Forum Cooperative is a Citizen-Owned Civic Utility Empowering Verified Voters in both Private and Public Sector Communities.
Forum Cooperative is a Citizen-Owned Civic Utility Empowering Verified Voters in both Private and Public Sector Communities.
Effective: July 1, 2026
Forum Cooperative LCA is a Washington State Limited Cooperative Association that operates as a Data Trust and acts as a data fiduciary for its members and participants. In plain terms: you own your personal information, and — regarding your data — our loyalty runs first to you, not to capital. We are legally bound to steward your information in your interest, never to sell, profile, or exploit it. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, protect, and share your information, including for our email and SMS/text messaging.
This document is provided for transparency and does not constitute legal advice.
About Us
About This Privacy Policy
Our Data Trust & Fiduciary Commitment
What Personal Information We Collect and How We Collect It
Data Minimization and Sensitive Information
How We Use Your Personal Information
Email & SMS/Text Messaging Terms
Our Legal Basis and Consent
How We Share Your Personal Information
How We Protect Your Information; Breach Notification
Your Communication Choices
Retention of Your Data and Deletion
International Transfers
Your Data Protection Rights and Complaints
Changes to This Privacy Policy
Contact Us
"We," "us," or "our" means Forum Cooperative LCA, a Washington State Limited Cooperative Association (governed by RCW 23.100), with its principal place of business at PO Box 10111, Bainbridge Island, WA, US 98110-2875.
Our products, services, and experiences — including the Bainbridge Island Voter Forum (BIVF) and related voter credentialing, deliberation, and precinct-polling tools (collectively, the "Services") — are provided in service of a civic mission: giving verified voters a trustworthy, member-owned voice between elections.
Your privacy is central to who we are, so we've developed this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information when you use our website(s), mobile apps, email and text messaging, and other online and offline Services. Please take a moment to read it in full.
If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy or how we use your personal information, please contact us at info@forum.coop.
As a Washington LCA, our directors owe duties of care and loyalty to the association and its members. By operating as a Data Trust and declaring ourselves a data fiduciary, we bind our board to an additional, overriding duty: regarding your data, our loyalty runs exclusively to you — our patron members and participants (the "data principals"). Where any general practice described later in this Policy could be read to conflict with the commitments in this section, these commitments control:
Duty of loyalty to you, not to capital. We act solely in the interest of the members and community who generate the data. We are prohibited from selling, profiling, weaponizing, or otherwise using your data to benefit ourselves or any third party at your expense.
Investors cannot reach your data. Although our cooperative structure permits investor-members, they hold financial interests only. They are legally blocked from forcing a sale, liquidation, or asset transfer of member data to recoup capital. Any returns to investor-members derive solely from operational utility fees (such as software access, verification, and polling administration) — never from the monetization or sale of your data.
You own your data. Forum holds and stewards your personal information on your behalf, as a fiduciary, through a Data Trust structure.
We do not sell your personal information — ever. We do not rent, trade, or share it with third parties for their own marketing or advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles or monetize your attention.
Independent stewardship. We steward your data independently of external corporate or political pressure, and we act as a legal shield for your information against commercial scraping, weaponized targeting, or overreach.
Your identity is yours to control. Verification uses self-certifying decentralized identifier (DID) technology that you hold, so you are not required to surrender a permanent copy of your identity documents to participate.
Individual responses stay private. Poll, survey, and voting results shared with elected officials, the media, or the public are aggregated and anonymized at the precinct level; your individual responses and votes are never attributed to you.
Auditable and open. We maintain the platform on auditable, transparent, open-source-aligned standards, so our stewardship can be independently verified rather than merely asserted.
Fiduciary continuity. If Forum ever dissolves, restructures, or transfers its stewardship, your data cannot be auctioned to satisfy creditors or sold as an asset. It will instead be deleted, returned to you, or transferred exclusively to another verified data fiduciary or public entity — with notice to you and the opportunity to withdraw or export your data first.
We collect only what we need, and primarily what you provide directly to us:
Contact information. When you sign up for our Services, newsletter, emails, or text messages, we collect your name, mailing address (needed to mail your unique voter credential / PIN), email address, phone number, and similar information needed to reach you about the Services.
Verification information. To credential you as a registered voter, we confirm your voter-registration status. We verify rather than warehouse — we minimize the identity data we retain (see Section 5).
Membership and payment information. If you purchase an annual membership, your payment is collected and stored by a third-party payment processor. Use and storage of that information is governed by that processor's privacy policy; we do not store your full financial details.
Poll, survey, and deliberation information. Your poll and survey responses, the questions you help author (a member benefit), and your contributions to deliberation.
Communications information. Information you share when you contact us — for support, feedback, or to set your preferences — including how you contacted us and your messaging choices.
Data minimization is a duty, not a preference. As a data fiduciary, we collect and retain only what is strictly necessary to credential voters and to operate our civic and precinct-polling Services. We do not accumulate data as a balance-sheet asset, and we scrub or de-identify secondary data to reduce risk to you.
Separate, affirmative opt-in for sensitive information. We will not collect or share any sensitive information — for example, information that could reveal health, well-being, or protected demographic characteristics — without your free, specific, informed, and separate opt-in consent, consistent with Washington privacy law, including the My Health My Data Act where applicable.
