Privacy Policy

Sesame Workshop has been trusted by parents for decades to provide safe, entertaining, and educational content. We take this trust seriously and recognize the importance of privacy concerns, especially in the digital environment. With this in mind, we have adopted this Privacy Policy for our Platforms that link to this Privacy Policy.

To learn specifically about our children’s privacy practices, please visit the section below on “Sesame Workshop Children’s Privacy.”

Last updated: May 31, 2023

SESAME WORKSHOP PRIVACY POLICY

Thank you for visiting a Site owned and operated by Sesame Workshop or an App published by Sesame Workshop (from which you have linked to this Privacy Policy). “Sites” refers to Internet web sites and “Apps” refers to apps for use on mobile communication devices such as smartphones and tablets. “Platforms” refers to Sites and Apps collectively that are owned and operated by Sesame Workshop (which we also refer to as “we,” “us,” or “our”).

Throughout this Privacy Policy, we refer to “Personal Information,” which includes information that identifies, relates to, describes, or could reasonably be linked to, you as an individual or to your household, or to a device you use to interact with our Platforms.

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting the updated Privacy Policy online. When we do, the “Last Updated” line above will be revised and any additional notification will be provided in accordance with applicable law. We will not change how we handle previously collected information without providing notice and, where necessary, obtaining parental consent.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Your Privacy Rights and Choices
Types of Personal Information We Collect
How We May Use Your Information
How We May Disclose Personal Information
Cross-Border Transfers
Security of Your Personal Information
Retention of Your Personal Information
Sesame Workshop Children’s Privacy
Cookie Notice
Privacy Policies of Other Websites We Link To
Job Applicants
How to Contact Us

YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS AND CHOICES

No matter where you are located, we provide every user with the right to:

Be informed. It’s your right to be informed of the Personal Information we process about you, and how we process it. We inform you through this Privacy Policy, through information provided to you through the Platforms, and by answering your questions about our Privacy Policy when you contact us.
It’s your right to request access to the Personal Information that we process about you.
It’s your right to request that we amend or update your Personal Information where it may be inaccurate or incomplete.
It’s your right to request that we delete your Personal Information, under certain conditions.
It’s your right to request that we restrict the processing of your Personal Information, under certain conditions.
It’s your right to object to our processing of your Personal Information, under certain conditions.
Opt out of sharing of your Personal Information. It’s your right to opt out of sharing your Personal Information with:
- Certain data service companies that help us better understand our audiences, and may also use your information for their own purposes.
- Other non-profits with complementary missions, with the goal of reaching as many people as possible who may support the Sesame Workshop mission.
- Advertising partners that display targeted – including cross-context behavioral –advertisements to users around the web. You can limit online tracking as described in our “Cookie Notice” or by clicking the “Cookie Preferences” link at the footer of our Sites.
Data portability. It’s your right to request a machine-readable copy of your Personal Information, or that we transfer the Personal Information that we have collected to another organization, under certain conditions.
Not be subject to automated decision-making. It’s your right to opt out of automated decision-making (decisions based solely on autonomous decision-making, that is, a decision made without human involvement)), including profiling, where the decision would have a legal effect on you or produce a similarly significant effect.
Withdrawal of consent. It’s your right to withdraw your consent to us for our processing of your Personal Information in the circumstances in which we rely on your consent to process your information.

You may also always choose to opt out of a specific marketing newsletter or other email communication by clicking the “unsubscribe” button that appears in each such email.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at dotorgmail@sesame.org. We will respond within the time frame required under applicable laws.

Please be aware that your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exceptions, such as to safeguard the public interest as well as our interests (for example, our ability to maintain legal privilege and provide our content).

TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Personal Information You Provide

You may be asked to provide us with certain Personal Information when you sign up for an account or a newsletter on one of our Platforms, when you contact us for information about Sesame Workshop or one of our programs, when you use some of our Apps, when you register for and/or attend Sesame Workshop events (such as our annual fundraising gala), or when you participate in Sesame Workshop programs. The Personal Information we request may include:

Contact information, including your name, postal address, telephone number, or email address;
Payment information, such as your name, last four digits of a credit card number (credit card payments are processed by a third-party Service Provider (defined below)), telephone number, and billing address, when you make a donation to Sesame Workshop. Credit and debit card payments are processed by our third-party providers. These providers collect the information necessary to process the transaction, and may handle your payment information in accordance with their own privacy policies. We do not have access to your credit or debit card details;
Information regarding your donation history, donation amount, and your charitable interests; or
Basic demographic information about you and your family.

