Bear Care Group Privacy Policy 

 

The Bear Care Group is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.  This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it safe and secure, and your rights and choices in relation to your information.

 

Any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to info@bearcaregroup.org or by writing to the Bear Care Group, P.O. Box 596366, Fort Gratiot, Michigan 48059-6366, United States.

 

Who are we?

The Bear Care Group is a non-profit group dedicated to the continued organization of international bear husbandry conferences, programs, publications, and resources for bear caregivers at sanctuaries, rehabilitation facilities, and zoos.

 

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example when you contact us, make a donation, or register for a conference or workshop.  When you interact with us on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter we may obtain information about you; the information we receive will depend on the privacy preferences you have set on those types of platforms.

 

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information that we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information about what website pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online or register for a conference or workshop, your credit card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third-party payment processors who specialize in secure online capture and processing or credit/debit card transactions. If you register for a conference or workshop, the BCG might collect other information you share with us during the registration process.

 

How and why is your information used?

We may use your information to:

• Provide you with the services or information you requested

• Process your registration for conferences or workshops

• Keep a record of your relationship with us

• Send communications you have requested or that may be of interest to you, including information about upcoming conferences and workshops, fundraising appeals, or ways you can support our mission

• Conduct analysis of our website and social media usage to better understand how we can improve our services

 

How long is your information kept for?

We keep information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes it was collected for.  For some purposes, the length of time is determined by operational and legal considerations.  For example, we are legally required to hold information about donations and conference/workshop registrations for tax/accounting purposes for 7 years in the state of Michigan where our non-profit is registered.

 

Who has access to your information?

We do not share, sell or rent your information to third parties.

 

Lawful Processing

Data protection law requires us to rely on one or more lawful grounds to process your personal information. We consider the following grounds to be relevant:

• Specific consent: Where you have provided specific consent to us using your personal information in a certain way, such as to register you for a conference or workshop, or to send you an email.

• Legitimate interests: Where it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate interests (as long as what the information is used for is fair and does not duly impact your rights).  We consider legitimate interests to be sending communications which we think will be of interest to you, monitor who we deal with to protect the charity against fraud and other risks, or better understand how people interact with our website and social media outlets.

• Vital interests: Where it is necessary to protect life or health (for example in the case of medical emergency suffered by an individual at one of our conferences or workshops) we may be required to share your information with the emergency services.

 

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us.  When registering for a conference or workshop, you may check the relevant boxes on the form used to collect your information.  You may also contact us at any time to change your preferences or let us know you do not wish to be contacted using: info@bearcaregroup.org, or writing us at the Bear Care Group, P.O. Box 596366, Fort Gratiot, Michigan 48059-6366, United States.  We will retain your details on a suppression list to help ensure we do not contact you, but we may still need to contact you for administrative purposes such as processing or thanking you for a donation.

 

Keeping your information safe

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that appropriate technical and organizational controls are in place to protect it. 

 

Non-sensitive details (such as your email address) that you transmit over the internet using unsecure sites (such as Facebook) can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us in this way, and you do so at your own risk. 

 

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organizations.  This policy applies only to our website, so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.  We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access those using links from our website.

 

Reviewing Your Information

You may contact us at any time to review personal information collected and request revisions and /or deletion of personal data.  Please direct any questions or comments to:

 

The Bear Care Group

P.O Box 596366

Fort Gratiot, Michigan

48059-6366 United States

 

You can also reach us by using the contact form below:

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