PRIVACY POLICY – YOUR RIGHTS
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to be the premier professional organization dedicated to enabling its members, corporate partners and the professional Pan-Asian community to leverage the leadership and global business potential of Pan-Asian professionals worldwide. When you register with us, you gain access to a range of program offerings, research and resources to help with professional development. To seamlessly deliver these resources and benefits, we at times need to share your information across our teams - always with a focus on keeping your data secure.
ABOUT THIS PRIVACY POLICY
Ascend and the Ascend Foundation (“Ascend,” “we” or “us” or “our”), understand your concerns about privacy, and we want to provide you with more information on how your information is used and safeguarded. This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) describes the practices, policies and procedures related to the website located at www.ascendleadership.org, (collectively, the “Website”), including the types of personal information we collect on the Website, how we may use that information, and with whom we share it. By providing your personal data to any of us, you acknowledge and agree that your data may be shared between and/or processed by either of us. Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to our online information-gathering and dissemination practices, and does not apply to any of our practices conducted offline. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so please check this Privacy Policy periodically for changes.
SUMMARY
The notifications provided by this Privacy Policy include:
What personally identifiable information we collect through the Websites.
How we use the information we collect.
With whom the information may be shared.
The kind of procedures we employ in an effort to hinder the unauthorized access, use or disclosure of information you provide to us.
Information related to third-party websites.
How you can learn about changes to the Privacy Policy
THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Personal Information You Provide and How It Is Used
You are not required to provide any personally identifiable information in order to gain access to the public, non-password protected portion of the Websites. You are free to visit the Websites to learn more about us and what we do without entering any personally identifiable information. However, there are a variety of features and functionality that may request that you provide us with personally identifying information (such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, and/or credit/debit card information) and other information (including general demographic information), as more particularly described below. Please note we only collect personal information directly from you when you provide it to us. Examples of instances in which we may collect personal information include:
Account Information – We collect personal information that you submit to us voluntarily when you make donations to the Ascend Foundation, purchase event tickets, register for programs or events, or pay for your membership to Ascend. Personal Information includes name, email and postal addresses, telephone number, and country of residence, and billing and financial information.
Direct Interactions and Communications with us – including emails, form submissions (e.g. signing up for our email newsletter) and “contact us” links.
We may collect information from you such as, but not limited to, your name, email address, mailing address, phone/fax numbers, gender, payment information, education
history, employment information, information related to your professional qualifications, designations and memberships and information about your use of our and third-party websites, products, programs, events, thought leadership publications, and services.
Use of Your Information
Your personal information may be used and/or shared in the following ways:
To provide our programs, events, research, thought leadership, products and services to you.
To enhance and improve our products and services, for example, by performing internal research, analyzing user trends and measuring demographics and interests.
To process payments from you (including, but not limited to, membership dues and subscriptions, registration fees, voluntary contributions, examination fees, credential and designation fees, or payments for any products or services that you choose to purchase from us).
To process payments.
Internal purposes, such as website and system administration or internal audits and reviews.
To determine eligibility for membership, credentials, designations and volunteer opportunities, including speaking opportunities.
To communicate with you regarding your membership and products/services that may be of interest to you.
To respond to your requests and inquiries.
To serve relevant advertisements to you when you visit our sites or other third-party sites (including social media platforms).
To request your participation in surveys, focus groups, or other initiatives which help us to gather information used to develop and enhance our products and services and in our research and thought leadership publications.
To evaluate your performance on continued learning courses and assist you in the tracking of your progress.
For examination scheduling, administration and registration purposes.
To comply with applicable law(s) (for example, to comply with a search warrant, subpoena or court order) or to carry out professional ethics/conduct investigations.
From time to time we may provide statistics about the usage levels of the Website and other related information to reputable third parties, but these statistics will not include information which will allow you to be identified.
We may use the information you provide to us and which we obtain from other sources to better understand your interests so we can try to predict what other products, services, programs, events, thought leadership, and information you might be most interested in. This practice is called “profiling”, which involves making automated decisions about you based on this information in order to better enable us to tailor our interactions with you to make them more relevant and interesting. You may object to such profiling at any time by contacting us.