Depending upon the activity, some Personal Information will be mandatory for participation, and we will indicate it as such. If you do not provide the mandatory Personal Information with respect to an activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.

Some of our Platforms are intended for children under the age of 13 (we refer to these individuals as a “Child” or “Children”). If we learn that we have inadvertently collected Personal Information from a Child on any of our Platforms that are not intended for Children, we will take steps to promptly delete that information.

For information about our collection of Personal Information from Children, on the Platforms that are intended for Children, please refer to the “Sesame Workshop Children’s Privacy” section.

Information We Collect Automatically

We, and our Service Providers (defined below), automatically collect certain information when you visit or interact with the Platforms. Such information may include, among other things, the Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) from which you arrived, the URL to which you next go, browser information, Internet Protocol addresses, a mobile device identifier, type of operating system, general location data such as a city or zip code. We, and our Service Providers, also collect information about your use of the Platforms such as the pages or sections you visit most frequently, the time you spend there, and how you move through the Platform. We refer to this type of information as “Usage Information”. We collect Usage Information directly from your device through the use of cookies, web beacons, third party analytics providers, or other similar technologies.

We use cookies, web beacons (e.g., pixel tags), and local and session storage technologies to collect some of this information. For more information on how we use these technologies, please visit our “Cookie Notice” When Usage Information is in a form that would be considered Personal Information, we use it in accordance with the representations made in this Privacy Policy.

Currently, our Sites do not respond to “Do Not Track” signals transmitted by web browsers. “Do Not Track” is different from the Global Privacy Control (GPC), which we do respond to, in certain territories. To find out more about GPC, please visit https://globalprivacycontrol.org/.

Personal Information Received from Third Parties

We may receive Personal Information about you from other sources, including our data broker services, data enhancement companies, list rental services, third-party analytics providers, and social media-owned databases, including via your interaction with our social media pages (this includes aggregate data on our social media followers (e.g., age, gender and location), engagement data (e.g., “likes,” comments, shares, reposts and clicks), awareness data (e.g., number of impressions and reach) and individual users’ public profiles). We may also collect certain donation information from our Service Providers, including past donation history, amount donated each time, and frequency of donations.

In addition, we may obtain certain information from our licensees, including name, address, and payment information, to generate a profile of users who interact with our licensees.

Personal Information We Create or Generate

We may also infer certain Personal Information from any combination of the information that we collect directly or that we receive from third-parties, including using automated means to generate information about your likely preferences or other characteristics.

In all cases, we will only use your Personal Information in compliance with this Privacy Policy.

How We MAY USE YOUR information

We use Personal Information for the following purposes or as otherwise described at the time of collection:

To administer our Platforms. To perform our contractual obligation to you under our Terms of Use, we may use your Personal Information to provide support to you when you request it, services, and security in partnership with our third-party service providers; and, it is in our legitimate business interests to use your Personal Information to help us understand and monitor the usage of our Platforms, improve our offerings, and customize and improve the performance of the Platforms;
To operate our organization. It is our legitimate business interest to operate our organization, including by sharing with our subsidiaries, affiliates and other related entities; with our advisors, including lawyers, consultants, accountants; and with others for our lawful business purposes;
To resolve disputes. It is our legitimate business interest to prevent, investigate, and defend against any known or suspected violations of our Terms of Use, including by sharing Personal Information with entities that assist us in those endeavors or otherwise as may be required by applicable law;
To protect our rights and the rights and safety of our users. It is our legitimate business interest, and our legal obligation to, protect the rights and safety of you and our users, including as may be required by a court order, regulatory inquiry, or other lawful request. Where possible, and where not prohibited by law or where doing so might impact the prevention or detection of a crime, we will direct any such request to you;
To communicate with you. It is our legitimate business interest to deliver information to you that you have expressly chosen to receive and to enable your participation in special programs that we may offer (if you choose to participate in such programs); or
To market and advertise to you; this may include:
- Providing you with direct marketing materials, such as updates and offers, and asking for your ongoing support of Sesame Workshop. You may unsubscribe or opt out of such electronic communications via the link labeled “unsubscribe” that appears on such communications, or by contacting us at dotorgmail@sesame.org; and
- Engaging in interest-based advertising, such as by creating user profiles to inform them of content and other offerings that we believe may be of interest to them.

