Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 2021

The American Apparel & Footwear Association (“AAFA”) provides the privacy policy below (the “Privacy Policy”) to explain how your personal information will be treated. We understand that you are aware of and care about your own personal privacy interests and we take that seriously. This Privacy Policy describes AAFA’s policies and practices regarding its collection and use of your personal data and sets forth your privacy rights. Information privacy and security is an ongoing responsibility, and so we will from time to time update this Privacy Policy.

AAFA reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy at any time. Please check back frequently in order to see changes, and your use of the site constitutes your acceptance of the Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time.

1. Collection and Use of Personal Information

AAFA may collect personal data and other information in connection with information you give us, your use of the Site, through cookies and web beacons, and through third parties.

Membership

When you become an AAFA member, we collect information about you including (but not limited to) your name, your employer’s name, your work address (including your country location), information about your professional position, eligibility information, and your email address. We may also collect:

Your personal email address, a personal mailing address, and a mobile phone number. We may also ask members to voluntarily provide additional information such as information about their educational background, number of years in the industry, and the like.

We process your personal information for membership administration, to deliver member benefits to you, and to inform you of AAFA-related events, content, and other benefits or opportunities associated with your AAFA membership. AAFA may also use this information to help us understand our members’ needs and interests to better tailor our products and services to meet your needs.

Events

AAFA hosts or sponsors many events throughout the year. These include in-person conferences as well as live web conferences (collectively “events”). If you register for one of our events and you are a member, we may access the information in your member account to provide you with information and services associated with the event. If you are not a member and you register for one of our events, we will collect your name and contact information, which we will store in our database(s) and use to provide you with information and services associated with the event. We process this information to fulfill the order you have made to participate in the event.

If you are a speaker or presenter at one of our events, we will collect information about you including your name, employer, contact information, and headshot, and we may also collect information provided by event attendees who evaluated your performance as a speaker or presenter. We may also make and store a recording of your voice and likeness in certain instances.

We keep a record of your participation in AAFA events as an attendee or presenter. This information may be used to provide you with membership services or to tell you about other events and publications. It may also be used to help AAFA understand our members’ needs and interests to better tailor our products and services to meet your needs.

In association with attending one of or more of our events, you may have the option to download an “App” to help you navigate the event and plan your schedule. The App may require the device identifier associated with the device you use it on. Information may also be collected from you when you register on the App, enter information, write posts/comments, add content to favorites, provide ratings or submit educational content (such as documents, videos, narrations and images), are active on an educational activity, download materials, create content, and when you use mobile device resources (such as camera or microphone) to scan Quick Response (QR) codes, submit photos, record narrations and send educational materials.

Some of our events are sponsored in a way that attendance is free of charge. For these events (such as Webinars), AAFA may provide a post and pre-event registration list to sponsors and/or co-sponsors. Any such event will include notification verbiage on the registration page.

Exhibitors at AAFA events may wish to scan your badge so they can contact you with more information. AAFA uses badge scanning services to exhibitors who request it. By allowing an exhibitor to scan your badge, you are consenting to have AAFA provide the exhibitor with your contact information, and thereafter you may be contacted by the exhibitor post-event. To manage your personal information with the exhibitor, please communicate directly with the exhibitor.

Publications

AAFA provides many different types of content for its members and the general public. If you sign up to receive AAFA’s publications, you will need to provide us with some of your personal data.  We may share this information with a third party who sends the content on AAFA’s behalf. You may, at your option, choose to unsubscribe from AAFA emails.

AAFA uses Google Analytics to track how often people gain access to or read our content. AAFA uses this information in the aggregate to understand what content our members find useful or interesting so that we can produce helpful content to meet members’ needs. You may opt-out of third-party cookies from Google Analytics on its website.

AAFA may also conduct surveys that are used to produce research on industry topics. Participation in those surveys is voluntary.

Correspondence with AAFA

If you correspond with AAFA by email, the post service, phone, or other form of communication, AAFA will retain such correspondence and the information contained in it and use it to respond to your inquiry, to notify you of events, publications, or other services, to keep a record of your complaint, accommodation request, and the like. If you wish to have AAFA refrain from communicating with you, please contact us at membership@aafaglobal.org If you ask AAFA not to contact you by email at a certain email address, AAFA will mark that email address on its “master do not send” list in order to comply with your request.

