Website Privacy Policy

Last modified: March 10, 2023

Acceptance of the Privacy Policy

The National Institute of Minority Economic Development ("Institute" or "We") respects your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.TheInstituteNC.org (our "Website") and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

The privacy of the Institute’s clients, partners, and supporters is of the utmost importance and is core to the organization’s business model.  This importance extends to those utilizing the Institute’s Website.  The privacy policy was created to ensure transparency in how information is collected through the Institute’s Website and what ways this information is used.

This policy applies to information we collect:

  • On this Website.
  • In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.

It does not apply to information collected by:

  • Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by the Institute or any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries); or
  • Any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries), including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or on the Website.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, including information:

  • By which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number ("personal information");
  • That is about you but individually does not identify you; and/or
  • About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website, and usage details.

We collect this information:

  • Directly from you when you provide it to us.
  • Automatically as you navigate through the site. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.

Information You Provide to Us.

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

  • Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of subscribing to our newsletters or requesting further services or information. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our Website.
  • Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
  • Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
  • Your search queries on the Website.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies.

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The information we collect automatically may include personal information. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

  • Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
  • Speed up your searches.
  • Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

  • Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.
  • Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
  • Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Institute, 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).

How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

  • To present our Website and its contents to you.
  • To provide you with information, events, or services that you request from us.
  • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
  • To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.

·           though it.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

  • To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
  • To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
  • To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of the National Institute of Minority Economic Development's assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by the National Institute of Minority Economic Development about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
  • To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
  • To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
  • If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of the National Institute of Minority Economic Development, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

  • Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe's website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
  • Promotional Offers from the Institute. If you do not wish to have your email address used by the Institute to promote our own or third parties' events or services, you can opt out by sending us an email stating your request to info@TheInstituteNC.org. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions.

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") on the NAI's website.

State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information. To learn more about California Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, or Utah residents' privacy rights see Your State Privacy Rights by state below.

Children Under the Age of 18

Our Website is not intended for children under 18 years of age. No one under age 18 may provide any information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you are under 16, do not use or provide any information on this Website or on or through any of its features. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 16 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 16, please contact us at: info@TheInstituteNC.org

California residents under 16 years of age may have additional rights regarding the collection and sale of their personal information.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page with a notice that the privacy policy has been updated on the Website home page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users' personal information, we will notify you. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

114 West Parrish Street
Durham, NC 27701
(919) 956-8889

info@TheInstituteNC.org

Your State Privacy Rights: Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, and Utah

In addition to the above, residents of Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, and Utah may have additional personal information rights and choices and these rights apply solely to the visitors, users, and others who reside in these states.

Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah each provide their state residents with rights to:

  • Confirm whether we process their personal information.
  • Access and delete certain personal information.
  • Data portability.
  • Opt-out of personal data processing for targeted advertising and sales.

Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia also provide their state residents with rights to:

  • Correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information's nature processing purpose.
  • Opt-out of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

Nevada residents who wish to exercise their sale opt-out rights under Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A may submit a request to the Institute.  However, please know we do not currently sell data triggering that statute's opt-out requirements.

To exercise any of these rights please email us at info@TheInstituteNC.org

Your State Privacy Rights: California

In addition to the above, residents of California may have additional personal information rights and choices and these rights apply solely to the visitors, users, and others who reside in California.

In particular, through our Website, we have collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

Category Examples Collected
A. Identifiers.A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver's license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.YES
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver's license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.NO
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).NO
D. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.YES
E. Biometric information.Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.NO
F. Internet or other similar network activity.Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer's interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.YES
G. Geolocation data.Physical location or movements.NO
H. Sensory data.Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.NO
I. Professional or employment-related information.Current or past job history or performance evaluations.NO
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.NO
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information.Profile reflecting a person's preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.NO

Sharing Personal Information

We may share your personal information by disclosing it to a third party for a business purpose. We only make these business purpose disclosures under written contracts that describe the purposes, require the recipient to keep the personal information confidential, and prohibit using the disclosed information for any purpose except performing the contract. In the preceding twelve (12) months, Company has disclosed personal information for a business purpose to the categories of third parties indicated in the chart below.

We do not sell personal information.

Personal Information Category Business Purpose Disclosures
A: Identifiers.Service Provider
B: California Customer Records personal information categories.None
C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.None
D: Commercial information.Service Provider
E: Biometric information.None
F: Internet or other similar network activity.Service Provider
G: Geolocation data.None
H: Sensory data.None
I: Professional or employment-related information.None
J: Non-public education information.None
K: Inferences drawn from other personal information.None

Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Right to Know and Data Portability

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months (the "right to know"). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity (see Exercising Your Rights to Know or Delete), we will disclose to you:

  • The categories of personal information we collected about you.
  • The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
  • Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
  • The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.

Right to Delete

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions (the "right to delete"). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity (see Exercising Your Rights to Know or Delete), we will review your request to see if an exception allowing us to retain the information applies. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

  • Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
  • Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
  • Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
  • Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
  • Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
  • Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
  • Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
  • Comply with a legal obligation.
  • Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
  • We will delete or deidentify personal information not subject to one of these exceptions from our records and will direct our service providers to take similar action.

Exercising Your Rights to Know or Delete

To exercise your rights to know or delete described above, please submit a request by emailing us at info@TheInstituteNC.org.

Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know or delete related to your personal information.

You may also make a request to know or delete on behalf of your child by emailing us at info@TheInstituteNC.org

You may only submit a request to know twice within a 12-month period. Your request to know or delete must provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

We will only use personal information provided in the request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make it.

Response Timing and Format

We will confirm receipt of your request within ten (10) business days.

We endeavor to substantively respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to another 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

  • We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:
  • Deny you goods or services.
  • Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
  • Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
  • Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.