European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland Privacy Notice

 

Last modified: May 4, 2022

Introduction

A Growing Culture Inc. (“Company,” “we,” or “us”) respects your privacy as a user (“User,” “you,” or “your”) and is committed to protecting your Personal Data (as defined below) and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about our policy, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us at info@agrowingculture.org.

This notice describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.agrowingculture.org (our “Website“) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information we collect:

  • On this Website.
  • In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.

It does not apply to information collected by:

  • Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by the Company or any third party; or
  • Any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or through the Website.

We take your privacy very seriously. In this notice, we seek to explain to you in the clearest way possible what information we collect, how we use it, and what rights you have in relation to it. We hope you take some time to read through it carefully, as it is important. If there are any terms in this Privacy Policy that you do not agree with, please discontinue use of our Website.

Applicability

This privacy notice applies to any user accessing the Website or providing us any Personal Data from the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) and Switzerland. If you are a user located in the EEA, U.K. or Switzerland, to the extent that any of the provisions of this privacy notice conflict with the policies of our Privacy Policy, these terms will govern.  If you are a user not located in the EEA, U.K., or Switzerland, please see our Privacy Policy https://www.agrowingculture.org/privacy-policy for terms that apply to you. 

Definitions

Capitalized terms that are not defined in this privacy notice will have the same meaning as found in the Privacy Policy.

Purpose of this Privacy Notice

This privacy notice provides you information on how we collect and process your personal data (“Personal Data”) through your use of our Website.

The Website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children or anyone under 16 years of age.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using Personal Data.

Controller

We determine the purpose and means of processing of personal data provided to us by visitors of the Website.  Therefore, we are a “data controller” under the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, the “Applicable Laws”). We may use the services of other service providers in order to process your data as provided by this privacy notice.  These service providers are “data processors” under the Applicable Laws. 

Contact Details

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us in the following ways:

A Growing Culture Inc.

P.O. Box 1286

Asheville, North Carolina 28801

info@agrowingculture.org

You have the right to make a complaint at any time with your national Data Protection Authority, the supervisory authority for data protection issues.  You may find your Data Protection Authority at https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach your Data Protection Authority, so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

We regularly review and update this privacy notice and our Privacy Policy. This version was last updated on the date first provided above. We reserve the right to update or modify this privacy notice at any time without prior notice, subject to Applicable Laws. After an update or modification, we will provide you with notice and access to a copy.

Third-Party Links

At your direction, the Website may connect to third-party websites, plug-ins, or applications. We do not control these third parties and are not responsible for their privacy policies. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every third party you connect with.

Data We Collect About You

Personal Data or personal information means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data or personal information which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data, which includes first name, maiden name, last name, or similar identifier.
  • Contact Data, which includes email addresses and physical address.
  • Technical Data, which 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 the Website.
  • Usage Data, which includes information about how you use our Websites.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing or promotional communications from us, as well as your communication preferences.

We also collect, use, and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any legitimate business purpose. Aggregated data could be derived from your Personal Data but is not considered personal data under Applicable Laws as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific Website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your Personal Data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as Personal Data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

We do not collect any special categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. You may not submit any Personal Data that contains special categories of personal data or information about criminal convictions and offenses. 

Where we need to collect Personal Data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the agreements, contracts, or services you are trying to access.

Cookies and Other Online Tracking Technologies

When you visit the Website, open up electronic communication from us, or interact with us, we may also collect information about you by automated means.  In some instances, we may also allow third parties to collect information about you through automated means.  Some of these technologies include:

  • Cookies: Cookies are small text files that websites send to internet connected devices to make your user experience more efficient.  Some cookies may exist for a single session, and some are persistent for multiple sessions.  Some cookies are strictly necessary for the operation of the Website, and some are optional.  We may use cookies that are managed by third parties for the purposes explained in this privacy notice.
  • Web server logs: Our web servers may collect information on your usage details of your device, including your IP address, operating system, and Website usage.
  • Web beacons, pixels, software:  We may place items on our Website or in our electronic communications called “web beacons” or “pixels”.  These items help link web pages to particular web servers and their cookies to help us understand our Website traffic.  These items may be used to track the pages you view, links that you click, time spent on a page, and other online behavior.  
  • Other: We may use other technology to collect information for the purposes described in this privacy notice.  These technologies may permit collection of data elements such as browser type, operating system type, IP address, activities conducted on our Website, and the time and day of your visit.  If you visit our website from a mobile device, we collect mobile device information such as data previously mentioned and your location information.

