Effective Date: June 24, 2021
Maine Education Association (“MEA”) values your privacy and MEA desires to ensure your experience with MEA and its related companies and affiliates (including but not necessarily limited to the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust (“MEABT”), National Education Association (“NEA”), and any local or affiliate association of the MEA collectively referred to as “MEA”, “we,” “our” or “us”) and all our websites and all our related subdomains (the “Sites”) and all our products, online store, MEA mobile applications, notifications, blogs, online magazines and newsletters, live chats, forums, channels (collectively with the Sites, the “Services”) are as satisfying and safe as possible. In that regard, we have established for the Sites and/or Services the following privacy policy to explain and describe what personal information MEA collects on our Sites and/or Services, how MEA uses it, and your options regarding information MEA may collect about you. By utilizing our Sites and Services, you expressly consent to the information handling practices described in this Policy. By accepting this Privacy Policy you expressly represent that you are over the age of 18. Your continued use of our Sites and/or Services or any other content, products or other services covered by this Policy constitutes your acceptance and agreement to this Policy and any updates to the Policy.
Contacting Us
If you have questions about this policy, please feel free to contact us at:
Maine Education Association
35 Community Drive
Augusta, ME 04330
207-622-4418
Information We Collect
In describing our collection, use, and sharing of information in this Policy, we refer to our collection and use of “Personal Information.” “Personal Information,” as used in this Policy, is personally identifiable information, which is information that directly identifies an individual, such as first and last name, mailing address, email address, billing information, IP addresses, demographics, member ID, passwords, social security numbers (or portion thereof) or other online contact information, telephone number, or cell phone number. We collect Personal Information, as well as non-personally identifiable information on MEA Sites and/or Services.
We collect Personal Information in two ways. First, we collect information you provide to us in optional, voluntary submissions, such as in registration, user profiles, promotional signups, directory information, news rooms, live chats, newsletter and, sweepstakes/contest/giveaways, entries, requests for customer service, and mobile applications downloads. Second, some Personal Information may be collected automatically. This is described below in “Passive Data Collection.”
We may also obtain information, including Personal Information, from third- party sources. If we directly combine information from third parties with Personal Information that we have collected, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information and handle it in accordance with this Policy. In addition, please note that we may solicit third parties to collect Personal Information on our behalf and in such cases, we instruct those third parties to comply with this Policy and all applicable data protection laws.
Passive Data Collection
We may receive passively collected information through a variety of methods including but not limited to:
Cookies
We may use a variety of methods, including “cookies” to collect information.
What is a cookie?
Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognizes that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognize a user’s device. You can find more information about cookies at: http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. They can also help to ensure that advertisements you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.
A list of all the cookies used on our Sites and/or Services by category is set out below.
Performance Cookies
MEA collects cookies on our Sites and/or Services to capture information about page visits (e.g. “performance cookies.”) This information is anonymous and MEA uses this information only internally – to deliver the most effective content to our visitors. Information from the cookie is used to gauge page popularity, analyze traffic patterns on our Sites and/or Services and guide development of other improvements to our Sites and/or Services.
Targeting, Performance, and Functionality Cookies
In our email programs, MEA employs some tracking methods (e.g. “targeting, performance, and functionality cookies”). We track “opens” via a tracking pixel in the email- meaning we track who opens our e-mail messages and when you open our e-mail messages; and we track “clicks” via encoded URLs-meaning we track whether you click on the links contained in our e-mail messages. This information is used internally only to help us deliver relevant messaging and is not shared with any third parties.
Functionality and Necessary Cookies
MEA does not require that you accept cookies and/or you may withdraw your consent to our use of cookies at any time by adjusting your browser’s privacy settings, however, some functionality on our Sites (e.g. “functionality cookies”), our product or service check-out process, and Services may be disabled if you decline to accept cookies (e.g. “necessary cookies”).
Opting Out of Cookies
By using the Sites and Services, you consent to the placement of the cookies referenced above. You can, however, set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. You may also change your cookie settings through preference options in our Sites and/or Services, where applicable. We will indicate that upon selecting your preferences, that we will use a cookie to remember your preferences.
MEA never gives away information about our users but may share information with the related companies and affiliates. If you choose to provide Personal Information about yourself, MEA will use this information only to communicate directly with you. MEA will not sell, rent or otherwise disclose that information to outside third parties unless such disclosure is necessary for the purposes set forth in this Policy, by law or a policy or notice contained or associated with a specific Site(s) and/or Service(s).
