OpenGov Privacy Policy

OPENGOV PRIVACY POLICY FOR COMMUNITY FEEDBACK (formerly OPEN TOWN HALL / PEAK DEMOCRACY)

OpenGov Inc is a nonpartisan company that provides Community Feedback – a cloud-based online citizen engagement platform that increases participation and builds public trust in government.

We take privacy very seriously and we promise to safeguard yours zealously. This document describes our policy on advertising and our policy regarding your contact information: your name, street address and email address.

We won’t accept any advertising

We are not in the advertising business. We will never display third party advertisements to you on any channel: not on your browser, not in your email, not on your phone, not on anything.

If you believe you have seen any advertising based on opinions you expressed on our website, please report those details to us here.

We won’t share your contact information

We will never share your contact information with anyone without your permission, unless we are required to do so by law. Regarding your permission, some public agencies might configure their user registration process to allow registered users to opt-in, or opt-out of sharing their contact information with the public agency. This will be clearly stated in the user registration process.If you believe your contact information has been shared without your permission, please report those details to us here.

About These Policies

Why we don’t accept advertising

There is a conflict of interest between advertising and our mission to build public trust in government.

In order to build public trust, our clients invite their residents to participate on a wide range of topics, including some that are controversial. Citizens’ opinions on those topics are especially valuable to political campaigns. If we were to accept advertising, those campaigns would want to pay us to place ads targeting those residents and their opinions.

OpenGov is, and must be perceived as, a neutral facilitator of the community discussion. Advertisements of any kind would bring our neutrality into question – and undermine public trust in the government agencies that select our service.

Why we collect your contact information

We collect contact information to make local forums work on the world wide web. Contact information:

• Enables us to identify statements from residents in and near the forum’s community – so that readers know which statements are from local residents.
• Helps us verify that each person does not exceed the maximum number of statements per topic.
• Enables us to determine which topics are happening in your vicinity, so you can subscribe to announcements just for your area.