Our Commitment To Privacy

Surface Design Association (“SDA”) respects and protects the privacy of our members, customers and others who use our websites, products and services.

This Privacy Notice provides details about how your personal information is collected and used by SDA (“we”, “us”). Personal information is any information that identifies you or would enable someone to contact you, which may include your name, email address, phone number and other non-public information that is associated with such information.

We may collect your information on the surfacedesign.org website and our customer portal hosted by z2systems.com. We reference these platforms as the “Sites”.

Information Collection and Usage

We are the sole owners of the information collected on our Sites and will only use this information as described in this privacy statement. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us through direct interactions.

We use this information to fulfill our duties in the performance of a contract with you or provide you with a requested service. We may combine any or all of this data with other information we collect about you. We use different methods to collect data from and about you which includes personal data you provide when you:

• become a member of SDA
• make a donation to SDA
• subscribe to the SDA Blog
• sign up to receive our emails including InsideSDA
• request information be sent to you
• sign up at a regional meeting
• send us information about an event or call for entry
• order our products in our online store
• enter a SDA exhibition or
• contact customer service

Types of Information

There are different categories of information we collect, depending on the type of activity. Contact Data includes first name, last name, address, email address and telephone numbers. Profile Data includes your username and password, optional fields and preferences associated on your account, as well as any profile data which we have added (emails or publications you might have received), artwork images, etc. Mailing Data includes your address information for purposes of sending you information such as the Surface Design Journal or membership reminders. Transaction Data includes details about your membership, donation, event registrations and purchase history. Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving emails from us and your subscription / mailing list preferences.

For statistical purposes, we may also collect and use aggregated data compiled from your personal data. For example, we may aggregate data about our users to develop metrics about our membership and program activities. This data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.

What Is Shared with Others

We do not share our member email lists. We do supply our mailing list to third parties for the sole purpose of sending our subscribers and members printed material they have requested (i.e Surface Design Journal). We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Membership

The information you provide when you join SDA allows us to contact you via email and mail as well as send you membership materials. These communications are an essential part of your membership experience but you can opt out of receiving them at any time. We take steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate and up to date, and that you have the ability to access it and make corrections to it. If you are a current member, your name, content you have uploaded through Manage my Images, and your website data can be included in our online membership directory (available only to current members via login) as well as on membership reports available to staff and volunteers. Members have the ability to remove themselves from the membership directory or edit how their information is displayed. Once your membership expires, you are no longer listed but your information does stay in our database. Your voluntary participation in membership activities such as exhibitions, conferences,, etc. may require your personal information (name, artwork, location) to be shared with others. In some cases, this will be posted online and/or used in promotions. By registering for these events, you are then providing consent that your information can be used in this manner.

Communications

We use various communication platforms such as MailChimp to send out emails campaigns to our current members and other users. An unsubscribe link is included in the footer of all these emails and you can change your preferences at any time. Current members may also receive emails from our staff and volunteers as they relate to membership activities such as regional meetings, exhibitions, and volunteer requests. Some communications (for example, important account notifications and reminders) are considered transactional and are necessary.

To unsubscribe to any of these emails, you can also contact us directly at info@surfacedesign.org.

SDA Store Orders

To purchase products from the online SDA store, you will need to provide us with certain personally identifiable information. Some examples of this type of information include your name, address, phone number, billing address, shipping address, e-mail address and credit card information. You will only be asked to provide personal information that is essential to complete your selected purchase. This information is used for billing purposes (via PayPal) and to fill your orders. If we have trouble processing an order, we’ll use this information to contact you. We will also send your notifications and reminders about your order and subscription status.

Security and Privacy

We employ reasonable technical, administrative and physical safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. We utilize PayPal, a third-party processor to process online payments for goods and services. When we collect financial account information, we protect its transmission through the use of encryption. All online payments are encrypted and conducted in accordance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards.

Cookies / Tracking

We use “cookies” on our Sites. A cookie is a piece of data stored on your computer to help us improve your access to our site and identify repeat visitors to our site. We do use Google Analytics to track the traffic and usage of our Sites. Standing alone, cookies do not personally identify you; they merely recognize your Web browser. Unless you choose to identify yourself by opening an account, or filling out a form, you remain anonymous to us. Some cookies are temporary and are only valid during your specific session. This enables the Sites to remember important details as you move from page to page in the checkout process. Cookies also allow you to save your login information for ease of access to your personal membership account.

Links

Our Sites do contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

Data Retention and Deletion

We will only keep your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, archival, accounting, or reporting requirements. If the General Data Protection Regulation applies to you because you are in the European Union, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. If you wish to exercise any of these rights or have any other questions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@surfacedesign.org.