Except where consent is required, we undertake marketing and advertising on the basis of our legitimate business interests. Where we seek your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time.

HOW WE MAY DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We disclose Personal Information in the following circumstances:

Third-party service providers. We contract with third parties to provide certain services and to facilitate the operations of our Platforms (our “Service Providers”), such as data hosting, analytics, donor management, content delivery, payment processing, and email marketing. Our Service Providers may require access to certain Personal Information in order to provide their services.
Advertising partners. We may share collected information with advertising partners to help us better understand our audiences, including for the interest-based advertising purposes described above. For more information about third party advertisers and how to prevent them from using your information, visit the NAI’s consumer website at or http://www.aboutads.info/choices/, or http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/.
Non-profit partners. We may disclose your information to other non-profits with complementary missions, all with the goal of reaching as many people as possible who may support the Sesame Workshop mission.
Data service companies. We may disclose your information to data service companies that help us better understand our audiences, and may also use your information for their own purposes.
Professional advisors. We may share collected information with our professional advisors, such as lawyers, auditors, bankers and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.
Business transfers. We may share any collected information in connection with a substantial corporate transaction, such as the sale of our organization, a merger, a consolidation, an asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.
Legal requirements. We may disclose any collected information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, legal process, and other law enforcement measures, and to comply with legal or regulatory obligations.
Protecting our Platforms and users. We, and our Service Providers and vendors, may disclose any collected information to enforce our Terms of Use and to protect and defend the legal rights, interests, and safety of Sesame Workshop, our employees, agents, contractors, sponsors, listeners and users, members of the general public, or others.

We may also share your Personal Information at your direction, including through third-party applications that you choose to use. For example, if you make a donation through the Platforms, the transaction may be handled by our Service Providers responsible for processing your transaction. If you choose to use a third-party application or service, the use of your information by the third party will be governed by that party’s privacy policy. We may anonymize your Personal Information and share such anonymized information with third parties for any purpose permitted by applicable laws.

Cross-Border Transfers

We, or our Service Providers, may transfer and store information that we collect about you, including Personal Information, across borders from your country or jurisdiction to other countries or jurisdictions around the world, including to entities located outside of the EEA. When we engage in cross-border data transfers, we will ensure that your legal rights and protections travel with any transfer of personal information, as required by applicable data protection laws. Where required, such as in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, or European Economic Area, we may rely on an EU Commission or UK government adequacy decision or will implement Standard Contractual Clauses with our third parties, or we will rely on another lawful transfer mechanism. You may request details of the transfer mechanism we rely on to transfer Personal Information by sending such request to us at dotorgmail@sesame.org.

Security of Your Personal Information

We implement and maintain technical and organizational measures to help secure your Personal Information. We host Personal Information in secure, cloud-based environments that use firewalls, encryption and other industry-standard technologies in an effort to prevent interference or access from outside intruders.

While we strive to maintain the security of your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee that information security measures are fail-safe or guarantee that Personal Information on a Platform may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed without authorization.

Retention of Your Personal Information

We will retain your Personal Information in accordance with the time period allowed under applicable law, and with consideration for the sensitivity, volume, and type of Personal Information, as well as the purpose for which we have collected it, after which time we will take steps to delete it.

We will retain deidentified, aggregate data for lawfully allowed purposes.

SESAME WORKSHOP CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

We operate certain Platforms that are focused on children’s education and entertainment (“Children’s Platforms”) and we strive to operate the Children’s Platforms in alignment with the principles of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).

