Privacy policy

Last updated: May 2026

Tech Aid for Refugees is a volunteer-run nonprofit initiative based in California. This page explains, in plain language, what personal information we collect, how we use it, and your rights to control it.

What we collect

We only collect what’s necessary for our work to happen:

• From people requesting help: your name, city, household size, contact phone or email, and a brief description of what appliances you need. We collect this so we can match you with available appliances and arrange delivery.
• From volunteers: your name, contact email, city, languages spoken, role(s) you’re interested in, and your general availability.
• From donors: your PayPal donation record (handled by PayPal’s own systems; we don’t store your card details). If you donate an appliance, your name, address, and pickup-time preference.
• From all website visitors: standard analytics: pages viewed, browser type, approximate region. We use Google Analytics for this. No personal identifiers are stored.
• Photos: at delivery, with explicit verbal consent, we sometimes take a photo of the family with the delivered appliance to share with the donor who funded the work. We never publish a photo without your permission, and we never publish names attached to faces.

How we use it

• To match requests with available appliances and coordinate delivery
• To respond to volunteer inquiries and contact you about scheduled work
• To send PayPal donors a thank-you confirmation (and, if you ask, a tax-deductibility receipt note)
• To share aggregate statistics with our partners (e.g., “we delivered 42 appliances this quarter”), never with individual identifiers attached

How we DON’T use it

• We don’t sell or rent personal information. To anyone. Ever.
• We don’t send marketing emails or newsletters (we don’t have a mailing list).
• We don’t share your information with third parties except where strictly necessary to deliver a service (e.g., PayPal handles your donation transaction; a delivery driver knows your delivery address).
• We don’t profile you, retarget you with ads, or feed your information into AI training.

How long we keep it

• Help-request records: kept for 12 months after fulfillment, then deleted
• Volunteer records: kept while you’re active; deleted within 60 days of you asking us to remove your record
• Donation records: kept for 7 years as required by tax/accounting obligations
• Photos: published only with consent; can be removed on request within 14 days

Your rights

You can ask us at any time to:

• Show you what we have on file about you
• Correct anything that’s wrong
• Delete your information (subject to the tax-record retention above)
• Remove your photo from any of our materials

Email [email protected]. We respond within 14 days.

Security

We use standard reasonable measures to protect the limited information we collect. Donations go through PayPal’s secure payment infrastructure; we never see your card number. Our forms use HTTPS. Our email host is Google Workspace.

We’re a small volunteer operation, not a large corporation, and we don’t try to act like one. If you ever have a concern about how your information is being handled, the fastest path is to email us directly: [email protected].

Children

Our services are intended for adults. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18, including help-request submissions, which must come from a parent or guardian. If a family includes children, we may note ages (for sizing appropriate appliances) but we don’t store children’s individual names or contact info.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy occasionally. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the most recent revision. Substantial changes (the kind that affect what we collect or who we share with) will be announced at the top of this page for at least 30 days.

Jurisdiction

We operate from California, USA. Disputes related to this policy fall under California state law and the federal/state courts of Contra Costa County, California.