Privacy Policy

Last Updated: March 26, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how How To Report (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, and shares information about you when you visit our website howtoreport.org (the “Site”). By using our Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.

1. Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of information:

• Log Data: When you visit our Site, our servers automatically record information such as your IP address, browser type, pages visited, and time spent on pages.
• Cookies: We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track activity on our Site and hold certain information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
• Contact Form Data: If you contact us via our contact form, we collect your name, email address, and any information you provide in your message.
• Analytics Data: We use third-party analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) to understand how visitors use our Site. These tools may collect information such as pages visited, time on site, and general geographic location.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Operate and improve our Site
• Respond to your inquiries and provide customer support
• Monitor and analyze usage patterns to improve user experience
• Comply with legal obligations
• Display relevant advertisements through Google AdSense (see Advertising section below)

3. Google AdSense and Advertising

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on our Site. Google AdSense uses cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to our website or other websites. You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.

Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our site and/or other sites on the Internet. For more information about how Google uses data, please visit How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps.

4. Cookies

Our Site uses cookies to enhance your experience. Cookies are small text files placed on your device. We use the following types of cookies:

• Essential Cookies: Required for the Site to function properly.
• Analytics Cookies: Help us understand how visitors interact with our Site.
• Advertising Cookies: Used by Google AdSense to serve relevant ads.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our Site.

5. Third-Party Links

Our Site may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites and encourage you to review their privacy policies.

6. Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, no internet transmission is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. Children’s Privacy

Our Site is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such information, please contact us immediately.

8. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page with an updated date. Your continued use of the Site after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Privacy Policy.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us through our Contact page.

User-submitted reports, contact forms, and newsletter data

If you send us a contact form, newsletter signup, or community report, we may collect the information you choose to provide, such as your name, email address, subject, message, and any report details you submit. We use this information to respond to you, moderate submissions, improve guides, prevent spam or abuse, and operate HowToReport.org.

Community reports or shared experiences may be reviewed before publication. We may edit submissions for clarity, remove personal details, decline submissions, or anonymize examples before displaying them publicly. Do not submit Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, medical records, passwords, or other sensitive personal information through our forms.

We do not sell contact form, newsletter, or community report submissions. We may share information only with service providers that help operate the site, when required by law, or when necessary to protect the site and its users.

Retention, deletion, and removal requests

Contact form messages, newsletter signups, and community report submissions may be stored in site email, website logs, anti-spam tools, or our administrative systems so we can respond, moderate submissions, prevent abuse, and operate the site. We keep contact form messages only as long as reasonably needed for those purposes, generally up to 24 months unless a longer period is required for security, legal, accounting, or dispute-resolution reasons.

You may request deletion or removal of personal information you submitted by contacting us through the contact page. We may need enough information to verify the request and locate the submission. Published community reports may be edited, anonymized, unpublished, or removed when appropriate, but we may retain limited records needed for security, abuse prevention, legal compliance, or site integrity.

Only site administrators and service providers who help operate HowToReport.org should access submissions. We do not sell contact form, newsletter, or community report data.

Detailed retention schedule and submission handling

Contact form submissions: contact form messages may be delivered to our site email and may also pass through WordPress, Contact Form 7, spam-filtering, hosting, and security logs. We use contact form data only to respond, troubleshoot delivery, prevent abuse, and maintain records of site communications. Routine contact messages are generally retained for up to 24 months, then deleted or archived unless needed longer for security, legal, accounting, abuse-prevention, or dispute-resolution reasons.

Community reports and shared experiences: submissions may be stored while pending review, moderation, editing, publication, or removal. Unpublished submissions are generally retained for up to 12 months. Published or cited submissions may remain online until they are removed, anonymized, or replaced. We may retain a limited internal record of moderation decisions for up to 36 months to prevent spam, repeat abuse, or unsafe submissions.

Newsletter signups: email addresses remain on the mailing list until you unsubscribe or request removal. Backup, email delivery, and security logs may retain limited records for a short period after unsubscribe.

Deletion and removal requests: you can request deletion, correction, anonymization, or removal of personal information you submitted by using the contact page. Include enough detail to help us locate the submission, such as the email address used, approximate submission date, and page involved. We may ask for verification before acting on a request. We aim to review reasonable requests within 30 days.

Who may request removal: the person who submitted the information, a person whose personal information appears in a submission, or an authorized representative may request removal or anonymization. We may decline requests that are abusive, impossible to verify, legally restricted, or conflict with security and fraud-prevention needs.