Create a better future for animals

privacy policy

Last Updated: October 2, 2018

We (the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Inc. (“IFAW”)) have created this Privacy Policy (“Policy”) in order to demonstrate our commitment to protecting your privacy and safeguarding any personal details you provide to us, whether on this website, www.ifaw.org, other IFAW websites or mobile applications (the “Sites”) offered to users in the United States, or by any other means. This Policy explains how we collect, use, maintain and disclose information collected from users and supporters through the Sites that link to this Policy. Note that other IFAW websites and mobile applications may have their own privacy policies. To the extent that you reside within the European Economic Area (“EEA”), our representative in the EEA is IFAW Germany Company Number HRB35636, Max-Brauer-Allee 62-64, D-22765 Hamburg. EEA individuals should review Paragraph 11 regarding additional privacy rights that may be available to you under European and local laws.

PLEASE READ THIS POLICY CAREFULLY. By using our Sites or providing us with your personal information, you (“user”, “you” or “your”) are agreeing to this Policy. We may update this Policy from time to time without notice to you, and any changes to this Policy will apply immediately upon posting to the Sites so please check them regularly. BY USING OR OTHERWISE ACCESSING THE SITES, POSTING OR DOWNLOADING CONTENT OR ANY OTHER INFORMATION TO OR FROM THE SITES, OR PROVIDING US ANY PERSONAL DETAILS BY ANY OTHER MEANS, YOU HEREBY AGREE TO, AND SHALL BE SUBJECT TO, THIS POLICY AND ANY CHANGES TO IT. Remember that your use of the Sites is at all times subject to the IFAW Terms of Use, which is incorporated in this Policy. Print or download a copy of this Policy for your records. IFAW is the sole owner of the information collected on our Sites.

What types of personal information about me do you collect?

We may collect personal information (for example, your name, address, date of birth, email address or telephone number) from you when you:

Make a donation to us;
Complete an online registration, survey or other online form;
Subscribe to our newsletters, updates or Action Alerts;
Participate in our advocacy campaigns;
Request information about IFAW, including our programs and campaigns;
Respond to our mailings, contests or giveaways; or
Contact us or become involved with us in another way.

As part of these interactions, we may also collect additional information such as your IFAW supporter number, bank or credit card information or information about your interests.

We may also collect information (such as your address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, income level, and donation amounts and histories) from the public domain, either directly or from third-parties, and from other charities and not-for-profit organizations.

Except where permitted by law, we will never collect sensitive personal information about you without your consent.

We will not sell, share or rent your personal information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this Policy.

Why do you need my personal information and how do you use it?

There are different reasons why we might need your personal information – the main ones are to process your donation, to send you information that you have requested from us, to inform us about your interests and concerns relating to IFAW’s mission, to keep records of our contact with you, and so that we can better meet your needs.

We may also use your personal information for planning, analysis and other operational purposes such as understanding IFAW supporters and potential donors or to inform our legacy giving program.

We may also use your personal information to get in contact with you by mail, telephone, text, or email, and to keep you up to date on the work of IFAW and the ways in which you can donate or help us in our efforts to raise vital funds. You can stop text messages at any time by texting STOP, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, or QUIT to the number sending the text message, or you can tell us not to send you text messages by contacting us as described in this Policy.

We may use IP addresses to help us analyze trends, administer the Sites, track users’ movement and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IFAW will use your IP addresses to identify you if IFAW believes it necessary to (i) facilitate payments of donations, (ii) protect IFAW, the Sites, users, or other individuals, or (iii) enforce the terms of and/or compliance with the IFAW Terms of Use.

When dealing with your personal information, we will at all times comply with state and federal law, and any other applicable law or regulation.

How do you use information collected from my mobile device?

When you access the Sites on your mobile device (“Mobile Device”), we may obtain information from your Mobile Device about the type of Mobile Device you are using and/or your Mobile Device identification information. We may also use technologies, such as location-based information, to provide you with tailored information and features as you use our Sites.

We may use this information to notify you of features and products that may be available on your Mobile Device. We may be required by third-parties to collect the phone number of your mobile device. Some mobile network providers (“Mobile Providers”) in the U.S. are required to use technology that tracks the physical location of Mobile Devices that use their service. Depending on your Mobile Provider and Mobile Device, we may automatically receive this information. If we begin to offer services that use this tracking (“pinpointing”) information, we will obtain your consent (an opt-in) before using the information.

Most Mobile Devices provide users with the ability to disable location services. These controls are usually located in the Mobile Device’s settings menu. If you have questions about how to disable your Mobile Device’s location services, we recommend that you contact your Mobile Provider or your Mobile Device manufacturer.