Payment Information

You may choose to purchase goods or services from AAFA using a payment card. Typically, payment card information is provided directly by users, via the AAFA website, into the PCI/DSS-compliant payment processing service to which AAFA subscribes, and AAFA does not, itself, process or store the card information. Occasionally, members or customers ask AAFA employees to, on their behalf, enter payment card information into the PCI/DSS-compliant payment processing service to which AAFA subscribes. We strongly encourage you not to submit this information by email. When AAFA employees receive payment card information from customers or members by email, fax, phone, or mail, it is entered as instructed and then deleted or destroyed.

Personal Information From Third Parties

From time to time, AAFA receives personal information about individuals from third parties. This may happen if your employer is a corporate member of AAFA and signs you up for professional development or membership. One of our third-party professional development partners may also share your personal information with AAFA when you sign up for professional development, certification, or membership through that professional development partner. 

Use of AAFA Services Without Providing Data

You can enjoy some of AAFA’s services without giving us your personal data. Some of the information on our website is available even to those who are not AAFA members. To access information outside of the information on our public website, some personal information is necessary so that AAFA can supply you with the services you have purchased or requested, and to authenticate you so that we know it is you and not someone else. You may manage your AAFA subscriptions and you may opt-in or opt-out of receiving marketing communications at any time.

Information Collected Through Use of AAFA Website

AAFA may collect and/or track (1) the home server domain names, email addresses, type of computer, and type of Web browser of visitors to the Site, (2) the email addresses of visitors that communicate with AAFA or the Site via email, (3) information knowingly provided by the visitor in online forms, registration forms and surveys, (including name, address, email and other personal profile data), and (4) aggregate and user-specific information regarding page views.

AAFA’s website collects certain information automatically and stores it in log files. The information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, the region or general location where your computer or device is accessing the internet, browser type, operating system and other usage information about the use of AAFA’s website, including a history of the pages you view. We use this information to help us design our site to better suit our users’ needs. We may also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website, analyze trends, track visitor movements, and gather broad demographic information that assists us in identifying visitor preferences.

AAFA may place Internet “cookies”, web beacons, or other technology to collect information from visitors' hard drives. A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and is automatically stored on your computer. Cookies or other like technologies save data about individual visitors, such as the visitor’s name, password, user-name, screen preferences, the pages of a site viewed by the visitor, and the advertisements viewed or clicked by the visitor. When the visitor revisits the Site, AAFA may recognize the visitor by the Internet cookie or other like technology and customize the visitor’s experience accordingly. You can configure your browser to accept, reject and/or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser for cookie settings.) These cookies are optional and may be refused any time using your Web browser software; however, doing so may make some parts of the AAFA site inaccessible.

Categories of AAFA cookies

Authentication: If you're signed into our services, cookies help us show you the right information and personalize your experience.

Security: We use cookies to enable and support some of our security features, and to help us detect malicious activity.

Preferences, features and services: Cookies can help you fill out forms on our sites more easily. They also provide you with features, insights, and customized content.

Marketing: We may use cookies to help us deliver marketing campaigns and track their performance (e.g., a user visited our store and then made a purchase). Similarly, our partners may use cookies to provide us with information about your interactions with their services but use of those third-party cookies would be subject to the service provider’s policies.

Performance, Analytics and Research: Cookies help us learn how well our sites and services perform. We also use cookies to understand, improve, and research products, features, and services, including to create logs and record when you access our sites and services from different devices, such as your work computer or your mobile device.

AAFA may also use other technologies to analyze trends, administer the Site, improve users’ experience, track users’ movements around the Site, gather analytics and demographic information, and for marketing:

• Tracking Technologies. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. f you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
• GIF. AAFA may use tiny images known as clear GIFs to track behavior of users, including statistics on who opens our emails.
  Web Beacons. Pages of our Site and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear figs, pixel tags and single-pixel gifs) that permit AAFA, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
• Location. Mobile applications may collect real-time information about the location of your device for geofencing, mileage tracking or similar purposes. If you do not want us to collect this information, you may decline our request or disable location services in your mobile device’s settings. However, opting out of the collection of location information will cause location-based features to be disabled and the online and/or mobile application may not function properly. You may also opt out of this method via the application’s settings, however, opting out will interfere with the application’s functionality.
• Stored Information and Files. Our mobile application also may access metadata and other information associated with other files stored on your device. This may include, for example, photographs, audio and video clips, personal contacts, and address book information. You may opt out of this data collection in your mobile device’s settings, however, opting out will interfere with the application’s functionality.
• Your Information and Third-Party Advertising. We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) https://optout.networkadvertising.org/ on the NAI’s website. You can opt out of receiving interest-based advertising from members of the Digital Advertising Alliance by utilizing their consumer choice tool at https://optout.aboutads.info. You can also opt-out by adjusting your internet and/or mobile browser preferences.
• Do Not Track Signals. The Website currently does not recognize or respond to browser “do not track” signals.

