Effective as of: May 29, 2018
efi values your privacy.
This Privacy Statement
of
efi (“
efi” “we” “us” or
“our”) outlines how your personally identifiable information and other personal
data (your “user information”) will be collected, used, and shared in
connection with your access to and/or use of efi.org and any content, features,
services, or other offerings that
efi may provide in
connection therewith (collectively, the “Site”). This Privacy Statement also
describes your choices and rights regarding the use, access and correction or
deletion of your user information. By using the Site, you consent to the use of
your user information in accordance with this Privacy Statement. If you are
located in the EU, you will also be asked to provide clear and unequivocal
affirmative consent to the collection, processing, and sharing of your user
information via cookies and similar technologies. The Site is owned and
operated by
efi.
Notice to EU Individuals: this Privacy Statement and its enumerated policies
are intended to comply with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (the “General Data Protection Regulation”
or “GDPR”) and provide appropriate protection and care with respect to the
treatment of your user information in accordance with the GDPR.
Summary
To enhance, personalize, and support your experience on the Site, among other things, we collect, use, and share your user information. For example, we use aggregated information to develop content targeted to user interests and to generally improve the Site's user experience. As detailed below, your user information may also be used by efi and its partners to tailor content and ads, provide social media features (e.g., features that allow you to share content directly to your preferred social media platform), track your preferences, analyze traffic, and provide similar services and content. efi is committed to your privacy and will not share any user information with any third party without your consent, except as outlined in this Privacy Statement or as permitted by law. If you have any requests, comments, or questions about this Privacy Statement or your user information, please contact us in the manner provided below.
What this Privacy Statement Covers
This Privacy Statement
covers the Site. While you may encounter links on the Site to other websites,
such as those relating to our third party partners, please note that these
websites are not covered by this Privacy Statement (unless otherwise noted on
such site, which may be the case if, for example, the site is also owned and
operated by
Efi).
This Privacy Statement does not apply to the activities of
efi
third party partners that may collect your user information while accessing or
using such third party's services in connection with your use of our
Site. The privacy and information practices of those third parties are
not covered by this Privacy Statement. To learn more about such third party
policies, we encourage you to read and review the privacy statements of each
third party service that you may choose to use in connection with the Site. This
Privacy Statement applies only to information collected by us.
As a general reminder, please think carefully before you decide to put anything
on the internet. For example, if you voluntarily disclose user information in
chat areas or bulletin boards (e.g., comments sections), that information could
be seen and used by others, and may result in unsolicited messages from others.
We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information or other
user information you may choose to submit in these public forums. To request
removal of your personal information from
efi, please
contact us as provided below. In some cases, we may not be able to remove
personal information voluntarily disclosed by you in such forums for legal
retention purposes or technical limitations (e.g., the data may not be
searchable), in which case, we will notify you if we are unable to do so.
Section Overview: We collect user information when you use the Site. Sometimes you may submit it to us yourself, other times it may be collected automatically. You can manage and change your preferences as outlined below.
Information Collected
When you use the Site, your user information may be collected, used, and shared in a variety of manners. As detailed below, the type of user information collected may vary based on how it was gathered, but may include, among other things, your name, email address, and other information that you voluntarily submit (e.g., when setting up an account or submitting a registration or application on the Site, you may submit your contact information, utility account numbers), information automatically collected about your usage of the Site (e.g., the content that you choose to view.
Voluntary Submission
efi may collect user information that is voluntarily provided by you or with your permission. In the event you order something from the Site or one of our co-branded websites, we may request additional personal information, such as your address, telephone number and credit card information, in order to complete the purchase. You always have the option not to provide the information we request. If you choose not to provide the information we request, you can still visit most of the Site, but you may be unable to access certain options and services. When you register or become a member of the Site or provide information to efi in any other manner, you agree to provide only true, accurate, current and complete information. We also supplement the data you provide to us with data from data append services such as public or social graph data in order to better serve you with content or promotions.
Cookies
A cookie is a small
data file that is written to your computer's hard drive by your web browser. A
cookie file can contain and/or automatically collect information, such as a
user identification code or IP address that a website will use to track the
pages and number of times you have visited. The data read from these cookies
may be linked to personally identifying (PII) and non-personally identifying
(non-PII) information.
We and our partners use cookies and similar technologies on the Site to
personalize and optimize your browsing experience and the Site by:
Cookies fall into the subcategories below.
Essential Cookies. Certain cookies are used for specific purposes that are
essential to your secure use and navigation of the Site. Without them,
efi may not be able to provide core Site functions and
features to you, and the Site would not operate as well as you or
efi would like. These cookies collect and use information
such as your server preferences, single-session data and corresponding
identifier, web beacons and log files (detailed below), and other
credential-related information. For EU individuals, essential cookies also help
inform
Efi whether you require, or have already been
served, an affirmative consent request in connection with the GDPR. Essential
cookies include analytics cookies, which provide us data that allows
Efi to better understand its users and improve the Site
based on what we have learned from that data.
