This policy discloses the privacy practices for the Speaking of Suicide website, which is operated by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW. Dr. Freedenthal is the sole owner of the information collected on this site.
What Information is Collected?
This site collects and retains personally identifiable information about you only if you voluntarily provide it by submitting a form through this website. Typically this is done in one or more of the following ways:
- You choose to provide your email address to be notified of future posts and/or replies to a post you commented on.
- You choose to provide your first name, last name, and/or email address when you submit a comment for publication. (You are not required to provide your full name or email address when you submit a comment; if you don’t wish to give your actual email address, you can leave that part blank or enter a fake address such as mail@mail.com.)
- You submit a contact form through the website and provide your name and/or email address.
If you submit a comment to a post, your IP address accompanies the comment. The IP address is not published. Your email address isn’t published, either, if you submitted it with a comment.
Additionally, this website may use “cookies,” which are data stored on your computer to help us identify if you’re a repeat visitor or commenter. The site’s spam-filtering application also may use cookies. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our site.
The site tracks usage data anonymously via Google Analytics and the WordPress plug-in Jetpack. (For example, these analytic data show how many people who come to the site have visited it previously.)
What Happens to Your Information?
Dr. Freedenthal will not sell or rent your data to anyone. Here’s how she’ll use information you provide:
If you’ve submitted a comment related to a post, she may publish the comment if it adheres to the site’s Comments Policy. Alternatively, she might remove material that violates the Comments Policy, or she might decline to publish the comment altogether.
If you’ve submitted your full name with a comment for publication, she may publish your name as you’ve submitted it. Please use only your first name, or a pseudonym, if you wish to keep your identity private.
If you choose to provide your email address, she may use it to reply to you privately.
Dr. Freedenthal will keep your email address private with one exception: If you indicate your life is in immediate danger and sharing your email address may help authorities to keep you safe. This happens only rarely. (For example, once an adolescent submitted a comment stating they intended to die by suicide. Their email address contained the adolescent’s full name and the name of their school district. Using this information, Dr. Freedenthal was able to notify the school, which in turn notified the parents, who then contacted Dr. Freedenthal. She shared with them what the adolescent had disclosed, and they took their child to an emergency room.)
As for your IP address, Dr. Freedenthal may disclose it to the authorities if you or someone else appears to be in imminent danger. The IP address doesn’t provide a precise location, but it may enable her to know which jurisdiction you are in and, thus, which authorities to notify.
What Can You Do to Protect Your Privacy After You Submit Data?
If you submit personally identifiable information to Dr. Freedenthal and wish to have it removed from the site’s private database, or if you wish to remove your name from a comment you submitted, you may email your request to her by clicking here or you can contact her via the contact form further below.
Please contact Dr. Freedenthal with any questions or concerns you have about the privacy of your data.
Updates
This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. All updates will be posted on this page.
Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW
January 7, 2024