ABFO – PRIVACY POLICY
Effective Date: December 31, 2018
The Association of Bioscience Financial Officers (“ABFO,” “we,” “us” or “our”) recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of our online visitors. It is our intent to balance our legitimate business interests in collecting and using information received from and about you with your reasonable expectations of privacy. The following privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) is the way we handle information learned about you from your visits to our websites available at www.abfointernational.org and www.norcalabfo.org (together, the “Sites”).
PLEASE REVIEW THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY. When you submit information to or through the Sites, you consent to the collection and processing of your information as described in this Privacy Policy. By using the Sites, you accept the terms of this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, and consent to our collection, use, disclosure and retention of your information as described in this Privacy Policy. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY PART OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY OR OUR TERMS OF USE, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO USE THE SITES.
Personal Information
ABFO collects personally identifiable information including name, postal addresses, e-mail address, phone number, company, job title, company URL, information about the type of company you are employed with, and information regarding attendance preferences at our national conference when an individual uses the online registration form for our national conference or sends us a form to become a member of ABFO. This information is stored electronically when you submit it to us through the Sites or email it to us, and is stored in hard copy form if it is mailed. When you make a purchase through our Sites, the payment is processed by our payment service providers. ABFO does not collect, store or transmit your credit card or payment information.
By providing your information to us, you may receive communications from our third-party national conference sponsors (as further described below). ABFO is not responsible for any actions or offers sent by these sponsors, and we advise you to check the privacy policies of any third party from which you receive information directly.
Information Collected Automatically
In addition, information about your computer hardware and software is automatically collected by ABFO when you use the Sites. This information may include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used by ABFO for the operation of the Sites, to maintain quality of the Sites, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Sites.
Cookies and Other Information Collection Tools
What are cookies? A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website or use an online service. When you visit the website use the service again, the cookie allows that website or online service to recognize your browser or device. Cookies may store unique identifiers, user preferences and other information.
Why do we use them? Cookies help us improve the Sites by providing us with information about which parts of the Sites are most popular, enabling us to analyze technical and navigational information about the Sites, and helping us to detect and prevent fraud. We also use cookies and other data collection tools (such as web beacons and server logs) to help improve your experience with the Sites. For example, we use Google Analytics to help analyze how users use the Sites. These tools use cookies to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behavior information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Sites (including IP address) is transmitted to our data collection tool service providers. This information is then used by us to evaluate visitors’ use of the Sites and to compile statistical reports on website activity for ABFO. If you would like to opt-out from the use of your information by Google analytics, you may use Google’s analytics opt-out browser add-on designed for this purpose.
How do I control cookies? Web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to manage and delete cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. Some web browsers provide settings that allow a user to reject cookies or to alert a user when a cookie is placed on the user’s computer, tablet or mobile device. Most mobile devices also offer settings to reject mobile device identifiers. Although users are not required to accept cookies or mobile device identifiers, blocking or rejecting them may prevent access to some features available through the Sites.
How Information is Used
We may use the information we collect for any of the following purposes:
- to provide the Sites to you and to improve the Sites;
- To maintain our organization membership, advise our members and interested non-members of periodic ABFO events and for marketing of our national conference;
- to operate, improve, and personalize the services we offer, and to give each user a more consistent and personalized experience when interacting with us;
- to provide you with information about services that we think may be of interest to you;
- for customer service, security, to detect fraud or illegal activities, and for archival and backup purposes in connection with the provision of the Sites;
- for research and analysis purposes; and
- to communicate with you.
Sharing of Information
- With Third Party Service Providers Performing Services on Our Behalf. We share your personal information with our service providers to perform the functions for which we engage them. For example, we may use third parties to host the Sites or assist us in providing functionality on the Sites, provide data analysis and research services, to send out email updates about the Sites, provide marketing and advertising services for us, remove repetitive information from our user lists, and process payments.
- With Our Third-Party Sponsors and Other ABFO Members. If your company becomes a member of ABFO, and/or you become a member representative of ABFO, we may disseminate your contact information, including email address, to other ABFO members, both nationally and other regional chapters nationwide; to our third-party ABFO sponsors and to the ABFO regional and national Boards of Directors. If you do not wish to have your information shared with these third parties, contact us as the contact information provided below.
- For Legal Purposes. We also may share information that we collect from users as needed to enforce our rights, protect our property or protect the rights, property or safety of others, or as needed to support external auditing, compliance and corporate governance functions. We will disclose personal information as we deem necessary to respond to a subpoena, regulation, binding order of a data protection agency, legal process, governmental request or other legal or regulatory process. We may also share personal information as required to pursue available remedies or limit damages we may sustain.
- Changes of Control. We may transfer information, including your personal information, in connection with a change of ownership or control by or of us or any affiliated entity (in each case whether in whole or in part).
Security Used & Retention of Personal Information
ABFO uses reasonable security measures designed to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. However, the security of information transmitted through the Internet can never be guaranteed. ABFO is not responsible for any interception or interruption of any communications through the Internet or for changes to or losses of data.
ABFO will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected, or as required by applicable laws or regulation, or until you request that we delete it. You may modify your information with ABFO by emailing us at genie@norcalabfo.org. Copies of information that you have updated, modified, or deleted will remain in our systems if applicable law requires us to retain it.
Links to External Websites
Our Sites may contain links to third party websites. Any access to and use of such third party websites is not governed by this Privacy Policy, but instead is governed by the privacy policies of those third party websites, and we are not responsible for the information practices of such third party websites.
Do Not Track
Our Sites do not respond to Do Not Track signals at this time. Do Not Track is a privacy preference that you can set in your web browser to indicate that you do not want certain information about your webpage visits collected across websites when you have not interacted with that service on the page. For details, including how to turn on Do Not Track, visit www.donottrack.us.
Your California Privacy Rights
California residents who provide certain types of personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us once a calendar year information about certain types of personal information we shared, if any, with other businesses for their own direct marketing uses. To obtain this information, please send an email message to genie@norcalabfo.org with “Request for California Privacy Information” on the subject line and in the body of your message.
Children
We do not knowingly collect or maintain personal information from any person under the age of thirteen. No parts of our Sites are directed to or designed to attract anyone under the age of thirteen.
Questions and Changes in Information
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or would like to change or update your personal information, please contact us at genie@norcalabfo.org.
Notification of Changes
Any changes to our Privacy Policy will be posted to this page so users are always aware of the information we collect and how we use it. Accordingly, please refer back to this Privacy Policy frequently as it may change.