Privacy Policy — Think and Act Locally
Who we are
Think and Act Locally (“TAAL,” “we”) is a community publishing operation of the Council on Local Relations. We publish local newsletters, podcasts, video, radio, and social media content, and we operate software tools that help us schedule and publish that content.
What we collect
Newsletter subscribers: email address, the town edition you subscribed to, and basic engagement data (opens, clicks) so we know what’s useful.
Website visitors: privacy-respecting, aggregate analytics (page views, referrers). We do not use advertising trackers and we do not build individual visitor profiles.
Social media accounts we manage: when we or our clients connect a social media account (such as a Facebook Page or Instagram account) to our publishing tools, the platform provides us access tokens and basic account/page information so we can publish posts, read comments and messages addressed to that account, and view that account’s performance statistics. We access only the accounts whose owners have expressly connected them.
Correspondence: if you email us or message a page we manage, we keep the correspondence so we can respond.
What we do with it
We use this information to deliver the publications and services described above: sending newsletters you asked for, publishing and scheduling content to connected accounts, responding to messages, and measuring what content serves the community. That’s it.
What we never do
- We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information.
- We do not share platform data (such as Facebook or Instagram data) with third parties except the service providers strictly necessary to operate (e.g., our email delivery provider), who are bound to use it only on our behalf.
- We do not use platform data for advertising audiences or surveillance.
Where it lives
Our systems are self-hosted on servers we control. Access tokens and credentials are stored encrypted. We retain data only as long as needed for the purposes above.
Your choices
- Every newsletter contains a one-click unsubscribe.
- Account owners can disconnect a connected social account at any time, which revokes our access; we delete the associated tokens.
- You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data by emailing news@thinkandactlocally.org. We will respond within 30 days.
Data deletion (platform users)
If you interacted with an account we manage on a third-party platform (e.g., Meta) and want associated data deleted from our systems, email news@thinkandactlocally.org with the platform and account name, or use that platform’s data-deletion request mechanism; we honor both.
Children
Our publications are general-audience and not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes
We’ll post any changes to this policy on this page with a new effective date.