Location-Based Services
We may collect, use, and share (with MEA partners, service providers and licensees) precise location data, including the real-time location of your mobile or fixed location device (i.e. through your use of the MEA mobile app).
Analytics Tools
We use analytics tools and other third-party technologies, such as Google Analytics and DoubleClick to collect non-personal information in the form of various usage and user metrics when you use our online Sites and/or Services. These tools and technologies collect and analyze certain types of information, including cookies, IP addresses, device and software identifiers, referring and exit URLs, onsite behavior and usage information, feature use metrics and statistics, usage and purchase history, MAC Address, mobile unique device ID, and other similar information.
The third-party analytics companies who collect information on our Sites and/or Services and other online products and/or services may combine the information collected with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your activities across their network of websites as well as online and/or mobile products and services. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.
In addition to our use of technologies as described herein, we may permit certain third-party companies to help us tailor advertising or alerts that we think may be of interest to you based on your use of MEA Sites and/or Services and to otherwise collect and use data about your use of MEA Sites and/or Services. For more information about this practice, please see the “Third Party Advertising Technologies” section below.
You may opt out of the DoubleClick cookie by visiting the DoubleClick advertising opt-out page and you may opt out of Google Analytics by visiting the Google Analytics opt-out page.
Google has additional information available about their Remarketing Privacy Guidelines, and Restrictions.
You may view a list of other third-party service providers who collect information, and/or opt-out of such collection of information about you, by visiting http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.
How We Use Information
Generally, we use Personal Information to establish and enhance our relationship with our members and users through four main categories: (1) Communication; (2) Optimization; (3) Advertising; and (4) Sharing Features. Below, we provide some specific examples of how we use the Personal Information and other information we collect.
Communication and Responding to Requests
We use your information, including Personal Information to provide you with customer support, process transactions, respond to users’ requests, send newsletters and updates, send special offers and advertisements, notifications, and alerts, seek your opinions and feedback, and connect members and users to MEA Sites and/or Services, and to products and services of our partners and licensees.
Optimization
We use your information, including Personal Information, behavioral metrics, and other non-personally identifiable information to operate, provide, improve, and maintain our Sites and Services, to develop new products and services, to prevent abuse and fraud, to personalize and display advertisement, alerts, and notifications and other content for you, and for other administrative and internal business purposes.
Advertising
We use your information, including Personal Information, behavioral metrics, geo-location data, demographic data and marketing preferences to personalize and display advertisements, alerts, and notifications and other content for you.
Sharing Features
We use your information, including Personal Information and any other information you submit directly or through passive means to provide you with various ways to connect and share content (e.g., web content, user generated videos, text, commentary, member information and screen and presentation video captures, media, tools, services and other member and user products) with third parties, such as the NEA, MEABT, and other state and local affiliates.
We also may allow you to share links to content with users of various third-party services (e.g., social networking, search and sharing services). When sharing links using one of these third-party services, if you are not already logged in to the third-party service, you will need to supply login credentials for it. If you are not a registered user of the third-party service, you will need to sign up for it. You are supplying the registration information or login credentials for the third-party service directly to that third party, and not to us. By using any of these third-party services to share links to content, you permit us to access, use and disclose any information relating to your member account on each such third-party service (such as your username and profile information) that is available to us through the third-party service, including through its application programming interface (API) pursuant to this Policy.
More Specifically, MEA Sites and/or Services may use interfaces with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube.com and others. If you choose to “like” or share information from the MEA Sites and/or Services 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 personally identifiable information resulting in the public display of the same.
When We Disclose Personal Information
We do not share Personal Information with third parties except in the limited circumstances described in this Policy.
Service Providers
We may provide Personal Information to third parties for their use in performing internal organizational functions (e.g., dues, donation, and online store payment processing, member service, maintenance, security, data analysis, email transmission, beta testing, or data hosting) on our behalf. Additionally, some third-party service providers may collect information, including Personal Information, on our behalf. Whenever possible, we require such third parties to only collect and use Personal Information in accordance with this Policy, to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of such Personal Information, and for no purpose other than providing us with our requested services.
