GLOBAL PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Policy applies to the processing of Personal Information of all Soy Excellence Center users, contacts, vendors, suppliers and agents, and all visitors to https://soyexcellence.org (the “Site”) (regardless of where you visit it from). The Soy Excellence Center is a program offered by the U.S. Soybean Export Council (“USSEC”), and accordingly, the USSEC is the data controller that processes Soy Excellence Center data. When we refer to “we”, “us” or “our”, we are referring to USSEC.

Where you provide Personal Information to us on behalf of another individual or individuals (for example, on behalf of an organization when providing employee details), in doing so, you are confirming that: (a) you are authorized by each such individual to disclose such Personal Information to us for the purposes detailed herein; and (b) you have explained, provided notice and provided copies of this Privacy Notice to all data subjects on whose behalf you are providing information.

Scope of this Notice

USSEC respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your privacy in connection with the collection, retention, use, disclosure, transfer and other processing (together, “processing”) of your Personal Information. The content provided on our Site is for informational purposes only. This Privacy Notice contains important information regarding USSEC’s information handling practices and the choices it offers individuals with respect to the processing of their Personal Information. If you choose to use the Site or provide us with your Personal Information, you are telling us you have read, fully understand and accept the information handling practices summarized in this Privacy Notice and consent to all actions that are consistent with this Privacy Notice. We encourage you to read this Privacy Notice in full to understand USSEC’s privacy practices before using the Site or providing any Personal Information to us.

This Privacy Notice applies to our processing of Personal Information. When we use the term “Personal Information” in this Privacy Notice, we mean information or data that identifies or relates to, directly or indirectly, an identified or identifiable natural person.   This can be contact information, such as your name, home or other physical address, email address, telephone number, fax number, organization name and/or job title, as well as other information. Personal Information does not include aggregate information, anonymized information or information that is publicly available and not combined with nonpublic Personal Information.

This policy does not apply to any programs other than the Soy Excellence Center, and any organizations other than the USSEC.

Personal Information Collection

How we collect Personal Information.

We collect Personal Information from you in the following ways:

Personal Information You Voluntarily Provide. If you voluntarily provide us with Personal Information, we may collect this Personal Information. You may voluntarily provide this information to us in a variety of ways, including by subscribing to receive news updates, event information and useful content that you have requested, when you communicate with us, when you participate in one of our programs, when you sign up for or create a user profile, or when you otherwise choose to interact with us.

Personal Information We May Automatically Collect. We may use various technologies to collect information about you when you visit the Site. These technologies may include:

  • Cookies. A cookie is a small information file that some websites transfer to a user’s hard drive. Cookies provide information about your device to the organization that places the cookie. We may use cookies to improve a user’s experience on the Site, for example, to personalize features of the Site for you, to analyze the traffic on the Site and to maintain and make improvements based on the information we collect. We also use cookies to monitor activity on our site, to improve our website’s security. The use of cookies has become standard practice for websites, but whether you choose to accept or decline these cookies is entirely up to you. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You may set your browser to reject cookies and to let you know when a cookie is being placed on your computer. If you refuse cookies, you may not be able to use some of the functionality of the Site. Other third parties associated with the Site may also use cookies in connection with the services and websites to which the Site links. We do not control these cookies.
  • Internet Protocol Addresses. The Site may use Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses. An IP address is a number assigned to your computer when you connect to the internet. As part of the protocol of the internet, web servers can identify your computer by its IP address. In addition, web servers may be able to identify the type of browser and/or type of computer you are using. We log IP addresses and related information for the purposes of system administration, to assess the traffic on the Site and to maintain and make improvements to the Site. We do not link IP addresses to other Personal Information we collect from or about you, but we can and will use IP addresses to identify a user when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with this Privacy Notice, to protect the Site, customers or others, or to comply with applicable laws.
  • Web Beacons. Web beacons are small files that communicate with third parties and are embedded in webpages, ads or emails. We may use web beacons to deliver or communicate with cookies, to count users who have visited a webpage and to understand usage patterns or other third-party functionality. We also may use web beacons to learn if emails have been opened, acted on or forwarded. We also may include web beacons in newsletters, brochures and flyers that we send to subscribers in order to count how many newsletters, brochures and flyers have been opened or read. You can disable the ability of web beacons to store cookie information by declining cookies. Our web beacons do not collect, gather, monitor or share any Personal Information about visitors to our Site. They are merely designed to compile anonymous, aggregated information about collective usage of the Site.
  • Other Technologies. Examples of other technologies we may use to provide better service to you when visiting the Site include:
    • Web Session Variables. Information that is passed from one web URL to another as you browse.
    • Browser Plug-ins/Add-ons. Additional web components that may need to be installed to enable certain web features on the Site. You have the option not to install these components.

Information from Third Parties and Other Sources. From time to time, we may collect information about you from third parties and other sources. We may combine information you provide to us or that we collect automatically from you with information we collect from other sources.

