Summary
Your privacy is a top priority to The Water Agency. The Water Agency does not share personal information with outside corporations or organizations, except for those that have business or contractual relationships with The Water Agency. We do not sell personal information. We developed this Privacy Policy so you know how we collect, use, share and store your personal information.
Any third parties who receive member information are prohibited from using or sharing member information for any purpose other than offering or providing approved services to members.
The Water Agency takes reasonable precautions to assure overall system security by monitoring security issues and industry trends, to protect the privacy of The Water Agency members and secure the personal information available through the The Water Agency website. All areas of The Water Agency that contain private information are housed on a secure server using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.
The Water Agency access is password-protected to allow access only to registered/invited The Water Agency members. Although these precautions should help to protect any personal information available through the The Water Agency website from abuse or outside interference, a certain degree of privacy risk is faced any time information is shared over the Internet. You acknowledge that your submission of any information, statements, data, and content to us is voluntary and with consent on your part.
This Privacy Policy applies to all websites, applications (“apps”) and products on which this Privacy Policy is shown. If a The Water Agency website, app or product links to a different privacy policy, then that privacy policy will apply to your use of that site, app or product.
Scope and Intent
The mission of The Water Agency is to be your gateway to the international water sector: news, business opportunities, partnerships, projects, contacts and events
To achieve our mission, we make services available, online through our website and offline through events, to give you a unique insight into the water sector.
When you use The Water Agency, you are entering into a legal agreement and you agree to all of these terms. You agree that by registering on The Water Agency, or by using our website, or participating in The Water Agency events, or other information provided as part of the The Water Agency services (collectively “The Water Agency” or the “Services”), you are entering into a legally binding agreement with The Water Agency, Olympia 1A, 1213 NS Hilversum, the Netherlands (“we,” “us,” “our,” and “The Water Agency”) based on the terms of this The Water Agency User Agreement, and become a The Water Agency member (“Member”). If you are using The Water Agency on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you are nevertheless individually bound by this Agreement even if your company has a separate agreement with us.
Ways The Water Agency Collects and Uses Personal Information
“Personal Information” is information that, either alone or in combination with other information collected, identifies an individual. When we combine other information (i.e., information that does not, on its own, identify an individual) with Personal Information, we treat the combined information as Personal Information.
When you create a The Water Agency account
When you create an account on a The Water Agency website or mobile app, we ask you to provide Personal Information, including your name and email address. You will use your email address or username and your password to login to your account. Your The Water Agency account will be password-protected. We use your name to help verify your account when you call customer support.
When you log in to your The Water Agency account with social media credentials
You may have the option to log in to your The Water Agency account using your social media login credentials (e.g., your Facebook login credentials). If you choose to do this, when you log in to your The Water Agency account using social media login credentials for the first time, you will be asked whether you agree that the social media provider may provide certain information to The Water Agency, such as your name, email address, profile photo, posts, comments and other information associated with your social media account.
All this information is made available to The Water Agency by the social media provider due to the way the social sign-on configuration works, but of this information, The Water Agency only retains and uses your email address. The Water Agency uses the email address provided by the social media provider to associate it with your The Water Agency account so that you can use your email address to log in to your The Water Agency account in the future if you no longer wish to login using your social media login credentials.
If you do not want your information to be shared with The Water Agency by the social media provider, then you can simply login to your The Water Agency account using your The Water Agency account login credentials without using your social media login credentials.
When you communicate with The Water Agency
When you interact with our customer support representatives via email, contact form, telephone or in person, we may collect Personal Information, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address and contact preferences. We also may create event logs that are useful in diagnosing product or app performance related issues, and capture information relating to the support or service issue. We use this information to provide you with customer and product support. We may access your The Water Agency account in order to assist us in providing you the necessary assistance. To improve customer service, subject to applicable laws, we may also record and review conversations with customer support representatives, and analyze any feedback provided to us through voluntary customer surveys.
We may use Personal Information to communicate with you, including communicating with you about your account or transactions with us, giving you important information about your products or apps, sending you notice about changes to this Privacy Policy, and, consistent with applicable laws and the choices available to you as described below under Your Choices.
Other Uses of Personal Information by The Water Agency
The Water Agency may use Personal Information for internal statistical, marketing or operational purposes, including generating reports and measuring and understanding demographic, user interest, and other trends among our users.
Entities with which The Water Agency may share personal information
With social network providers
From time to time, we may provide email addresses of selected The Water Agency customers who have opted in to receiving marketing correspondence about The Water Agency products and apps to social network providers, so they can help us display advertisements on the social network pages of other users who share common qualities (e.g., demographics and interests) with the selected The Water Agency users.
With service providers
We use third party service providers to help us to administer certain activities on our behalf, such as sending emails, newsletters, analyzing usage of our websites and apps, tracking effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, and allowing users to connect to their social network. We may share Personal Information about you with such third party service providers to the extent necessary for the sole purpose of enabling them to perform services on our behalf.
Examples of third-party service providers we use include e-mail services, direct marketing communications providers (including our newsletter) and analytics services.
Legal Basis for Processing (EEA only):
If you are an individual from the European Economic Area (EEA), please note that our legal basis for collecting and using your personal information will depend on the personal information collected and the specific context in which we collect it. We normally will collect personal information from you only where: (a) we have your consent to do so, (b) where we need your personal information to perform a contract with you (e.g. to deliver the The Water Agency Services you have requested), or (c) where the processing is in our legitimate interests. Please note that in most cases, if you do not provide the requested information, The Water Agency will not be able to provide the requested service to you.
