Privacy Policy
Posted On: December 6, 2023 | Effective Date: December 6, 2023
This Privacy Policy describes how FMI—The Food Industry Association (“FMI,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, discloses, transfers, stores, retains or otherwise processes your information when you (whether you are a person or business) access or use in any manner any FMI services (including, but not limited to through a digital receipt or FMI Invoice, at a point of sale, using Online Store, registering for a conference, event, meeting or webinar) through FMI’s website at FMI.org or applications (collectively, “Services”); or otherwise contact or interact with us, even if you have not applied or signed up for a FMI account or other Service or downloaded one of our applications.
This Privacy Policy applies to your use of our Services, and covers information collected in connection with your access to and use of our Services. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully.
Our Privacy Policy Explains:
WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT
1. Information You Provide to Us Directly
FMI may collect different information from or about you depending on the manner in which you use our website. In order to use certain features of the FMI website, such as creating a profile, purchasing a publication, registering for a meeting, or applying for a scholarship, you will create an Account and may voluntarily provide information about yourself, such as first name, last name, company name, company address, phone, fax, e-mail address, payment and billing information, and credit card information. The following examples are provided to help you better understand the information we may collect through your use of the Services.
We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
- Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username, or similar identifier.
- Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address, and telephone numbers.
- Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
- Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
- Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback, and survey responses.
- Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products, and services.
- Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
2. Information We Collect Through Automated Means
Technical and Usage Data
When you access the FMI website, we collect certain information by automated means. This information may include without limitation: (a) technical information about your computer or Wireless Device, such as your IP address, device type, operating system type and version, unique device ID, browser, browser language, domain and other systems information, platform types (collectively, “Technical Information”); and (b) usage statistics about your interaction with the FMI website, including pages accessed, time spent on pages, pages visited, search queries, click data, date and time, and other information regarding your use of the FMI website (collectively, “Usage Data”).
This Technical Information and Usage Data, which may be linked to your information, is collected through the use of various technologies, including cookies; and web beacons. For more detailed information regarding how we use this information and the choices available to you, please review the additional information in this Privacy Policy under the Section entitled "Digital Advertising and Analytics."
Geolocation Information: IP addresses received from your browser or device may be used to determine your approximate location, such as the city, state, and/or country associated with an IP address.
HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION
We may use information about you for a number of purposes, including:
Providing, Improving, and Developing our Services
- Reviewing and analyzing user browser and wireless device technical information;
- Reviewing user activity across FMI.org (for example, FMI may analyze trends and User traffic and usage information to identify and determine the performance of content, research reports or events);
- Processing or recording payment transactions or money transfers;
- Providing you with the FMI products and features you choose to use;
- Displaying your historical transaction or appointment information;
- Providing, maintaining, and improving our Services;
- Developing new products and Services;
- Delivering the information and support you request, including digital receipts, invoices, and scheduling information;
- Improving, personalizing, and facilitating your use of our Services;
- Measuring, tracking, and analyzing trends and usage in connection with your use or the performance of our Services.
Communicating with You About our Services
- Responding to questions or concerns;
- Sending you information we think you may find useful or which you have requested from us about our products, services, and the industry we serve;
- Sending push notifications to your desktop or wireless device to provide updates on relevant resources and content, which can be managed through your computer or smartphone browser;
- Communicating about managing your account preferences or establishing your profile and registration information;
- Conducting surveys and collecting feedback about our industry and Services.
Protecting our Services and Maintaining a Trusted Environment
- Enforcing our Terms of Service or other applicable agreements or policies;
- Verifying your identity;
- Complying with any applicable laws or regulations, or in response to lawful requests for information from the government or through legal process;
- Analyzing trends and user traffic, tracking purchases and usage information;
- Contacting you to resolve disputes and provide assistance with our Services.
Advertising and Marketing
- Marketing of our Services, events, research, and products;
- Communicating with you about opportunities, products, services, contests, promotions, discounts, incentives, surveys, and rewards offered by us and select partners;
- If we obtain any Personal Information from you, we will not sell it to third parties. It may be used internally as part of special merchandising and promotion programs, and we may disclose non-personally identifiable compilations of information to third parties for marketing related purposes.
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us. To learn about your choices regarding interest-based advertising, please see the Section entitled "Digital Advertising and Analytics" below.
Digital Receipts
- If you provide FMI with your contact information to receive receipts, we may store the email address or phone number you provide. We use your email address or phone number to send you a receipt for your purchase. Digital receipts may contain additional messages, offers, or links that may be of interest to you. For example, you may be able to submit feedback or visit websites.
Other Uses
- With your consent or for any other purpose disclosed to you in connection with our Services from time to time.
