Privacy Policy

Effective Date: August 29, 2018

Last Updated: August 20, 2018

Our Privacy Statement

Vertical Aviation International (VAI) recognizes and respects the need to protect the privacy of each visitor to our websites, verticalavi.org and verticon.org and photo.verticalavi.org, to our mobile app (VAI Events), and to our official social media accounts on X (verticalavi), Facebook (verticalavi.org and vaiverticon), Instagram (vertical_avi and verticon_byvai), LinkedIn (vertical-aviation-international), and YouTube (@verticalavi) (Websites, mobile apps, and social media accounts collectively, “Digital Assets”).  

Because we collect personal information when you visit our Digital Assets, this Privacy Statement describes what information we may collect and how we may use it.

Scope of Privacy Statement

If you are a member, an exhibitor at one of our events, an advertiser in our publications, or a vendor, our collection and use of your information is governed by our separate agreements with you. If you are a prospective, current, or former employee, our collection and use of your information is governed by a separate employment privacy statement.

U.S.-Based Activities

VAI is a US nonprofit membership organization with domestic and international members. Information that we collect on our Digital Assets, including personal information, is transferred to our US offices to permit us to provide our Digital Assets, information, and services to members and nonmembers, to comply with our legal and contractual obligations, and to perform business and charitable activities. In addition, we may work with third-party service providers in the United States and in other countries to support our Digital Assets, and business and charitable activities. Thus, personal information may be transferred to, stored on servers in, and accessed from the United States and from countries other than the country in which the information was initially collected. In all such instances, we use, transfer, and disclose personal information solely for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement.

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Statement or about our privacy and data security practices, please contact us at Info@verticalavi.org.

Information You Provide to Us Voluntarily

When you interact with us on our Digital Assets, contact us by email or phone, register for one of our events, or purchase goods or services from us, we collect any personally identifiable information that you choose to provide to us, primarily your name, mailing address(es), email address(es), and phone number(s), and we use that information to respond to you and to provide the services and information that you have requested from us.

Information We Collect Automatically When You Visit Our Websites

Cookies

Our Websites automatically collect information about your device hardware and software that can include your device type and unique identifier, IP address, browser type, domain names, access times, and referring website addresses. This information is used to ensure effective access to and operation of our Websites, to maintain the quality of our services, and to provide general statistics regarding use of our Websites.

Our Websites use cookies, small pieces of information transferred to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser to enable our systems to recognize your preferences and settings. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Our cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by our web servers; they cannot be used by us to track your activities on other websites or by third parties to get information about your activities on our Websites. Cookies collect information such as the type of search engine used, the sections of the Websites you visit, and other Website usage information. One of the primary purposes of our cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time and to permit you to customize your experience on our Websites.

We do not currently accept automated “Do Not Track” signals, but you have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of our Websites. For more information on disabling cookies, go to the “help” menu on your browser or to www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or www.youronlinechoices.com. Our Website(s) may still be viewed if you choose to disable cookies, but your use and enjoyment of our Website(s) may be adversely affected.

Analytics

Our Websites use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”), to help us analyze how visitors use our Websites. The information generated by the cookies, described above, about visitor use of our Websites is generally transmitted to and stored on a Google server in the United States. We have activated IP anonymization so that Google will truncate/anonymize the last eight-bit segment of your IP address beforehand. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the United States and truncated there. You may manage and opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting Google’s ad settings and selecting the appropriate settings in your browser. However, please note that if you do so, you may not be able to use the full functionality of our Websites. Alternatively, you can prevent Google’s collection and use of data by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. For further information on Google’s terms of use and data protection/privacy, please see https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/, http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html, and http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/index.html.

Our Mobile Apps and Official Social Media Accounts

For information about our collection of information from our mobile apps and our social media accounts, see the respective apps and social media accounts.

How We Use and Share Information

We use the personal information we collect from you only to respond to your questions or requests for additional information; to provide publication, event, and membership services to you; and to inform you about our activities, events, products, and services.

We only share personal information with third parties acting on our behalf to the extent necessary to provide the business services described in this Privacy Statement, to fulfill our legal and contractual obligations, and otherwise to the extent required by law or authorized by the individual who provides the personally identifiable information.

Marketing

We do not share your information with third parties for their own marketing or other purposes. We may occasionally send you information about third-party events, goods, and services, but those third parties do not receive any personal information from us, and the decision about whether to follow-up with those third parties by identifying yourself and providing your contact and other personal information is yours to make.

