The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) has created this privacy policy in order to demonstrate our firm commitments to privacy and to maintain the trust and confidence of our website visitors. This privacy policy will provide detailed information on when and why we collect information, how we use it, the limited conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. The information presented here is not meant to create a contract of any type, either expressed or implied, and should not be treated as such by any website visitor. We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy at any time.

WHO WE ARE

IALR is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia that was created with the mission of diversifying, transforming and growing the economy of Southern Virginia. We will accomplish this mission through applied research, advanced learning, economic development, advanced manufacturing and conference services. Our website is: www.ialr.org.

INFORMATION AUTOMATICALLY LOGGED

Our server collects each website visitor’s IP address, date, time, page accessed, browser type, and the referring page if present. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website. The date and time are used to track the load on the server and peak usage times. We record the browser type to monitor market penetration of various web browsers so we can better determine what Internet technologies we may utilize in the design of our pages. We use page referrer data–that is, information about the web page that pointed you to our page–to determine to what extent our page is referenced by other resources on the web. These data may be used to preserve and improve the integrity of our computing resources.

COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

While using our website, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Whether you provide this personally identifiable information is entirely up to you. Only persons 18 years of age or older should provide us with personally identifiable information. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to, your name, title, employer or organization, physical address, email address, phone number, the content of any communication you send to us, and any other information you choose to fill in or confirm on forms you voluntarily complete and submit to us. This personally identifiable information may be solicited when you contact us, when you subscribe to our newsletter, when you request a tour of our facility, when you request a quote for use of our conference services or when you request that our mobile Inspiration Lab visit your school or organization. Personally identifiable information, including payment, credit card and account information, also may be requested when you make a payment to IALR through our online payment processor.

COOKIES

Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive. The cookies we use enable you to more easily move around the website and use its features. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website.

USE OF INFORMATION

Visitor information is used to route the requested web page to your computer for viewing. The requested web page and the routing information is sent to our Internet Service Provider or other entities involved in transmitting the requested page to the visitor. In theory, the requested web page and the routing information could be discerned by other entities involved in transmitting the requested page to you. We do not control the privacy practices of those entities.

We may keep visitor information from our systems indefinitely after the web page is transmitted, but we do not try to obtain any information to link it to the individuals who browse our website. Routing information is used primarily in a statistical summary type format to assess site content and server performance. However, on rare occasions when a “hacker” attempts to breach computer security, logs of access information are retained to permit a security investigation and in such cases may be forwarded together with any other relevant information in our possession to law enforcement agencies.

Essential and nonessential technical information helps us respond to your request in an appropriate format (or in a personalized manner) and helps us plan website improvements. Optional information enables us to provide services or information tailored more specifically to your needs or to forward your message or inquiry to another entity that is better able to do so and also allows us to plan website improvements.

Under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, any records in our possession at the time of a Freedom of Information Request might be subject to being inspected by or disclosed to members of the public for any purpose they may desire. Visitor information retained after transmission of the requested web page might be available for inspection.

We use the personally identifiable information you provide about yourself when making contact with us to address the content of your communication. Thus, when you complete one of our online contact, sign-up or request forms, we will use any personally identifiable information you provide for the purpose of responding to your specific inquiry. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to address the content of your communication. We may also use any email address you provide on those forms to send you our regular newsletter and other updates concerning activities at IALR. You may opt of these emails we may send you at any time by unsubscribing to the email (the process for unsubscribing is contained in the email). Your email address will not be not shared with outside parties.

IALR may retain personally identifiable information indefinitely. We never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above, except as necessary to respond to the content of your communication, as necessary to provide a service or process a transaction you have requested, or as necessary to comply with applicable law.

IALR does not sell, rent or otherwise distribute visitor information, including email addresses, to any outside company or organization.

PROVIDING INFORMATION IS YOUR CHOICE

There is no requirement for you to provide any information at our website. However, our website will not work without routing information and the essential technical information. Failure of your browser to provide nonessential technical information will not prevent your use of our website but may prevent certain features from working. For any optional information that is requested at the website, failure to provide the requested information will mean that the particular feature or service associated with that part of the web page may not be available to you.

LOGGING OF LINK TRAVERSAL

IALR’s website logs all clicks on links within web pages in order to assist us in determining the popularity of content and the various navigation methods used to find information. No personally identifiable information is recorded; only the time and date, and the links used.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

This privacy policy does not cover the links and embedded content within this website linking to other websites. Those websites are not governed by this privacy policy, and if you have questions about how another website uses your information, you should check that website’s privacy policy. IALR is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites.

WHAT RIGHTS YOU HAVE OVER YOUR DATA

If you have provided personally identifiable information to us, you may subsequently request that we delete any personally identifiable information we hold about you. We will do so to the extent permitted; however, this does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. As noted above, you may unsubscribe from IALR emails at any time.

PROTECTION OF INFORMATION

We take precautions to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. IALR maintains reasonable security standards and procedures to protect information from unauthorized access or disclosure.

When you submit sensitive information via our website, your information is protected both online and offline. Wherever we collect sensitive information, that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the web page. While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

The security of your personally identifiable information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we use security standards and procedures to protect your personally identifiable information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy is effective as of March 22, 2019, and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this web page. We reserve the right to update or change our privacy policy at any time and you should check this privacy policy periodically. Your continued use of the website after we post any modifications to the privacy policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified privacy policy.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact: info@ialr.org.