AAFA may track users when they cross from our primary public Site to any members-only page of the Site by logging in with their username and password via our user portal, as well as when visitors to our website enter through a marketing landing page. AAFA also keeps a record of third-party websites accessed when a user is on AAFA site and clicks on a hyperlink.

To provide you information about products or services that we believe may be of interest to you, AAFA employs advertising tracking technology that extends through a network of websites that AAFA does not own or directly partner with. We utilize a third-party technology that tracks you via a cookie but does not collect personal information about you. This system can be disabled by setting your browser to not accept cookies as described in the Cookies section of this policy.

AAFA may collect geo-location information if a visitor enables their computer or mobile device to send AAFA location information. The visitor may be able to change the settings on their computer or mobile device to prevent it from providing AAFA with such information.

When a visitor performs a search within the Site, AAFA may record information identifying the visitor or linking the visitor to the search performed. AAFA may also record limited information associated with every search request made by the visitor and use that information to, among other things, solve technical problems with the service, and to calculate overall usage statistics.

Links to and Interaction with Third Party Products/Websites

The Site may enable you to interact with or contain links to your user accounts with other third-party websites, mobile software applications and services that are not owned or controlled by us (each a “Third Party Service”). We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Third Party Services. Please be aware that Third Party Services may collect Personal Data from you. Accordingly, we encourage you to read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy of each Third Party Service that you choose to use or interact with. Although this Site strives to include only quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites, similar to: Facebook, Linkedin.) This website may contain sponsored links and advertisements. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, which may have detailed Privacy Policies relating directly to the advertisements they serve. Clicking on any such advertisements will send you to the advertisers’ website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this Site. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and AAFA cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned. AAFA cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite its best efforts.

2. Use of Personal Data Collected

As explained above, AAFA processes your data to provide you with the goods or services you have requested or purchased from us, including membership services, events, publications and other content, keep you informed, and provide professional development. We use this information to refine our goods and services to better tailor them to your needs and to communicate with you about other services AAFA offers that may assist you or your company. Most of the time, AAFA needs to process your personal data to fulfill an order for goods or services—including membership services, with all the attendant benefits and opportunities AAFA provides.

For example, AAFA may use your personal data:

a) To communicate with you about your membership account, or to communicate information about the Site.
b) To build higher quality, more useful services, such as by analyzing usage trends, and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of the Site.
c) To provide you with prompt and effective customer service.
d)To support the operation of the Site, troubleshoot problems, resolve disputes, and to enforce our Terms and Conditions.
e) To associate submitted information and/or additional information and/or device information and/or location information and/or log information to enable analysis by AAFA and send you communications we believe may be of interest to you.
f) To customize the advertising and content you see, including through use of location information and geofencing.

3. Disclosure of Personal Data Collected

AAFA may disclose your personal data:

a) At your request or with your consent.
b) To AAFA’s agents and advisors (such as our accountants or attorneys). We only disclose the personal information necessary for them to provide their services to you or to us, and only under strict confidentiality restrictions.
c) As AAFA believes necessary to: (a) comply with law (including court and government orders, and civil subpoenas); (b) enforce or apply AAFA’s Terms and Conditions and other agreements; or (c) protect the rights, property, or safety of AAFA, our employees, our users, or others.
d) If you partake (or we reasonably suspect that you are partaking) in any illegal or potentially illegal activity. We may disclose personal information even without a subpoena, warrant, or other court order, to the extent we feel is necessary to inform and cooperate with law enforcement agencies or other appropriate authorities.
e) In aggregated form, i.e., information about multiple users collectively without identifying any individual user, such as the total number of visitors to a particular section in a given week.
f) Third Party Service Providers: We employ other businesses, contractors, certain services and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, organizing events, sending e-mail, removing repetitive information from membership lists, processing credit card payments, sending communications, marketing, and providing customer service. They may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for their own purposes, like sending you marketing offers about their products.  AAFA may collect your location-based information and may share this information with our mapping provider and other third party service providers.
g) Aggregate Information: We may share aggregate information, such as demographics and Website usage statistics, with advertisers, sponsors or other organizations for marketing or promotional purposes. When this type of information is shared, the other parties do not have access to your personal information.
h) Other Third Parties and Promotional Offers: We may share your information with third-party business partners, for instance, for the purpose of enhancing our products and services or so they can market their products or services to you. We may also send offers to you on behalf of our marketing partners. When we send you offers on behalf of our partners, we do not give that partner your personal information. 
i) Member Directory: AAFA makes member information available through its Member Directory. You may add or remove information from your listing.
j) To address emergencies or acts of God.
k) To address disputes, claims, or to persons demonstrating legal authority to act on your behalf.
l) AAFA website uses interfaces with social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. If you choose to “like” or share information from AAFA website through these services, you should review the Privacy Policy of that service. If you are a member of a social media site, the interfaces may allow the social media site to connect your site visit to your personal data.
m) To providers of research and analytics services, including third party tools we deploy (e.g., Google Analytics).
n) In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal information to the (prospective) seller or buyer of such business or assets, or if substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, personal information held by AAFA may be one of the transferred assets.

