This Privacy Statement sets forth the practices of Great Minds in STEM ™ (GMiS) regarding the collection and use of information relating to the GMiS Website, its associated websites and other activities of GMiS. We want you to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose information relating to you, your computer, or your device and that enable your identification. This Privacy Policy describes our practices with information that we (or our service providers) collect from a user (sometimes referred to as “you”) through our websites, applications, and our other network-connected products and services that link to this Privacy Policy.  This Privacy Policy only addresses information collected directly through or from our affiliated sites – it does not address or govern any information-gathering, use, or dissemination practices related to information collected from you other than directly through or from the GMiS-affiliated sites. This Privacy Policy explains what information of yours will be collected by GMiS when you access or use any of the following sites: greatmindsinstem.org, gmisaccess.org, gmiscareerconnector.org, mentornet.org, gmis-scholars.org, salesian.gmis-scholars.org, calmed.gmis-scholars.org, gmiscinference.org or gmiscollegebowl.org, how the information will be used, and how you can control the collection, correction and/or deletion of information. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

Registration and Profile Information
We may ask that you provide personal information when you use the services, such as by registering on our site, joining our mailing list, providing donations, applying for a scholarship, submitting a HENAAC Award nomination, participating in our MentorNet program, signing up to attend the GMiS Conference, July Summit, or Viva Technology, corresponding with us or engaging on any of our social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat or YouTube.

Information may include, but not limited to:

Contact information (i.e. first and last name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number, username and password, photo, emergency contact information) 

Demographic information (i.e. DOB, gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship, dietary information, disability information) 

Education and career background (i.e. school, academic history, transcripts, enrollment verification, GPA, career status, job title, company information, work history, interest, hobbies, affiliations and other pertinent information) 

Transaction information (i.e. account name, credit card number and expiration date) which is used for billing purposes only, and is not otherwise shared, except with a reputable third party processing vendor when you purchase a product or service from us or make a donation, whether on our site, applications, or through our third-party vendors 

Request for Service form features through which you may submit information to us. Under some circumstances, we may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our internal administrative purposes, and to help us better serve customers 

Surveys and contests: If you choose to participate in a survey or a contest you may be asked to provide information, including contact information and demographic information. In addition to other uses set forth in this policy, contact information collected in connection with surveys and contests is used to notify the winners and award prizes and may be shared with sponsors of such surveys or contests 

Information you provide in public forums on our sites and applications Information you provide when you use our sites and applications, our applications on third-party sites or platforms such as social networking sites, or link your profile on a third-party site.

Location information when you visit our site or use our applications, including location information either provided by a mobile device interacting with one of our sites or applications (including through beacon technologies), or associated with your IP address, where we are permitted by law to process this information 

Usage, viewing and technical data, including your device identifier or IP address, when you visit our site, use our applications on third-party sites or platforms or open emails we send Information we may receive from third parties.

Please keep in mind that when you provide information to GMiS on a third-party site or platform, the information you provide may be separately collected by the third-party site or platform. The information GMiS collects is covered by this privacy policy and the information the third-party site or platform collects is subject to the third-party site or platform’s privacy practices.

For example, we may collect information about you from social media sites. If you access our website or services through a third-party connection or log-in, for example, through Facebook Connect, or by “following,” or “liking,” GMiS, or sharing your activities on our site on social media, etc., that third party may pass certain information about your use of its service to GMiS. This information could include, but is not limited to, the user ID associated with your account (for example, your Facebook User ID), an access token necessary to access that service, any information that you have permitted the third party to share with us, and any information you have made public in connection with that service. If you allow us access to your friends’ list, your friends’ user IDs, and your connection to those friends, may be used and stored. You should always review, and if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to the GMiS. You may also unlink your third party account from GMiS by adjusting your settings on the third party service. If you unlink your third party account, we will remove the information collected about you in connection with that service. We may also request and collect information about you from third parties such as teachers, schools, and other referral sources, providers of background check services, billing and credit agencies, and other third parties.

Automatically Collected Data

As you navigate our GMiS-affiliated sites, certain Personal Information may be passively collected, meaning it is gathered without your actively providing it. This information includes the date, time, and navigation history of the session, as well as your browser type, and IP address. Automatically collected data may be used to deliver content specific to your interests and to honor your preferences. This information does not contain anything that can identify you personally. This is done using the following techniques in the following ways:

Cookies

Like many companies, we use “cookies” to help make sure the GMiS websites are meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements. A “cookie” is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user. Cookies make it possible for us to reduce the number of times you are required to login or to tailor the Web site to fit your interests. We may use cookies set by us on our websites to tell us, for example, whether you have visited us before or if you are a new visitor, for payment processing purposes, and to allow access to our proprietary platform.