Types of Information we Collect

We collect different types of information from you depending on how you interact with our services. For example, we collect different information from you when you visit our website, versus when you participate in one of our programs. We may collect the following types of information:

  • Personal Information, such as your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, farm or business information, username, general location, and other demographic information or information that you choose to disclose in your user profile, including your photo if you choose to add one.
  • Device information, such as your IP address and other log information. If this information can be used to identify you individually (rather than used in the aggregate), it is treated as Personal Information.
  • Activity information, such as information about how you interact with our services including which programs you participate in, whether you attend the program, groups you sign up for or interact with within your user profile, and analytics information such as the page you visited before coming to our website. Where this information is linked to your Personal Information (such as, in a user profile), we will treat it as Personal Information. If the information is not linked, is aggregated, anonymized, or is not individually identifiable, it is not Personal Information.

Personal Information Use

Your personal data is used thoughtfully. We may use your Personal Information to:

  • Operate the Site and deliver information to you;
  • Provide you with educational programming and training;
  • Analyze and improve performance of the Site;
  • Learn what new information interests you;
  • Respond to your requests;
  • Conduct research about your opinion of USSEC and U.S. soy;
  • Communicate with you about programming or services you request, including technical support or general outreach;
  • Provide marketing materials to you and determine the effectiveness of our marketing programs;
  • Perform customer service, including responding to your inquiries and providing you with legal notices or updates;
  • Detect, investigate, and prevent fraudulent and other harmful or illegal activities, and to protect the rights and property of USSEC and others; Provide you with resources about the industry to aid in our mission of promoting soy and soybean products worldwide;
  • Provide you with updates about future educational programming;
  • Otherwise manage our operations;
  • Other purposes that you may direct us to;
  • Other purposes that you consent to at the time your information is collected.

Personal Information Sharing and Disclosure

While we do not sell, rent or lease any Personal Information collected through the Site to third parties, USSEC may disclose information about you in certain circumstances, including to:

Affiliates. We disclose information, including Personal Information, to our affiliates and organizations we partner with, including the U.S. Soybean Export Council or the American Soybean Association.

Vendors and Service Providers. These individuals are agents, contractors, vendors, or service providers who act on behalf of or in partnership with USSEC under our instructions for the limited and specific purpose of assisting us with our operations. In no event will that purpose be inconsistent with this Privacy Notice.

Legal Compliance recipients. Sometimes a law, court order or other judicial or administrative process requires us to provide Personal Information to a government authority or party to a private lawsuit. While USSEC will only provide such information that we in good faith believe is required to comply with the law, order or other legal process, we may disclose certain Personal Information if:

  • The Commerce Department requests it;
  • National security or law enforcement requirements mandate it;
  • In response to a valid subpoena;
  • We are required to bring, or defend against, litigation or any regulatory proceeding between, or relating to, you and us; and
  • We have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other users of the Site or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities.

We will not disclose your Personal Information to any third party for uses other than those described in this Privacy Notice without first providing you with notice and a clear choice to “opt out” of such disclosure.

We are good shepherds of your information

We do not share your Personal Information with any third party for the purpose of marketing or sending you advertisements not affiliated with USSEC, the Soy Excellence Center or the American Soybean Association. Prior to making any disclosures to third-party agents, we will attempt to ascertain that such third parties are providing at least the same level of privacy protection as is required by this Privacy Notice and will take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure that and the third-party agent is processing Personal Information in a manner consistent with our obligations under this Privacy Notice. We will require any third-party agents to notify the organization if that agent determines it is unable to provide the same level of privacy protection as is required by this Privacy Notice. To the extent that we are made aware of the unauthorized processing of your Personal Information, we will take reasonable and appropriate steps to stop and remediate the unauthorized processing.

Links to Third Parties

The Site may contain embedded content or links to websites operated by third parties whose information handling practices are different from USSEC’s. This Privacy Notice does not apply to any information collected from you through such links or that you may provide on the websites you reach by utilizing those links. USSEC is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites linked to the Site or any website that is not sponsored by USSEC. You are encouraged to use common sense when using our Site and review the privacy practices of each website you elect to visit before submitting your Personal Information.

Your Choices

When you provide Personal Information to us, you consent to our using that Personal Information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Notice. You have the right to access, review, and correct Personal Information we maintain about you. If you believe that the Personal Information you have voluntarily provided to us is, or has become, unreliable, inaccurate, incomplete or untimely, you may review, revise, correct or update any of the Personal Information we may have about you by logging into your user profile, except where the burden or expense of providing access to such review, revision, correction or update would be disproportionate to the risk to your privacy, where the rights of persons other than you would be violated, where the organization’s confidential commercial information would be compromised, where it would interfere with the execution or enforcement of the law or with a private cause of action or where it would breach a legal or other professional privilege or obligation. You also have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send to you, as detailed below in the “Opt-Out” section, as well as the right to object to certain processing activities, or where our processing is based on your consent. Please note that if you object to our processing of your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with services you request from us. Further, we may be required to continue processing your information where we have a legal obligation to do so or where an exception applies. You may appoint an agent to exercise these rights on your behalf.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, you may contact our Privacy Manager at [email protected], or by using the information in the “Contact Us” section below.

