Effective Date: March 18, 2026

At The Adoption Consultancy, we understand that the journey to adoption is deeply personal and involves the exchange of sensitive information. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal data is handled with the highest level of professional care and security.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information that you voluntarily provide to us when you inquire about our services, enroll in a partnership, or subscribe to our "Strategy Brief."

In the preceding 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information:

• Identifiers: Name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and IP address.

• Commercial Information: Consulting service history, enrollment details, and payment histories for our $250, $950, and $3,950 service tiers.

• Internet or Network Activity: Browser type, operating system, referring URLs, and browsing behavior on our site collected via cookies or tracking technologies.

• Sensitive Personal Information (SPI): To provide high-level adoption strategy, advocacy, and risk assessments, we collect highly sensitive data. This includes information regarding your home study status, adoption and family history details provided during our Diagnostic Case Audit, and clinical/medical records or social histories provided for the purpose of Clinical Vetting.

How We Use Sensitive Data: We collect and process Sensitive Personal Information strictly for the business purpose of providing our adoption consulting services, conducting clinical reviews, and advocating for your family within our multi-agency network. We never sell your Sensitive Personal Information or share it with marketing or analytics partners.

Data Retention: We retain personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected. Financial and billing transactions are kept for up to seven years for tax compliance. Clinical vetting data and case files are held securely for operational tracking or as required by clinical confidentiality standards. Marketing and website analytics tracking data are retained for up to 14 months, or until you withdraw your consent or opt out.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information collected to:

• Provide high-level adoption strategy and advocacy services.

• Schedule and manage appointments via our scheduling portal.

• Process payments securely through our third-party payment processors.

• Send the Adoption Strategy Brief and relevant updates (which you may opt out of at any time).

• Conduct clinical reviews and risk assessments on your behalf.

• Analyze website traffic and improve the user experience (via Google Analytics).

• Deliver targeted advertising about our services to you on third-party platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) and measure the effectiveness of those ad campaigns.

3. Information Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, rent, or lease your personal information to third parties. Your data is only shared in the following circumstances:

• Service Providers: We share data with trusted third-party tools necessary to run our business (e.g., Squarespace for website hosting, Acuity for scheduling, and Stripe/PayPal for payments). We do not store your full financial details on our servers. We also share automatically collected data (like cookies and IP addresses) with analytics providers (Google Analytics) and advertising networks (Meta/Facebook) to help us analyze website traffic and deliver relevant ads to prospective clients.

• Professional Advocacy: With your explicit consent, we may share relevant portions of your profile or home study with vetted attorneys or agencies within our National Multi-Agency Network to facilitate a match.

• Legal Requirements: We may disclose information if required by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities.

4. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies (small data files placed on your device) to ensure the site functions properly and to analyze our traffic.

• Essential Cookies: Required for the website to function securely (managed by Squarespace).

• Analytics & Advertising Cookies: Used to track user behavior and deliver targeted ads (managed by Google and Meta).

You can manage, disable, or withdraw your consent for cookies at any time by clicking the cookie preference icon/banner on our website or adjusting your browser settings. For a complete, dynamically updated list of the exact cookies currently in use on our site, please scroll to the bottom of this page to view our Cookie Declaration. For information on how to opt-out of targeted advertising on Meta platforms, please visit your Facebook or Instagram ad preference settings.

5. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your sensitive data. Because Lindsay is a Clinical Social Worker, we treat your case files with the same level of confidentiality expected in a professional clinical setting. Please be aware, however, that no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure.

6. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your state or country of residence (including California and Europe), you may have specific legal rights regarding your personal data. These include the right to know what data we collect, access the specific pieces of information we hold, request corrections to inaccurate profiles, or request that we completely delete your data.

• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information: While we do not sell your data in the traditional sense, our use of advertising pixels (like Meta) may be considered 'sharing' under certain state laws. You may opt out of this at any time by updating your preferences in our Cookie Declaration or by utilizing browser-based Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals.

• Right to Limit the Use of Sensitive Personal Information: You have the right to direct us to limit our use of your Sensitive Personal Information to only what is necessary to perform our consulting services. Because we already strictly limit our use of this data to fulfilling your adoption consulting requests, no further action is required to opt out of secondary uses.

• Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights. We will not deny you consulting access, alter our service tiers, or provide a different level of advocacy if you choose to exercise your rights.

Submitting a Request: To exercise your right to access, correct, or delete your data, please contact us at matt@theadoptionconsultancy.com. To protect your security and privacy, we will verify your identity before fulfilling your request by matching the email address you provide against the information currently on file in our system.

7. Third-Party Links

Our website contains links to other sites (such as agency partners). We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these third-party websites.

8. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal reasons. The "Effective Date" at the top will indicate when the last changes were made.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how your data is handled, please contact us at:

The Adoption Consultancy

matt@theadoptionconsultancy.com

1600 N. Milwaukee Ave. #1104, Vernon Hills IL 60061

10. Cookie Declaration