Privacy Policy

We may collect information from and about you, including information that you provide, information from other sources, and automatically collected information.

Information You Provide

When you interact with our site, such as by uploading content or contacting us directly, you may provide some or all of the following information:

• Your preferred name and age.
• The name of your school or ZIP code, and the name of your town or county.
• Your grade if you are a student, or your role if you are an educator.
• Your email address if you choose to contact us through our site. If you are under age 18, we will ask for your parent or guardian’s contact information to administer the contest.
• Contest winners may be asked for additional information such as a date of birth and postal address to administer the contest and deliver prizes.
• User-generated content, including your idea for the NC Idea Challenge, your comment about what interests or concerns you, and any video that you choose to create through our site or upload to our site from your device and the associated metadata, such as when, where, and by what device the content was created.
• Message content and associated metadata, which includes any information you provide when you compose, send, or receive messages through our site, including if you ask us for assistance.

Information From Other Sources

We may receive information about you from other sources, such as your teacher or your parent or guardian if you are a student. If you include information about other people in your video or message content, please be sure that you have their permission to do so.

Automatically Collected Information

We automatically collect certain information from you when you use the site, including internet or other network activity information such as your IP address and other device identifiers, information about the device you used such as the model, location-related data, operating and network system information, and browsing history.

We and others use cookies and other similar technologies (e.g., web beacons, flash cookies, etc.) on the site to automatically collect information and analyze how you use the site, including which pages you view most often and how you interact with content, to enhance your experience using the site, prevent abuse, ensure fair usage, and improve the site and our services and offerings. We ask before setting analytics cookies: our analytics (Google Analytics, with all advertising features, ad personalization, and Google Signals disabled) runs only if you accept the cookie notice, and the site works fully if you decline.

We use your information to administer the NC Idea Challenge and the associated contest. We also use information about you:

• To communicate with you, including to notify you about changes in our site or services.
• To fulfill requests for support.
• To understand or address site functionality and internal administration, including customizing content, troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, and research.
• To help us detect abuse, fraud, and illegal activity on the site.
• To promote the safety and security of the site, our users, or our organization, including by reviewing user content, messages and associated metadata for violations of our Terms and Conditions, other conditions and policies, or applicable law.
• To verify your identity in order to use certain features or confirm permissions we may need to administer the contest or use the content participants provided, or in other instances where verification may be required.
• To announce you as a winner of our contests or promotions if permitted by the promotion rule, and to send you any applicable prizes.
• To enforce our Terms and Conditions and other conditions and policies or address our legal obligations.
• For any other purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your information or pursuant to your consent.

We are committed to maintaining your trust. We do not sell personal information or share it for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising. We may need to share your information in certain circumstances, such as:

• With community partners, such as our contest judges, your school, or government agencies that help us administer the contest.
• With the public. We may share video submissions, winning ideas, or excerpts of content you share to celebrate participants and promote the NC Idea Challenge.
• With our service providers or business partners to help us perform business operations and for business purposes, including research, administering contests, technology services, deliveries, sending communications, analytics, measurement, data storage and hosting, disaster recovery, search engine optimization, and data processing.
• In connection with a business transfer, such as the sale of our site, a merger, consolidation, asset sale, or similar reorganization.
• For legal reasons, such as responding to subpoenas, court orders, legal process, law enforcement requests, legal claims, or government inquiries, and to protect and defend the rights, interests, safety, and security of the site, our organization, users, or the public. We may also share information as needed to enforce any terms or policies applicable to the site, to exercise or defend any legal claims, and comply with any applicable law.
• With your consent for other purposes we would describe when requesting your permission.

You may submit a request to access, correct or delete the information we have collected about you, or your child, by emailing hello@ideachallengenc.org. If you are a parent or guardian who previously consented to your child’s participation, you also may email us to withdraw your consent at any time. Finally, please contact us at hello@ideachallengenc.org if you prefer that we not publish any part of your submission, such as an excerpt of your video.

You may be able to control some of the information we collect through your device browser settings to refuse or disable cookies or similar technology. Because each browser is different, please consult the instructions provided by your browser. Your choice to disable cookies is specific to the particular browser or device that you are using when you disable cookies, so you may need to separately disable them for each type of browser or device you use.

We use reasonable measures to help protect information from loss, theft, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. You should understand that no data storage system or transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be perfectly secure.

We retain video and idea submissions with associated personal information for as long as necessary to administer the contest. We retain other personal information for so long as needed to fulfill the purposes of its collection, as set out in this privacy policy. We also retain information when necessary to comply with contractual and legal obligations, when we have a legitimate business interest to do so (such as improving and developing the site, and enhancing its safety, security and stability), and for the exercise or defense of legal claims. Videos that are not associated with a winning submission are disposed of within one year of the NC Idea Challenge closing.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will notify you by updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of the new privacy policy, posting the new privacy policy, or providing any other notice required by applicable law. We recommend that you review the privacy policy each time you visit the site to stay informed of our privacy practices.

If you have any questions about this policy or your rights when using our site, please email us at hello@ideachallengenc.org. You also can reach us at Exponential Scholars, 2626 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 550, Raleigh, NC 27608.