PRIVACY POLICY

Updated December 9, 2022

The American International Women’s Club of Cologne e.V. (AIWCC) takes your privacy seriously. Because you provide us personal information as a member of our organization, we are a “controller” of personal information as defined by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

In compliance with the GDPR, this privacy notice describes what personal data we collect as part of your membership - how, why, for how long we will use it, and how we keep it secure.

What type of information is collected from you?

Membership 

When you sign up as a member of the AIWCC, we ask you to provide or confirm the following personal information:

Contact Details

• Name* 
• Address* 
• Email address*
• Phone number*

Demographics

• Nationality*
• Date of Birth*
• Partner's
  
• Name
• Nationality•
• Children's
• Name
• Date of Birth
  
• Nationality•

Biographics

• A short description of yourself*

• When you arrived, what brought you here and how long you plan to stay

• Languages you speak

• Other places you have lived and where you consider “home”

• Your interests/hobbies and career background

• To share your website/blog url and a description

• A photo of yourself

You and the Club:

• How you found out about the club*

• Why you want to join*

• How you could volunteer or support the club*

• Times you can participate in club activities/events*

Items marked with an * are required as part of your application for membership 

Events & Activities

When you register for an activity or event that is organized and hosted by the AIWCC or one of its members, or when you are added as a guest by an AIWCC member, we ask you to provide or confirm the following information:

• Contact details: name, address, email address and phone number

• Event information: details that are relevant and necessary to the organization of the event

Other

We conduct polls addressing a wide range of topics. These polls are always optional and may or may not request personal information. 

Why do we collect this information?

We process our members’ personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests:

• To verify that applicants fulfill membership requirements

• To allow other members to learn about each other

• To communicate with you about your membership account and notify you of any changes to our services

• To provide you with news and updates about the organization and opportunities for you to get involved

• To invite you to participate in club activities and events as well as those of our associated organizations

• To respond to and investigate your questions, comments, support needs, complaints, or concerns

Who has access to this information?

Your personal data is accessible by members of the AIWCC Executive Board and certain club volunteers in order to conduct club business and serve you. 

In addition, your data is available to other AIWCC members through the Member Directory available on the website and the Wild Apricot Members App. You have the right and ability to adjust the settings of what is and is not shared with fellow members. Instructions on how to make such changes are outlined below. 

Those allowed access to this data must also accept this Privacy Policy and the strict GDPR compliance guidelines about how the information may be accessed and used. 

What rights do you have? 

You always have the right to:

• Access the personal data that we hold about you

• Restrict the processing of your personal data for specific purposes

• Make changes to your personal data if you believe it is inaccurate or incomplete

• Request that we delete your personal information

How do you access and update your personal information?

On the Website 

You can view and modify the personal data we hold about you at any time via your website login. 

• Log in to the website at http://www.aiwccologne.org 

• Click on “View Profile” to display all the data we hold about you in our membership database

• Click “Edit Profile” to change any information at any time

• Additionally, under the “Privacy” link, you may choose to show or hide any of your information from your fellow members

Via Email 

You can contact the Membership Chair at membership@aiwccologne.org to request your information be sent to you or to update your data.

Offline 

You can contact the President, Vice President or Membership Chair to request your information be sent to you. Their contact details can be found in the For Members section of the website. 

Deleting and Archiving Your Data

The AIWCC retains your data for the duration of your membership. You have the right to request deletion of data at any time, however, please note that the AIWCC may not be able to continue your membership benefits or allow event registration without it. To request deletion of your data, send a written request by email to the Membership Chair at membership@aiwccologne.org. To request deletion by post, send a written request to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy.

At the termination of your membership through cancellation or non-renewal, we will archive your personal data within 30 days. Within six months of terminating your membership, all personal data with the exception of name, last known address, email address, nationality, positions held with the club and years of membership will be deleted. This data will be maintained for historical documentation and/or invitation to special events related to club anniversaries. To be excluded, please see the above instructions. 

We may also keep anonymized demographic data for historical reporting purposes. This demographic data will not contain any individually identifiable personal information.

When does the AIWCC contact you and how can you manage your communication preferences?

The AIWCC communicates with its members in several ways as part of its mission.