WHEN AND WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION
When and How We May Share/Disclose Your Information with Third Parties
We will share your information which may include Registration Information, Profile Information, and Shared Content and Course Information with the following third parties or under the following circumstances or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:
We may share your information with third party companies that perform services on our behalf, including for payment processing, order fulfillment, data analysis, marketing services, advertising services (including but not limited to retargeted advertising), e-mail and hosting services, and customer services and support. These third party service providers may access your personal information, and are required to use it solely as directed by us for the purpose of our requested service.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
Analytics and Data Enrichment Services
We use third-party analytics such as Google Analytics, to help understand your usage of our services and to improve our Service.
Aggregate or De-identified Information
We may disclose or use aggregate or de-identified information for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.
Social Media Features
The FMI website may include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button. Our integration of these features may allow third party social media provided to collect certain information such as your IP address, which page you are visiting when using Our Services, and to set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
HOW LONG WE RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION
We generally retain your information as long as reasonably necessary to provide you the Services or to comply with applicable law. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. We can retain copies of information about you and any transactions or Services in which you may have participated for a period of time that is consistent with applicable law, applicable statute of limitations, or as we believe is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, to detect or prevent fraud, to collect fees owed, to resolve disputes, to address problems with our Services, to assist with investigations, to enforce other applicable agreements or policies, or to take any other actions consistent with applicable law.
In some circumstances we may anonymize your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you. This allows the specific information collected (name, email, address, phone number, etc.) to become anonymous, but allows FMI to keep the transaction or engagement data. For example, FMI will not be able to tell if John Smith registered for an event, but we will be able to tell that a person registered for an event and maintain headcount and transactional history. This will allow FMI to maintain a level of information that helps us develop and improve our products and services.
COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES
Like many online platforms, FMI and its analytics vendors use server logs and automated data collection tools, such as browser cookies, pixel tags, scripts and web beacons. These tools are used for analytics purposes to enable FMI to understand how Users interact with the FMI services. FMI and its analytics vendors may tie the information gathered by these means to the unique account ID of Users.
Cookies are small text les placed onto a computer or device while browsing the Internet. Cookies are used to collect, store and share bits of information about user activities. FMI uses both session cookies and persistent cookies.
A session cookie is used to identify a particular visit to the FMI services and collect information about interaction with the FMI service. These cookies expire after a short time, or when the user closes their web browser after using the FMI service. FMI uses these cookies to identify a user during a single browsing session, such as when you log into the FMI services. This helps FMI improve the Service as well as improve the Users’ browsing experience.
A persistent cookie will remain on a user’s device for a set period of time specified in the cookie. FMI uses these cookies to identify and recognize a specific user over a longer period of time. They allow FMI to:
- analyze the usage of the FMI services (e.g. what links users click on) in order to improve our offering
- test different versions of the FMI services to see which particular features or content users prefer to optimize the FMI services
- provide a more personalized experience to users with more relevant content and course recommendations and
- allow users to more easily log in to use the FMI services. Persistent cookies include: preferences cookies to remember information about a user’s browser and settings preferences, such as preferred language. Preference cookies make user experience more functional and customized authentication and security cookies to enable a user to log in or stay logged in and access the FMI service, to protect user accounts against fraudulent log-ins by others, and help detect, and protect against abuse or unauthorised usage of user accounts.
- functional cookies to make the experience of using the FMI service better, like remembering the sound volume level selected by the user.
FMI uses tracking technology to: (i) determine if a certain page was visited (e.g. the landing page of an advertisement for FMI services that is displayed on third party sites) or whether an email sent by FMI was opened or clicked on by a user; and (ii) to customize the learning experience of individual users by recommending specific courses and other content.
Cookie List
FMI will retain the data of users for as long as instructed by the Customer. FMI will delete certain or all personal data relating to users upon request of the Customer. FMI may retain aggregated or anonymized data as set forth below.
| Service | Name | Expiration | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
FMI Custom SSO | session unauthfileReturnUrl username | 24 hours after login 60 minutes 1 year | Required |
Sitefinity | .SFAUTH-fmi_redesign .SFROLES-fmi_redesign sf_timezoneoffset sfExpPages_f669d9a7-009d-4d83-ddaa-000000000002 | 60 minutes 30 minutes Server session 1 year | Required |
YouTube | PREF VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE YSC | 6 months session | Tracking, Performance, Personalization |
OneSignal | _OneSignal_Session __cfduid intercom-id-344a89aeac3f033e4dec4370781543b948aece6d | 1 year 9 months | Preference |
Feathr | __cfduid feathr_session_id | 60 minutes | Tracking and Marketing |
Google Analytics |
_ga _gat_UA-2209860-1 _gid |
2 years 1 minute 1 day |
Tracking |
Google Analytics (onesignal.com): | _ga _gid | 1 day | Tracking |
Google Custom Dimensions | mxx_companyType mxx_isBoard mxx_isCommittee mxx_jobFunctions mxx_memberStatus mxx_memberType mxx_primaryContact | 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year | Tracking |
User Preferences with respect to cookies and other tracking technologies
A user can set his or her web browser to notify about the placement of new cookies, limit the type of cookies or reject cookies altogether; if enabled, a user may not be able to use some or all of the features of the FMI services (for example, may not be able to log in). General information about cookies and how to disable them can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org (http://www.allaboutcookies.org).