Preference Cookies. Other cookies are used to collect and process information
about your preferences and similar choices in connection with the Site in order
to optimize your browsing experience. Preference cookies include social media
cookies, which collect information about your social media usage and other data
you may have provided in connection with such usage (if you access the Site
through a social media website or mobile application, you may have social media
cookies). If you wish to modify or change your social media cookies, please
visit and review the settings on your applicable social media account(s).
Advertising Cookies. To help support the Site and further tailor your
experience,
efi and its advertising partners (and/or
their third party analytics providers) also use cookies on the Site to
personalize the content and advertisements you may be shown. Such
advertisements use cookies to provide you targeted advertisements that may be
more consistent with your interests than non-targeted advertisements. Certain
efi advertising partners may also use cookies to monitor or
track the performance of their advertising content, including native
advertising content.
efi does not provide user information
to advertising partners except in connection with the Site or as required by
law
If you would like to manage your cookie preferences or learn more information
about this practice and your right to decline (or opt-out of) cookies placed by
some or all of these companies, please
click here
We encourage you to consider keeping your cookies enabled, as if you choose to
disable the receipt of cookies from our Site, you may not be able to use or benefit
from certain features of the Site, particularly the features that are designed
to personalize your experience. To learn more about the use of cookies in
online advertising including how to manage or delete them
click here
.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but generally allow users to
modify their browser settings to display a warning before accepting a cookie,
to accept cookies only from certain websites, and/or to refuse all cookies.
Web Beacons
We use web beacons
(invisible images often referred to as pixel tags or clear GIFs) on our sites
in order to recognize users, assess traffic patterns, identify preferred
content and measure site engagement. We also include web beacons in our e-mail
messages, including newsletters, in order to count how many e-mail messages
have been opened.
Efi and its partners (including advertising partners)
also use web beacons to collect various data provided by your browser while you
are on our Site and elsewhere (i.e., outside of the Site) where we may be
acting as a 3rd party. This data is collected in the aggregate, but may include
or be associated with other non-PII or PII that users have voluntarily
submitted.
Log Files
The Site's web and ad servers log information about a user's IP address, browser type and the current URL the user is requesting. This information is always provided by a user's browser and automatically logged by most websites. These log files are stored in a secure location and used in our internal analysis of traffic patterns within our website.
Section Overview: Our primary goal in collecting, using, and sharing user information is to enhance your experience on the Site, support the Site, and improve its features, performance, and other elements. Your user information may be used for the purposes outlined below. We will not use your user information without a valid legal basis to do so.
To Target Content and Advertising
To develop and provide content and advertising to you that is targeted to your interests, we use the analytics collected by the systems described above to determine which areas of our website you prefer based upon the frequency of your visits and engagement with those areas. We may make reasonable assumptions based on your browser provided data to target relevant content and advertising to you on our site and elsewhere where we may be acting as a 3rd party. We may also make reasonable geographic and demographic assumptions based on your presented IP address to target relevant content and advertising.
To Provide Interactive Communications from the Site
To enhance your
experience we may provide you with interactive communications,
such as notifications of activity by topic or contributor to the e-mail address
that you provide to us. Such interactive communications are provided only to
those users who have expressly provided us with their permission to receive
them as part of their user profile.
From time to time we may provide e-mails highlighting new features, promotions
or contests on the website to those users who have expressly provided us with
their permission to send such communications as part of their user profile.
To Provide Communications from Third Parties
We respect the privacy of our users and will not disclose or distribute our user list to any third party, nor will we permit anyone else to do so. However, we do make available for rental our list of those registrants who have expressly provided us with their permission to receive third party offers as part of their user profile. In those cases, your e-mail address will be transferred to the third party. You can remove your consent to this use or modify your related user information by contacting Efi as indicated below.
Sharing of Information
You may be requested
to voluntarily provide certain user information during your use of the Site. If
you choose to do so, that user information may be shared with
Efi as well as business partners and vendors providing
hosting and other services for
Efi.
We use third parties to provide credit card processing, e-mail service
providers and hosting services on the Site. When you sign up for such services,
we will share your user information only as necessary for the third party to
provide that service. These third parties are prohibited from using your user
information for any other purpose. With respect to credit card processing, we
do not collect, store, or process any credit card information. If you do not
want your information to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer of
your information by not using that particular service.
In addition, if you provide any personally identifiable information via an
advertiser promotion, please be aware you are directly providing your
personally identifiable information to that advertiser.
From time-to-time we may provide you the opportunity to participate in
promotions or surveys on our site. If you participate, we will request certain
personally identifiable information from you, such as your name and e-mail.
Participation in these promotions or surveys is completely voluntary and you
therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information. We use
this personally identifiable information to notify contest winners and award
prizes.
