Privacy policy

Effective Date: 02/02/2023

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) USA, Inc. ("Doctors Without Borders") is strongly committed to protecting your privacy, whether you’re a donor, website visitor, or anyone else who communicates or connects with us.

We want to make sure you have all the information you need to understand what kind of data we gather, how we handle it, whether and how we share it, and what your options are.

When it comes to collecting or sharing information, our primary motivation is to increase our efficiency, keep our fundraising costs down, and, most importantly, improve your experience. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please reach out to our U.S.-based third-party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request. 

The following Privacy Policy applies when you make a donation to Doctors Without Borders, or when you visit our sites, doctorswithoutborders.org, donate.doctorswithoutborders.org, and forcedfromhome.com. It also applies to other situations when you choose to share your personal information with Doctors Without Borders. By visiting our websites, you are accepting this Privacy Policy. If you’d like a hard copy of our Privacy Policy, you can request that by contacting us.

Donor information

If you make a donation, either online or otherwise, we’ll request certain personally identifiable information about you (such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, and credit card information). This information ensures that we can securely process your donation and communicate with you about it. We may also use your information to improve our promotional efforts, keep you updated about our work, analyze website usage, and improve our website's content, layout, and services.

If you share personal information about others with us, or if others give us your information, we will only use that information for the specific reason it was provided. For example, if you ordered a gift or made a donation in someone’s name, we may collect the name and address of the gift recipient in order to deliver the gift or notify the recipient. We will only use this information for the specific purpose it was provided. If you believe that someone has shared your personal information with us and you don’t want to be included in our database, please let us know so that we can remove you. Call us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected].

We may receive information about you from other sources—including publicly available databases or third parties we purchased data from—and combine this data with information we already have about you. This helps us to update, expand and analyze our records, identify people who may want to know more about our work, and provide you with information we think would be of interest.

Here are some examples of the types of personal information we might collect from public sources or purchase from third parties:

•    Address information from sources such as the U.S. Postal Service to verify your address so we can prevent fraud and securely ship a gift receipt to you
•    Marketing data to create more tailored and relevant updates, information, or advertising 

Sharing with third parties

In the interests of improving your experience and the services we can offer you, we may share your information with third-party business third-party business partners, such as a direct mail provider or marketing agency. If you don’t want us to share your personal information with these third-party business partners, such as a direct mail provider or marketing agency, please contact us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected].

We do not sell or rent our mailing list to other organizations that solicit donations or sell any products. Because we are always looking to reduce our fundraising costs and improve how we connect with you, Doctors Without Borders does exchange portions of our mailing list with select non-profit organizations. If you prefer not to have your personal information shared with these organizations, let us know by contacting our Donor Services Department at [email protected]. You can also call us at 212.763.5779, or write to us by mail: Doctors Without Borders, Attn: Donor Services, 40 Rector St., 16th Floor, New York, NY 10006.

Doctors Without Borders employs companies to help us host our donor information database, send postal mail and email, model our data, and process online and mail donations as well as credit card payments. These companies need to have access to personal donor information, but we require them to keep it confidential. They are only authorized to use this information as necessary to provide their specific services to us.

We hold onto your information as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with services, comply with our legal obligations, or resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. If you’d like us to remove your contact information from our systems, or to know what kind of information we have stored about you, please contact us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected]. (For more information, see the Security section below.)

Other information

If you shared personal information like your name, postal address, and email address for purposes other than donating (such as receiving an email newsletter or invitations to events), we collect, store, and use this information primarily for the purposes it was submitted.

We may also use this information to improve our communication with you and provide additional information about our work that we think would be of interest to you. We may share this information and material with you via online social platforms, websites, phone, text/SMS, postal mail, or email, as permitted by applicable law.

We do not share this information with any third parties except those that provide us with certain services like database hosting (as described above).

Employment

If you have used the Doctors Without Borders website to seek employment or a volunteer position at an organization, you may have submitted (through our sites or otherwise) personally identifiable information. This might include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and any other personally identifiable information requested in online or offline forms, as well as an electronic or paper copy of your resume/CV. Any of this information is strictly private. No information stored or submitted in such forms will be used for any purpose other than to assess your qualifications as an employee or volunteer for Doctors Without Borders.

Other disclosures

We may be required to disclose your personal information to the government or to third parties pursuant to law enforcement inquiries, court orders, subpoenas and similar requests, or when we otherwise believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary or appropriate in connection with any activity that violates the law or may expose us to liability.

