Last update; November 16, 2022
At USTOA your privacy is our concern. We have developed our Privacy Policy in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of the users of our website and app, and the personal information they may provide to us.
This privacy policy describes the type of information that we gather through our website, app and other digital platforms, how we use and disclose that information, and the steps we take to protect user information. By visiting the USTOA website, app, or other digital platforms, or by purchasing tours using the third-party services connected to the USTOA website or digital platforms, you accept the privacy practices described in this Privacy Policy and the privacy practices of those third-party services, as applicable.
ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY In order to run our business and to provide you with our products and services, we require certain personal information (your "personal information") that includes information that identifies you and, with regard to the need to meet certain legal requirements, the location from which you send us your personal information. We will take commercially reasonable measures to protect the privacy and security of your personal information, but if you do not agree with this Privacy Policy or the additional descriptions of how we process your personal information (how we use, share, disclose, store and delete it), you should not use our Services.
At times, USTOA receives and collects personal information through informal methods such as business cards, sign up lists and event registrations. In these cases, we only use this information to provide member services and the stated purposes outlined upon collection. Marketing, advertisements, and solicitations will not be sent unless explicitly outlined in this Privacy Policy.
INFORMATION COLLECTION AND USE When you access the USTOA.com website, app, social media channels and other USTOA digital platforms, we collect information about you, your visit and your engagement in a number of ways.
We make use of Google Analytics and respective cookies to automatically track site visitor traffic through non-personally identifying information that the browser and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) used makes available. The information collected includes identifiers such as your domain, the type of device used and Internet browser, geographic location, the date and time of site visit, duration of visit, pages access, and the referring page (the webpage that contained the link to our site that you clicked on to get there). We aggregate this information with other visitors and use this information to measure performance, analyze user traffic patterns, and improve the overall website experience. You may also find links to third party services through the USTOA.com website and such third-party services may collect additional information from you. To learn about the use of the information collected by such third-parties, you should visit the privacy policy of such third-party. You may visit the Google Analytics Terms of Service Directory for more information at:
https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html. At times, we may request that you provide us with additional personal information. We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform our organization purposes and goals, as well as services under the contracts we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
- 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.
- Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
We may provide your personal information to our service providers such as our payment processors if you should choose to make a purchase through the USTOA.com website and provide such personal information to us. We will store your personal information only as long as necessary to provide you with our services and for legitimate business purposes such as maintaining the performance of our services.
MEMBERSHIP AND DELEGATE INFORMATION USTOA collects key information from its members to provide valuable member services and for operational effectiveness. Members provide personal information directly when creating a USTOA account and can update preferences via the web portal. USTOA collects additional data upon engagement with its website using cookie based technology.
We specifically collect these types of data:
- Name and contact data. We collect your first and last name, phone number, address, email address, and other related data
- Demographic data. We collect data about you such as your gender and country.
- Payment data. We collect data necessary to process your payment if you make purchases (such as a credit card number)
- Credentials. We collect passwords
- Contact Logs. Any communication or contact with USTOA members is tracked in admin comment logs as well as additional engagement data (conference attendance, purchases, etc.).
DISCLOSURE FOR LEGAL PURPOSES While USTOA will use its best efforts to protect your privacy and personal information, we may be required by law or we may believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary: a) to defend our rights or property or those of our users; b) to comply with legal process served on us or our affiliates; c) or in connection with a business transaction.
IMPROPER CONDUCT We may also use your personal information to investigate and help prevent potentially unlawful activity or activity that threatens our service.
YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION USTOA may ask you for personally identifiable information such as your name, telephone number or email address. We use this personal information to help maintain accurate accounts and provide the services you have requested. Once you register with USTOA and sign in to our services, you are no longer anonymous to us. Any details that you provide to us are stored for use on future visits, as we do not want you to give us any personal information more than once. Personal information that we collect may be stored and processed in any country where USTOA or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities.
