Privacy

MPSA Privacy Policy

The Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) is committed to protecting your privacy while developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to the MPSA Web site and governs data collection and usage. By submitting your information to MPSA you consent to the practices described in this policy. If you are less than 18 years of age, then you must first seek the consent of your parent or guardian prior to submitting any personal information.

Our privacy policy describes how we collect and use personal information you provide to MPSA. It also describes the options available to you regarding the use of your personal information and how you can update or access this information.

Collection of your Personal Information

MPSA collects personal information from you in the following ways:

  • Directly from your verbal or written input (such as by consenting to receive marketing emails, completing a survey, or by submitting a proposal to a conference). When provided, this information can include: (1) contact details such as name, email address, postal address, phone numbers; (2) payment information such as credit or debit card numbers and purchase histories; (3) potentially sensitive personal data such as educational level, research interests, gender, ethnicity, etc.
  • Utilizing website tracking cookies. This information can include your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring Web site addresses. This information is used by MPSA for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the MPSA Web site. There is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected by MPSA.
  • Through third-parties, including business partners and sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, etc.

MPSA encourages you to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to from MPSA so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use and share your information. MPSA is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the MPSA and MPSA family of Web sites.

Use of your Personal Information

MPSA collects and uses your personal information to operate the MPSA Web site and deliver the services you have requested. MPSA also uses your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from MPSA and its affiliates. MPSA may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.

MPSA may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information is not transferred to the external business partners. In addition, MPSA may share data with third party vendors to help us perform statistical analysis, send communications, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to MPSA, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Disclosure and Sharing of Your Information

MPSA will not disclose or share your personal information with any unaffiliated third party except as follows:

  • Where necessary in connection with services provided by third parties (i) who provide us with a wide range of office, administrative, information technology, production, payment, or business management services, and (ii) who are required to comply with this policy;
  • Where you voluntarily provide information in response to an advertisement from a third party;
  • Where your consent has been provided, with a third party such as an academic institution, publisher, business or other entity which has provided you access to a product or service through an integration or access code, information may be shared regarding your engagement with the service or product, or other information you input into the product or service.
  • Where MPSA is required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on MPSA or its websites; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of MPSA; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of MPSA, or the public.
  • Where, in the case of dissolution, all or substantially all of the business or assets of MPSA relating to our services are transferred to another entity.

Security of your Personal Information

MPSA appropriate physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect your data. Access to your personal data will be restricted to only those who need to know that information and required to perform their job function. In addition, we train our employees about the importance of maintaining the confidentiality and security of your information.

Use of Cookies

Like most websites, the MPSA Web sites use cookies to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize MPSA pages, or register with MPSA site or services, a cookie helps MPSA to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same MPSA Web site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the MPSA features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the MPSA services or Web sites you visit.

You may visit www.allaboutcookies.org for details on how to delete or reject cookies and for further information on cookies generally. For information on the use of cookies in mobile phone and other device browsers and for details on how to reject or delete such cookies, please refer to your device user manual.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

MPSA will occasionally review and update this policy to reflect company and customer feedback. MPSA reserves the right to modify its privacy policy at any time without notice. Any changes to the privacy policy will become effective on the date of posting. You are encouraged to periodically review this policy to be informed of how MPSA is protecting your information.

Your Rights

You have the right to make a written request to be informed whether or not we hold or process any of your personal information (by emailing mpsainfo@mpsanet.org). In your written request, you may:

  • Request that we provide you with details of your personal information that we process, the purpose for which it is processed, the recipients of such information, the existence of any automated decision making involving your personal information, and what transfer safeguards we have in place;
  • Request that we rectify any errors in your personal information;
  • Request that we delete your personal information if our continued processing of such information is not justified;
  • Request that we transfer your personal information to a third party;
  • Object to direct marketing from us; and
  • Where applicable under your local laws, we will not use your personal information for marketing purposes, nor disclose your information to any third parties, unless we have your prior consent, which we will seek before collecting your personal information. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the consent forms we use when collecting your personal information. If at any point you wish to review or change your preferences you can use the “opt-out” or unsubscribe mechanism or other means provided within the communications that you receive from us or by sending an email to mpsainfo@mpsanet.org. Note that you may still receive transactional communications from MPSA.

Recourse

Any comments, complaints, or questions concerning this policy or complaints or objections about use of your personal information should be addressed mpsainfo@mpsanet.org.