This Privacy Policy explains what personal information Save SF Bike collects when you visit savesfbike.org or fill out one of our forms, why we collect it, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. We are a small, volunteer-run group, and we have tried to write this policy in plain language. We collect as little as we can, we do not use analytics or advertising trackers, and we never sell your information.
If something in this policy is unclear, or if you want to know exactly what we hold about you, email us at [email protected]. This policy should be read together with our Cookie Policy, our Terms of Use, and our Disclaimer.
Who we are
Save SF Bike is an independent, volunteer-run group of current and former members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) and other community members, based in San Francisco, California, USA. We formed in 2015 to defend members' right to elect the SFBC Board of Directors, and we continue to advocate for transparent, member-led governance and safer streets.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Information you give us goes to Save SF Bike volunteers only. It is not passed to the SFBC, and we have no access to the SFBC's membership records. If you want to know what the SFBC holds about you, you will need to contact the SFBC directly.
For the purposes of privacy law, Save SF Bike is the party that decides how and why your personal information is used (the "business" under California law, or the "controller" under European and UK law). You can reach us at [email protected].
Scope of this policy
This policy covers personal information we collect:
- through the website at savesfbike.org and its pages, including the contact, endorsement, and newsletter forms;
- when you email us directly at our published address; and
- when you sign up for or take part in a program or event we organize, such as a Community Repair Clinic, a Neighborhood Listening Ride, or a Learn-to-Ride session, to the extent you give us information to arrange your participation.
This policy does not cover websites or services run by other organizations, even if we link to them. That includes the SFBC's website (sfbike.org), social networks such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), and city agencies. Those sites have their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to read.
Information we collect
We collect three kinds of information: information you choose to give us, a small amount of technical information collected automatically when you load the site, and, rarely, information from other people or public sources.
Information you provide to us
Every piece of personal information we hold about you through the website comes from a form you chose to submit or an email you chose to send. The table below lists each form and exactly what it asks for.
| Form | Information collected | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Contact / sign-up form | Full name; email address; phone number; the topic or program you are interested in (for example Board Candidate Coaching, the Governance Watch newsletter, Community Repair Clinics, Learn-to-Ride, Neighborhood Listening Rides, or the Street Safety Audit Kit); your message; and a consent checkbox confirming you agree to be contacted about your request. | Name, email, topic, message, and consent are required. Phone is optional. |
| "Endorse Save SF Bike" form | First name; last name; email address; your SFBC membership status (current, former, or never a member); and a yes/no choice about whether we may list your name publicly as a supporter. | All fields are required, but you can answer "no" to public listing and still endorse. |
| Newsletter sign-up | Email address only. | Required. |
| Direct email to us | Whatever you include: usually your name, email address, and the content of your message, plus any attachments. | Up to you. |
Please do not send us sensitive information we have not asked for, such as health details, government ID numbers, or financial account information. If you need to tell us about an accessibility need or a medical condition relevant to a riding program, a short note is enough, and we will use it only to make the program work for you.
Your SFBC membership status is something you tell us about yourself. We do not verify it against SFBC records, and we use it only to understand who supports our goals (for example, to say that a certain share of our endorsers are current members).
Information collected automatically
We keep automatic collection to a minimum:
- Server logs. Like nearly every website, our hosting provider's servers automatically record basic technical details when a page is requested: your IP address, the date and time of the request, the page or file requested, the browser and operating system you use (the "user agent"), and the referring page if your browser sends one. These logs are used for security, troubleshooting, and preventing abuse such as spam or denial-of-service attacks. We do not use them to build profiles of visitors.
- Browser storage (localStorage). The site stores a small value in your browser's localStorage to remember your cookie-consent choice and minor display preferences, such as whether you dismissed a notice. This information stays on your device and is not sent to us. No cookies are set by default. See our Cookie Policy for full details.
- Form submission metadata. When you submit a form, the form-handling service may record the time of submission and the IP address it came from, mainly so it can filter spam.
We do not use Google Analytics or any other analytics service, advertising networks, tracking pixels, session-recording tools, or social media "like" widgets. Our fonts, icons, and scripts are hosted on our own site rather than loaded from third-party content delivery networks, so simply visiting a page does not send your information to companies like Google, Meta, or font providers.
Information from third parties
We rarely receive personal information about you from anyone else. When we do, it is usually because:
- a friend or fellow member forwards us your contact details because you asked them to put you in touch with us;
- you publicly mention or message Save SF Bike on a social network, in which case we can see whatever that network shows publicly; or
- a parent or guardian gives us a child's first name and age to register them for a Learn-to-Ride session (see Children's privacy).
We do not buy contact lists, and we do not combine our records with data from data brokers.
How we use your information
We use personal information only for the purposes listed below. We do not use it for any unrelated purpose without telling you first.
- Responding to you. Answering questions, following up on messages, and connecting you with the volunteer who runs the program you asked about.
