By registering with New York State pursuant to the Business Mentor NY Program (the "Program") using or accessing the Business Mentor NY Website located at businessmentor.ny.gov (the "Website"), you are agreeing to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. Your use of the Website is also subject to the Terms of Use and the Code of Conduct.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should contact our privacy staff at support@businessmentor.ny.gov.

A. The Information We Collect and How We Use It

When you register with New York State acting through New York State Urban Development Corporation d/b/a Empire State Development ("New York State") and create a user profile to participate in the Program, you provide us with certain personal and business information, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your postal code, your group or company affiliations, and your password.

If you choose to create an entrepreneur profile on the Website, certain profile information will be collected by the Website. This may include your name, business name, primary industry, business website, start date of business, general business description, business street address, annual business revenue, number of employees, household size, household income, and additional information you provide when you register with New York State.

If you choose to create a mentor profile on the Website, certain profile information will be collected by the Website. This may include your name, city of residence, position or title, company name, industry, areas of expertise, a description of business expertise, years of ownership experience, years of management experience, and additional information you provide when you register with New York State.

In addition, New York State also collects demographic information including, but not limited to, your birth year, gender, ethnicity, country of origin, language(s) spoken, any disabilities the mentor or mentee has, and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us.

New York State also collects other contact, demographic and business information in order to provide a mentor matching service to facilitate virtual mentoring, to provide other services provided by New York State and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

When you access the Website, we collect your IP address, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track movements in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Information such as your IP address is not linked to personally identifiable information. This information is gathered for all Website users.

By sending communications to other users (including, but not limited to, mentor/mentee requests), you consent to New York State storing the conversations you have with other users on its servers owned or controlled by us. You understand that even if you delete a conversation you have with another user, that user may also be able to save it. You further agree that we may retain, use, and scan copies of your conversations for a limited time solely to filter spam, detect viruses, test and improve our messaging services, and to deliver personalized features to you.

By registering with New York State, you are permitted to create a personal profile, form relationships with other users, send messages to other registered users, perform searches and queries, and join groups and social networks.

We collect this information so that we can provide services to you, offer personalized features, and for other purposes described in this Privacy Policy. In most cases, we retain such information so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your mentor or mentee list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

New York State uses the information you provide and information we collect in numerous ways such as:

1. To match you with either a mentor or a mentee. Once a match is made, your name, email address, phone number (optional) and the URL of your public New York State profile and associated content will be supplied to the person you have been matched with.
2. To communicate with you regarding our services, the mentoring process, and upcoming New York State events or initiatives.
3. To evaluate and improve the New York State services and the Website and offer personalized features.
4. We will also use non-identifiable, aggregate information to guide our program efforts and report to funders, stakeholders and external partners.
5. With your explicit permission, we may use your personal details to promote New York State. You will be contacted before any release of such information for New York State's promotional purposes, and you may withdraw any permission that you may grant at any time.

By using our Website and participating in the Program, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed within the United States. Moreover, please note that from time to time, New York State may use this information to report to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). HUD does not determine eligibility.

B. Display of Information Obtained by New York State

If you choose to create a profile on the Website, certain profile information will be collected and displayed publicly on the Website. This will include your name, the city and state where you live, and your membership with a group or company.

If you choose to create an entrepreneur profile on the Website, certain profile information will be collected and displayed publicly on the Website. This may include your name, city of residence, membership with a group or company, a photograph you provide, business name, industry, business website, start date of business, general business description, and additional information you provide when you register with New York State.

If you choose to create a mentor profile on the Website, certain profile information will be collected and displayed publicly on the Website. This may include your name, city of residence, a photograph you provide, your position or title, company name, industry, areas of expertise, a description of business expertise, years of ownership experience, years of management experience, and additional information you provide when you register with the Program.

Also, profile information you submit to New York State may be made available to third party search engines. This is primarily so potential mentors or mentees can find you and send a mentor request or an offer for mentoring advice. People who see your name in searches will be able to access your profile information by clicking on your name or profile picture thumbnail.

When you use the Website, certain information you post or share, such as answers to questions, messages, photos or other information, may be shared with other users. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos or other items, this information may become publicly available.

New York State may provide information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We may do this for purposes such as personalizing advertisements and promotions.