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR MOBILE PROVIDER MAY CHARGE YOU FEES FOR YOUR USE OF ITS NETWORK CONNECTION WHILE ACCESSING OR USING THE SITES, FOR DATA DOWNLOADING, EMAIL, TEXT MESSAGES, ROAMING AND OTHER MOBILE PROVIDER OR THIRD-PARTY CHARGES. You understand that the Sites are provided over the Internet and mobile networks, so the quality and availability of the Sites may be affected by factors outside our control.

We do not guarantee that the Sites will be compatible or operate with your Mobile Provider’s service plans, with any particular Mobile Device, or other piece of hardware, software, equipment, or device you install on or use with your Mobile Device. We are not responsible if the Sites are unavailable or if you cannot download or access all content available on the Sites, for any compatibility or interoperability issues, or for any communication system failure which may result in the Sites being unavailable.

Do you share my personal information with any other organizations or individuals?

We will not sell your personal information, and we will not share your personal information with any third-parties except in the circumstances set out in this Section, Section 8 and other Sections in this Policy.

We may share your name, address, and donation amounts and histories with other charities and organizations (and third party vendors may do so on our behalf), so that the other charities and organizations can contact you for marketing purposes. You can opt-out of sharing your personal information at any time by following the instructions contained in Section 12 of this Policy.

We may allow our staff, consultants or other providers acting on our behalf to access and use your personal information so that we can better understand your giving interests and history, and to collect and analyze similar information about you from other charities and organizations and the public domain. This may include information such as your address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, income level, and donation amounts and histories.

We may also allow our staff, consultants or other providers acting on our behalf to access and use your personal information for the purposes for which you have provided it to us, including providing the programs and services described on the Sites and to contact you regarding those programs. If we do this, we will not give those individuals/organizations any rights to use your personal information (or to contact you) beyond what is necessary to assist us.

We may share or disclose your personal information if we are required to do so by any law or court order. We may also merge or partner with other organizations and in so doing, acquire or transfer information. Your personal information collected through our Sites may be among the transferred assets. In the event that a portion or substantially all of our assets are sold or transferred to a third-party, your personal information would likely be a transferred asset, and you hereby agree to such a transfer.

We may also use and share non-personal information – that is, de-identified information that cannot be used to identify you – for any lawful business purpose without any obligation to you.

How is my donation processed?

Online donations are securely processed by our Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant payment service providers. Your payment details are collected in an encrypted form (SSL Protocol). Any offline donations that you make by check, monthly debit or credit card are securely processed either by IFAW or our PCI compliant trusted service providers. Any credit card details provided to IFAW over the phone are retained only for as long as it takes to securely process your payment, at which point all but the last 4 digits of your card number are redacted from our records.

How do you keep my information secure?

Our Sites have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. This includes a firewall and 24-hour monitoring of Sites activities by our hosting service provider as well as 256-bit SSL encryption (where permitted by law) on all transaction-oriented operations between you and IFAW via our transaction service provider.

While we use SSL encryption to protect personal information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line.

We make no representations about any other websites, and when you access any other website through a link on our Sites (including social media sites) you understand that it is independent from us and that we have no control over that website or the way your personal information is collected through those websites. THOSE WEBSITES MAY HAVE THEIR OWN PRIVACY POLICIES, AND WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO LOOK AT THOSE POLICIES OR CONTACT THE WEBSITE OPERATORS DIRECTLY TO UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS USED. THIS POLICY APPLIES SOLELY TO INFORMATION COLLECTED BY OUR SITES.

Keeping your personal information secure is also your responsibility. We recommend you log out after accessing your account, change your password on a periodic basis, and limit access to your computer or device and its browser. Do not share your user name or password with anyone.

NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE TOTAL PRIVACY OF YOUR INFORMATION. YOUR INFORMATION MAY BE ACCESSED AND VIEWED BY OTHER INTERNET USERS, WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND PERMISSION, WHILE IN TRANSIT TO OR FROM THE US.

Where is my information stored?

The data that we collect from you will be transferred to, and stored at, our U.S. Operations Center at 290 Summer St., Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts 02675. The data may also be processed by staff of other IFAW corporate entities around the world or by our suppliers/vendors in the US or in other countries. If you are using the Sites from outside the US, the data protection and other laws of the US and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. BY USING THE SITES, YOU CONSENT TO YOUR INFORMATION BEING TRANSFERRED TO, AND STORED AND PROCESSED BY, OUR FACILITIES AND THE FACILITIES OF THOSE THIRD-PARTIES WITH WHOM WE SHARE IT AS DESCRIBED IN THIS POLICY.

How do you use cookies and other tracking technologies on the Sites?

Our Sites use cookies to track how you use the Sites. A “cookie” is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer or device containing information about the user. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of our Sites, which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Sites and also allows us to improve our Sites. The cookies we use are “analytical” cookies. They allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Sites when they are using them. This helps us to improve the way our Sites work, for example by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. We also use click through and open mail tracking when our Sites are accessed via links in an email we have sent. This enables us to uniquely identify the device or user accessing our Sites. Read more about the individual cookies we use and how to recognize them by clicking here. You may adjust your web browser if you do not wish to receive cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our Sites’ features.

