Who we are
BetaNYC is a civic organization dedicated to improving lives in New York through civic design, technology, and data. We ask government to be open about how it works, and we hold our own websites to the same standard. This page says plainly what we collect, why, and what choices you have.
What this policy covers
This policy applies to www.beta.nyc, every subdomain of beta.nyc, betanyc.us, and betanyc.org. It also covers the newsletter signups, event registrations, and donations we run through outside services, the platforms where our community gathers, and the tools we keep our records in. Those services and platforms have their own privacy policies, and we link to them below.
What we collect and why
Visiting our sites
We use Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, to see how the site is used: which pages people visit, the approximate location a visit comes from (based on IP address), and the kind of device and browser in use. We read these reports in aggregate to decide what to improve. Google’s privacy policy covers how Google handles this data.
Leaving a comment
If you leave a comment, we collect what you type into the comment form, plus your IP address and browser user-agent string to help detect spam, and comments may be checked by an automated spam-detection service. A hashed version of your email address, not the address itself, may be sent to Gravatar, a profile-picture service run by Automattic, to check whether you have a profile there; Automattic’s privacy policy covers that service. If you opt in, cookies will remember your name, email, and website so you do not have to retype them next time. Comments and their metadata stay on the site indefinitely, so we can recognize your follow-up comments and approve them instead of holding them in moderation.
Subscribing to the newsletter
When you sign up for our weekly newsletter, your name and email address go to Mailchimp, the service that delivers it, under Mailchimp’s privacy policy (Mailchimp is an Intuit company, so that link opens Intuit’s privacy statement). Every issue includes an unsubscribe link.
Registering for an event
We use Eventbrite and Ti.to for event registration. Your name, email address, and whatever else the ticket form asks for are collected on those platforms under Eventbrite’s privacy policy and Ti.to’s privacy policy. Online events and office hours run on Zoom; joining one is governed by Zoom’s privacy statement.
Donating
Donations run through Donorbox, a service embedded on our donate page; PayPal appears as a payment option inside it. Your payment details go directly to Donorbox and its payment processors, under Donorbox’s privacy policy. We never receive or store full card numbers. We keep donation records for as long as accounting and tax rules require.
Emailing us
If you email us, whether privacy@beta.nyc or a staff member directly, we receive whatever you choose to include in your message.
Where our community gathers
Our community meets on platforms we do not run. Joining one means that platform processes your data under its own policy; each platform name below links to that policy.
- Slack (slack.beta.nyc), which we are retiring in favor of Discord
- Discord, home of our BetaBuilders community
- Meetup (meetup.com/betanyc)
- GitHub (github.com/BetaNYC), where our public repositories, issues, and contributions live
- Reddit (r/PublicInterestNYC)
- YouTube, our video channel, which runs under Google’s privacy policy
Our social media accounts
We post on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Mastodon (@betanyc@urbanists.social). We review engagement on those posts (likes, shares, replies, and follows) to understand what interests our community. We see only what each platform shows any account holder, and that activity is governed by each platform’s own privacy policy.
The tools we work in
Behind the scenes, we work in Google Workspace (email, documents, and forms) and keep contact, event, and program records in Airtable. Both process that information for us under their policies: Google’s privacy policy and Airtable’s privacy policy.
What we don’t do
- We do not run ads, and no advertising network operates on our sites.
- We do not sell or rent personal information, to anyone, for any purpose.
- We do not track you beyond what is described on this page.
- We do not use automated systems to make significant decisions about people. The automated spam screening on comments, described above, is as close as we come.
- Beyond the services named above, we do not share personal information with anyone unless the law requires it.
If we ever receive a government or legal demand for personal information, we will disclose only what the law actually requires, and we will tell the affected person unless the law forbids us from doing so.
Cookies
Our sites set a small number of cookies: the cookies Google Analytics uses to tell returning visitors apart, and the optional cookies that remember your details when you comment. Embedded content from other sites may set its own, covered next. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings.
Embedded content from other sites
Pages here sometimes embed videos, maps, social media posts, and similar content from other websites. An embed behaves as if you had visited the other site directly: it may set cookies and track your interaction with it, under that site’s own privacy policy.
How long we keep things
- Comments and their metadata: indefinitely.
- Donation records: as long as accounting and tax rules require.
- The newsletter list: until you unsubscribe. Unsubscribed addresses stay on a do-not-mail record so we cannot mail you again by mistake, unless you ask us to delete you entirely (see “Your rights”).
- Ordinary email: no fixed schedule; we keep correspondence while it is relevant to the work.
- Contact, event, and program records: no fixed schedule; we keep them while they are relevant to the work.
Your rights
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, correct it, receive a copy to take elsewhere, or have it deleted. Email privacy@beta.nyc and we will respond. One caveat, stated plainly: records we are required to keep for accounting, legal, or security reasons, such as donation records, stay on file even when a deletion request covers everything else. If that applies to your request, we will tell you.
Children’s privacy
Our sites are written for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page, update the “Last revised” date below, and add a short note of what changed significantly. A change in what we collect will appear here before it appears in practice.
Questions
Questions, corrections, and requests about your information go to privacy@beta.nyc. A person reads that inbox. If the answer you get does not settle the matter, you can raise it with our executive director, Noel Hidalgo, through the same address.
This policy is adapted in part from NTEN’s Sample Privacy Policy (2021), with thanks. We license it under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0: if your organization needs a privacy policy, you are welcome to copy this one, adapt it, and share what works.
Last revised: July 17, 2026