When you make a request to exercise your rights, we will take steps to verify your request, including that you are the individual making the request, or that you are authorized to authorized to make the request on a person’s behalf. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

We do not seek, nor do we knowingly process, so-called “sensitive” Personal Information. This category of Personal Information is more sensitive and relates to, for example, an individual’s race, sexual orientation, criminal allegations or offenses, mental or physical health or biometric information.

Opt-Out

If you do not want us to use or continue using your Personal Information to send you marketing or promotional communications, you may request that we not do so (“opt out”) by following the procedures described below.

  • Opting Out at Signup: When you provide us with Personal Information, you will be given a choice as to whether to receive promotional information from us.
  • Opting Out of Further Communications: Please send your opt-out request to our Privacy Manager at [email protected]. Place the word “UNSUBSCRIBE” in your request to us. We will respond in a timely manner to your request. You can also stop receiving promotional email messages from us by following the instructions provided in any such message you receive.

If you opt-out of marketing or promotional communications, we may still send certain transactional communications to you, including legal notices and updates, information directly related to services that you request from us, or other transactional communications. Please note that if you opt-out of receiving marketing and promotional communications, we will still retain your Personal Information consistent with our data retention policy for internal use, legal compliance, or to send you the transactional messages described above.

Process for handling complaints

We are committed to ensuring that complaints concerning your Personal Information are investigated and resolved. For this reason, we have developed a complaint handling procedure. It is our intention to resolve all privacy-related complaints through this procedure, but you have the right to report a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority if you are not satisfied with our resolution. We respect your privacy, and if you submit a concern to USSEC, we are committed to investigating and taking the necessary steps to resolve your concerns. If you have any questions, please send an email to our Privacy Manager at [email protected].

Data Security

We are concerned with the security of your Personal Information and consider the protection of Personal Information we process as critical to our organization’s mission of promoting soy and soybean products worldwide. We deploy a combination of reasonable and appropriate physical, technological and administrative safeguards to protect against the loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction of any Personal Information we receive from you. We follow generally accepted security standards in our operations to protect the security of your Personal Information, both internally and from outsiders, and to ensure the integrity of the Personal Information we process, taking into account the relative risks involved and the nature of the Personal Information in question. Unfortunately, with any transmission over the internet, there is always some element of risk involved in submitting Personal Information and we do not guarantee the security of your Personal Information. If you have any questions about the security of your Personal Information, you can contact our Privacy Manager at [email protected]. We will respond in a timely manner to your request.

Data Retention

We only retain Personal Information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose(s) for which the Personal Information was collected, including in accordance with our regular retention schedules, for our legitimate business purposes, or as otherwise required by law.

Legal Basis for Processing, and Proportionality of Processing.

We commit to integrity, purpose limitation and access. We will not process Personal Information in a way that is incompatible with the purposes detailed in this Privacy Notice and will take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that your Personal Information is reliable, accurate, complete and current. If you believe that the Personal Information you have voluntarily provided to us is, or has become, unreliable, inaccurate, incomplete or untimely, you may review, revise, correct or update any of the Personal Information we may have about you, as noted in the Your Choices section above. The legal basis for the processing of your personal information is generally pursuant to your consent, which you provide by visiting the website or voluntarily providing us with your personal information when you interact with us. We may also process personal information in furtherance of our contractual relationships, or pursuant to our legitimate interests. If you have any questions about our legal basis for processing your Personal Information, you can contact our Privacy Manager at [email protected]. We will respond in a timely manner to your request.

Policy Towards Children

The Site is not directed to children under the age of 18, and we do not seek, nor do we knowingly process, Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that we have processed Personal Information from a child under the age of 13, please contact our Privacy Manager at [email protected].

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may revise or update this Privacy Notice at any time. The “Effective Date” at the top of this Privacy Notice reflects the date of the most recent revisions. The most current version of the Privacy Notice can be reviewed by clicking on the “Privacy Policy” link located at the bottom of each of our pages associated with the Site. We encourage you to periodically review this link for the latest information on our privacy practices. If we make material changes to our Privacy Policy, we will endeavor to provide you with direct notice, such as by sending you an email or posting a message in your user profile.

International Transfers of Personal Information

USSEC is a global organization – headquartered in the United States – that does business in many countries around the world. The jurisdiction in which you reside or in which you provide your data to us may not be the jurisdiction in which your data is processed. We may share your Personal Information among USSEC’s business units and offices, with our service providers and with other business partners that may be located in countries outside of your own (including in the United States). The jurisdiction that we process your information in – generally, the United States – may not have equivalent levels of data protection, or may have different levels of data protection, than the country you reside in. By interacting with USSEC, you consent to the transfer of Personal Information to the United States. Although the data protection laws of these various countries may differ from those in your own country, we have put in place appropriate safeguards to ensure that your Personal Information is handled as described in this Privacy Notice and in accordance with the law.

Contact Us

If you have questions about USSEC’s Privacy Notice, our information handling practices or any other aspect of privacy and security of your Personal Information, please send an email to our Privacy Manager at [email protected]. You may also write us at USSEC Global Office, Attn: Privacy Manager, 16305 Swingley Ridge Road, Suite 200, Chesterfield, MO 63017 – USA.