C. Sharing and Disclosing Your Information

New York State shares and discloses your information with third parties (i) to develop and offer the services, (ii) with your consent, (iii) as legally required or (iv) as described below:

• If, when you register with the Program, you identify yourself as a member of a group or corporation that is affiliated with or has a relationship with New York State, we may provide that group or corporation with individual non-anonymous reports, that may include any or all of your profile data, detailing your use of the Website and any feedback you or your matches have reported to us regarding your mentoring relationships and business outcomes. The group or company may use this information for the purposes of facilitating the Program, measuring the activity and evaluating the outcomes of their participants in the Program, and promoting the Program and the services the organization provides to its members.
• New York State may provide reports containing aggregated, anonymous information to third party entities including but not limited to groups, companies or organizations that New York State may have a relationship with.
• In order to promote and notify prospective users of the volunteer opportunities available on the Website, as well as mentoring opportunities, some features of your profile may be exported to Third Party Sites that promote small business development and/or volunteerism, and social networks that cater to small business owners and business professionals. Such features that may be exported to and displayed on such Third Party Sites include but are not limited to your name, picture, industry, business name, experience needed, city and state of business, mentoring request summary, mentoring request expertise, profile URL and mentoring request URL.
• New York State may provide information to certain third party companies which we may contract to perform services to you on our behalf. These services may include postal and e-mail delivery, customer relationship management, customer service, development and research, data analysis and security, fraud protection, and payment processing (e.g., through PayPal or a similar service which collects and processes donations on our behalf). The third parties we contract with for the provision of these services will be permitted to obtain only such personal information as they require to deliver the services and only use such information for their provision of the applicable services to us.
• We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Website or using the New York State name, or to prevent threats to the physical safety of any person or violation of the Terms of Use or Code of Conduct. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.

D. NYS Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)

All information collected through the Website, including personal information, becomes a public record unless an exemption in law exists. Information reported to the Website is subject to Freedom of Information laws found in the New York Public Officers Law.

E. Privacy Policy Disclaimer

The information provided in this privacy policy should not be construed as giving business, legal, or other advice, or warranting as fail proof, the security of information through the Website.

F. Communications from the Site

Users will occasionally receive information on Program services, messages regarding participation in the Program, and newsletters. Users cannot opt out of certain communications that are necessary for them to receive in order to participate in the Program. Users who have deactivated their accounts can opt-out of these mailings.

G. Customer Service

We communicate with users to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account. We reply via email, regular mail or phone, depending on the nature of the communication.

H. Choice/Opt-in

By registering or otherwise agreeing, users agree to receiving communications from New York State. Users may 'opt-out' of receiving further marketing communications by replying to support@businessmentor.ny.gov with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line. There may be up to a seven-day delay in manually processed requests. To deactivate your account on the Website, send an email to support@businessmentor.ny.gov with "Deactivate" in the subject line.

I. Links

This Website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that New York State is not responsible for the privacy or other practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our Website and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Website.

J. Surveys

From time-to-time, we request information from users via surveys. The requested information may include contact information (such as name and email address) or may be linked to your New York State account that already holds this information. Contact information may be used to follow up on the survey. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this Website and New York State's programs. Users' personally identifiable information obtained through such surveys is not shared with third parties unless we give prior notice and choice. Though we may use an intermediary to conduct these surveys, they may not use users' personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

K. References

New York State occasionally asks participants to submit references or other information to us before being accepted into the program Your submission of same will constitute your explicit consent for New York State to contact

J. Security

This Website takes technical and other precautions to protect our users' information. If you have questions about the security of the Website, please contact our support staff at support@businessmentor.ny.gov. Unless otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, only employees and independent contractors operating on Business Mentor NY's behalf who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. You agree to maintain the security of your password and identification.

You post User Content (as defined in the Business Mentor NY Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users. We are not responsible for unauthorized circumvention of any security measures contained on the Website. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored your User Content.

K. Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information

If a user's personally identifiable information changes, or if a user no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate users' personally identifiable information. This can be done by emailing us at support@businessmentor.ny.gov.

L. Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy, and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. Changes we deem to be material will be communicated via an email alert to the email address you provided when registering your account.