In connection with a sale of all or substantially all of the assets of our organization, or the merger of our organization into another entity or any consolidation, share exchange, combination, reorganization, or like transaction in which our organization is not the survivor. We will process your personal data for the purposes identified above on the following bases:
Our legitimate interests, which include processing such personal data for the purposes of providing and enhancing the provision of our offerings, programs, services and information, as well as promoting further offerings, programs, services and information to you.
Unless a longer retention period is required by applicable law, we will retain your information for as long as your account is active, as well as for a short additional period afterwards to cover any outstanding issues or queries that may arise in relation to your account (for example, outstanding payments). This period of retention is subject to our review and alteration.
Sharing and Disclosure to Third Parties
We may disclose your personal data to third parties from time to time under the following circumstances and for the stated purpose:
You request or authorize the disclosure of your personal details to a third party.
The information is disclosed as permitted by applicable law(s) and/or in order to comply with applicable law(s) (for example, to comply with a search warrant, subpoena or court order).
The information is disclosed to your employer, university or tuition provider in the event they have an interest in your data (e.g. they support Ascend or your contributions or membership fees).
The information is provided to our agents, vendors or service providers who perform functions on our behalf.
It is likely that the identity and categories of such third parties will change during the life of your account but, depending on your use of the Website, it is anticipated that your Personal Data will be disclosed to the following categories of third-party service providers who perform functions on our behalf. We require that our third-party service providers only use your Personal Data as necessary to provide the requested services to us and each service provider is subject to a set of terms consistent with this Privacy Policy.
o Hosting providers for the secure storage and transmission of your data on our behalf.
o Database software providers for the management and tracking of your data on our behalf.
o Legal and compliance consultants, such as external counsel, external auditors, or tax consultants.
o Advertising partners, including social media providers, for the delivery of targeted advertisements on our behalf.
Marketing providers who send communications on our behalf regarding our offerings and services.
Payment solution providers for the secure processing of payments you provide to us.
Publishers and learning providers who develop programs, events, thought leadership publications, offerings and products on our behalf.
Technology providers who assist in the development and management of our web and other properties.
Outbound call center providers, who may perform outreach on our behalf regarding our offerings and services.
Fulfillment and postal vendors for the fulfillment of our offerings and services
Our volunteers or committee members who perform various functions on our behalf.
Survey and research providers who perform studies on our behalf.
Non-Personal Information We Collect by Automated Means and How We Use It:
We collect certain information by automated means when you visit the Websites. Much of this information is collected through the use of third-party tracking services, which includes Google Analytics. The information collected may include – but not limited to – usage information, such as the numbers and frequency of users to the Websites, pages visited, web browsing histories, social networking activities and similar data. For example, we automatically gather the number and frequency of visitors to this site. This collective, aggregated data helps us determine how much our visitors use parts of the Websites, and do internal research on our users’ demographics, interests, and behavior to better understand and serve you. When gathered, this data is used in the aggregate, and not in a manner that is intended to identify you personally. This type of aggregate information may be shared with third parties at any time. In addition to the third-party tracking services mentioned above, we also collect this information through various other means, including "cookies," IP addresses and other means, as further explained below.
Collection of Information Through Cookie Use
We may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a “cookie” file. A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your hard drive. If you do not agree, you can choose to not receive a cookie file by enabling your web browser to refuse cookies or to prompt you before you accept a cookie.
The following types of cookies may be used on our websites:
Essential Cookies: These cookies are necessary for our websites to work properly. They are usually only set in response to actions you take such as logging in or completing online forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of our sites will not function if these cookies are blocked.
Functionality Cookies: These cookies enhance the functionality of our websites by storing your preferences (such as your preferred language or the region that you are in) and allow us to provide enhanced features on our sites such as videos. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party content that we have placed within our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, some of the features on our websites may not function properly and you may not receive a personalized experience when visiting our sites.
