Child Security, Protection, and Privacy Policy

Children have the right to be completely secure from the fear or reality of any potential abuse (either physical or emotional) resulting from an inappropriate contact by a sponsor or any other person.

You will notice as you proceed through our sponsorship site that we release only limited information about the children. Information released does not include last names, community names or locations, or other information by which the location of sponsored children could be easily identified. We intentionally withhold this information until after the identity of the sponsor is verified.

The sponsorship process is contingent upon your agreement, as sponsor, that you will NOT attempt to contact a sponsored child, his or her family or community members, in any manner other than that prescribed and permitted in advance in writing by World Vision. In particular, telephone calls, email or unplanned visits to the child’s residence and community are forbidden without written permission and oversight by World Vision. In addition, all postal mail and packages sent must conform to World Vision policy that will be stated in materials mailed to each sponsor.

As a child-focused organization, World Vision recognizes that in this fast-paced new-media world, technology can bring new types and levels of risk to children, especially as online predators look for ways to gain easy access to vulnerable victims.

At World Vision, it is our deepest desire to ensure that children and their families are protected from the fear or reality of any potential physical or emotional abuse resulting from inappropriate and unsafe internet and social media use, including the sharing of private information about a child and their family.

We want you to have the opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship with your sponsored child in a way that is safe, secure and fulfilling for both of you. Because of this, we ask our sponsors to abide by the following standards while participating and partnering in World Vision’s Sponsorship program:

• Simply remember that World Vision discourages direct, unmonitored communication with your sponsored child or family without World Vision’s knowledge. This includes contact through the internet or social media (e.g. Instant Messaging, Facebook, Skype, etc.). Note that WV does not allow unplanned visits to the child’s residence or community, under any circumstance, without World Vision’s prior knowledge.
• In order to protect children’s security and privacy, please do not post your sponsored child’s last name or child ID number on the internet or social media sites. For example, it’s fine to update your Facebook status by saying “I just sponsored a little girl named Maria from Bolivia!” –in fact, this is encouraged! But it’s not okay to post her photo and say “This is my 12-year-old sponsored child, Maria Cruz, from a little town named Tiraque in Bolivia.”
• Because your privacy and security are equally important to us, sponsored children and families are discouraged from contacting you without World Vision’s knowledge as well. This is to protect you from being solicited, perhaps with threats to the child’s well-being, if someone with ill intent knows they have access to direct communication with you. Any un-facilitated contact initiated by your sponsored child or their family that makes you feel uncomfortable should immediately be reported to World Vision for both their security and yours.

Children and their families must be assured that World Vision is protecting the integrity of information, including photographs, that is shared about them with the public. We take potential abuse of child photographs on the web very seriously. Privacy also demands that children, their families and communities be shielded from any potential inappropriate contact from sponsors or others.

Downloading, copying, or other replication of photos or other information that are a part of this website without advance written permission from World Vision is strictly forbidden. Child profiles are presented for the purpose of conveying appropriate information about the sponsorship relationship to the potential sponsor, and are not for distribution in any other manner.

Photographs on this site are encoded using a copyrighted digital watermark technology. World Vision works with technical partners to scan the World Wide Web for inappropriate placement and use of these photographs, and is committed to aggressive pursuit through all appropriate remedies against all violators of this policy.

The lives of children, their families, and members of their community should be portrayed with accuracy and dignity. The children we work with are not objects to be pitied, but are partners with us in the process of bringing holistic (spiritual, physical, psychological and social) transformation to communities in poverty and in transforming the hearts of beneficiaries and donors alike.

We are committed to portraying the life situation of the children, families and communities we serve with accuracy and dignity. We seek the full, informed consent of parents, guardians, and/or community leaders for a child’s participation in our child sponsorship programs.