Privacy Policy

Effective 10 August 2026 · Last updated 10 August 2026

The Palestinian Cultural Organization is a student and community organization, not a business. We collect as little as we can get away with, we do not sell anything about you to anyone, and we do not run advertising or tracking on this website.

01Who we are

This policy covers Palestinian Cultural Organization (“PCO”, “we”, “us”), a nonprofit organization based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and affiliated with the student organization at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. It applies to the website at pcouncc.org and to our membership program, including membership ID cards and Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes.

PCO is the party responsible for the information described here. To reach us about anything in this policy, email mshawar@charlotte.edu.

02Information we collect

When you simply visit this website

This site has no accounts, no forms, no comment sections, no advertising, and no analytics or tracking scripts. We do not set cookies on visitors, and we do not build profiles of people who read these pages.

Our hosting provider automatically records standard technical information needed to deliver the site and defend it from attack: your IP address, the time of the request, the page requested, and your browser’s user-agent string. We do not use these logs to identify individual readers.

When you become a member

Membership is optional. If you join, we collect and keep:

We do not store passwords. Signing in works by emailing you a single-use link that expires in fifteen minutes, so there is no password of yours for us to lose.

We do not collect payment card details, government identification numbers, dates of birth, physical addresses, phone numbers, or location data. We do not ask about ethnicity, nationality, religion, political opinions or immigration status, and you should not send them to us.

Donations

We do not process donations on this website. If you give to PCO, you do so through a third-party platform that handles the payment and holds the payment information under its own privacy policy. We receive only what that platform reports to us, which is typically the donor’s name, email address and the amount.

03How we use it

• To run the membership program: issue member numbers, produce ID cards, and maintain the roster.
• To let you sign in to the member portal and see your own card.
• To create Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes when you ask for one.
• To communicate with members about PCO events, meetings and organizational matters.
• To keep the organization’s own records, and to meet obligations that apply to a nonprofit.
• To protect the site and the roster against abuse and unauthorized access.

We do not use your information for automated decision-making or profiling, and we do not use it to advertise to you.

04Who we disclose it to, and how

We do not sell, rent, trade or otherwise share personal information for money or for anyone else’s marketing. We disclose it only in these situations:

Service providers who help us operate

These providers act on our instructions and are not permitted to use member information for their own purposes.

Apple and Google, if you add a wallet pass

Adding a membership card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet is optional and happens only when you press the button. If you do:

• Google Wallet. Your name, member number and membership status are transmitted to Google over an encrypted connection in a digitally signed link, so that Google can create the pass in your account. Google’s handling of it is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.
• Apple Wallet. The pass file is generated by us and downloaded by your device. Apple’s handling of passes stored on your device is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.

You can delete a pass from your device at any time, and doing so does not affect your membership.

Within the organization

PCO officers (currently the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Communications lead and Directors) can see the full membership roster, because administering it is their job. Ordinary members can see only their own record.

When the law requires it

We may disclose information if we are legally compelled to, or where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to protect someone’s safety or to investigate a violation of our terms. We will tell affected members unless we are prohibited from doing so.

05How we protect it

• The entire site is served over HTTPS, and plain HTTP requests are redirected to it.
• No passwords exist. Access uses a single-use sign-in link that expires after fifteen minutes and cannot be reused once clicked.
• Sessions expire, and an officer deactivating a member ends that person’s access immediately.
• The roster is readable only by signed-in officers; the sign-in endpoint answers identically whether or not an address is on the roster, so it cannot be used to discover who our members are.
• The site sets a Content Security Policy and related protections that block script injection and prevent the site being framed by other sites.
• Member data is stored on servers in the United States, encrypted in transit and at rest by our providers, and is backed up.
• Access to administrative tools is limited to current officers and is removed when someone leaves their role. Changes to the roster are logged.

06How long we keep it

We keep membership records for as long as you are a member, and for up to three years afterwards, so that the organization retains an accurate institutional history and can verify past membership. Sign-in links are deleted or invalidated within fifteen minutes. Sessions expire after thirty days. You can ask us to delete your record sooner and we will, unless we are required to keep it.

07Your choices

You may, at any time and at no cost, ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong;
• delete your membership record and any photo;
• send you a copy of your record;
• stop emailing you about anything other than administering your membership.

Email mshawar@charlotte.edu and we will respond within thirty days. We will not treat you differently for asking. Providing a photograph is always optional, and you can have it removed without losing your membership.

If you would rather your browser not contact Google for our typefaces, a content blocker or a privacy-focused browser setting will prevent it; the site remains readable.

08Children

This website and our membership program are intended for people aged 13 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

09Where we operate

PCO operates in the United States and our providers store information there. If you are outside the United States and contact us or join, you understand your information will be handled in the United States, where privacy law differs from your own.

10Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change materially affects how we handle member information, we will email members before it takes effect. We will not apply a materially different use to information already collected without asking first.

11Contact

Questions, requests and complaints all go to the same place:
mshawar@charlotte.edu
Palestinian Cultural Organization · Charlotte, North Carolina