Privacy Policy

Professional Convention Management Association (referred to as “PCMA”, “we” or “us”) and the Event Marketing Association (referred to as “EMA”, “PCMA”, “we”, or “us”) is committed to protecting the privacy of our member’s and website user’s personal information. This privacy policy (“Policy”) applies with respect to the information that we collect from the PCMA website, located at www.pcma.org (“Site”). PCMA may amend this Policy at any time without notice. Amendments to this Policy will be posted at this URL and will be effective when posted. Your continued use of this site following the posting of any amendment, modification or change shall constitute your acceptance thereof.

GDPR Notice

PCMA complies with the GDPR as of May 25, 2018. For direct questions regarding PCMA and the GDPR, please contact privacy@pcma.org.

The PCMA Community and Legitimate Interests

PCMA is a membership and community-based organisation, focused around creating and delivering education and peer-to-peer networking for professionals in the business events industry. Both buyers and sellers are represented. When engaging in the following activities with PCMA, PCMA acts as a Data Controller, and will process your data for the benefit of the community at large, and to better serve you as a member of the community:

  1. Join as a member
  2. Purchase a learning product
  3. Register for face-to-face and webinars/digital events
  4. Donating to our foundation
  5. Access gated content (not available outside the community) on our websites
  6. Subscribing to our Convene Magazine

Legitimate interests include: fulfilling contractual and legal obligations, direct marketing of all of our products and services including personalised offers, personalising the website experience, and providing demographic information in aggregate to sponsors and advertisers. PCMA may use this information for as long as PCMA remains active in conducting any of the above listed activities.
If a PCMA activity is sponsored by an outside entity, we may also share your name, title, and company with the sponsor. The intent to share information with sponsors is made clear during the registration process. PCMA will not share contact information with sponsors.

Legitimate Interests for Email Subscribers

PCMA offers multiple email subscriptions that do not require joining the PCMA community. PCMA acts as a Data Controller and will process your data in order to personalise the email content and your website experience, and to provide aggregate demographic information and non-personal behavioral information to advertisers and sponsors.

Legitimate Interests for Anonymous Website Visitors

PCMA processes data for anonymous website visitors in order to personalise the experience, in accordance with our Cookie Policy as defined in this privacy policy.

Use of third-party Data Processors for Advertising

PCMA uses third-party Data Processors to assist with fulfilling our legitimate interests. PCMA acts as the Data Controller for all third-party processors to ensure full compliance.
When visiting our website, you may see advertisements from PCMA or from our Sponsors/Partners. You may later see the very same advertisements on other websites (“retargeting”). These retargeted ads may be personalized based on your browsing behavior on our website. PCMA uses AdRoll, Bombora, and Choozle for this type of advertising. Please visit AdRoll’s privacy policy and Bombora’s privacy policy and Choozle’s privacy policy to learn more. You may opt out of these retargeted ads by clearing your browser cache.

Rights as a Data Subject

PCMA complies with all articles relating to rights of the Data Subjects, including but not limited to:

  1. Right to erasure – Article 17
  2. Right of access by the data subject – Article 15
  3. Transparent information, communication – Article 12
  4. Right to Object – Article 21

Scope

PCMA’s GDPR policies apply to persons defined in Article 3 – Territorial Scope. To exercise your rights under the GDPR, please visit the privacy tab under My Account on our website. You may also contact privacy@pcma.org with your request.

General Privacy Policy

I. INFORMATION COLLECTED

We collect both non-personally identifiable information and personally identifiable information.

We do not collect any personally identifiable information about you unless you voluntarily submit such information to us, by, for example, filling out a survey, registration form or similar data collection instrument.

We collect non-personally identifiable information about you in a number of ways, including tracking your activities through your IP address, computer settings or most-recently visited URL. We may also ask you to provide certain non-personally identifiable information about yourself, such as your age, volume and type of meetings you conduct, buying preferences, etc. Additionally, for some e-mails sent in HTML format by PCMA to its members, PCMA will collect specific information regarding what the recipient does with that e-mail (“email data”).  For instance, email data may include pages visits, purchases or other activity through the email account.

During your visit to the website, we also may collect information your visit but not about you. For instance, we may collect your IP address, browser type, domain name, access times and referring website address. This information helps facilitate the online experience at our website. In addition, we use cookies to track usage patterns at our site and to control the display of ads, as well as to offer other functionalities (such as helping to track items in your shopping basket, and “recognizing” you to speed up your log-in when you visit our sites). We use your IP Address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our website.

When you view our website we might store some information on your computer. This information will be in the form of a “cookie” or similar file. Cookies are small pieces of information stored on your hard drive, not on our site. Cookies do not spy on you or otherwise invade your privacy, and they cannot invade your hard drive and steal information. Rather, they help you navigate a website as easily as possible. We use cookies to identify you and to deliver content specific to your interests.

II. USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

In general, we will only use the information you provide to us for the purposes as are described at the point of collection. We may also use this information to deliver to you information about PCMA and promotional material from PCMA, trend analysis, pattern detection, and site administration. Your information may also be used by PCMA to contact you when necessary. Users may opt-out of receiving future communications from PCMA by following the instructions set forth in the opt-out section below.

Personal demographic and profile data may be used to tailor your experience at our site, showing you content we think you might be interested in.

Membership Directory. PCMA also makes member contact information available through the online PCMA Membership Directory to other members using its site to search by name, company and email and connect with other members. PCMA also provides limited data (including name, title, company, and mailing address) to PCMA Partners/Sponsors that receive limited use to PCMA membership and/or event participant mailing lists. Members may request PCMA to refrain from disclosing their data to third parties on the membership renewal form. Alternatively, users may contact PCMA’s Customer Service at any time at membership@pcma.org or 312-423-7262.

The PCMA Membership Directory area is provided as a service to members to foster information exchange.  The use of the information for any commercial purposes whatsoever is expressly forbidden.  If you feel that your information in this directory has been used inappropriately, please contact PCMA’s Customer Service at membership@pcma.org or 312-423-7262.

III.  HOW WE SHARE INFORMATION

We may share your personal information with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf.  These services may include fulfilling orders, processing credit card payments, delivering packages, providing customer service, performing business and sales analysis, supporting our Site functionality, other features offered through our Site.  These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but are not authorized to share or use such information for any other purposes.

We may also transfer user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale.

We may disclose specific information in response to a valid court order, subpoena, government investigation, or as otherwise required by law, to enforce our Site policies, or to protect our or others’ rights, property, or safety.  We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we, in good faith, believe to be unlawful.  We may share information to prevent illegal uses of the Site or violations of the Terms of Use, or defend ourselves against third-party claims.  We may also share information with companies assisting in fraud protection or investigation.  We do not provide information to these agencies or companies for marketing or commercial purposes.

In all other cases we do not knowingly share, sell, or distribute your personal information with any third party.

Credit Card Account Information. PCMA does not disclose credit card account information provided by its members and customers except as necessary to process the member or customer transaction. When members and customers choose to pay using their credit cards, PCMA submits the information needed to obtain payment to the appropriate clearinghouse.

In addition, PCMA shares certain information you have provided us with carefully selected partners, but PCMA will not share email, phone or fax information with these partners.

IV. SECURITY

Our site has industry standard security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. While there is no such thing as “perfect security” on the Internet, we will take all reasonable steps to insure the safety of your personal information.

V. OTHER WEB SITES; LINKS

Our website contains links to other websites. PCMA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. We encourage you to become familiar with privacy policies of other sites you visit, including linked sites.

VI.  CHILDREN

We do not knowingly solicit or collect information from persons under the age of 18.  We do not have a mechanism for determining the age of the visitors to our Site.

VII. CORRECT; UPDATE

PCMA allows its members the option to change or modify information previously provided. This may be done through the following methods:

  1. Visit the Member Profile section of the site and follow the appropriate instructions.
  2. E-mail the corrected and/or updated information to membership@pcma.org.
  3. Fax your corrections and/or updates to PCMA Member Services at 312-423-7222.

Unfortunately, to the extent that such information is also stored in other databases, we cannot always ensure that such corrections or deletions will reach the other databases. We will use all reasonable efforts to ensure that your information is removed from or corrected in our records.

VIII. CHOICE; OPT OUT

You may opt-out of receiving postal mail, e-mail and/or facsimile communications from PCMA by the following means:

  1. Send an e-mail to membership@pcma.org
  2. Call PCMA Member Services at 877-827-7262 and request to be removed from PCMA postal mail, email and/or facsimile communication lists.

Please note that your opt-out choices do not apply to messages from PCMA regarding your membership or organizational matters, such as nominations, awards, etc.

We will take commercially reasonable steps to implement your opt-out requests promptly; but you may still receive promotional information from us by postal mail for up to 60 days due to printing and mailing schedules, and up to 10 days for facsimile and e-mail.

IX. PUBLIC FORUMS

This site may make chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available (collectively called community tools) to its users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

X. OPERATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

Our website and the servers that make this site available worldwide are located in the United States. The laws of the State of Illinois govern all matters relating to this site. Any information you provide in subscribing to our website or registering or ordering at our website will be transferred to the United States. By visiting our site and submitting information, you authorize this transfer, processing and use.

Contacting us:

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact us at membership@pcma.org