Western Finance Association (WFA) Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
PRIVACY POLICY
Last Modified: June 19, 2023
The Western Finance Association (“WFA,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy, and we are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Policy (“Policy”). This Policy governs the collection, use, and storage of data and was created in order to demonstrate WFA’s commitment to the privacy of our members, event attendees, sponsors and exhibitors, and website users. This Policy governs how WFA collects and uses data, including from forms, our apps, registration platforms and websites, social media and our websites: https://westernfinance.org and https://westernfinance-portal.org (“Website”). This Policy also describes our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.
BY ACCESSING OUR WEBSITE OR PROVIDING YOUR INFORMATION TO US, YOU AGREE TO AND ACCEPT THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS OR USE OUR WEBSITE OR CREATE AN ACCOUNT.
Information We Collect About You and How We Process That Information
We collect several types of when you visit our Website and/or engage with our association.
Personal Information may include name, employer, email, employer phone, mobile phone, address, credentials/certifications, credit card information, IP addresses, and details of products and/or services purchased and identifies you as an individual or is information that can be linked to you as an individual (“Personal Information”).
Here is what we collect and how we use it:
(a) Membership. When you become a member of the WFA, we collect the following information about you – your name, your employer’s name, your work address (including your country location), and your email address. We may also collect your personal email address, personal mailing address, and mobile phone number. We may ask our members to voluntarily provide additional information, such as information about your age, gender, nationality, race or ethnic origin, educational background, number of years in the field of finance, and academic areas of research interests.
Members may edit their profile at any time to change, add, or remove Personal Information.
We process your Personal Information for membership administration, to deliver member benefits to you, to inform you of WFA-related events, content, and other benefits or opportunities associated with your WFA membership. The WFA may also use this information to help understand our members’ needs and interests to serve better the WFA member community, including contacting you for voluntary participation in WFA surveys conducted by the WFA or third parties.
(b) Conference Paper Submission, Conference Registration, and Conference Duties as Program Committee Members. The WFA will collect Personal Information about you when you submit your conference paper, register for a conference, or provide reviews and comments as part of the program committee via our website submission portal, which is hosted and maintained by our third-party service provider. The WFA may use Personal Information provided during submission to analyze data about the submitters.
(c) Purposes for processing your data. As explained above, the WFA processes your data to provide you with the goods or services you have requested or purchased from us, including membership services and conferences. We use this information to refine our goods and services to better tailor them to your needs and to communicate with you about other services the WFA offers that may assist you in your career. Most of the time, the WFA needs to process your Personal Information to fulfill an order for goods or services. Sometimes, the WFA relies upon your consent, in which case we will keep a record of it and honor your choices.
Other times the WFA has a legitimate interest in processing data to better understand the needs, concerns, and interests of WFA members so the WFA can operate optimally as an association, such as:
(i) for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure;
(ii) for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, or obtaining professional advice; or
(iii) for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
(d) Payment card information. You may choose to purchase goods or services from the WFA, including purchasing or renewing membership services, using a payment card.
(e) Communication. If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you, such as your name, email address, phone numbers, and the contents of the message.
(f) Information that we collect when you use our Website.
Location Information. We collect this information from you automatically via Google Analytics as you navigate through our Website, through your Internet provider or wireless service provider, whichever is applicable.
Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies (Google Analytics). As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:
Non-personal details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs and other communication data, and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
Information about your computer and Internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type. We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
Cookies. A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.
We strive to provide you with choices regarding the information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:
Tracking Technologies. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this Website may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
Do Not Track. Do Not Track is a privacy preference that can be set in a web browser. Our Website recognizes do not track browser setting or signals.
The information we collect automatically is statistical data and does not include Personal Information, but we may maintain it or associate it with Personal Information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service. We use automatic data collection to (a) understand and save your preferences for future visits; (b) compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future.
Disclosure of Your Information
WFA may provide Personal Information to third party agents that have been hired to help provide a requested good or service or to facilitate us in providing our services to you. This may include payment processors, association membership system providers, newsletter publishers, website analytics, member analyses, membership renewal and/or updates on member programs and services.
WFA reserves the right to disclose without notice any information in its possession if required to do so by law, to protect or defend WFA’s rights or property, or to respond to an emergency.
External Links
Our Website may contain links to other third party websites for your convenience. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other third parties and any information you submit to a third party is subject to their privacy policy. Once you leave our Website, or are redirected to a third party website, application, or other online service, we encourage you to read the privacy policy applicable to that third party. Links to other sites do not imply WFA’s endorsement of the products or services, or privacy or security practices of those websites.
WFA Communications
You may opt-out of receiving promotional email communication from us by sending us an email at info@westernfinance.org. You will not be able to opt-out of transactional email communication, such as communication-related to your account, billing/payment, paper submission, conference registration, etc.
Rights of Residents of the European Economic Area
Under certain circumstances, you may have rights under data protection laws in relation to your Personal Information.
Such rights include:
Request access to your Personal Information. This enables you to receive a copy of your Personal Information and to verify that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of your Personal Information. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your Personal Information. You may have the right to request that Personal Information we hold about you is deleted.
Object to processing of your Personal Information. You may have the right to prevent or restrict processing of your Personal Information.
Request restriction of processing of your Personal Information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your Personal Information in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your Personal Information. Where technically feasible, we will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Withdraw your consent. However, if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.
Minors and Children Under the Age of 13
Our Website is not for minors or children under the age of 13. Further, we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under age 13 If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us.
Data Processing and Security
We are committed to taking reasonable efforts to secure the information that you choose to provide us, and we use a variety of security procedures to help protect against unauthorized access to or alteration, disclosure, or destruction of Personal Information. All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers behind firewalls.
The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where you have chosen a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Information, , we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of Personal Information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.
Data Storage and Retention
Your Personal Information is stored by the WFA on the servers of the cloud-based database management services the WFA engages, located in the United States. The WFA retains data for the duration of the member’s business relationship with the WFA and for a period of time thereafter to allow members to recover accounts if they decide to renew, to analyze the data for WFA’s own operations, and for historical and archiving purposes associated with WFA’s history as a membership association. We retain your Personal Information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.
For more information on where and how long your Personal Information is stored please contact us.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
From time to time, we reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of our Policy. You will be notified of such changes by notifications on our Website, by email notification informing you of such changes, or by any other reasonable means as required by applicable law. You should check this Policy frequently for any changes. Your continued use of our Website following the posting of changes to this Policy will mean that you accept those changes.
Contact Us
To ask questions or comment about this Policy or our privacy practices, contact us at:
Attn: Privacy
Western Finance Association
Bryan Routledge, WFA Secretary/Treasurer
Associate Professor of Finance
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Office: +1.412.268.7588
Email: admin@westernfinance.org