Google Analytics is a Google tool that we use for web analysis. This tool – along with others such as services provided by Facebook - allow us to understand how our users interact with our Sites, collect demographic information for aggregate use, and collect other non-personal information such as device type, location, and the websites that are visited by users before or after our Sites. For more information on Google Analytics, please visit https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can learn more about the cookies used by Google and how to manage them in your browser at https://policies.google.com/technologies/types.

Our Sites also use web beacons or pixels through third party service providers that allow us to track conversions and activity on our Sites as well as generate IFAW advertisements that appear on Facebook and other search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing for you and other potential users. Such third parties may collect or receive information through your use of our Sites and other websites, mobile applications and devices over time to provide advertisements or other services. If you want to prevent third-parties from delivering tailored advertising, VISIT THE NETWORK ADVERTISING INITIATIVE OR THE DIGITAL ADVERTISING ALLIANCE TO OPT OUT of such advertising from companies participating in these industry programs. Please note that if you change browsers or devices, or delete cookies, you may need to renew your opt-out choice.

We may integrate certain parts of our Sites with and allow you to log into your account on our Site through social networking platforms like Facebook. As part of such integration, the social networking platform provides us with access to certain information that you have provided to that social networking platform. IFAW will collect, use, maintain and disclose such information in accordance with this Policy. However, please remember that the manner in which social networking platforms collect, use, maintain and disclose your information is governed by the policies of such social networking platforms. IFAW has and shall have no liability or responsibility for the privacy practices or other actions of any social networking platforms, websites, or third parties that you use in connection with IFAW Sites.

How do you treat personal information collected from children under 13?

IFAW’s Sites are not intended for children under the age of 13 years old. If you are under the age of 13, please DO NOT USE the Sites. We do not purposefully or knowingly collect personal information (as defined in COPPA, 15 U.S.C. § 6501) from children under the age of 13 and no one under the age of 13 may provide any information to or through our Sites. If you are a parent or guardian of a child under 13 years of age, and believe that he or she disclosed information to us, please contact us at the address below in Section 12. If we learn that we have collected or received personal information of persons who are under 13 years of age without verification of parental consent, we will exercise commercially reasonable efforts to delete this information. IFAW is committed to complying fully with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (“COPPA”).

Are there additional privacy rights for residents of California?

California law permits users that are residents of California to request the following information regarding our disclosure of your personal information to third-parties for those third-parties’ direct marketing purposes: (i) a list of certain categories of personal information that we have disclosed to certain third-parties for their direct marketing purposes during the immediately preceding calendar year; (ii) the identity of certain third-parties that received personal information from us for their direct marketing purposes during that calendar year; and (iii) examples of the products or services marketed (if we have that information). If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please email us at info@ifaw.org or contact us at the address below in Section 12.

The California Online Privacy Protection Act (“CalOPPA”) requires IFAW to post a privacy policy and disclose how it responds to “do not track” signals. IFAW does not recognize or respond to “do not track” browser settings. As noted in Section 8, please see the Help section of your browser for instructions on managing security preferences related to cookies or web beacons.

Are there additional privacy rights if I am in the European Economic Area (EEA)?

If you are accessing the Sites from within the EEA, then you have additional privacy rights under the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) (GDPR). For additional information about IFAW’s processing of your personal data and your rights, including the length of time your personal data is stored, the legal basis for processing your personal data, and how you can exercise your privacy rights, please read the Privacy Policy available on our UK website.

What if I need to update my personal information or don’t want you to have it anymore?

If your personal information has changed (such as your zip code), or you decide that you no longer want to receive information from us and/or you do not want us to share your personal information with other charities and not-for-profit organizations as described in Section 4, simply let us know by:

Sending an email to info@ifaw.org
Writing to the following mailing address:
Supporter Development
IFAW
290 Summer Street
Yarmouth Port, MA 02675
Calling the following telephone number: +1 508 744 2000 (and asking for Supporter Development)

In certain circumstances, we may not be able to completely remove your information from our systems. For example, we may retain personal information for legitimate business purposes, to meet your needs or if required by law. All personal information that we keep will continue to be subject to the terms of the Policy to which you have previously agreed.

Instructions for unsubscribing from e-mails will also be included in each e-mail communication we send.

Who can I contact with questions?

If you have any questions about this Policy, the practices of our Sites, or your dealings with our Sites, please contact:

Supporter Development
IFAW
290 Summer Street
Yarmouth Port, MA 02675
info@ifaw.org
+1 508 744 2000

For international queries, please click here for additional contact details.

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privacy policy