Partners
When you visit or use a part of any website, mobile application, or other member product that is co-branded or that is a part of a joint promotion involving MEA and one or more third parties or affiliates (each a “Co-Branded Party”), you are providing and consenting to provide and are transmitting your Personal Information and other information provided to, or collected, or obtained by MEA and any Co-Branded Parties involved, to MEA and each of the Co-Branded Parties without any other notice or further consent. Please note that we do not control any Co-Branded Parties’ use or treatment of information you provide to them, and you should consult each of their privacy policies or any separate Co-Branded privacy policy posted on or linked from the Co-Branded site to determine your rights with respect to their use and treatment of your information. You will need to communicate with us and each Co-Branded Party directly, as applicable, if you decide you no longer wish to receive communications or if you wish to change any information you have supplied.
Legal Requirements
We may disclose Personal Information if we have a good-faith belief that doing so is required by a subpoena, warrant, or other judicial or administrative order or otherwise required by national security, law enforcement requirements, statute, government regulation, or law. Additionally, we may disclose Personal Information where we, in good faith, deem it appropriate or necessary to prevent violation of our Terms of Use or End User License Agreements, or our other agreements; take precautions against liability; protect our rights, property, or safety, or those of a partner, any individual or the general public; maintain and protect the security and integrity of our Sites and/or Services or infrastructure; protect ourselves and our Sites and/or Services from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; investigate and defend ourselves against third party claims or allegations; or assist government regulatory agencies.
Interactive Features
If you use a forum, blog, channel, bulletin board, chat room, user commenting features, or other interactive sharing or social features that may be offered through any of our Sites and/or Services, you should be aware that any Personal Information you submit, display, or publish there is considered publicly available and can be read, collected, used, and disclosed by other members or users of those features, by us, and other third parties without restriction, except to the extent limited access features are available, if any.
Third-Party Advertising Technologies
In addition to using cookies and related technologies as described above, we also may permit certain third-party companies to help us tailor advertising and alerts or alerts that we think may be of interest to users and to collect and use other data about user activities on our Sites and/or Services (e.g., to allow them to tailor ads or alerts on third party services). These companies may deliver ads or alerts that might also place cookies and otherwise track user behavior. These companies may use information about user behavior in order to provide customized advertisements across various services and products. In the course of providing these services, products or placing advertisements, these third-party companies may place or recognize a unique cookie on your computer, and may record information to these cookies based upon your activities on any of our Sites and/or Services and on third party websites. Each of these companies uses this cookie information according to their own privacy and security policies. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out. Please note this does not opt you out of being delivered advertising or alerts. You will continue to receive generic ads or alerts.
Members Only
The MEA website (portions of), app, and their contents are exclusively for MEA members. The MEA Sites and Services accessed through the website or app are general Sites and Services. Access to the members-only portion of the MEA website and MEA app are unique to each member and requires the use of the member’s NEA360 log-in credentials.
Children Under 13
The MEA Sites and Services are general Sites and Services and we do not knowingly seek or collect Personal Information from users under the age of 13.
Your Choices
Submitting Personal Information
If you do not want to submit Personal Information that is necessary to provide or use our Sites and/or Services or to fulfill your request, you will not be able to access and/or participate in certain MEA Sites and/or Services. For example, you will not be able to register for a member account with us or participate in certain contests or promotions, access certain member only documents, databases or access and/or use certain MEA product features or online donations, and online store payments and services. In addition, your refusal to submit Personal Information may limit our ability to respond to your member support inquiry in a timely fashion.
Editing Personal Information
You may, at any time, update, correct, or delete certain Personal Information that you have provided to us by updating your preferences/information on the update your information page located https://www.mynea360.org/.
Security
We take reasonable measures, including the implementation and maintenance of physical, electronic, and managerial procedures, in an effort to assure the security, integrity, and accuracy of all Personal Information that we collect. Our efforts include procedures designed to avoid unauthorized access, alteration, loss, misuse, disclosure, or destruction of Personal Information taking into account the risks involved in the processing and the nature of the Personal Information.
If we learn of a security systems breach we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using the MEA Sites and/or Services covered by this Policy and providing Personal Information to us, you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and administrative issues relating to your member account information and usage.