Post

On occasion, we will send letters, invitations or other materials to members by post. 

Phone

We call members as part of our Outreach Program, to welcome new members and for general communications.

Email

Emails are sent through our website/membership platform Wild Apricot and through our virtual office, Google Workspace. These include but are not limited to the following:

• A monthly member newsletter

• Activity and event invitations, confirmations, reminders, etc.

• System emails related to membership renewals, to reset a password, etc.

• Special announcements

• Requests to participate or volunteer 

Guests or event attendees will receive relevant system emails, event emails, and marketing emails.

Each member or contact has the right to control whether they receive these emails. Your preferences can be modified in the following ways:

• On the Website  

• Log in to the website at http://www.aiwccologne.org 

• Click on “View profile”  

• Click “Email Subscriptions” to manage your subscriptions to event and club emails 

• From the Newsletter 

• Click on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the newsletter

• Via Email 

• A request to be removed from any or all newsletters can be sent by  email to the Vice President at vicepresident@aiwccologne.org

• Offline 

• A written request via post can be sent to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy

Note: 

If you opt out of receiving emails and/or newsletters, you will miss important information about the AIWCC, your membership status, and/or upcoming events.

The AIWCC may contact members individually at any time regarding membership issues. This is required to maintain membership. 

How do we protect your personal information?

Internal Processes

Your membership data is stored in a password-protected database on our web server hosted by Wild Apricot. When filling out the membership application form, or updating your membership data online, your personal data is sent directly via encrypted HTTPS connection to our password-protected database. 

You can learn more about Wild Apricot’s Security, Data and Privacy Protection, and their GDPR compliance status. 

• https://www.wildapricot.com/privacypolicy

• https://www.wildapricot.com/data-protection

Cookies 

We store so-called “cookies” in order to offer you a comprehensive range of functions and to make the use of our website more convenient. Cookies are small files that are stored on your computer with the help of your internet browser. Specifically, we use the following types of cookies: 

Functionality: These cookies are used so that we recognize you on our website and remember your previously selected preferences. A mix of first-party and third-party cookies are used. 

Advertising: Our club uses these cookies to collect information about your visit to our website, the content you viewed, the links you followed and information about your browser, device and your IP address. We may also share online data collected through cookies with our advertising partners. This means that when you visit another website, you may be shown advertising based on your browsing patterns on our website. 

These cookies cannot identify you as a person.  

External Service Providers

The AIWCC never shares or sells your personal information to any third party for any purpose not directly related to our club’s mission.

However, the AIWCC does use third party suppliers to provide some services necessary to serve our membership. These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as “processors” and are subject to contractual conditions to only process that personal information under our instructions and to protect it.

In the event that we share personal information with external third parties, we only share such information strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure recipients shall only process the disclosed personal information in accordance with those purposes.

These third parties currently provide services for the AIWCC and we have documented that they are GDPR compliant:

• Wild Apricot: hosts our website, membership database, and emailing system 

• Google Workspace: hosts AIWCC official email addresses, documents, surveys, spreadsheets, etc.

• Google Analytics: tracks anonymous website visits and interactions

• Google Maps: plots users’ home addresses on a world map on the secure side of our website

• Facebook: Public Page and Private Group - As a registered Facebook user, when you visit, like or comment on our page your personal data will be collected.
  

• Instagram: as a registered Instagram user, when you engage with our account, your personal data will be collected. 

• LinkedIn:  as a registered LinkedIn user, when you engage with our account, your personal data will be collected.

• Zoom: as a registered user, when you join a meeting, your personal data will be collected.

• WhatsApp: as a registered user, when you engage with our group, your personal data will be collected.

How to manage cookies

You can set your browser not to accept cookies. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.

Privacy policies of other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. Our privacy policy applies only to our website, if you click on a link to another website, you should read their privacy policy.

Changes to our privacy policy

We review and update our privacy policy annually or as needed. 

Who can you contact with questions, comments, or complaints?

American International Women’s Club of Cologne e.V.
Postfach 501417, 50974 Cologne, Germany

president@aiwccologne.org
vicepresident@aiwccologne.org

Looking for more information?

https://gdpr.eu/privacy-notice/