Who handles information on this site
Eastern Star Worldwide is the independent initiative operating easternstarworldwide.org. Its site administrators manage inquiries and mailing-list signups. It is separate from the governing Eastern Star bodies described in the directory. Use our contact form for questions about this notice, privacy requests or unsubscribe help.
What the forms collect
The mailing-list form asks for your name, email, confirmation that you are at least 18, and explicit consent to receive community emails. Membership and contact inquiries also ask for a country, inquiry category, and optional location, language, tradition and message details. Required fields are marked on the form. The date and wording of consent are recorded.
Please do not submit identification documents, financial information, health information, private ritual, or detailed personal histories. The forms do not require a birth date, religious declaration, membership number, family relationship record, street address or payment details.
Why the information is used
Inquiry details are used to understand and respond to your request. Mailing-list details are used for the community emails you asked to receive. Sending an inquiry does not subscribe you to marketing. Your message is not automatically published or forwarded to an Eastern Star organization.
Storage and access
Submissions are stored in this website’s WordPress database. Access through the site is restricted to administrators. The website’s hosting and maintenance services may process data as needed to operate, secure, back up and support the service. The hosting address supplied for this website is in Dallas, United States; information submitted from another country may therefore be processed outside that country.
Administrators can export active mailing-list subscribers for use in an email delivery service. No external mailing platform is currently connected. If a service is introduced, this notice should be updated to identify the provider and its role before subscribers’ data is transferred. We do not sell inquiry details or mailing addresses.
Retention and your choices
Inquiry records are kept while needed to respond and follow up, and are subject to periodic administrator review. There is not an automatic deletion schedule at launch. You may ask for access, correction or deletion through the contact form. The team should verify your identity before providing or removing personal information.
Mailing-list records are kept until you unsubscribe or request deletion. Unsubscribing marks the address as inactive so it is excluded from future active-list exports. A limited unsubscribe record may remain to prevent accidental re-enrollment. A verified erasure request can remove that record. Backups may retain prior copies until replaced under the hosting backup schedule.
Unsubscribing
Future mailing-list emails will include an individual unsubscribe link. The link opens a confirmation page; submitting that confirmation stops future mailings from the active list. You can also request removal through our contact form. If you have already unsubscribed and wish to rejoin, ask the site team to update your preference after verifying your request.
Cookies, security and logs
Site graphics are served locally. WordPress uses cookies when an administrator signs in. Hosting, security and caching services can record ordinary connection details, including IP addresses, timestamps, requested pages and browser information.
Optional Google Analytics
If you choose “Accept analytics,” this website loads Google Analytics 4, provided by Google, to help us understand visits, popular pages and how visitors find the site. Google receives information such as pages viewed, referring websites, browser and device information, and network connection information when its service loads. Learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use its services and Google’s privacy policy.
Google Analytics is not loaded until you accept. You can decline and still use the site. Use “Cookie preferences” in the footer to change your choice at any time. Your choice is remembered in this browser’s local storage for up to 180 days. Clearing browser storage removes that choice. If browser storage is unavailable, your choice applies only to the current page.
Google Analytics may set cookies named _ga and _ga_YFKKQ9QBJT. This integration sets an expiration of 180 days without renewing it on each visit. Declining after previously accepting stops further collection by this integration, removes accessible Google Analytics cookies for this site, and reloads the page. It does not erase data already sent to Google.
Advertising personalization and Google signals are disabled in this integration. We do not send signup names, email addresses, or contact-message contents to Google Analytics through this integration. Page addresses supplied to Analytics omit query strings and fragments; simple campaign labels may be used to understand traffic sources. Signed-in visitors and pages containing private unsubscribe tokens are excluded from measurement. Google may process information outside your country. Our mailing list remains separate and is not connected to Google Analytics.
The form protection also creates a temporary hashed rate-limit record from the connection’s IP address, retained for up to one hour. It is used to limit repeated submissions and is not added to the inquiry record. HTTPS protects information in transit. No system can promise absolute security.
External links and younger visitors
Links to other organizations lead to independently operated websites with their own policies. Review those policies before providing information there. Our forms are intended for adults aged 18 and older; reading the public educational material does not require registration.
Changes to this notice
This privacy notice was introduced in September 2026 and updated on September 19, 2026 to describe optional Google Analytics. Material changes in data use, email providers or form handling should be reflected here. Contact the site team if a practice is unclear or you need an accessible way to make a request.