You may see advertisements about us on other Websites or social media sites that you visit. That is not because we have shared your information with third parties or because we are tracking you when you leave our Websites. If you see information about VAI on other websites and social media platforms, it is because you either fit within a general demographic profile that we identified to a third-party marketer or platform for advertising purposes or because you have been previously identified by a third party as someone who may be interested in learning more about us.

The links provided under “Information We Collect Automatically” include information about how to disable session and persistent. In addition, if we send you a promotional email, it will include information about removing your name from our e-mail list by “opting out.” You may also opt-out of our communications by emailing us at Info@verticalavi.org.

Your Rights and Choices

  • You may decline to share personal information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide you with some of the features and functionality of our Digital Assets or respond to your requests, including registration for events, purchases of publications, receipt of electronic communications, and enjoyment of membership benefits.
  • You may decline to accept cookies, but that decision may affect the functionality and performance of our Digital Assets.
  • You may update or correct your personal information at any time by contacting us.
  • You may opt out of receiving our promotional communications by using the link within each email or by contacting us as shown below. Note that, as long as you maintain a membership or exhibit with us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding that membership or exhibit.
  • You may request information about, and access to, the personal data that we collect from you.
  • You may ask questions or make complaints about our privacy and data security practices with regard to your personal data.
  • You may request that we delete information that we have collected about you.
  • You may ask us for a copy of the information that we collected from you.

Security

We use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk associated with the personal information that we collect. We protect personal information under our control against—and require our service providers to also protect it against—accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of or access to, personal information. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or via email and no data storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have questions or concerns about the security of your personal information, please contact us at Info@verticalavi.org.

Data Retention

We retain information, including any personal information that we collect, only as long as it is needed to accomplish the business purpose for which it was collected and to comply with our legal and contractual obligations, and then either securely dispose of that information within the next year or convert personal information into nonpersonal information by aggregating it, de-identifying it, or otherwise anonymizing it so that it no longer directly or indirectly identifies an individual and cannot, with reasonable efforts, resources, and technologies, subsequently be used to reidentify a specific individual.

Specific Privacy Considerations

Our Commitment to Children’s Privacy

Our Digital Assets, publications, events, and membership activities are not directed to or intended for use by children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 16. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information. To notify us, please contact us a Info@verticalavi.org.

Information for California Residents 

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits visitors to our Websites who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us at Info@verticalavi.org.

Information for EU-Based Individuals 

Our Digital Assets are not directed specifically to EU-based individuals, and we engage in global business and charitable activities that are not specifically directed to EU-based individuals and that do not specifically profile or track EU-based individuals. In addition, the bulk of our membership activities involve business contact information rather than personal information regarding individuals.

To the limited extent that we receive personal data about EU-based individuals from third-party entities in connection with our business or charitable activities under circumstances in which the EU General Data Protection Regulation applies, we enter into the appropriate EU Standard Contractual Clauses (see https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/model-contracts-transfer-personal-data-third-countries_en), and comply with our obligations under those Standard Contractual Clauses.

Nevertheless, we respect the rights of EU-Based Individuals, and, like all other individuals from and about whom we receive personal information, you have the rights identified under “Your Rights and Choices,” above, and we encourage you to contact us at Info@verticalavi.org with any questions or concerns that you might have.

External Links

Our Digital Assets may contain links to other websites, mobile apps, and social media accounts belonging to third parties. We do not receive any financial or other benefits from those links, and we do not track your activities when you leave our Digital Assets. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party Websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies provided by third parties before you share personal information with them.

Changes to Our Privacy Statement

From time to time, we may update this Statement, and updates will be reflected in the revision dates at the top and bottom of the Statement. At our discretion, we may provide information about changes to our Statement through our Digital Assets and publications, or otherwise. We encourage you to periodically check our Digital Assets for updates and information about how we collect, use, and share information, including personal information.

Contact Us

If you have questions, complaints, or concerns about this Privacy Statement, your personal information, or our practices, please email us at Info@verticalavi.org. You may also contact us via mail at: 

VAI Privacy
1920 Ballenger Avenue, 4th Floor
Alexandria, VA 22314-2898

Effective Date: August 29, 2018

Last Update: August 29, 2018