As noted above, you can log in to our site using sign-in services that bridge
your social media login information with the Site. These services will
authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal
information with us such as your name and email address to pre-populate our
sign up form. These services give you the option to post information about your
activities on this website to your profile page to share with others within
your network. The Site includes social media features, widgets and/or
interactive mini-programs that run on our site. These features are small
content modules that users can embed on sites and may collect your IP address,
which page you are visiting on our site, or set a cookie to enable the feature
to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a
third party or hosted directly on our website. Your interactions with these
features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Aggregate, Anonymous Information with Advertisers
We use the aggregated,
anonymous information that we gather (as well as information from third-party
market researchers) to describe our services to partners and to assist us to
better understand our audience. We do not disclose personally identifying
information about our users to these parties.
If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you
targeted ads, you may opt-out or modify your choices by
clicking here , or if located in the European Union by clicking here
. Please note this does not opt you out of being served
advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads.
As Necessary to Provide Services to You
We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and delivery of newsletter mailings, processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the information they need to deliver the service. In some instances, these companies may collect information directly from you. In these cases, you will be notified of the involvement of the external service provider. In all cases, these companies are subject to agreements that require them to maintain the confidentiality of your information and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
In the Event of Sale or Bankruptcy
The ownership of the Site may change at some point in the future. Should that occur, we want this site to be able to maintain a relationship with you. In the event of a sale, merger, public offering, bankruptcy or other change in control of efi, your information may be shared with the person or business that owns or controls this site. Opting out of receiving information from third parties will not affect our right to transfer your information to a new owner, but your choices will continue to be respected regarding the use of your information. You will be notified as described below in "How will I know if the Privacy Statement is changed."
As Required By Law
efi
may disclose your personal information if
required to do so by law such as to comply with a subpoena or in the good faith
belief that such action is necessary to conform to the edicts of the law,
protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud or comply with a
judicial proceeding, court order or legal process served on
efi
or to protect and defend the rights or property of
efi.
Notice to EU Individuals: As outlined in this Privacy Statement,
efi will not process your user information without a lawful
basis to do so, as such bases are defined in Article 6 of the GDPR. In general,
efi will process your user information on the legal
bases of consent, contract (if you have entered into an agreement with us and
such processing is a necessary part thereof), or legal obligation (as noted
above).
efi may also process certain user information
on the basis of the following legitimate interests, provided that such
interests are not overridden by your privacy rights and interests: delivering
and continuing to develop and improve the Site, learning from your behavior on
the Site (e.g., analyzing traffic) to better serve you and other Site users,
helping us modify or enhance the Site and its content, receiving insight as to
what users do (and don't) like about our Site or aspects thereof, and providing
a stable, consistent, and secure user experience in connection with the Site.
Section Overview:
We care about the protection of your
user information and use industry standard safeguards to do so. Of course, it's
important to keep in mind that no data transmission on the Internet is
guaranteed to be 100% secure.
Your information is stored on
efi servers located in
the United States. We use industry standard physical, electronic, and
organizational safeguards to protect your user information against loss or
theft as well as unauthorized access and disclosure to protect your privacy. We
treat data as an asset that must be protected against loss and unauthorized
access. We employ many different security techniques to protect such data from
unauthorized access by users inside and outside the company. However,
"perfect security" does not exist on the Internet. If you are
concerned that your privacy may have been breached, please contact us as
provided below.
Section
Overview:
The Site is intended
for people who are at least 16 years of age.
If you are less than 16 years old, please do not send any user information to
us--including information such as your name, address, or e-mail address. We do
not knowingly collect (nor do we wish to collect) any personally identifiable
information or other user information from children under the age of 16. In the
event that we learn we have collected any personal information from a child
under the age of 16, we will delete that information from our database and
terminate the corresponding account, if any. We encourage you to discuss the
Site with your parent or guardian.
Section Overview:
Your user information may be transferred
to other countries in connection with your use of the Site. If you access or
use the Site outside of the United States, your user information will be
transferred to our servers in the United States.
efi participates in and has certified its compliance
with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield
Framework.
efi is committed to subjecting all
personal data received from European Union (EU) member countries and
Switzerland, respectively, in reliance on each Privacy Shield Framework, to the
Framework's applicable Principles. To learn more about the Privacy Shield
Framework, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Privacy Shield List at
https://www.privacyshield.gov/list
.
efi is responsible
for the processing of personal data it receives, under each Privacy Shield
Framework, and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on
its behalf.
efi complies with the Privacy Shield
Principles for all onward transfers of personal data from the EU and Switzerland,
including the onward transfer liability provisions With respect to personal
data received or transferred pursuant to the Privacy Shield Frameworks,
efi is subject to the regulatory enforcement powers of the
U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In certain situations,
efi
may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by
public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement
requirements. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we
have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party
dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at
https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request
Under certain conditions, more fully
described on the Privacy Shield website at
https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=How-to-Submit-a-Complaint
, you may invoke binding arbitration when
other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.
Section Overview:
Please contact us if you have any
questions or requests.
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Statement or how to remove or
modify your user information or related consents, please feel free to contact
us by e-mail at
customerservice@efi.org
If we make any material changes we will notify you by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on this website prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.