The Life Paths Research Center Privacy Policy
for Websites, Events, and Other Non-Research Activities
1. Introduction.
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains how Life Paths Research Center (LPRC) handles the information that is collected regarding non-research activities, including when you visit our websites (on any device), receive emails, or register for ResilienceCon, the Writer’s Workshop, or other similar events.
The term “Websites” includes all pages or subdomains of our Websites and any content, code, data, services, features or functionality made available from or through the Websites. The term “Events” refers to ResilienceCon, the Writer’s Workshop, and other public events for researchers, providers, and others. “Research activities” includes surveys, focus groups, interviews, and other data collection procedures that are collected for scientific purposes. Those are confidential activities guided by informed consent procedures that are approved by ethical review boards (Institutional Review Boards or IRBs) and are not addressed by this policy.
This policy explains the types of information we collect regarding users of the Websites or
registrants at Events and how we may use that information, so you can make an informed
decision about whether to view the content and/or use the services on the Websites. This Privacy Policy applies to all information we collect via Websites or for Events, on any device (computer, tablet, cell phone, etc). This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to the Websites’ and Events’ Terms of Use. Each time that you access or use the Websites or register for an Event, you agree that you have read, understand and agree to be bound by the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy and you expressly consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your information, including without limitation, Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personally Identifiable Information” or “PII” is information that we can use to identify or contact you as an individual, and includes your name, email address, institutional affiliation, address, telephone number and any other information that we associate with any of the foregoing.
If you do not agree to the Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy, you must discontinue using the Websites, Events, and other Non-research Activities, and all services and features therein.
(a) Except as specified herein, this Privacy Policy does not apply to information you may provide to us offline. Also, this Privacy Policy does not apply to participants in research studies. A separate consent process, provided at the time of participation, guides those interactions.
(b) Certain features of the Websites may be subject to additional or different privacy provisions, which will be posted on the Website in connection with such features. All such additional or different privacy provisions are incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy.
2. Information That is Collected.
(a) Information You Provide To Us.
Personal Information.
Website. LPRC does not itself collect personal information when you simply view pages on
our website or download materials from our Websites, including our Facebook group page. No materials on our website require a registration to view and LPRC does not collect or retain personally identifiable information (PII) when you access our Websites (however, see below for information on the use of cookies by Third Party Vendors).
We do not have advertisers on our Website or Facebook content and we do not sell personally identifiable information to advertisers.
Events. We collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) when you register for an event such as ResilienceCon, the Writer’s Workshop, webinars, or other similar events. This includes your name, email address, institutional affiliation, address, and telephone number. These disclosures are required for participation in our events and if you do not wish to provide them, you may not participate in a LPRC event. If you contact us via email or phone, your email address and/or phone number will also become available to us. We use this information to contact you about events, publications, or other topics of potential interest.
For many events, we also ask you to provide a photo and a biographical sketch. We use this
information for the event program (a “face book”) and to promote networking among attendees. We may use publicly available information from other websites to supplement any information provided by you.
If you elect to post material to any blogs, forums, participate in our social networking features or other community boards that may be offered on our Websites, then such materials will be collected and some information, including your posted pseudonym, may be publicly available for others to view.
Billing and Credit Card Information. To register and pay for events, we use additional third-party vendors, including but not necessarily limited to Captain Form (creates our registration forms) and Stripe (handles our credit card payments). You may pay by check or cash if you do not wish to provide your information to Stripe and you may register via email, phone, or in-person if you do not wish to provide your information through Captain Form. However, if you do use Captain Form or Stripe, then your information, including your billing and credit card information, will also be handled in accordance with their privacy policies.
Continuing education. We sometimes partner with a Third Party to offer continuing education credits for our programs. If you wish to receive continuing education credit, then this requires sharing PII with them, including (but not necessarily limited to) your name, your email, your professional license information, and the details of your attendance at our events. If you do not wish to share this information, then you will not be eligible for continuing education credit.
Our third-party vendors have their own privacy policies and using LPRCs Websites (including our Facebook page) means consenting to the use of these vendors’ privacy policies too.
(b) Information Collected As You Access and Use the Websites
We use several third-party vendors, including but not necessarily limited to WordPress (and several WordPress plugins, such as Yoast, some of which are created by other programmers), Bluehost, Sucuri Monitoring, WordFence, and Google Analytics. These are all companies that provide programs that make our website possible or add some functionality to our website. SiteShack is our web consulting service who helps us with creation and maintenance of our Websites. We also use Mailchimp to manage our mailing list, Dropbox and Box for file management, YouTube for our ResilienceCon channel, and Facebook for our LPRC group page.
In addition to any PII or other information that you choose to submit to us, some of our vendors may use a variety of technologies (including cookies, Flash cookies, web beacons and embedded scripts) (“Tracking Technologies”) that automatically or passively collect information when you visit or interact with the Websites (the “Usage Information”). This Usage Information may include, without limitation, the browser that you are using, your IP address (“Identifier”), the URL that referred you to our Websites and all of the areas within our Websites that you visit. We recommend that you use Wikipedia or some other nonprofit to access up-to-date information on these technologies. For example, information on cookies is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie.
We may use Usage Information for a variety of purposes. Usage Information gathered from your use of the Websites may be combined with information from third party sources to identify your location by state and region.
These other vendors have their own privacy policies and using LPRC Websites (including our Facebook and YouTube pages) means consenting to the use of these vendors’ privacy policies too. We do not have control over how these third parties use cookies and similar technologies or the information derived therefrom, and this Privacy Policy does not cover any use of information that such third parties may have collected from you or the methods used by the third-parties to collect that information. You can control some of these tracking technologies. For example, if you don’t want cookies to be utilized when you visit our Websites, most Web browsers include an option that allows you to not accept them. However, if you set your browser to refuse cookies, some portions of our Websites may not function efficiently.
