NATIONAL BOARD FOR PROFESSIONAL TEACHING STANDARDS PRIVACY POLICY
This Privacy Policy was last updated on June 17, 2014.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, its affiliates and subsidiaries (collectively “we,” “our,” “us,” or “the National Board”) recognizes that its Users, and others who use www.nbpts.org, www.nbctlink.org, or other Web sites owned or operated by National Board (collectively or individually “Users”) value their privacy. The National Board created this Privacy Policy in order to demonstrate our commitment to fair information practices and the protection of privacy.
This Privacy Policy details important information regarding the use and disclosure of Users information collected on www.nbpts.org, www.nbctlink.org, or other Web sites owned or operated by National Board (collectively or individually “the National Board Sites”). We provide this Privacy Policy to help you make an informed decision about whether to use or continue using the National Board Sites. Your use of the National Board Sites and any personal information you provide on the National Board Sites remains subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. By accessing and using the National Board Sites, you expressly consent to our use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information as described in our Privacy Policy.
Please note that any video, image, or other content posted at the direction of Users onto the National Board Sites becomes published content and is not considered personally identifiable information subject to this Privacy Policy.
1. Information We Collect
a) Usage Information Automatically Collected: Our servers automatically track your usage of the National Board Sites (“Usage Data”). Usage Data is anonymous information about our Users that describes how the National Board Sites are used and navigated, including the number and frequency of Users to each web page, and the length of their stays. Usage Data also includes the Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses and domain names of users who visit the National Board Sites (i.e., www. user’s-internet-service-provider.com), but it does not contain personally identifiable information about any Users (such as Social Security numbers). Unless linked to any personally identifiable information you provide us, the Usage Data alone is not personally identifiable. From time to time we may compile and disclose non-personally identifiable Usage Data to third parties. We will only disclose personally identifiable information and Usage Data to those parties identified in this Privacy Policy as being authorized to receive personally identifiable information.
b) Cookies Information: When you visit the National Board Sites, we may send one or more cookies – a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters – to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. National Board uses both session cookies and persistent cookies. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser. Persistent cookies may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the site. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your web browser help file directions. A session cookie is temporary and disappears after you close your browser. You can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of the National Board Sites may not function properly if the ability to accept cookies is disabled.
c) Log File Information: When you use the National Board Sites, our servers automatically record certain information that your web browser sends whenever you visit any Web site. These server logs may include information such as your web request, IP address, browser type, browser language, referring / exit pages and URLs, platform type, number of clicks, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.
d) Clear GIFs Information: When you use the National Board Sites, we may employ “clear GIFs” (also referred to as Web Beacons) which are used to track the online usage patterns of our Users anonymously (i.e., in a non-personally-identifiable manner). In addition, we may also use clear GIFs in HTML-based emails sent to our Users to track which emails are opened by recipients.
e) Information You Give Us: If you order products or publications from the National Board Sites, you will be required to provide us with your contact information and other personally identifiable information such as a credit card number to pay for your products or publications. In addition, if you communicate with us by e-mail or Interactive Communications (as defined in Section 7 of this Privacy Policy), any information provided in such communications may be collected and stored and shall become the property of the National Board. Further, if you register for a National Board meeting or conference (in-person or online), or are interested in being either a candidate for National Board Certification or an Assessor, Trainer, Scoring Director or other National Board Assessment Personnel, you may be required to provide personally identifiable information; including credit card or other financial information.
f) Surveys and Studies: We may conduct occasional online surveys and studies or we may contract with a market-research firm to conduct occasional online surveys and studies on our behalf. In addition, we may conduct surveys and studies in concert with third parties. When you’re within the National Board Sites, you may see an announcement offering you the optional opportunity of participating in a survey or a study. These surveys and studies are entirely voluntary. These surveys and studies may collect a variety of information from you, including personally identifiable information, and if you elect to participate, you agree that any information you provide as a part of such survey or study may be shared with market-research firms or the third parties with whom we are conducting the studies.
