An Engineer's Perspective: Shaping Resilient Systems Through Policy and Practice
The privacy of all individuals that interact with the National Institute of Building Sciences (Institute) is important to us, as is the Institute's ability to be transparent about how we collect, use, and share information about you. This notice is intended to help you understand:
The Institute collects information about you when you provide it to us or when you use the Institute's offerings, or when it is provided by one of the Institute's vendors or suppliers working in support of our offerings by interacting with you. Personal data collected by the Institute generally includes:
The Institute does not collect sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as social security numbers, or Protected Health Information (PHI).
The Institute collects personal data under various circumstances. Most common are when an individual:
Account and Profile Information: We collect information about you when you register for an account on our websites or a vendor's/supplier's website, create or modify your profile, set preferences, sign-up for e-mails or newsletters, or make purchases. We also keep track of your e-mail preferences when you select settings within our offerings.
Payment Information: We collect certain payment and billing information for certain paid offerings. For example, we ask you to designate a billing representative, including name and contact information, upon membership or event registration. You might also provide payment information, such as payment card details, which we collect via our vendor's secure payment processing offerings, such as meeting and training registrations or report downloads.
Your use of our offerings: We keep track of certain information about you when you visit and interact with any of our offerings. This information includes your engagements with the Institute; the features you use; publications and e-mails you receive; events and meetings you attend; the links you click on; the downloads or uploads you complete; and how you interact with the Institute using our offerings.
Device and Connection Information: We log general information about your computer, phone, tablet, or other devices you use to access the Institute's websites and offerings. This device information includes your connection type and settings when you install, access, update, or use our offerings. We also collect information through your device about your operating system, browser type, IP address, URLs of referring/exit pages, device identifiers, and crash data. How much of this information we collect depends on the type and settings of the device you use to access our offerings and websites.
Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies: The Institute and our third-party partners, such as our advertising, e-mail marketing and analytics partners, use cookies and other tracking technologies (e.g., web beacons, device identifiers and pixels) to provide functionality and to recognize you across different Websites, offerings and devices.
How we use the information we collect depends in part on which of the Institute's offerings you use, how you use them, and any preferences you have communicated to the Institute. Below are the specific purposes for which we use the information we collect about you.
If you are a citizen of the European Union (EU), we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal bases depend on our offerings you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:
If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (e.g. a vendor or industry partner) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may result in you no longer using the Institute's offerings.
The Institute may share personal data with several other parties. These include:
In exceptional circumstances, we may share information about you with a third-party if we believe that sharing is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements, (b) enforce our agreements, policies and terms of service, (c) protect the security or integrity of our products and services, (d) protect the Institute, our members, or the public from harm or illegal activities, or (e) respond to an emergency which we believe in good faith requires the Institute to disclose information to assist in preventing the death or serious bodily injury of any person.
We use server, data, application, and website hosting service providers based in the United States to store the information we collect, and we use technical measures to secure your data. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is 100% safe from intrusion by others. The Institute will make its best efforts in good faith to ensure that systems and databases under its control are appropriately secured, and that service providers and vendors utilized conform with leading cybersecurity practices.
The Institute may collect certain personal data automatically, in particular of individuals visiting the Institute's websites, using cookies and other technologies.
Personal data may be retained by the Institute for so long as necessary or useful to pursue the legitimate interests of the Institute. Other factors may include: the duration of the business or contractual relationship between the Institute and an individual; archiving of historical information; and legal requirements, including limitations periods during which a legal claim might be brought.
You have the right to request a copy of your information, to object to our use of your information (including for marketing/communication purposes), to request the deletion or restriction of your information, to request that the Institute correct any errors or incompleteness in your personal data, or to request your information in a structured, electronic format. You can exercise some of the choices by logging into our web-based offerings and using settings available within your account.
Your request and choices may be limited in certain cases: for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal information about another person, or if you ask to delete information which the Institute is permitted by law or have compelling legitimate interests to keep. If you have unresolved concerns, you may have the right to complain to a data protection authority in the country where you live, where you work or where you feel your rights were infringed.
The Institute does not screen or monitor content to its websites provided by third-parties. The Institute retains the rights, but not the responsibility, to edit or remove any third-party provided content and/or terminate a user's account for any reason in its sole discretion. By accessing third-party provided content you acknowledge that the Institute has no obligation or liability relating to any such content or activities of users on the websites.
By providing content you acknowledge that such content does not violate any applicable local, state national or international laws; is not confidential or proprietary; is not unlawful, inaccurate, deceptive, offensive, threatening, defamatory, harmful or objectionable; and is not designed to disrupt computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment the Institute's or other's websites or associated services.
Inquiries regarding this privacy notice or other privacy concerns should be directed to:
National Institute of Building Sciences
1090 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005-4950
(202) 289-7800 x131 phone
(202) 289-1092 fax
www.nibs.org
nibs@nibs.org
The Institute may change or update this privacy policy periodically. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page. We will also maintain an archive of prior versions of this policy which can be made available upon request. We encourage you to review this privacy policy whenever you use our offerings to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to halt your usage of the Institute's offerings and deactivate all account(s) with the Institute.
Last Updated: January 22, 2020