Data Integrity and Purpose Limitation
We collect and use Personal Information in accordance with this Policy and only for the limited relevant purposes stated in this Policy and/or at the time we request such Personal Information from our members, users, or for such purposes to which a member or user may otherwise consent. We do not use or share our members’ or users’ Personal Information in a way that is incompatible with the purposes for which such Personal Information was requested and authorized for use by us. We retain Personal Information for no longer than is commercially useful to carry out our organizational purposes, or as we believe may be legally required. MEA takes reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information is reliable for its intended use, accurate, complete, and current. When online Personal Information is deleted or updated by you, it may take up to 30 days from accessible systems, and up to 90 days from backup systems, for us to delete such Personal Information.
Access to Personal Information
You may view, correct, amend, or delete the Personal Information MEA stores about you where it is inaccurate or if you believe the Personal Information has been processed contrary to the terms of this Policy except to the extent where the burden or expense of providing access would be disproportionate to the risks to your privacy in the case in question or where the rights of persons other than yours would be violated. Most of your Personal Information may be accessed and corrected by simply logging into your member account and accessing your profile and/or accessing the information update page located at https://www.mynea360.org/.If you wish to obtain a report of the Personal Information MEA has about you, please send us a written request at the address set forth in this Policy.
Third-Party Login Functionality
We may permit users with member accounts on certain third-party services, including but not limited to, social networking, search, sharing, and other services delivered by third-parties (e.g. Facebook), to bypass the standard applicable registration process. We are not responsible for the sharing, posting, commenting, or other content and information gathering practices of any third-party services that may be triggered by using these third-party login services. Please review their terms of service and privacy policies carefully before using third-party login functionality to access any MEA Sites and/or Services.
By using any third-party services to log in or access MEA Sites and/or Services, you permit us to access, store and use all information related to your third-party account that may be accessible to us through the third-party service, including through its application programming interface (API), pursuant to this Policy.
Third Party and Affiliate Services and Links
MEA’s content, including forums, blogs, live chats, contests, products, services, newsletters, magazines and communications that we send to our member and users, may contain links to content provided by third-parties and/or affiliates. For example, our communications may contain links to third party merchants or affiliates (i.e. NEA, NEAMB, MEABT) from whom you may purchase products or services. To purchase products from these third-party merchants and/or affiliates, you may be required to provide Personal Information, including your credit card or other payment information.
California Privacy Rights
In addition to the rights set forth in this Privacy Policy, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits California residents who are individual members or users of MEA Sites and/or Services or services to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us via mail or at the address identified in the “Contacting Us” section.
MEA’s California Do Not Track Notice
MEA tracks its members and users over time and across third party websites to provide targeted advertising and/or alerts. We do not respond to Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals of web browsers.
DNT is a preference you can set in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked.
You can enable or disable DNT by visiting the Preferences or Settings page of your web browser.
However, should the industry establish uniform technological standards for recognizing and implementing “Do Not Track” signals, we would be open to following such industry standards.
Third parties that have content embedded on MEA’s Sites and/or Services such as Google, Inc., Facebook, Inc. Twitter, Inc., YouTube, may set cookies on a user’s browser and/or obtain information about the fact that a web browser visited a specific MEA Site and/or Service from a certain IP address. Third parties cannot collect any other Personal Information from MEA’s Sites and/or Services unless you provide it to them directly.
Changes and Updates to This Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time. If we do, we will update the “effective date” at the top of the Policy. If we make material changes to how we use Personal Information, we will attempt to notify you of the change and to give you the opportunity to exercise choice as to how your Personal Information is used. We will post the updated Policy on the affected Sites and/or Service, and if we have your email address, we will send notice of the update to that email address.
We encourage you to review this Policy periodically to stay informed about our collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information. Your continued use of our Sites and/or Services or any other content, products or other services covered by this Policy constitutes your agreement to this Policy and any updates.
Enforcement
MEA regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. Please feel free to direct any questions or concerns regarding this Policy or MEA’s treatment of Personal Information. You can contact us by writing to us at Privacy Group, c/o MEA, 35 Community Drive, Augusta, ME 04330. When MEA receives a formal written complaint at this address it is MEA’s policy to contact the complaining party regarding their concerns within 45 days of receiving the complaint. MEA will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved by MEA and an individual.
No Error Free Performance
MEA does not guarantee error-free performance under this Privacy Policy. MEA will use reasonable efforts to comply with this Privacy Policy and will take prompt corrective action when MEA learns of any failure to comply with our Privacy Policy. MEA shall not be liable for any incidental, consequential or punitive damages relating to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy shall be governed by the laws of the State of Maine and the United States, to the extent applicable.
