The Bottom Line
For those who wish to bypass the legalese, the bottom line is we don’t rent, sell, lease, give, or in any way transfer your private information to third parties unless necessary to provide you with service or comply with the law. Should you desire full disclosure, the policy is set forth below. In the event of any conflict between this bottom line statement and the legalese, the legalese wins. Enjoy.
Who we are
We are a subgroup and affiliate of the American Council of the Blind known as Friends in Art. Our website address is:
<a href=”https://www.friendsinart.org” </a>
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here:
After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
We use various forms to collect data on our website, including membership application forms as well as a form to apply for the annual scholarship sponsored by Friends in Art. The data includes personal information such as name, email, address, phone, and areas of interest as they relate to Friends in Art. We will keep these data unless you cancel your account and ask us to delete it.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
We do not currently use analytics.
FIA Scholarship
Because the terms of eligibility for the FIA scholarship require that all candidates be legally blind, proof of same will be requested as a part of the application process. To this end, facilities are provided for scholarship applicants to upload files supporting their application. Once these files have been processed, they will be deleted from the server.
Who we share your data with
While we will never rent or sell your data to any third parties, we may share your data with others in the course of payment or other transaction processing. We will also share your data in the event of any valid law enforcement request.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
Your contact information is used by us to process your membership application, comments, or any transactions associated with your membership in Friends in Art.
Additional information
How we protect your data
Our website is secured by a security certificate from LetsEncrypt. The site is protected by several pieces of software that thwart attempts to gain unauthorized access to the website and its data. This site also has rules that make it manditory for those creating accounts to ensure that their passwords conform to best security practices.
What data breach procedures we have in place
We will notify affected parties in a timely manner if we ever become aware of a data compromise on our site.