Personal information may be combined with other information about your use of our sites in order to improve our services and products. Some examples of how we might use your personal information include:
- When an email is sent to us, we will use your email address in order to respond to your inquiry. We collect information that you volunteer to us on surveys, contests, and registration sites
- We ask for your email address in order to communicate with you about your account and other USTOA related services and products.
ADDRESSES Your email address will be stored just as securely as any other personal information that we have received from you. Except as described in this policy, we will not pass on your email contact information to any organization beyond USTOA without your expressed permission. We will not send you unwanted email messages or junk mail, however our marketing and accounting departments may need to send you email messages regarding new services and products or regarding accounting or service matters.
ACCESS When you register for any of our events or to use any of our services and products, we will send you a confirmation of your registration indicating the personal information that was obtained from your registration. Your registration will be treated as consent to our using your personal and anonymous information in the manner described in this Policy.
PERSONAL INFORMATION REVIEW / UPDATE You may review or update the available personal information that we have received from you online by emailing us. To better safeguard your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information on file.
SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY: OUR TECHNOLOGY The technology we employ ensures that your sensitive personal information is secure and protected from loss or misuse, from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction and from improper use. For example, we provide password-protection for certain services offered on this site. We use industry-standard SSL-encryption and proprietary security methods to protect data transmissions and to provide secure sessions. We will continue to enhance our security procedures as new technology becomes available.
We store your sensitive personal information in secure operating environments. We have taken all necessary safeguards and security measures to protect your privacy, however, you must recognize and accept that under the current technology, where USTOA sometimes uses technical protective security programs in conjunction with its services, USTOA, in no way whatsoever provides or implies an absolute warranty of security and protection to you.
HYPERLINKS Our website may contain ad banners and hyperlinks that can give you access to websites run by third-parties. We have no control over the privacy policies of such third-party sites, and we strongly recommend that you review the privacy policy of each third-party site that you choose to visit. We are not and cannot be responsible for your privacy on third party sites not under our control.
COOKIES We also use "cookies" on the website and in digital advertising (a small piece of data stored on the user's computer by the user's web browser while the user is browsing) in order to provide a better user experience and customized advertisements, content and information. The use of cookies is a standard practice among Internet websites and most Internet web browsers. Through your computer settings, and through some Internet browsers, you may customize your user experience to reject or delete cookies. Please note, some features on this site may not function properly without cookies. You can find out more about cookies by visiting
http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
SERVICE PROVIDERS We work with third party service providers who provide website, application development, hosting, maintenance, payment processing, and other services for us. These third parties may have access to, or process non-personal and personal information as part of providing those services for us. We limit the information provided to these service providers to that which is reasonably necessary for them to perform their functions, and our contracts with them require them to maintain the confidentiality of such information.
SURVEYS, SWEEPSTAKES, ONLINE FORMS & EMAIL / RIGHT TO OPT-OUT USTOA does not collect personal information such as name, address, telephone number, etc., unless you provide the information voluntarily.
USTOA makes commercially reasonable efforts to comply with all applicable state and federal laws. You can opt-out of email communications from us at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions in any email you receive from us, or by sending an e-mail to
[email protected] that contains the email address you wish us to unsubscribe from our lists.
In the event that the USTOA conducts an online promotion, contest, or sweepstakes, personal information we collect will be used consistent with the terms and conditions outlined in the applicable rules and regulations. If the promotion involves the use of automated text messages to your mobile phone, a check-box will be provided to opt-in to receiving automated text messages during the promotion and once the promotion has ended you need only to text “stop” in reply to any message you receive in order to opt-out. You are not required to provide your mobile number for any notifications. USTOA makes commercially reasonable efforts to comply with the Telephone Consumer Privacy Act.
Any personal information you provide will not be sold to outside companies or organizations. However, we may share your information with key business partners, marketing partners and Members, who may perform functions on our behalf, or who may have products and services we believe are of interest to you.