Most Internet browsers allow you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. You can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of our GMiS Websites may not function properly if the ability to accept cookies is disabled.

Some of our third-party business affiliates may use cookies on our sites in ads or promotions. We have no access to or control over these business affiliates’ cookies, so we urge you to read their privacy policies for information.

Information About You That May Be Stored In Our Database

We may check the information you have provided against any information we have about you in our database. We do this to ensure that we maintain the most current and accurate information about you as a visitor to our websites. Our database may contain such information as your name, title, affiliation, college, classification, industry classification, address, phone number and e-mail address, if you provide them. We may also collect additional information about you including but not limited to: site registration, login IDs and your participation with GMiS.

How We Use Information

We use Personal Information submitted by you or otherwise collected through the GMiS Websites and through other sources for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and as otherwise described to you at the point of collection. Generally, we use the information you provide to use for the reason for which it was provided.

Automatically collected data such as cookies and log files help us understand the interests of our visitors in order to enhance their experience on our site. We also use this information for our internal security audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad demographic information about our user base.

We may use information you have provided to process transactions you request. We may also use this information to inform you of upcoming events that may be of interest to you, based on your participation in GMiS activities or interests in programs you have indicated. You may choose not to receive these communications.

We may combine demographic information you have supplied with site usage data to produce general profiles, in aggregate, that cannot identify you personally. We use aggregate demographic information about our visitors to improve our service, for marketing purposes and/or industry reporting purposes.

Shared Data

GMiS does not sell your Personal Information. We may share your Personal Information with third parties only as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise described at the point where we collect the information from you, including:

Our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Vendors who perform functions on our behalf, such as sending mail and email, processing credit card payments, processing event registration, or helping with the maintenance or set-up of our servers or computers, providing online analytics or assessing website effectiveness. Such persons or entities may have access to your personally identifiable information only if, and as needed, to perform their functions, but are contractually prohibited from using such information for any other purposes. These third parties are not allowed to use information about you except for the purpose of providing these services.

We may share aggregated information that does not identify you personally, with our advertisers, exhibitors and organization affiliates. GMiS may share information about its scholarship recipients, award nominees, winners and honorees, and role models with organization affiliates.

Uses and Disclosures to Comply with Laws

In addition, where permitted by applicable law, we use and disclose Personal Information collected through the GMiS Websites as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (i) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (ii) to comply with legal process; (iii) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (iv) to enforce our terms and conditions; (v) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (vi) to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you, or others; and (vii) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

Security

GMiS uses commercially reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information. However, you should understand that no transmission over the Internet is ever fully secure. Thus, GMiS cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to GMiS and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission of information, GMiS makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems. However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

Links to Third-Party Sites

The GMiS Websites contains links to or from other sites. Please be aware that GMiS cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. Any information you disclose on third-party website are not subject to this Privacy Policy. Your browsing and interaction on any other third-party website, including those that have a link on our websites, are subject to that Website’s own rules and policies. We urge you to read the privacy statements of websites that collect personally identifiable information.

Children’s Online Privacy

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) protects the personal information of children under the age of 13. This applies to individually identifiable information about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home address, email address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child. COPPA also covers other types of information-for example, hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms-when they are tied to individually identifiable information. It is important for you to understand this law; we encourage you to read more about COPPA.

The GMiS websites are not intended for persons under the age of 13. Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. For that reason, GMiS does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 13, please do not send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 is allowed to provide any personal information to or on GMiS. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at info@greatmindsinstem.org.

Preferences, Permission, Opt-out

Registered users can update their profile information with GMiS by visiting gmisaccess.org. You can unsubscribe from certain emails by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link they contain. You can opt-out of the use of certain cookie-related processing by following the instructions with your browser settings.

If you wish to be excluded from marketing by GMiS via mail, e-mail, phone and/or fax, please contact us at info@greatmindsinstem.org.

Updates to this Privacy Statement

GMiS may, at its sole discretion, update this statement, at any time, by posting the amended statement on the Website, and it shall be effective upon posting. By using GMiS’ sites, you expressly consent to the use and disclosure of information as described in this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the sites after the posting of the change notice to the Privacy Policy will be deemed to be your agreement to the changed terms.

Contact, Questions, Comments, Complaints

If you have questions, comments, or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy or GMiS’ policy practices, please contact us at info@greatmindsinstem.org..

LAST UPDATED
January 18, 2021