Virginia Association of Hazardous Materials Response Specialists, Inc. Privacy Policy
Introduction
The Virginia Association of Hazardous Materials Response Specialists, Inc. (referred to subsequently as VAHMRS) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your privacy through our compliance with this policy.
This policy describes our practices in connection with information that we collect through our VA Hazmat Conference app as well as our website at www.virginiahazmat.org (collectively referred to as “our system”).
This policy also describes your data protection rights, including a right to object to some of VAHMRS’ processing. The Policy does not apply to information collected by any third party, including through any third-party application or content (including advertising) that links to or is accessible from our application or website.
What types of personal data VAHMRS collect?
VAHMRS collects a variety of personal data from and about their users, including but not limited to name, organization, title, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number, social media account ID, credit or debit card numbers, and other information such as dietary preferences, interests, opinions, activities, age, gender, education, and occupation. VAHMRS’ use of personal information collected through our application or website shall be limited to the purpose of providing content and services for which our users have engaged VAHMRS.
If you do not agree with our policies and practices, you may choose not to use our application or website.
How does VAHMRS collect personal data?
1) When users voluntarily and explicitly enter personal data into our systems
2) When users are entered into our system through legitimate business processes such as registration for membership or conference attendance.
3) Automatically as users interact with our systems, using commonly used information gathering technologies such as cookies.
Does VAHMRS use or sell personal data collected by our system?
VAHMRS does not use personal data of our users for any purposes other than to provide services for those users. VAHMRS does not sell any personal data for any reason.
How does VAHMRS collect and process personal data from our users?
We collect personal data from our users in order to facilitate communication and delivery of services to the users. For example, we may collect identifying information from users to facilitate registration at our annual hazmat conference or to track attendance at conference workshops. We may collect information through the use of our app, a form on our website, or responses to surveys, polls, and emails. We may also collect credit card information or other customary bank information needed for billing and payment purposes.
We collect information about how our users interact with our systems. This includes which webpages you visit, what you click on, when you perform certain actions, what language preference you have, what you buy, and so on.
We process users’ personal data in the following manner:
1) To provide services to our users
2) To disclose to contractors, service providers, or other third parties as reasonably necessary or prudent to provide, maintain, and support our systems for our users. Information may be shared with, for example, payment processors and data center or web hosting providers. VAHMRS does not share, sell, or trade any information with such third parties for promotional purposes.
3) To deliver the services that our users have asked to provide. Some examples include:
a) If a user has registered for an event, we may use their provided e-mail address to send the information and announcements relating to that event.
b) If a user has purchased a product (such as membership dues), we will pass the credit card information to payment card processors to validate the payment information and complete the transactions.
c) When a user uses their social media credentials to share information on their social media platform or to log into one of our systems, we will share information with their social media account provider. The information we share will be governed by the social media site’s privacy policy.
4) For our internal purposes that include administering access and use of our systems, data analysis, securely identifying customers upon logging onto our system, enhancing or modifying our systems, determining the effectiveness of promotional campaigns, billing for services, and operating our business.
5) As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; and (c) to protect against or identify fraudulent transactions.
6) For other purposes when users provide explicit consent.
We aggregate and anonymize information about users and the use of our systems in order to improve our systems and to create benchmarks and other business intelligence products. None of the aggregated and anonymized information contains personal data (i.e., does not identify any individual).
What is the legal basis for VAHMRS to process personal data from the EEA?
For individuals that are from the European Economic Area (EEA), our legal basis for collecting and using their personal information will be our legitimate interest where the processing is in our, or a third party’s, legitimate interests and not overridden by the individual’s data protection interests, or fundamental rights and freedoms. These interests are to provide individuals with access to the systems and features of those systems; to send them information they have requested; to ensure the security of our systems by trying to prevent unauthorized or malicious activities; or, to enforce compliance with our terms of use, contracts, and other policies. In some EEA countries, we are relying on consent as a legal basis for using data for marketing purposes.
How long does VAHMRS store personal data collected by our customers?
Personal data is maintained for the duration of a user’s relationship with VAHMRS. Following the termination of that relationship, user information is purged from our systems.
How can a user access, correct, or delete their personal data?
In various countries, including countries in the EEA, upon their request, users have the right to access their personal data and, if necessary, have it amended, deleted, or restricted. Users can also ask for some types of personal data to be delivered to them, or another organization they nominate, in a structured and machine-readable format.
