collect online.

Credit Card Safety

Protecting the safety of your credit card information is also important to us. For card transactions we process, we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect the security of your credit card information as it is transmitted to us. SSL is an Internet encryption technology and a method of scrambling data as it travels from your computer to our website servers. We also encrypt your credit card number when we store your order and whenever we transfer that information to participating merchants.

To make sure you are accessing our secure server before you submit sensitive information, check the document for your browser for indication of an SSL connection (most browsers utilize an unbroken or closed padlock). Verify that SSL is active before submitting sensitive information to our server. To double-check, verify that the URL or Address line of your browser for our site begins with "https."

It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.

Children

If you are under 18, you need parent/guardian permission to use a credit card to make purchases online.

Your Right to Opt Out from Receiving Marketing Communications

You may opt out from our using your Personal Data to send marketing communications to you. For example, e-mail messages will contain instructions on how to “unsubscribe” from receiving the e-mail in question. Please also visit our SMS Messaging Privacy Policy and SMS Terms and Conditions for more information, including information on how to opt-out.

Your Rights Concerning Your Personal Data

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto serves customers in Texas. Regardless of your state of residency, Girl Scouts of San Jacinto and Girl Scouts of the USA honor the following rights with respect to Personal Data collected from you when you visit our Sites:

Confirm whether GSUSA is processing your Personal Data and, if so, access that Personal Data.
Rectify/correct any inaccuracies in your Personal Data.
Ask us to delete any of your Personal Data that is stored in our systems.
Obtain a copy of the Personal Data we have for you in a format that allows you to transmit it to another data controller (also known as the "Right to Data Portability").
Opt out of having your Personal Data processed for purposes of targeted advertising.

You have the right to be free from unlawful discrimination to exercise your rights.

While we are not currently subject to the data protection laws that provide rights to residents of other U.S. states, we continue to monitor the privacy law landscape and, when necessary, will update our practices and this Notice to remain in compliance with applicable laws.  

Exercising Your Rights

To exercise the rights described above, please contact us via our  Girl Scouts Privacy Portal  or by email to customerservice@sjgs.org.   Only you or an adult you designate to act on your behalf (where permitted by law) may make a request related to your Personal Data. A request to exercise any of these rights must identify the right you want to exercise and describe the information to which your request relates in sufficient detail to allow us to understand, evaluate, and respond to your request.

You may also have a right to appeal a decision we make relating to requests to exercise these rights. To appeal a decision, please follow the instructions we provide in our communication to you regarding the status of your request.

How To Contact Us

If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, you can contact us at:

Girl Scouts of San Jacinto
3110 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77098

Phone: 713-292-0300 or 800-392-4340
Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST.

[If needed, we can guide you through the Language Line Service, which provides telephone interpretation in 140 languages.]

E-mail

You can email your question to customerservice@sjgs.org, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.