Information We Request on Our Children’s Platforms

We will not ask a child to provide us with more Personal Information than is reasonably necessary to participate in any Platform activity or service. For certain activities, there may be a “Share with a Friend” option where children can provide their first name, a friend’s first name, and friend’s email address to send a feature from a Children’s Platform to the friend via email. We use such Personal Information only to fulfill the child’s request and do not store that Personal Information for any longer than reasonably necessary to send the relevant email.

In the future, should we request Personal Information from a child in a manner that requires prior, verifiable consent from a parent, we will notify you of that change by updating this privacy policy and will implement practices that align with the requirements of COPPA.

If we become aware that we have inadvertently received Personal Information from a Child without the legally required prior, verifiable parental consent, regardless of where in the world they are located, we will delete that information promptly.

Information We Collect Automatically on Our Children’s Platforms

We automatically collect certain information from visitors to our Children’s Platforms to help us understand trends about our Children’s Platforms are used. This helps us to maintain and administer the Children’s Platforms, including to support our security efforts, to make improvements, and to understand aggregated information about the makeup of our visitors.

We use certain Service Providers to help us collect and understand this information. The information might include, for example, the Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) from which the visitor arrived, the URL to which you next go, browser information, Internet Protocol addresses, a mobile device identifier, operating system, or general location data such as a city or zip code, as well as information about use of the Children’s Platforms, such as the pages or sections visited most often, the time spent there, and how a visitor moves through the Children’s Platform. When this information is considered to be Personal Information, we treat it in accordance with this section of the privacy policy.

We and our service providers collect this information directly from the device through the use of cookies, web beacons, or other similar technologies. A “cookie” is a small data file that a web site transfers to a user’s device and is stored on the user’s browser. As a user moves from one page or one screen to another, a cookie is used to tell us that it is the same device and to remember your preferences. A “web beacon” (also referred to as a “clear gif” or “pixel tag”) is a one-pixel image (which may be visible or transparent), which may be embedded on a web page or in an e-mail message, and which may also provide us with information about usage of that page or e-mail message, including if and when you have opened it. More information about the cookies used in our Children’s Platform is available in our Cookie Notice. Most browsers allow you to control placement of cookies by third parties on your browser. To learn more about cookies and how to manage or delete them, refer to the “Tools,” “Help,” or similar section of your web browser.

How We Use and Share Personal Information Collected on Our Children’s Platforms

We use Personal Information collected from or about children to operate our business, such as to administer and maintain our Children’s Platforms and in support of our Children’s Platform internal operations, in accordance with consent provide by a parent, to comply with our legal obligations, and otherwise as described above.

We contract with third parties to provide certain services and to facilitate the internal operations of our Children’s Platforms, such as data hosting, analytics, and content delivery. These third parties may require access to certain Personal Information, only in order to provide their services.

Managing Personal Information Collected on Our Children’s Platforms

Parents may contact us at dotorgmail@sesame.org with requests to review, update or delete any of their Children’s Personal Information that we may have collected, to revoke any consent that had been previously provided, and to elect for us not to collect any additional Personal Information from their children. Please be aware that we may request additional Personal Information in order to verify your identity and your relationship to the Child before we can proceed with your request, particularly a request to access a Child’s Personal Information. We will use any such Personal Information only to validate the request. We will fulfill any valid request to review, update or delete any such Personal Information within a reasonable time period.

Security of Information Collected on Our Children’s Platforms

We implement and maintain technical and organizational measures to help secure Personal Information collected through our Children’s Platforms. We host Personal Information in secure, cloud-based environments that use firewalls, encryption and other industry-standard technologies in an effort to prevent interference or access from outside intruders.

COOKIE NOTICE

We use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons, to collect and store information when you visit our Platforms. A “cookie” is a small data file that a website transfers to a user’s device and is stored on the user’s browser. As a user moves from one page or one screen to another, a cookie is used to tell us that it is the same device and to remember your preferences. A “web beacon” (also referred to as a “clear gif” or “pixel tag”) is a one-pixel image (which may be visible or transparent), which may be embedded on a web page or in an e-mail message, and which may also provide us with information about usage of that page or e-mail message, including if and when you have opened it.

Types of Cookies We Use

We might use both session and persistent cookies. Session cookies last for as long as you are using your browser, while persistent cookies will last for some time after you close your browser. The time that persistent cookies last is dependent on your browser configuration and the lifespan of each cookie.