If you would like us to delete all of your personal information (except for information that we keep for record-keeping purposes) and/or remove your name and address from promotional lists (including any personal information gathered by our service providers) and place your name on our “do not contact” list, contact us at
[email protected] and provide us with details of what you require. We will make commercially reasonable efforts to delete your personal information from our active files. Please note that requests to update or delete your personal information may take up to 10 business days to complete.
We may release personal information if we believe in good faith that: the law or legal process requires it; we have received a valid administrative request from a law enforcement agency; or such release is necessary to protect our rights, property, or safety, or that of our respective staff, affiliates, business partners, customers, or others.
MINORS AND CHILDREN’S PRIVACY Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18 without obtaining parental consent. If we learn that personal information has been collected from persons under 18 years of age and without verifiable parental consent, then we will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child under 18 years of age has shared their personal information with the USTOA then you may alert us at
[email protected] and request that we delete your child’s personal information from our systems.
BUSINESS TO BUSINESS FORMS Some of the online services available through the USTOA’s digital platforms require you to provide personal information or information about your company. In order to access these services, you may be asked to complete detailed forms such as name, email address, business address, IATA number, and details about your service needs.
If you would like us to delete all of your personal information and company information (except for information that we keep for record-keeping purposes) and/or remove your name and address from promotional lists and place your name on our “do not contact” list, contact us at
[email protected] and provide us with details of what you require. We will make commercially reasonable efforts to delete your personal information from our active files. Please note that requests to update or delete your personal information may take up to 10 business days to complete.
INFORMATION ACCURACY While we provide links to other websites, once you leave the
USTOA.com website, you will be going to sites that are beyond our control and you are subject to the privacy policy of that site. USTOA is neither responsible for nor guarantees the content or accuracy of any member pages or other sites linked to or referenced from this website. Although USTOA tries our best to keep our website and other digital properties up-to-date, information such as website addresses, event and attraction details may change and therefore may not be accurate. If you are concerned, please call the business directly to confirm the accuracy of the information. In addition, member businesses and other sites that we link to may have their own privacy policies, or no privacy policies at all. USTOA is not responsible for the privacy practices employed by other sites and those other sites have not agreed to our privacy policy. USTOA has no control over or responsibility for any unaffiliated third-party sites or the content contained in them, and we provide these links solely for the convenience of our website visitors.
SITE SECURITY AND DATA TRANSFER We take reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect unauthorized access, alteration or destruction of data located on and collected by our website and other digital properties. We exercise reasonable care to protect your non-public personal information. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we strive to protect your non-public personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us or receive from us while it is in transit. Once we receive your personal information, we maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect it.
Many of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so if you are inside the EEA and you provide personal information to our third parties through USTOA.com, the processing of the personal information you provide will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.
Whenever we transfer your personal information out of the EEA, we afford a similar degree of protection to it by implementing safeguards that only allow transfer of your personal information to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information by the European Commission.
POLICY CHANGES We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove any portion of this privacy policy and terms of use in whole or in part, at any time. By using this website and the USTOA digital properties you agree to be bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit the page to determine the then current terms of use to which you are bound.
ADDITIONAL GDPR NOTICES USTOA makes commercially reasonable efforts to comply with all international laws, including the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). If you wish to access, rectify, erase, opt-out or otherwise amend any personal information we hold about you, you may contact us at
[email protected] with the subject line “GDPR compliance”. Please note that while any changes you make will be reflected in active user databases within a reasonable period of time, we may retain all information you submit for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so. At any time, you may object to the processing of your personal information, on legitimate grounds. If you believe your right to privacy granted by applicable data protection laws has been infringed upon, you may lodge a complaint with our Executive Vice President at
[email protected]. You also have a right to lodge a complaint with data protection supervisory authorities, the identity of which may depend on your location.
OPT-OUT FROM COMMUNICATIONS If you receive commercial emails from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions contained within the email or by sending a written letter to us at the following address:
USTOA
Attn: Privacy Policy
345 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1801
New York, NY 10001 USA