Security

We take the security of any personal information you share with us very seriously. When you send personal information to us by submitting an online form on our site, it travels by high-grade encryption to ensure that it is secure. We also require the companies we work with to process your online donation payments using high-grade encryption and security protocols. Any vendors that process check and credit card transactions on our behalf meet all industry standards, certify their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and are audited to meet with the Statement on Auditing Standard 70 (SAS 70).

The personal information that you provide is stored in a secure location and accessible only by designated employees trained in the proper handling of donor information. We employ industry standard techniques such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection, and site monitoring to protect your personally identifiable information from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the organization.

We do everything we can to safeguard your personal information. That said, the reality is that "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet. Third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected].

Normal browsing

Doctors Without Borders does not collect any personally identifying information from you when you visit our sites unless you choose to provide it to us.

You can safely browse the Doctors Without Borders sites without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself. As is typical for organizations with websites, the information we gather during normal browsing comes from two sources: standard server logs collect information such as the IP (Internet Protocol) address, domain name, browser type, operating system, mobile related information if you access our website using your mobile device, and information such as the site that referred you to us, the files you downloaded, the pages you visited, and the dates/times of those visits. This information is used to improve our website by making it more easily navigable and ensuring that visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.

Cookies and tracking technologies

We want to make sure our website is a valuable resource that enables visitors like you to find the information you’re seeking. In order to meet that goal, Doctors Without Borders and its partners use cookies, session replay/capture or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website/donation forms, track users’ movements around the website/donation forms, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.

If you visit our site by way of a link from one of our newsletters or from a site that has requested a link to us, we will ask your browser to accept a “cookie.” A cookie is a small piece of text that stores information on your browser in your computer’s hard drive. It carries a general marketing source code with you as you explore the site. The purpose of this is simply to help us match referring sites to donations made. This cookie does not capture or hold any personally identifying information about you and is deleted when you end your session by leaving our site or closing your browser.

 We use cookies as part of campaigns in order to analyze trends, gather broad demographic information, and monitor site traffic patterns that can help us further develop and improve the design and functionality of our site.

We also use cookies for “retargeting” in our internet advertising campaigns so that third party vendors, including Google, can show you advertising about Doctors Without Borders as you browse the Internet. Retargeting makes it possible for us to connect you with specific outreach messages, encourage you to revisit our website, or consider donating.

The use of cookies does not affect your anonymity. Cookies are only used to obtain non-personal information. If you prefer, you can usually set your browser to refuse cookies, or to notify you when you receive a new cookie. You can also opt out of receiving cookies on the Doctors Without Borders website for Google advertising by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page (http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/#toc-edit).

Please keep in mind that if you disable cookies, it may limit your use of certain features or functions on our website.

Our website includes social media features, such as the Facebook “Like” button, and widgets, such as the “Share This” button. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or directly on our website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policies of the companies providing them.

We may work with data providers to target advertising to you personally through online and offline methods including email, display media, and direct mail. This advertising may be directed to you because you visited or logged in to our website. When we generate this advertising, data we collect from you through online cookies and other technologies may be combined with other de-identified data (such as a hashed, non-readable email, or postal address) in order to tailor ads to you based on your preferences and other information. To learn more about targeted advertising, these providers, or how you can opt out, please visit the DAA’s consumer choice page at http://www.aboutads.info/choices.

Technologies other than http cookies may be used by third parties in a similar way, to recognize the email recipients’ computer or device and to keep track of which user identities match to which devices or browsers. Those technologies may not respond to browser settings that block conventional cookies. You can learn more about opting out of many of these types of technologies by visiting the NAI’s opt-out page at http://www.networkadvertising.org.

External links

We work to ensure that our website is a reliable and useful resource that allows visitors to better understand humanitarian crises occurring around the world and the work we do to respond to them. In order to do that, our site contains links to other (external) sites. Unless we explicitly say so, Doctors Without Borders makes no representations whatsoever concerning the content of those sites.

The fact that Doctors Without Borders has provided a link to a site should not be interpreted as an endorsement, authorization, sponsorship, or affiliation with respect to the site, its owners, or its providers. There are risks associated with using any information, software, or products found on the Internet, and Doctors Without Borders encourages you to make sure you understand these risks before retrieving, using, relying upon, or purchasing anything via the Internet.