3. How We Use and Share the Information Collected.
In addition to the other disclosures described in this Privacy Policy, LPRC may (and you
authorize us to) share or disclose information collected from and about you on the Websites, including PII, to other companies or individuals in the following situations:
(a) Provide, Manage and Improve our Services. LPRC uses information we collect from you in part to provide you with the goods and service you have requested (e.g., attending a conference), to respond to inquiries, to administer the Websites and for other lawful business purposes. We also use the information in connection with advertising and to serve other content, as described below.
We may provide access to information, including PII, to certain vendors that are performing services on our behalf, including managing our email lists and sending email messages on our behalf, processing payments, providing customer support and performing other administrative services, in order to carry out such services (the “Service Provider Use”).
We also use the information we collect and obtain about you to measure and improve our
Websites and the content therein.
(b) Transactional Communications. We sometimes use the information collected to
communicate with you, such as to notify you of upcoming events or newly available measures or publications. If you wish to unsubscribe from our emails, please follow the unsubscribe/opt-out instructions at the bottom of the email.
(c) Marketing. We may combine and use any and all information we collect on you either online or otherwise, including from third parties, for marketing purposes, including sending you promotional emails regarding our products and services. We do not sell or share your PII with other companies, with the exception as noted above if you register for continuing education credit. If you have received a promotional email and do not want further emails about similar promotions or offers from us, simply follow the unsubscribe instructions that are located at the bottom of those emails.
(d) Administrative and Legal Reasons. Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, we may at all times and in any manner access, use, preserve, transfer and disclose your information (including PII), including disclosure to third parties: (i) to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, subpoenas, governmental requests or legal process, or in connection with a legal investigation, if in our good faith opinion such is required or permitted by law; (ii) to protect and/or defend the Websites’ Terms of Use or other policies applicable to the Websites, their content, services or functionality, including investigation of potential violations thereof; (iii) to protect the safety, rights, property or security of the Websites or any third party (for example, if we are trying to collect money you owe us); and/or (iv) to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues. Further, we may use Identifiers and other information to identify users, and may do so in cooperation with third parties such as copyright owners, internet service providers, wireless service providers and/or law enforcement agencies, including disclosing such information to third parties, all in our discretion (the “Legal Use”). Such disclosures may be
carried out without notice to you.
(e) Sales or Transfer of Business or Assets. In connection with a sale, merger, transfer, exchange, or other disposition (whether of assets, stock, or otherwise, including via bankruptcy) of all or a portion of the business conducted by the Website to which this policy applies, in which case the company will possess the information collected by us and will assume the rights and obligations regarding your information, including PII, as described in this Privacy Policy (the “Acquisition Use”).
(f) Social Networks. As noted, above, if you use your login credentials from a social networking site (e.g., Facebook) on a Website, we may receive information from such social networking site in accordance with the terms and conditions (e.g., Terms of Use and privacy policy) of the social networking site. If you elect to share your information with these social networking sites, we will share information with them in accordance with your election. The terms and conditions of these social networking sites will apply to the information we disclose to them.
(g) Delivery of Advertising and Other Content. In addition to ads and content that we serve you directly, LPRC may use third party advertising companies and marketing services to serve ads and other content when you visit the Websites and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. We also use analytics services supported by third party companies to perform analytics and track trends. Google is one of the companies that we use to serve advertising and perform analytics on our Websites. We and third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to help implement the above uses of your information. We also may use Google Analytics along with audience data (such as age, gender and interests of users) to help understand users’ visits to the Websites and to optimize the content that we serve to users.
To learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs for the Web, click
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en. To learn more about how Google uses cookies in advertising, you can visit https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/ . You can opt out of receiving interest-based Google Ads, or customize the Ads Google shows you, by clicking https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en.
We do not control Tracking Technologies used by third parties, and their use may be governed by the privacy policies of the third parties employing the Tracking Technologies. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third parties to see your options for opting out of their use of such devices.
(h) Links to Third Party Sites. When you are on the Websites, you may be directed to other websites that are operated and controlled by third parties that we do not control. We are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by any of these third parties.
4. Security. We have undertaken reasonable efforts to implement administrative, technical and security safeguard to help prevent unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of the information we collect. However, no systems can be completely secure. Therefore, while LPRC uses reasonable efforts to protect your PII, LPRC cannot guarantee its absolute security, and your use of the Websites or attendance at events indicates your agreement to assume this risk.
5. Consent to Transfer Information to the United States. The Websites are operated in the United States of America (USA) and are intended for users located in the USA. If you are located outside of the USA, please note that the information you provide to us will be transferred to and processed in the USA, where laws regarding processing of Personally Identifiable Information may be less stringent than the laws in your country. By using any of our Websites, you consent to this transfer, processing and storage.
6. Changes to This Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time without prior notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy.
7. Disputes; No Rights of Third Parties. If you choose to access the Websites, attend our events, or use any of our Services, any dispute over privacy is subject to our Terms of Use, including limitations on damages, resolution of disputes by binding arbitration, and application of the laws of the United States, and the State of Tennessee. This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.
8. Contact Us: Privacy Policy Coordinator.
If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of this Privacy Policy, please contact our privacy policy coordinator at the address set forth below.
Privacy Coordinator
Life Paths Research Center
PO Box 187
Sewanee, TN 37375
Or