Performance Cookies: These cookies allow us to count page visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. They help us to understand which pages are visited most frequently and how visitors interact with our sites. Any information collected by performance cookies is aggregated and therefore not identifiable. If you do not allow these cookies we will not receive data related to your visits to our sites.
Third-Party Cookies: These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners, such as Google or Adobe. They may be used by these companies to enable them to build a profile of your interests and show relevant advertisements on other sites. These cookies are based on identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience a decrease in the targeted advertisements that you see online.
If you opt in to use the “Remember me” feature on our websites, we will place a persistent cookie on your hard drive and you will not be required to log in for every session. By disabling cookies on your machine or clearing your browsing history you may deactivate the persistent cookie.
Most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to be notified when you receive a new cookie, and how to disable existing cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of all the features on our Websites. Our cookies do not gather personally identifiable information.
Log files, IP Addresses, Java Script, Analytics and other Tracking Information: Adoption of communications standards on the internet and our use of standard analytical tools such as Google Analytics result in or may lead to the automatic receipt and tracking of (i) the URL of the website from which you came and the website to which you are going when you leave the Websites; (ii) the internet protocol (“IP”) address of your computer (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web); (iii) your computer operating system and type of web browser you are using; (iv) email patterns; (v) your mobile device (including your UDID) and mobile operating system (if you are accessing the Websites using a mobile device), (vi) your ISP or your mobile carrier’s name.
Do Not Track Notice
Some web browsers incorporate a “Do Not Track” feature that signals to websites that you visit that you do not want to have your online activity tracked. How browsers communicate and respond to the Do Not Track signal is not yet uniform. For this reason, like many web websites, our Websites does not currently respond to or alter its practices when it receives a Do Not Track signal. Please note that third parties may collect personal information about your online activities over time and across different websites when you visit our Websites or other online websites and services. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.
CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
We do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personally identifiable information about visitors younger than 13 years of age. If you are under the age of 13, you are expressly prohibited from accessing/viewing the Websites. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 13 years of age and believe that they have disclosed personally identifiable information to us, please contact us at info@ascendleadership.org so that we may delete your child’s information.
THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
The Websites contains links to third party websites. Please note that we have no affiliation with any of these other parties and/or websites, and cannot control and are not responsible for the information collection, use, and disclosure practices of such third parties; we encourage you to review and understand their privacy practices and policies, if any, before providing any personally identifying information to them or initiating any financial transactions. You should be aware that if you voluntarily disclose personally identifiable information in your communications with third parties linked from our Websites, that information, along with any other information disclosed in your communication, can be collected and used by such third parties and may result in your receiving unsolicited messages from other persons. We are not responsible for the content or information of these websites, or any other use of the linked website.
COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES
We strive to provide you with relevant and useful information related to our programs, thought leadership, offerings, services, current events and news. You can update your communication preferences at any time by updating your membership account profile.
How To Opt-Out From Receiving Our Emails
To stop receiving emails from Ascend, please click on the “unsubscribe” link in the footer of our email communications or notify us at info@ascendleadership.com asking to be removed from our mailing list.
SECURITY
We use reasonable measures to strive to safeguard and secure the personal data we collect. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. Technology is used to enhance security and reduce risk of loss. Technology, such as, but not limited to, Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secured Socket Layer (SSL), is used to enhance security and reduce risk of loss. Our security practices, processes or technology do not guarantee absolute security of your information and you should take all normal personal precautions such as, but not limited to, not sharing passwords, closing browsers, and not using public networks (e.g., internet cafes, etc.).
CONTACT INFORMATION
You are encouraged to report any improvements, suggestions, or any suspected breaches of privacy or security to us by using the contact info@ascendleadership.org.
PRIVACY POLICY REVISIONS
We reserve the right to revise this Privacy Policy at any time by updating this posting. Please check back regularly and to see if there have been any changes to this policy, which you can determine by reviewing the Effective Date listed below. By continuing to use the Websites after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy.
Privacy Policy Effective Date: 3.28.23
