Data Privacy Policy

1. Who is this for

This explains what information Sing for Hope collects and maintains to run the Public Health & Wellbeing program, why we maintain it, how we use it, who sees it, and what you can ask us to do about it. It covers Sing for Hope Artist Partners, project leaders, production managers, staff at our partner healthcare facilities, and Sing for Hope employees.

We keep information in the PHWB database. The PHWB portal at phwb.singforhope.org is how artists, partners, and staff reach that database, and most of the information arrives through it. Onboarding is different: when you first join us as an artist partner, your onboarding paperwork, including more sensitive information, is completed via a separate online form. Only selected information needed for PHWB program operations, such as your contact information, the instruments you play, your bio, and your headshot, is maintained in the PHWB database. This means the PHWB database does not contain your full onboarding form or all of the sensitive information you provide during onboarding. The information you provide through the Artist Partner onboarding form is covered by this policy as well. This policy applies only to information collected through the PHWB processes described above. It does not apply to Sing for Hope’s general website or to information collected through other SFH programs, which are outside the scope of this policy.

This policy sits alongside the SFH Safeguarding Policy, which every artist partner signs, and the Media Release & Consent Form used with program participants. Where the Safeguarding Policy sets a stricter rule about consent, recording, or handling someone’s information, that stricter rule applies.

2. We do not hold patient information

PHWB artists perform in hospitals, hospices, rehabilitation centers, schools, senior and adult day centers, and other care settings. Sing for Hope does not receive, request, or store patient records, medical information, or clinical data of any kind. We are not a HIPAA-covered entity, and the portal is not a medical record system.

Artists and partner staff are trained on their obligations under HIPAA and under the host site’s own rules before they are deployed. Our agreements with partner healthcare facilities include their own patient-confidentiality and HIPAA provisions. After each session, artists complete a short report that includes a rating of the general mood in the room and a free-text space for anecdotes. Above those fields, the form tells artists to write them so that no patient, resident, visitor, or other individual could be identified — leaving out names and initials, room or unit numbers, and any other identifying detail. An artist may describe someone they met without identifying them. Any identifying information entered is restricted to program staff and removed once found.

3. What we collect

If you are a Sing for Hope Artist Partner: your legal name and the performing name you use publicly; email, phone, and mailing address; the instruments, genres, languages, and sight-reading level you list; your bio, photo, website, and social links; your metropolitan hub; and shirt size for event apparel.

When you are onboarded, we also ask for your date of birth, ethnicity/race, and sex. You provide them during onboarding via a secure form outside the portal, and we store them in our database. We ask for them for two reasons. First, ADP, our payroll provider, asks for them when we set up an Artist Partner to be paid through ADP. Second, they help us understand the makeup of our Artist Partner roster as a whole, including Artist Partners paid through Bill.com. We report this information externally only in aggregate and do not identify individual Artist Partners in demographic reporting. Aggregate figures may appear in our reports, grant applications, and publicity; individual details never do.

To pay you, Sing for Hope generates invoices for your completed engagements and stores your engagement history, rates, hours, and invoices in our database. If you are paid through a business entity, we store the entity's legal name and address. Your Social Security number or EIN, your tax forms, and your bank details are held by our payment providers, ADP and Bill.com, not in our database.

If you perform as part of an ensemble, we maintain a separate artist record for each ensemble member we engage and pay directly, and we record which ensemble you perform with. When we book a partner choir or community group, we hold a record for the group and its leader — not for its individual singers. See section 9.

If you are a partner or facility contact: your name, job title, work email and phone, the organization you work for, and our correspondence with you about bookings.

If you sign a document with us, the image of your signature, the date and time you signed, the IP address and browser you signed from, and a fingerprint of the exact document version. This is standard for electronic signatures and is what makes them enforceable.

When you complete a post-event report: your name, the details of the session, and your observations. The form also accepts photographs and videos. What you may upload is limited by section 10.

Everyone who signs in: your email address, sign-in times, and a session cookie that keeps you logged in. We keep a change log recording who changed which record and when.