2. Use of Information
a) Improvement to the National Board Sites via Personally Identifiable Information: If you submit personally identifiable information to us through the National Board Sites, then we use your personal information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the National Board Sites. We may also share such information with our affiliates, and other third parties to help us improve our content, provide you with goods or services requested to the extent our affiliates and third parties facilitate us in providing these goods or services, and to alert you to new products and special offers provided by our affiliates and third parties that you care about.
b) Personal Information You Voluntarily Disclose Online: Any personal information or video, image, or other content that you voluntarily disclose online (on discussion boards, in messages and chat areas, within your public profile page, etc.) can be collected and used by other Users and as a consequence may become publicly available. Your account name is displayed to other Users when you upload video, image, or other content or send messages through the National Board Sites and other Users can contact you through messages and comments. Any video, image, or other content that you submit to the National Board Sites may be redistributed through the internet and other media channels, and as a consequence may be viewed by the general public. The National Board is not liable for any disclosures of your personal information in, or approximating, the aforementioned manners.
c) Commercial or Promotional Messages: We do not use your email address or other personally identifiable information to send commercial or promotional messages without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out (as described in Section 8 of the National Board Privacy Policy). We may, however, use your email address without further consent for non-promotional or administrative purposes (such as notifying you of major changes to the National Board Sites or for customer service purposes).
d) Improvement to the National Board Sites via Certain Non-Personally Identifiable Information: We use both your personally identifiable information and certain non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous User Usage Data, cookies, IP addresses, browser type, clickstream data, etc.) to improve the quality and design of the National Board Sites and to create new features, promotions, functionality, and services by storing, tracking, and analyzing User preferences and trends.
e) Use of Cookies, Clear GIFs, and Log File Information: We use cookies, clear GIFs, and log file information to: (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the National Board Sites; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information; (c) monitor the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns; (d) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, pages viewed, etc.; and (e) track your entries, submissions, and status.
3. Disclosure of Information
a) Suppliers and Other Service Providers: We may provide personally identifiable information and non-personally-identifiable information to third parties for the purpose of performing functions on our behalf and to facilitate our services. We use reasonable efforts to limit their use of such information and to use appropriate confidentiality and security measures. The National Board is not liable for any disclosures of your personal information by such third parties.
We do share non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous Users Usage Data, referring / exit pages and URLs, platform types, number of clicks, etc.) with interested third parties to assist them in understanding the usage patterns for certain content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality on the National Board Sites. These parties will have access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.
We do not share your personally identifiable information (such as name or email address) with other, third-party companies for their commercial or marketing use without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out.
b) Testing Contractors and Data Services Companies: The National Board contracts with third party providers to assist us in developing, administering and scoring assessments (“Assessment Providers”). In addition, the National Board may contract with one or more third party data services providers to store and manipulate data on our behalf. These parties will have access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes; with the exception of Assessment Providers who are permitted to use aggregated personally identifiable information from candidates for purposes of: internal or validity research; assessment development; and delivery or professional development. The National Board is not liable for any disclosures of your personal information by such third parties.
c) Purchases: Be aware that when you make purchases from the National Board Sites, it is likely that either you or the National Board will need to transmit your personally identifiable information to credit processing companies, delivery companies or other order fulfillment entities. Once your personally identifiable information is in the possession of such third parties, that information will become subject to the third parties’ privacy policy. The National Board is not liable for any disclosures of your personal information by such third parties.
d) Legal Request: We may disclose personally identifiable information and/or non-personally-identifiable information if required to do so by law, or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary or appropriate to: (a) comply with state and federal laws; (b) respond to a court order, subpoena, search warrant or other legal process; (c) enforce other policies that are part of the National Board Sites; (d) comply with an audit request (e) protect our rights or property; (f) take precautions against potential legal liability; (g) investigate and defend the National Board against any third-party claims or allegations; (h) pay royalties or fees to third parties; (i) assist government enforcement agencies; (j) protect the security or integrity of the National Board Sites; or (k) to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the National Board, our Users or others.
e) Corporate Change:
In the event that the National Board is acquired by or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right, in any of these circumstances, to transfer or assign the information we have collected from Users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control. In the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors’ rights generally, we may not be able to control how your personal information is treated, transferred, or used.
4. Security of Information
The security of your personal information is of great importance to the National Board. In order to access certain features of the National Board Sites, you may be required to provide a password. To protect the security of your account, you should not disclose your password to any third party. If you lose control of your password, you may lose substantial control over your personally identifiable information and may be subject to legally binding action taken on your behalf. Therefore, if you lose your password or have any reason to believe that it may have become known to a third party, you should contact us and immediately change your password.
The National Board uses commercially reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information. We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to the National Board and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission of information, the National Board 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. If the National Board learns of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps.