We may also disclose Personal Information to third parties in the following circumstances: (1) the information is provided (a) to comply with the law (for example, to comply with a search warrant, subpoena or other legal process), (b) to enforce an agreement we have with you, (c) to investigate fraud, or (d) to respond to a government request or to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; (2) to address disputes, claims, or to persons holding a legal or beneficial interest; (3) if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing due diligence, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of assets, or transition of service to another provider, in which case your Personal Information and other information may be transferred to a successor or affiliate as part of that transaction along with other assets.

4.Collection of Personal Data from Children

To the extent that AAFA is able to determine the age of users by their submissions to, or communications with, the Site, AAFA will not knowingly (a) collect or post information from individuals under thirteen years of age (“Children” or “Child”) without their parent’s or guardian’s verifiable consent, or (b) provide any personally identifying information collected from Children, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever.

5. Security Measures

While no physical or electronic security system is impenetrable, AAFA strives to maintain levels of privacy and security consistent with industry standards. AAFA has implemented numerous security features to prevent the unauthorized release of or access to personal information. In particular, when a visitor provides information through the Site, AAFA offers the visitor the ability to use a secure server. The secure server encrypts all information a visitor inputs before it is sent to AAFA, and is also used to store personal information securely. Although AAFA takes these measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosure of a user’s data or personal information, AAFA cannot control Internet transmissions and cannot guarantee or warrant that personal information transmitted to AAFA will never be compromised.

6. Third Party Websites

The Site may contain links to other Internet websites. Unless we explicitly state otherwise, we have no control over these third party sites and their privacy practices, and this Privacy Policy applies only to information you supply (or that we collect) in connection with use of the Site. You should review third party privacy policies in connection with visiting the Sites.

7. Opt-Out Right

Visitors may opt-out of having their personal information collected by AAFA, used by AAFA for secondary purposes, or used by AAFA to send promotional correspondence to the visitor, by contacting AAFA via email at membership@aafaglobal.org or via postal mail or telephone at the address and phone number below.

8. Access to and Ability to Correct Personal Data

Upon request via postal mail, email, or telephone (during regular business hours), AAFA will provide to visitors a summary of any personally identifiable information retained by AAFA regarding the visitor.  Visitors may modify, correct, change or update personally identifiable information that AAFA has collected through the Site or may cause their personal record to be removed from AAFA’s database by contacting AAFA via postal mail, email, or the telephone number indicated below. AAFA may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing personal information requested to you.  Your ability to delete your personal information may be limited in some circumstances. AAFA may retain 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.

9. Governing Law

This Privacy Policy and the privacy practices of AAFA will be subject exclusively to the laws of the District of Columbia within the United States of America, excluding its conflict of laws provisions, and you submit to personal jurisdiction in the District of Columbia. The parties irrevocably agree that the state and federal courts located in the District of Columbia, U.S.A. shall have exclusive jurisdiction in respect of any dispute which may arise out of or in connection with this Privacy Policy. THE PARTIES HEREBY WAIVE TRIAL BY JURY. AAFA makes no representation that this Privacy Policy and such practices comply with the laws of any other state or country. Visitors who use the Site and reside outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. If you reside outside of the United States, by using the Site, you consent to the transfer and use of your information outside your country.

10. AAFA’s Right to Change Privacy Policy

AAFA may change the content of our Site and Privacy Polity at any time. Please revisit our Privacy Policy from time to time to be sure you are familiar with our current policy because it is binding on you. If any change is unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to terminate your use of the Site. Your continued use of the websites, and/or continued provision of Personal Information to us will be subject to the terms of the then-current Privacy Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. 

11. Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy or you would like to review, change, and/or remove your personal information, you may contact us at:

Email: membership@aafaglobal.org
Telephone: (202) 853-9080
Mailing address: 740 6th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Please contact Megan Balkovic if you receive solicitations to purchase contact information of AAFA members or event attendees. Please do not click on any links from non-affiliated AAFA organizations or in suspicious e-mails.