Education Commission of the States (ECS) hereby affirms its strong commitment to the privacy of its Web users. This statement outlines our policies and procedures pertaining to information gathering from the ECS Web site: www.ecs.org and any mobile versions of the Web site.
Collection of user information
If you only browse the Web site during your visit and input no data, we collect no personally identifying information about you, such as your contact information, including name and email address. You may be permitted to provide such information in certain circumstances, for example, by sending us e-mail, completing an online form or utilizing our chat function. Our site uses forms for customers to request information, products and services. Contact information from the form is used to contact the user about their request and to provide the user with information about our association, including promotional materials. Please note that if you engage in a chat function or other interactive feature, the information you input may be viewable by others and you should have no expectation of privacy in the information.
Otherwise, as you visit our Web site, software automatically collects and stores the following information about your visit, mostly for statistical purposes:
- the name of the domain and IP address from which you access our Web site;
- the type of browser used to access our site;
- the operating system you use to access our site;
- the date and time you access our site;
- the Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our site;
- the pages you visit; and
- sections of the website you attempted to visit but were unable to due to programming or other technical problems.
ECS may use cookies to collect, store and sometimes track information for statistical purposes, to improve the products and services we provide, or to save your settings and to provide customizable and personalized services. These cookies do not enable third parties to access any of your personally identifiable information.
We use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about your use of the Site. We do not combine the information collected through Google Analytics with information that you provide us. Google Analytics uses a cookie to generate information about how you use the Site. You can learn about how Google uses that information by referring to the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy.
How do we use your information
We may use the information we collect for a number of purposes, including, but not limited to:
- responding to the communications you send via the “Contact” feature;
- improving the Site, such as by making it easier for users to find the information that is of greatest interest;
- generating and analyzing statistics about how people use the Site and to identify system performance or problem areas;
- sending you information about us, events or programs, or other information we believe may be of interest to you; and
- helping us better understand the interests of our users.
We may combine or aggregate any of the information we collect through the Site or from other sources for any of these purposes.
Disclosure of user information
It is ECS policy not to share, lease or sell collected data with third parties, except as otherwise disclosed in this policy. We may share the information collected through this Web site:
- with service providers that work on our behalf and that have agreed to use the information solely in support of our operations (e.g., for web hosting);
- to comply with legal obligations or requests, such as subpoenas or other legal process, or government reporting obligations or when in our sole discretion, we believe that it is reasonable to do so to satisfy laws, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, regulations, or governmental or legal requests for such information.
- when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, the integrity of the Site, or your safety or the safety of others; or to detect, prevent, or respond to fraud, intellectual property infringement, violations of our Terms of Use, violations of law, or other misuse of the Site; and
- with third parties to the extent reasonably necessary to proceed with the negotiation or completion of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets.
In addition, we may share information that cannot reasonably be linked to particular individuals with any third party for any reason.
Third party content
The Web site may contain links to content or integrated content (like embedded videos) provided by third parties. The information practices of those third parties may differ from ours. You should consult the privacy policies of any third party that provides content that you access through the Site as we do not control and are not responsible for the information that they collect, use, or share. Because your web browser may obtain integrated content directly from third-party servers, the third parties may be able to collect information as if you had visited their sites directly. The third parties may use the information they collect to track your online activities over time and across various websites.
Your choices
If you do not want the Web site to collect information through the use of cookies, you can set your web browser to reject cookies from the Web site. Each browser is different, so you should check your browser’s “Help” menu to learn how to change your cookie preferences. If you reject or block cookies from the Web site, however, the Web site may not function as intended.
If you would like to unsubscribe from material we may send you such as e-mail newsletter, please contact us via the channels listed below or follow the instructions that may appear in the e-mails that we send you.
We do not currently respond to web browser “do not track” signals or other mechanisms that provide a method to opt out of the collection of information across the networks of websites and online services in which we participate. If we do so in the future, we will describe how we do so in this Terms of Use.
Changes to this policy
ECS reserves the right to revise, amend or modify these terms of use and our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner.
Where do we keep this information
This Web site is operated by ECS from its offices within the United States of America. Web site is intended for users in the United States and the information collected through the Web site will be processed subject to the laws of the United States, which may not provide the same level protection for your personal information as your home country. The information may be available to the United States government or its agencies under a lawful order made in the United States. In addition, we may transfer your information outside the United States to service providers with operations in other countries. By using the Web site, you consent to having your information transferred to and processed in the United States and these other countries.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the Terms of Use or our use of your information collected through the Web site, please contact:
Mandy Zatynski
Director of Communications
303.299.3636
mzatynski@ecs.org
Effective Date: Nov. 11, 2015