YOU HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE NATIONAL BOARD IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INTERCEPTED INFORMATION SENT VIA THE INTERNET, AND YOU HEREBY RELEASE THE NATIONAL BOARD FROM ANY AND ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE USE OF INTERCEPTED INFORMATION IN ANY UNAUTHORIZED MANNER.
5. User Ability to Review, Correct and Update Personal Information
You may review, correct, or update the personally identifiable information you provide the National Board at any time by accessing “My Profile”.
Upon your request, the National Board will use commercially reasonable efforts to functionally remove you and your personal information from the NBCTLink Web site; however, it may be impossible to remove your entries without some residual information being retained by the National Board. Users who wish to discontinue their use of the NBCTLink Web site should contact the NBPTS staff.
6. Children
Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. For that reason, the National Board does not knowingly collect or maintain personally identifiable information or non-personally-identifiable information on the National Board Sites from persons under 13 years of age, and no part of the National Board Sites are directed to persons under 13. If the National Board learns that personally identifiable information of persons less than 13 years of age has been collected on the National Board Sites without verified parental consent, then the National Board will take the appropriate steps to delete this information.
IF YOU ARE UNDER 13, PLEASE DO NOT USE OR ACCESS THE NATIONAL BOARD SITES AT ANY TIME OR IN ANY MANNER.
7. Interactive Communications
As part of the National Board Sites, you may have an opportunity to post and exchange information and opinions with other Users of the National Board Sites through the use of bulletin boards, discussion threads and/or interactive chat communications (“Interactive Communications”). Be advised that Interactive Communications do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Board, and in no event will we be liable for any claims, damages or losses relating to the Interactive Communications.
We do not allow Interactive Communications which contain: explicit or obscene language; language which infringes upon anyone else’s intellectual property rights; discussions of illegal topics; personal attacks on other individuals; personal information about any minors; or other information that we, in our sole discretion, deem to be inappropriate for the National Board Sites. The National Board does not undertake to monitor the Interactive Communications except when explicitly identified on a specific Interactive Communications session, and therefore cannot be responsible for the views or opinions expressed by Users. We reserve the right to edit or delete Interactive Communications that violate these Interactive Communications rules, as well as revoke the privileges of Users who do not comply with the Interactive Communications rules.
8. Opt Out
You can let the National Board know that you do not wish: (i) to receive information about new products and services and special offers from us or from affiliated third parties, (ii) for us to share your personally identifiable information with unaffiliated third parties other than as set forth in Section 2c above, and/or (iii) for us to combine the personally identifiable information we have about you with information from unaffiliated or other sources by opting out at the time you give the National Board your personally identifiable information or after such time by contacting us.
9. International Users
If you are accessing the National Board Sites from the European Union, Asia, or any other region with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure, that differ from United States laws, you confirm that you know the National Board Sites are websites operated by the National Board in the United States, and you consent to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use as well as the transfer of your personal data to the United States, where your personal data will be subject to the laws of the United States and where the level of data protection may be different compared to the laws of your country.
10. Google Analytics & Advertising Tools
We have implemented the following Google Tools on our websites.
- Google Analytics
- Remarketing with Google Analytics
- Google Display Network Impression Reporting
- DoubleClick Platform integrations
- Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting
We may collect information about your computer, including your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and in order to create reports. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual. Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that helps website owners understand how visitors engage with their website. Google Analytics customers can view a variety of reports about how visitors interact with their website so that they can improve it. Like many services, Google Analytics uses first-party cookies to track visitor interactions as in our case, where they are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We then use the information to compile reports and to help us improve our site. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. These cookies are used to store information, such as the time that the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before and what site referred the visitor to the web page. Google Analytics collects information anonymously. It reports website trends without identifying individual visitors. You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our site – for more information on opting out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites you use, visit Google’s Opt-Out Page.
11. Terms and Modifications to this Privacy Policy
By using the National Board Sites, you signify your agreement to the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you should not use the National Board Sites. The National Board may modify this Privacy Policy at any time. Any such modification will be effective within five (5) days of posting. You are responsible for reviewing this Privacy Policy periodically to ensure that you are aware of any changes to it. If a material change, as determined solely by the National Board, is made to this Privacy Policy and/or the way we use our Users’ personally identifiable information, then we may post a notice of the nature of such change on the first page of this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the site indicates your assent to any changes to this Privacy Policy.
12. Questions, Comments or Concerns
If you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy you may contact us.
© 2014 The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. All rights reserved.