4. Why do we use it

• To schedule and staff performances
• To pay artists and to file the tax forms we are legally required to file
• To give partner facilities what they need to credential and badge visiting artists
• To reach artists about the events they are part of
• To report program results to funders and our board
• To understand, in aggregate only, the makeup of our Artist Partner roster
• To improve the program

5. Who do we share it with

Partner healthcare facilities receive the names, professional bios, and phone numbers of the artists scheduled with them, plus any other information their credentialing process requires. Our service providers process data on our behalf: Amazon Web Services (hosting), Google Workspace and Resend (email), Twilio (text messages), Typeform (artist onboarding form), ADP (our payroll provider for artist payment and tax onboarding), and Bill.com (payments). Tax authorities receive the 1099 filings required by law. Funders and grant reports receive only aggregate figures, never individual records.

Photographs, recordings, and quotations of program participants are shared only for the uses the participant consented to on our Media Release & Consent Form and are subject to section 10.

We do not sell personal information or share it for advertising. The portal runs no advertising trackers and no third-party analytics.

6. How it is protected

Data is stored on servers in the United States and is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is limited by role — most staff cannot see payment or tax information. Demographic information is accessible only to authorized Sing for Hope personnel. We keep a record of changes made to your information. Files uploaded to a post-event report are stored in a private, non-public location reachable only by program staff.

7. How long we keep it

8. Your choices

You can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you. Artists can correct most of their own information directly in the portal under Profile; for anything else, contact us, and we will correct it.

You can ask us to remove your record. Please note that we archive records rather than erase them. Your record will no longer appear in the portal, and we will stop contacting you, but payment and tax records will be retained for the legal periods above because we are required to keep them.

Media covered by a consent form is the exception: if you withdraw consent, we stop using the photographs or recordings and delete or securely destroy our copies. Once something has already been published or shared with a partner, we may not be able to recall it, but we will not use it again.

You can opt out of text messages by replying STOP, and out of non-essential email using the unsubscribe link. Messages about an event you are booked for will still reach you because they are operational rather than marketing messages.

Depending on where you live, state law may give you additional rights. Contact us, and we will honor them.

9. Young performers and the portal

The portal is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not create portal accounts for minors. Everyone who holds a login, signs an agreement, or is paid through the portal is an adult.

Young people do perform in our programs through partner choirs, school groups, and community ensembles. Where that happens, we engage the group, not its individual singers: the portal holds a record for the group and contact details for its adult leader, and the group is responsible for its own members. We do not collect names, contact details, addresses, or dates of birth for the young performers in a partner group, and we do not issue them logins.

If a young person were ever engaged and paid directly, rather than through a group, we would require a parent or guardian’s written consent before creating any record.

10. Participants, media, and consent

Everyone present at a PHWB session, including patients, residents, students, facility staff, family members, and other visitors, is a participant. We do not create records for participants, and the portal does not store participant accounts.

We do sometimes photograph, film, or record a session. When someone is identifiable, we ask them to sign our Media Release & Consent Form first. That form explains where the material may appear, including program documentation and evaluation, training, grant and funder reporting, our website, publicity and storytelling, and conference presentations, and lets the participant choose to be credited by first name, by first name and last initial, or not named at all. Consent is voluntary; participation is never a condition of care or of joining the program, and it can be withdrawn in writing at any time.

Where a participant cannot give informed consent themselves, including adults living with dementia or other cognitive changes, the same form is signed by their legal guardian, healthcare proxy, or attorney-in-fact. We take particular care with these recordings to avoid using them in a way that is misleading, stigmatizing, or exploitative.

Two limits apply in addition to the consent form. First, in a healthcare or clinical setting, a photograph or recording that identifies a participant may itself constitute protected health information, so it requires a separate HIPAA-compliant written authorization from the site in addition to the consent form and must not be posted or shared through any unsecured channel. Second, once material has been published or shared onward, particularly on social media, we cannot control how others may reshare or view it, which is why we ask before, not after.

11. Changes and contact

We will post any material changes here and email portal users before they take effect. Questions, requests, or complaints about this policy can be sent to privacy@singforhope.org or 212.966.5955. The inbox is monitored by the Chief Impact Officer, with the Chief Strategist serving as backup. Safeguarding concerns should be directed to our Designated Safeguarding Lead at hr@singforhope.org. To withdraw consent for a photograph or recording, contact privacy@singforhope.org.