Most modern web browsers give you the option to send a Do Not Track signal to the websites you visit, indicating that you do not wish to be tracked. However, there is no accepted standard for how a website should respond to this signal, and we do not take any action in response to this signal. Instead, in addition to publicly available third-party tools, we offer you the choices described in this policy to manage the collection and use of information about you.
THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING AND ANALYTICS
We can use third-party service providers to provide site metrics and other analytics services. These third parties can use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information, such as your IP address, identifiers associated with your device, other applications on your device, the browsers you use to access our Services, webpages viewed, time spent on webpages, links clicked, and conversion information (e.g., transactions entered into). This information can be used by FMI and third-party service providers on behalf of FMI to analyze and track usage of our Services, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand how you use our Services. The third-party service providers that we engage are bound by confidentiality obligations and other restrictions with respect to their use and collection of your information.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, third-party cookies, web beacons, or other tracking technologies, which are covered by such third parties’ privacy policies. For more information, we encourage you to check the privacy policies of these third parties to learn about their privacy practices. For more information about targeted advertising specifically, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices.
Examples of our third-party service providers to help deliver our Services or to connect to our Services include:
Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to understand how our Services perform and how you use them. To learn more about how Google processes your data, please visit https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. To opt out of Google Analytics please visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Facebook: We use Facebook to advertise and market our services, and to enable our customers to market their services. To learn more about how Facebook uses your data please visit https://www.facebook.com/help/325807937506242/ or log on to your Facebook account and access your settings. To understand more about Facebook advertising please see here https://www.facebook.com/about/ads.
Feathr and SharpSpring: We use Feathr and SharpSpring to monitor how you engage with FMI’s content and then tailor ads and content about our products and services to match your interest. Please visit https://www.feathr.co/privacy-policy to learn more about how Feathr processes your data and https://sharpspring.com/legal/privacy/ to learn more about how SharpSpring processes your data.
Matrix Maxx: Matrix Maxx is FMI’s Association Management Service (AMS) and is used to collect and store membership and contact details, event registration, store purchases and details about your interactions with FMI so we can better serve our members and industry stakeholders.
These third party service providers make use of cookies to implement their services.
YOUR RIGHTS
Under certain circumstances, you have rights in relation to your personal data. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out below, please contact us. You have the right to:
Personal Information
You may access, change, or correct information that you have provided by making a request to us using the contact details below, in which case we may need to verify your identity before granting access or otherwise changing or correcting your information. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
Do Not Track (“DNT”) is an optional browser setting that allows you to express your preferences regarding tracking across websites. FMI does not have a mechanism in place to respond to DNT signals. FMI does track some activity across websites (including your search terms, the website you visited before you visited or used the Services and other clickstream data) and we may continue to collect information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy from web browsers that have enabled DNT signals or similar mechanisms.
Promotional Communications
You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from FMI, if those messages, are powered by FMI, by following the instructions in those messages. Opting out of receiving communications may impact your use of the Services. If you decide to opt out, we can still send you non-promotional communications, such as digital receipts that you request.
SECURITY
We take reasonable measures, including administrative, technical, and physical safeguards, to protect your information from loss, theft, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Nevertheless, the internet is not a 100% secure environment, and we cannot guarantee absolute security of the transmission or storage of your information. We hold information about you both at our own premises and with the assistance of third-party service providers.
CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
California law permits residents of California to request certain details about our disclosure of your personal information by us to third parties for direct marketing purposes during the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to request this information, please contact us using the listing below.CONTACT
Please contact FMI with any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Notice.
FMI
251 18th Street S
Suite 1200
Arlington, VA 22202
ATTN: Privacy
Email: privacy@fmi.org
Phone: 202-452-8444
If you have any questions or concerns regarding our notice, or if you believe our notice or applicable laws relating to the protection of your personal information have not been respected, you may file a complaint with FMI using the contact information listed above, and we will respond to let you know who will be handling your matter and when you can expect a further response. We may request additional details from you regarding your concerns and may need to engage or consult with other parties in order to investigate and address your issue. We may keep records of your request and any resolution.
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