We use the personal information we collect to:
Credential and verify you as a registered voter and maintain your access to the Services.
Deliver the Quarterly Precinct Polls and enable member deliberation and poll authorship.
Send you civic updates, poll notifications, membership information, and administrative or security messages by the email and/or SMS channels you have opted into.
Deliver aggregated, precinct-level, anonymized results to elected officials and, where applicable, to the media or public.
Administer membership, billing, and customer support.
Maintain security, and detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, or other unlawful activity.
Fulfill our obligations under applicable law and any agreement between you and us.
We do not use your information for behavioral advertising or third-party marketing.
By providing your phone number and opting in, you consent to receive recurring email and SMS/text messages from Forum Cooperative LCA related to the Services — for example, delivery of your voter credential, notice that a Quarterly Precinct Poll has opened, civic updates, and membership messages.
Message frequency varies.
Message and data rates may apply.
Text STOP to any message to cancel at any time. Text HELP for help.
Wireless carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
Consent to receive messages is not a condition of any purchase, nor of your right to participate or vote in the Forum.
We do not share or sell your mobile opt-in information or phone number with any third parties or affiliates for their marketing purposes. Your consent to messaging stays within Forum and the vetted service providers that deliver those messages on our behalf.
Where the law requires a legal basis, ours depends on the information and context. We normally rely on: your consent; the need to perform our agreement with you; our legitimate civic-mission interests, where not overridden by your rights; and, in some cases, a legal obligation or the need to protect vital interests.
Consistent with our fiduciary duty, any consent we rely on is designed to be free, specific, informed, and easily revocable, and we work to bridge the gap between legal language and understandable, meaningful permissions. If you have questions about the legal basis on which we process your information, contact us using the details in "Contact Us" below.
Consistent with our Data Trust & Fiduciary Commitment (Section 3), we never sell your personal information. We share it only as follows:
With vetted service providers (processors) who work on our behalf — for example, our email/SMS delivery provider, payment processor, and identity-verification and hosting providers — solely to operate the Services. We vet these providers before granting access and bind them by contract to process your information only as needed for us and only in ways consistent with this Policy. They may not use your data for their own purposes. We remain ultimately responsible and legally accountable for your data even when a processor handles it on our behalf.
As aggregated, anonymized results delivered to elected officials, media, or the public — never as individually identifiable data.
When legally compelled. We require valid legal process, construe any request as narrowly as possible, and — where lawfully permitted — notify affected members before disclosing. Consistent with our role as your fiduciary shield, we resist overbroad or unlawful demands.
To a successor steward, per Section 3 — with your rights and our obligations intact, and with notice to you.
Security safeguards. We protect your information using rigorous encryption, strict access controls, and ongoing risk assessments. Access is limited to those who need it to operate the Services.
Accountability for our processors. As noted in Section 9, we vet third-party processors before granting access and remain legally accountable for your data even when a processor handles it.
Breach notification. In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify affected individuals and the relevant regulatory authorities transparently and without undue delay.
You choose which messages you receive. You may unsubscribe from marketing or newsletter emails via the link in any such message, or text STOP to end SMS messages, at any time. We may still send you non-promotional service messages (for example, security notices or essential membership and credential information). We will always ask for your separate consent before sharing your personal information with any third party for their own direct-marketing purposes — and, per Section 3, we do not do this.
Your personal information will not be kept longer than necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. In deciding how long to keep information, we consider its amount, nature, and sensitivity, the risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, why we need it, and any legal requirements.
Because you own your data, you may access or delete it at any time. When you end your membership or ask us to, we will delete or return your personal information, except where we are legally required to retain it or need it to establish or defend a legal claim. Aggregated, de-identified poll data — which cannot be linked back to you — may be retained to preserve the integrity of the civic record.
We hold your personal information in the United States. Any transfer of personal information to countries outside the United States will take place under appropriate safeguards.
Depending on your circumstances and applicable law, you may have the right to:
Access, correct, or request deletion of your personal information;
Object to or ask us to restrict our processing, or request portability of your data in a readable, standardized format;
Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.
As your data fiduciary, we treat these as expressions of your ownership of your data, and we maintain infrastructure to let you exercise them without friction.
Complaints and grievances. If you believe we have mishandled your data, you may raise a complaint directly with us at info@forum.coop. We maintain an accessible, responsive process to acknowledge and resolve data-handling disputes promptly. You may also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority; for more information, contact your local supervisory authority.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For minor or administrative updates, we will post the revised Policy with a new effective date.
For any material change to how we govern, use, or share your data, our cooperative bylaws and our trust obligations require a democratic vote of our patron members. We cannot unilaterally weaken these protections to exploit your data. When we make changes, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes. Please revisit this page periodically for the latest information on our privacy practices.
The data controller and trustee of your personal information is
Forum Cooperative LCA.
PO Box 10111, Bainbridge Island, WA, US 98110-2875
info@forum.coop
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, our handling of your personal information, or your choices and rights, please do not hesitate to contact us.
© 2026 Forum Cooperative LCA · Bainbridge Island Voter Forum™ · Verified voters, member-owned.