Most web browsers offer settings that allow you disable or delete cookies.  However, if you restrict, disable, or delete cookies, you may not be able to fully use our Website.  If you make this change after you have visited our Website, you may have to manually delete existing cookies from your electronic device.  

Our Website may also contain embedded plug-ins, widgets, pixels, or other programming associated with third parties, including external social media platforms.  When you encounter these embedded objects, your web browser may establish a direct connection to the third-party services, and in doing so, share information such as your behavior while browsing out Website, your public profile, and content you have shared.  

We do not currently respond to Do Not Track browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy notice. 

How is Your Personal Data Collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions with you.
  • Use of the Website, including when you enter information on the Website.
  • Automated technologies or interactions while using the Website.  This may include information on your equipment, browsing data, and any features you access on the Website.  This may be performed using cookies, web beacons, tags, and similar technologies.
  • Third parties, including third-party platforms that you use to access our Website or services.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We will only use your Personal Data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your Personal Data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need it to perform the services you requested through our Website.
  • To market to you and offer other products, programs or services that may be of interest.
  • To communicate with you.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation or to carry out our obligations or enforce our legal rights.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

In general, we do not rely on consent for a legal basis for processing your Personal Data. However, we will obtain your consent before sending marketing or promotional communications to you. You also have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Disclosures of Your Personal Data

We will not transfer your Personal Data to third parties except when permitted or requested by you and in accordance with Applicable Laws, or otherwise permitted by law.  This includes the following:

We share information with third parties service providers who provide services on our behalf, such as vendors.

  • We share information with third parties as requested or required to perform the services.
  • We share information to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with our Website or our services.
  • We share information to enforce our policies, legal rights, and protect the security or integrity of our Website and our services.
  • We may share information for other reasons we disclose to you
  • We may disclose your data for marketing and promotional purposes, where you first consent. 

If we sell, transfer, or merge our business, or parts of our business with another business, then any new owner may use your Personal Data in the same way as set forth in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties respect the security and privacy of your Personal Data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We only permit our service providers to process your Personal Data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.  

International Transfers

As part of our provision of services, it may be necessary to transfer your information internationally, including to the United States.  We will only transfer your Personal Data internationally where it is necessary to perform our obligations under any contract we have with you or where we obtain your express consent.  Many of our external third parties are based internationally so their processing of your Personal Data will involve the international transfer of your data.  Additionally, where you opt to receive marketing or promotional emails, we may transfer your Personal Information internationally to our providers to fulfill this request. 

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal Data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorized way, or otherwise altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your Personal Data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data Retention

We will only retain your Personal Data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements. We may retain your Personal Data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

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, regulatory, tax, accounting, or other requirements.

In some circumstances we will anonymize your Personal Data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) and use this anonymized data for any legitimate business purpose, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Legal Rights

Data subjects under the Applicable Laws, may have the following rights:

  • Right to access – you have a right to receive a copy of the Personal Data that we hold about you and to ensure that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Right to correct – you have a right to correct any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you.
  • Right to object to processing – you have a right to object to our processing of your Personal Data where we are relying on a legitimate interest and our processing impacts your fundamental rights or freedoms. You also have a right to object to our processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes.
  • Right to erasure – you have a right to request that we delete or remove Personal Data where there is no legitimate reason for us to continue to process it or you successfully object to our processing of your Personal Data. 
  • Right to limit use – you have a right to restrict the processing of your Personal Data for the following reasons
    • You want us to establish the data’s accuracy
    • Where our use of the data is not lawful, but you do not want us to erase it
    • Where you need us to hold the data regarding a legal claim, even if we no longer have a reason to retain the data
    • Where you have objected to our use of the data but we need to verify if we have an overriding legitimate reason to use it. 
  • Right to data portability – you have a right to request we provide you or a third party with your Personal Data in a machine-readable format.  This right only applies to information you have provided to us.

As a data controller, we will work with you and our other data processors to ensure that data subject requests are fulfilled under the Applicable Laws. If you ask us to assist you in fulfilling a data subject request, we may need to request specific information from you before we assist you. 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.  Additionally, we may have a right to refuse to honor your request if we have an overriding legitimate reason. 

You will not have to pay a fee to access your Personal Data or exercise any of your other rights.  However, we have the right to charge a reasonable fee if your request is unfounded, repetitive, or excessive.

Data Protection Officer

We do not handle the data processing of operations that require regular and systematic monitoring of the data subjects as a core activity. Therefore, we do not have a formal Data Protection Officer (DPO) for our Website.

Representative

We do not handle data processing on a large scale in the European Economic Area, process special categories of data, or process data relating to criminal convictions and offenses.  Therefore, we do not have a representative for our Website.