Please be aware that Doctors Without Borders is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites—even if they are linked to from our web pages.

Note to parents & children

Doctors Without Borders welcomes children to learn more about our organization and the humanitarian and medical issues presented on the Doctors Without Borders sites. We also want to make sure we are respectful of the privacy of our young users. We encourage parents to monitor their children's use of the Internet and to help us protect their privacy by instructing them never to provide personal information on this site or any other without permission.

We will never attempt to extract unnecessary information from our users, regardless of age. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA"), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with this information without consent, we will use our best efforts to remove it from our files. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that a child under 13 has provided such information to us, they should contact us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected].

Updating your information

We are always working to keep the information you share with us up-to-date. At any point, you can contact us to request details about whether we hold any of your personal information. If you have donated to us and would like to access, correct, update, or delete your personal data or adjust your mail preferences, please let us know. You can update that information by using our contact form. Or, you can call us at 212.763.5779, email [email protected], or mail the update to Doctors Without Borders, P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030.

Opt-out preference

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on the lifesaving work we’re doing around the world, you can sign up to receive email, newsletter, or other communications from us. If you ever want to stop receiving this information, you can easily update your email preferences by using the "Unsubscribe" link found in emails we send you or at your member profile on our website. To opt out of SMS messages, simply reply STOP to cancel. Message and data rates may apply. You can also update your preferences by contacting us at 212.763.5779 or emailing [email protected].

SMS Messages

Doctors Without Borders offers complimentary SMS text messaging services to help you stay informed with important account related topics that need your attention. You might receive account, updates or payment method information. Doctors Without Borders offers this service at no extra charge. Message frequency may vary, typically once per month. Standard message and data rates may apply. Your consent to receive these marketing text messages is not required as a condition of services from Doctors Without Borders. Texts may be sent using an automatic telephone dialing system.

Participating Carriers: The service is available on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Boost, Cricket, MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular, Virgin Mobile, ACS Wireless, Appalachian Wireless, Bluegrass Cellular, Carolina West Wireless, Cellcom, C-Spire Wireless (formerly Cellsouth), Cellular One of East Central Illinois, Cincinnati Bell Wireless, Cross (dba Sprocket), Duet IP, Element Mobile, EpicTouch, GCI Communications, Golden State, Hawkeye (Chat Mobility), Hawkeye (NW Missouri Cellular), Illinois Valley Cellular, Immix (Keystone Wireless / PC Management), Inland Cellular, iWireless, Mobi PCS (Coral Wireless LLC), Mosaic, MTPCS / Cellular One (Cellone Nation), Nex-Tech Wireless, nTelos, Panhandle Telecommunications, Peoples Wireless, Pioneer, Plateau, Revol Wireless, Rina - Custer, Rina - All West, Rina - Cambridge Telecom Coop, Rina - Eagle Valley Comm, Rina - Farmers Mutual Telephone Co, Rina - Nucla Nutria Telephone Co, Rina - Silver Star, Rina - South Central Comm, Rina - Syringa, Rina - UBET, Rina - Manti, South Canaan / CellularOne of NEPA, Thumb Cellular, Union Wireless, United, Viaero Wireless, West Central Wireless, Leaco, Nemont/Sagebrush. T-Mobile is not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. T-Mobile is not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

To opt out of SMS messages, simply reply STOP to cancel. For help, reply HELP. Message and data rates may apply. To update your preferences, contact us at 212.763.5779 or email [email protected].

Changes to this privacy policy

We occasionally make changes to our Privacy Policy based on your comments and our need to update and accurately explain our data collection and disclosure practices. If we make any material changes in the way we use your personal information, we’ll let you know by posting a prominent announcement on our website. We also encourage you to periodically check this page to see the latest privacy information.

Questions or suggestions

Your voice is important to us. We want to hear what our site visitors and donors have to say about our services and our policies. If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Policy, please send an email to [email protected], call us at 212.763.5779, or write to us by mail: Doctors Without Borders, Attn: Donor Services, 40 Rector St., 16th Floor, New York, NY 10006.

Governing law

You agree that your use of this Privacy Policy and any disputes relating thereto shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of New York. Any dispute relating to this Privacy Policy shall be resolved solely in the state or federal courts located in Manhattan, New York.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 02/02/2023. DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS®, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES®, and other marks used on this website are trademarks of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) USA, Inc. or its affiliates and may not be used without permission.