Where we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Users also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority for data protection in the country where they live, or where they work – although we hope that we can assist with any queries or concerns you have about our use of your personal data.
VAHMRS will not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. In such instances, we will inform the user about the legal obligations that prevent us from fulfilling the request.
Requests to access, correct, or delete personal data should be directed via e-mail to webmaster@virginiahazmat.org or vahmrswebmaster@gmail.com.
How does VAHMRS use cookies and similar technologies?
Cookies and Web Beacons
We use cookies or similar automatic data collection technologies as individuals interact with our systems to collect certain information about their equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:
● Details of your visits to our systems, such as the date and time you access our systems, length of time you spend on our systems, websites that linked to our systems or websites linked from our systems, and the resources and content that you access and use on our systems.
● Information about your computer and internet connection, such as your IP address, computer type, screen resolution, language, and internet browser type and version.
Below are the technologies we use for automatic data collection. We do not use any of these technologies to collect information from users for marketing or advertising purposes.
● Browser cookies – A cookie is a small file placed on a computer hard drive.Web browsers can be configured to restrict or entirely block cookies, to configure cookie notification settings and/or to delete cookies already present on the browser or device. Information on how to do this is provided by the web browser’s help/reference section. Limiting or restricting certain types of cookies may prevent a user from using certain portions or our systems, depending on how the browser settings are configured. For example, event registration cannot be completed successfully if cookies are disabled in the web browser. Unless the browser setting has been adjusted so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when the browser interacts with the system. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, see www.allaboutcookies.org.
● Session cookies and persistent cookies – A “session” cookie lasts for a single browser session only and is deleted when the user closes the web browser. Session cookies allow website operators to link the actions of a user during a browser session. A “persistent” cookie remains on the user’s device (even while powered off) until it expires or is deleted. A persistent cookie will be reactivated when a user returns to the website which posted the cookie. We use persistent cookies to help customize your web experience when you return to a web page or our website. Neither of the cookies can read or access other cookies or any data from a user’s hard drive. Further, neither of these cookies alone will personally identify a user; however, a cookie will recognize a user’s individual web browser or device through an IP address, browser version, operating system, and other information, and individuals who log in to their VAHMRS accounts will be individually identifiable to particular applications using session cookies.
● Web beacons – Pages in our systems and our e-mails may contain small electronic files know as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs). Web beacons differ from cookies in that the information is not stored on your hard drive, but invisibly embedded on web pages or in email. Web beacons permit us to track online movements of web users, for example: to count users who have visited those pages or opened an e-mail and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain content and verifying system and server integrity). This enables VAHMRS to provide a website experience more tailored to our users’ preferences and interests.
● Flash cookies – Certain features of our services will use local storage, such as “flash cookies” to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our systems. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. If you do not want flash cookies stored on your computer, you can adjust the settings of your Flash Player to block flash cookie storage using the tools contained in the website storage settings panel available at www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html.
At this time, we do not respond to prowers ‘do not track’ signals, as we await for a uniform standard put forth by regulators or the privacy industry. VAHMRS earnestly considers an individual’s independent right to determine how their personal data is processed and continues to monitor developments in this area.
Third Party Analytics Providers
We use third party analytics providers, including Google, Adobe, Mixpanel, Mouseflow, and others, to collect information about the usage of our systems and enable us to improve how these systems work. The information allows us to see the overall patterns of usage on the systems, helps us record any difficulties you have with the system, shows us whether our advertising is effective or not, and allows us to use responses to advertisements to optimize ad performance. Google Analytics, Adobe, and Mixpanel use cookies and other similar technologies to collect information about the usage of our systems and to report website trends to us, without storing any personal data on external third-party analytics provider platforms.
Does VAHMRS process information of children under the age of 13?
Our systems are not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not directly solicit or collect personal data from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not (i) use or provide any information on these systems or on or through any of their features, (ii) register to use any of our systems, (iii) make any purchases through our systems, (iv) use any of the interactive or public comment features of our systems or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, or any screen name or user name you will use.
How does VAHMRS secure the data it processes?
We use a variety of organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect personal data within our organization. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us at webmaster@virginiahazmat.org or vahmrswebmaster@gmail.com.
How does VAHMRS publicize changes to its Privacy Policy?
We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by means of a notice at www.virginiahazmat.org thirty (30) days prior to the changes becoming effective, or by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your account) seven (7) days prior to the changes becoming effective. However, any changes to the Privacy Policy are effective immediately upon publication for new users. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.