- Running programs and events. Scheduling a coaching session, letting you know the time and meeting point for a Listening Ride or Repair Clinic, sending you the Street Safety Audit Kit, or arranging a Learn-to-Ride lesson.
- Sending newsletters. Emailing the Governance Watch newsletter and occasional updates to people who signed up. Every newsletter includes a way to unsubscribe.
- Recording endorsements. Counting supporters, summarizing supporter numbers (for example "X current SFBC members have endorsed our platform"), and, only if you said yes, listing your first and last name on our public supporter list.
- Keeping the site secure. Detecting and blocking spam, bots, and attacks, and diagnosing technical problems.
- Meeting legal obligations. Responding to lawful requests, keeping records needed to show we honored a privacy request, and protecting our rights if a legal dispute arises.
We do not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects on anyone.
Legal bases for processing (EEA and UK visitors)
Most of our visitors are in the San Francisco Bay Area, but if you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or UK GDPR requires us to identify a legal basis for each use of your information. Ours are:
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Responding to contact messages and program requests | Consent (the checkbox on the form) and, where you ask to take part in a program, taking steps at your request |
| Sending the newsletter | Consent, which you can withdraw at any time by unsubscribing |
| Recording your endorsement | Consent |
| Publishing your name on the supporter list | Explicit consent (your "yes" answer), which you can withdraw at any time |
| Server logs and spam prevention | Legitimate interests in keeping the site secure and available |
| Responding to legal requests and keeping records of privacy requests | Legal obligation and legitimate interests |
Because your endorsement may reveal your political opinions about the governance of an advocacy organization, we treat it with extra care and rely on your explicit consent.
How we share information
We share personal information only in the limited situations described here.
Service providers
We rely on a few outside services to run the website and handle email. They process information on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes:
- Website hosting and form handling. Our hosting provider serves the website, keeps server logs, and processes form submissions, delivering them to our volunteers' inbox.
- Email. Messages and form submissions arrive in, and are answered from, our email account (currently a Gmail account). The email provider stores those messages on its servers.
- Newsletter delivery. If we use a mailing service to send the newsletter, your email address is stored with that service only to deliver the newsletter and handle unsubscribes.
Volunteers
Only the Save SF Bike volunteers who need your information to respond to you or run a program can see it. For example, the volunteer who coordinates Repair Clinics may see sign-ups for Repair Clinics. Volunteers are asked to use the information only for Save SF Bike purposes and not to copy it into personal contact lists.
Legal reasons
We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that it is required by law, subpoena, or court order; needed to protect the safety of any person; or needed to protect our rights or defend against legal claims. If we receive a legal demand for your information, we will try to notify you unless the law prohibits it.
If the group changes
If Save SF Bike ever dissolves or merges its work into another organization, we will either delete the information we hold or transfer it only to an organization that agrees to honor this policy, and we will give notice on the website first.
What we never do
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We have not done so in the past 12 months. We do not give or rent our lists to the SFBC, political campaigns, candidates for the SFBC board, businesses, or other advocacy groups.
The public supporter list
When you endorse Save SF Bike, you choose whether we may list your name publicly. If you answer yes, we may display your first and last name on our website as a supporter. If you answer no, your endorsement is counted in our totals but your name is never published.
We never publish your email address. We do not publish your individual membership status next to your name, although we may report anonymous totals such as how many endorsers are current SFBC members.
Please keep in mind that anything published on a public website can be seen by anyone, including SFBC staff and board members, and may be copied or archived by third parties (for example, by web archive services or search engines) before we can remove it.
To remove your name at any time, email [email protected] from the address you used to endorse, with the subject line "Remove my name." We aim to remove it from the live site within 7 days. You can also ask us to delete your endorsement entirely.
How long we keep information
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, and then delete it. Our standard retention periods are:
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Contact form submissions and emails to us | 24 months after our last exchange with you, then deleted, unless an ongoing matter requires us to keep them longer |
| Program sign-ups (Repair Clinics, Listening Rides, coaching, etc.) | Up to 24 months after the program or event ends |
| Learn-to-Ride registrations involving a child | Up to 12 months after the session, unless a signed waiver must be kept longer for insurance or legal reasons |
| Newsletter email address | Until you unsubscribe; after that we keep only a suppression record so we do not email you again by mistake |
| Endorsements | Until you withdraw your endorsement or ask us to delete it |
| Public supporter listing | Until you ask us to remove your name or withdraw your endorsement |
| Server logs | Typically 30 days or less, as set by our hosting provider |
| Records of privacy requests | 24 months, as required to show we handled them properly |
Information stored in backups may persist for a short time after deletion until the backup cycle overwrites it.
How we protect information
We take reasonable, practical steps to protect the information you give us, appropriate to a small volunteer group:
- The site is served over HTTPS, so form submissions are encrypted in transit.
- Access to our email account and hosting dashboard is limited to a small number of volunteers and protected with strong passwords and two-factor authentication.
- We do not keep spreadsheets of personal information on shared public drives, and we remove volunteers' access when they step back from the group.