These cookies may be “first party” cookies, which are served by us, or “third party” cookies, which are served by a domain other than ours. While we allow third parties to access the Platforms to place cookies on users’ devices, the information those cookies supply is controlled by the third party and subject to their privacy policy.

The Platforms use four types of cookies: essential, functional, analytics, and marketing cookies.

Marketing cookies are not served on our Children’s Platforms.

Essential Cookies: These are required to use our Platforms and to access certain features. Where applicable, the legal basis for use of essential cookies is our legitimate interest to operate our Platforms.
Functional Cookies: These help us to store choices and settings you make, such as your country or account preferences. If you disable these cookies, the functionality of the Platforms may be affected. Where applicable, the legal basis for the collection of information through functionality cookies is your consent.
Analytics Cookies: These allow us to collect information to help us understand how our Platforms are used and the nature of our user base. This includes whether a user has made prior visits to a Platform, usage of the Platform, and areas on the Platforms that are most often visited. This allows us to improve the performance of the Platforms and your experience. Where applicable, the legal basis for the collection of such information by analytics cookies is your consent.
Marketing Cookies: Marketing cookies provide us with some of the same information that we collect from analytics cookies, and also allow us to serve advertising about our organization that we believe may interest you after you have visited our Platforms, and to measure the effectiveness of our advertising. If you disable these cookies you will not receive advertising based on your visits to our Platforms. Where applicable, the legal basis for the collection of such information by analytics and advertising cookies is your consent.

How We Use Cookies

We use the information that is automatically collected through cookies to support our operations, analysis, and promotion of the Platforms. This includes the following:

to monitor metrics such as total number of visitors and traffic;
to understand which activities and services are most popular;
to understand the pages where visitors enter our Sites and the pages viewed;
to understand generally the location of our users (g., zip code information);
to recognize the browsers used to visit our Platforms, so that the content is adapted for the relevant browser; and
to diagnose and fix technology problems
to reduce the repetition in the promotional messages that users see on our Platforms that are not intended for Children;

Disabling, Deleting, or Opting Out of Cookies

You may visit the “Cookie Preferences” link at the bottom of each page on our Sites to make choices about cookies we and third parties place on our Platforms. If you do not or no longer want to have cookies placed on your browser by third parties, many of them also offer ways to opt out. Most browsers also allow at least some control of most cookies through browser settings. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser to decline cookies. You may also delete existing cookies through your browser.

PRIVACY POLICIES OF OTHER WEBSITES WE LINK TO

Our Platforms may link to other websites or apps, including content offered by third parties that we do not control and whose privacy and data collection practices may differ from ours (“Third Party Platforms”). We are not responsible for the practices employed by any websites or services linked to or from our Platforms, including the information or content contained within them.

When you go via our link to Third Party Platforms, you become subject to their Terms of Use and privacy policies rather than ours. You should review these other website privacy policies regarding any Personal Information that they may collect about you.

JOB APPLICANTS

When you visit the Careers portion of the website, we collect the Personal Information that you provide to us in connection with your job application. This includes but is not limited to business and personal contact information, professional credentials and skills, educational and work history and other information of the type that may be included in a resume. This may also include diversity information that you voluntarily provide. We use this information on the basis of our legitimate business interests to facilitate our recruitment activities and process employment applications, such as by evaluating a job candidate for an employment activity, to monitor recruitment statistics and to respond to surveys. We may also use this information to provide improved administration of the services and as otherwise necessary (i) to comply with relevant laws or to respond to subpoenas or warrants served on us, (ii) to protect and defend our or others’ rights or property, (iii) in connection with a legal investigation and (iv) to investigate or assist in preventing any violation or potential violation of the law, this Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use.

HOW TO CONTACT US

The Platforms are operated by Sesame Workshop, located at 1900 Broadway, New York, New York, 10023, USA, 212-595-3456, dotorgmail@sesame.org.

For questions or concerns about the Platforms, this privacy policy, the Personal Information we hold about you, or exercising your data protection rights, please write to dotorgmail@sesame.org. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint about our privacy practices with a supervisory authority.

To report potential security vulnerabilities, please write to cyber.security@sesame.org.