In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you, or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person.
Where we rely on your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw or decline consent at any time. Where we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal data, you have the right to object.
If you have any questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us at [email protected]
Other disclosures
We may disclose Personal Information about you to others if we have your consent to do so in such form of consent as may be required under applicable law.
Subject to applicable laws in your jurisdiction, we may also disclose Personal Information about you to others as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law or regulation, including laws or regulations outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public authorities and law enforcement officials, including officials outside your country of residence; (d) to assist or support theft investigations involving The Water Agency products or property, (e) to enforce any of our terms and conditions or policies; (f) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates and subsidiaries; (g) to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of The Water Agency, its affiliates and subsidiaries, you or others; or (h) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.
We may also transfer Personal Information to an affiliate, a subsidiary or a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of The Water Agency’s business, assets or stock, including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceeding.
Ways you may share personal information or consent to The Water Agency sharing your personal information Message boards, forums
Some The Water Agency websites and apps have profiles, groups, pages, events, discussion forums, chat functionality, blogs, and similar features through which you can post information, messages, files and photos and other materials. Please note that any information you disclose through such services or otherwise on our sites may become public information and may be available to visitors to the sites and/or to the general public. We urge you to exercise discretion and caution when deciding to disclose Personal Information, or any other information, on our websites or apps.
Promotions
If you enter a sweepstakes, contest or similar promotion, we may use the information you provide to administer those promotions. To the extent that the terms and conditions of any such promotion regarding the treatment of Personal Information about you conflict with this Privacy Policy, the terms and conditions of the promotion will control.
Cookies and similar technology
To help analyze how you and other visitors navigate The Water Agency websites and compile aggregate statistics about site usage and response rates, we, with assistance from third-party analytics service providers, collect certain information when you visit our site. This anonymous information includes geographic location of the device, browser type, browser language, date and time of your request, time(s) of your visit(s), demographics, page views and page elements (e.g., links) that you click. We may use cookies, or other similar tools on our site or in our email messages to assist us in collecting and analyzing such information. We use this information to provide better, more relevant content on our site, to measure the effectiveness of advertisements, to identify and fix problems, and to improve your overall experience on our site.
If you do not want information collected using these technologies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to automatically decline many of these technologies, or to be given the choice of declining or accepting them. Certain cookies are required to enable core site functionality and you cannot choose to disable those cookies.
Links, third party apps, and third parties’ privacy practices
Our websites, apps and products may contain links to other sites that are not operated by The Water Agency, and our websites or your product may contain apps that you can download from third parties. These linked sites and apps are not under our control and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any linked sites and apps. If you use any third-party sites or apps, any Personal Information collected by the third party’s site or app will be controlled by the privacy policy of that third party. We recommend that you carefully review the privacy policy of any third parties to which you provide Personal Information.
Security
The Water Agency takes reasonable security measures to help protect against loss, misuse, unauthorized access and unauthorized disclosure or alteration of the Personal Information under its control.
Policy with respect to children
Our websites and apps are not directed to individuals under the age of 16, and we request that individuals under 16 not provide Personal Information to The Water Agency through any The Water Agency website or through our apps. If we learn that we have collected the Personal Information from a child under 16, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible.
Privacy policy updates
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time as we add new products and apps, as we improve our current offerings, and as technologies and laws change. You can determine when this Privacy Policy was last revised by referring to the “LAST UPDATED” legend at the top of this policy. Any changes will become effective upon our posting of the revised Privacy Policy on our affected websites. We will provide notice to you if these changes are material and, where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent. This notice will be provided by email or by posting notice of the changes on our affected websites or products/apps, consistent with applicable laws.
Retention of personal information
We will retain your Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes for which your Personal Information has been collected as outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required by law.
How you can review, correct, update and delete your personal information
The Water Agency takes reasonable steps to help ensure that the Personal Information we collect from you is accurate, complete and current. You may request access to your Personal Information and request that erroneous or inaccurate Personal Information be updated. You may also request that your Personal Information and The Water Agency account be deleted. The Water Agency will respond promptly to your requests in accordance with applicable law. For your protection, we may only implement requests with respect to the Personal Information associated with the email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We may decline to process requests that jeopardize the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or would cause us to take any action that is not permissible under applicable laws. Additionally, as permitted by applicable laws, we may need to retain certain Personal Information for a longer period for recordkeeping purposes.
Access, correction or deletion requests can be made as follows:
The Water Agency
[email protected]
Olympia 1A, 1213 NS Hilversum, The Netherlands
Dispute Resolution
This Agreement is governed by Dutch law. All disputes arising in connection with the present contract, or further contracts resulting therefrom, shall be finally settled in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the Netherlands Arbitration Institute. The place of arbitration shall be the Netherlands.
Service Email Links
We may place email links on the Website to allow you to contact us directly. The Personal Information you provide in these email links is used to respond directly to your questions or comments. We may also file your comments to improve the Website, or review and discard the Personal Information. All information, other than Personal Information, that you send to The Water Agency using these email links will not be considered or treated as confidential information. Do not send us any information, ideas, suggestions, proposals, or comments that you consider confidential or that you want to be treated as confidential.
If you opt-in to receiving direct marketing communications (including our newsletter) from us, then we may use your Personal Information to send you marketing-related correspondence (including emails) related to The Water Agency products, services or apps. To opt-out of receiving marketing-related correspondence from The Water Agency, please click “Unsubscribe” from any marketing email you receive from The Water Agency.