- We collect only what we need, which limits what could be exposed.
No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that information will never be accessed without authorization. If we learn of a security breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and any authorities as required by California law and other applicable law.
Your privacy rights
California residents
The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (together, the "CCPA"), gives California residents rights over their personal information. As a small, volunteer-run group, Save SF Bike very likely falls below the thresholds that make the CCPA legally binding. We nonetheless choose to honor the following rights for everyone in California, and in practice for any visitor who asks:
- Right to know. You can ask what categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, where we got it, why we use it, and who we share it with.
- Right to delete. You can ask us to delete personal information we collected from you, subject to limited exceptions (for example, a record that you asked not to be contacted again).
- Right to correct. You can ask us to fix inaccurate information, such as a misspelled name on the supporter list.
- Right to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of, but we honor Global Privacy Control signals anyway (see below).
- Right to limit use of sensitive personal information. We do not use sensitive personal information for purposes that would trigger this right.
- Right to non-discrimination. We will not treat you differently, or deny you access to programs, because you exercised any of these rights.
California "Shine the Light" law. Under California Civil Code section 1798.83, California residents may ask once per calendar year whether a business has disclosed their personal information to third parties for those third parties' direct marketing purposes. We do not disclose personal information to anyone for their direct marketing purposes. You may still send a request to the email address below with "Shine the Light" in the subject line, and we will confirm this in writing.
EEA and UK residents
If you are in the EEA or the UK, you have the right to access your personal data; to have it corrected or erased; to restrict or object to our processing of it; to data portability (receiving your data in a commonly used format); and to withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority, or in the UK to the Information Commissioner's Office. We would appreciate the chance to resolve your concern first.
How to exercise your rights
To make any request, email [email protected]. You can also use our contact page. Please tell us what you would like us to do (for example, "send me a copy of my data" or "delete my endorsement") and which email address you used with us.
- Verification. To protect your information, we need to confirm the request comes from you. Usually, writing from the same email address you used on our forms is enough. If it is not, we may ask you to confirm a detail only you would know, such as the approximate date you signed up. We will not ask for government ID unless there is no other reasonable way to verify you, and we will use verification information only for that purpose.
- Authorized agents. Someone else may make a request on your behalf if they provide written permission from you, and we may still ask you to confirm your identity directly.
- Response time. We will acknowledge your request within 10 days and respond in full within 45 days. If we need more time (up to another 45 days), we will tell you why.
- Cost. Requests are free. If someone sends repetitive or clearly unfounded requests, we may decline them and explain why.
To simply stop receiving the newsletter, use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any issue or reply with "unsubscribe."
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) requires websites to explain how they respond to "Do Not Track" (DNT) browser signals. Because savesfbike.org does not track visitors across websites or over time, and does not allow third parties to do so, the site behaves the same whether or not your browser sends a DNT signal: no tracking happens either way.
We also honor Global Privacy Control (GPC). If your browser or extension sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. Since we do not sell or share personal information for advertising, this confirms what already happens, and we will apply the opt-out to any information associated with your browser or, if you are known to us, to your records.
Children's privacy
This website is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, consistent with the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Our forms ask for the information of the adult filling them out.
Our Learn-to-Ride program includes sessions for young riders. All youth sign-ups must be made by a parent or legal guardian, who provides their own contact details and only the minimum information about the child needed to plan the session, such as first name, age, and any safety-related notes. The parent or guardian may review, correct, or delete that information at any time by emailing us.
If you believe a child under 13 has submitted personal information to us directly, please email [email protected] and we will delete it promptly.
International visitors and data transfers
Save SF Bike is based in the United States, and our hosting, form, and email providers may store data in the United States or other countries. If you submit information from outside the US, it will be transferred to and processed in the US, where privacy laws may differ from those in your country. Where our providers transfer personal data out of the EEA or UK, they rely on recognized safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or applicable adequacy frameworks. By keeping the data we hold to a minimum, we also limit what is transferred.
Third-party websites and links
Our pages link to other websites, including the SFBC (sfbike.org), SFMTA, Vision Zero SF, transit agencies, and social networks such as Facebook and X. Our "share" buttons are plain links: they do nothing until you click them, and no information is sent to the social network just because you loaded our page. Once you click through to another site, that site's privacy policy applies, and it may set its own cookies or collect information about you. We are not responsible for the practices of other websites.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when our practices, our service providers, or the law change. When we do, we will change the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. If we make a significant change, such as collecting a new kind of information or using it for a new purpose, we will post a notice on the home page and, where you have given us your email address for that purpose, email you before the change takes effect. We will not use previously collected information in a materially different way without your consent.
Contact us
Questions, requests, or complaints about privacy can be sent to:
Save SF Bike
San Francisco, California, USA
Email: [email protected]
Website: savesfbike.org/contact
We are volunteers, so please allow a few days for a reply. This policy describes our practices in good faith; it is not legal advice to you about your own obligations or rights.