Privacy Policy

This privacy policy applies to information we collect (our "Collection Places"):

  • On this Website (including its integrated third party platforms);
  • On other platforms we use to facilitate our management of the services we provide to you (e.g. conference registration sites); and
  • In email, text, other electronic messages or by telephone or other communications between you and us and (if you are a member) between you and other members through the Website.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, we welcome you to contact us at: [email protected].

  1. Acknowledgement of this Privacy Statement

Your use of any of our Collection Places signifies that you have read and understand all of the terms of this privacy policy, and consent to the use of your personal information (including any disclosures, processing, and transfers of your information to third parties by SPN in accordance with this policy. Any consent you provide is entirely voluntary. If you do not accept this policy, then you should not use the Collection Places or otherwise submit any personal information to SPN. 

  1. Personal Information You Provide Voluntarily

We collect personal information at our Collection Places that include, but is not limited to,  name, telephone number, email address, employer, professional title, date of birth, home or business and mailing address, gender, details regarding your entity and business, your job title, username and password, company contacts for corporate members, photographs, and education. 

The personal information you are asked to provide (including whether its provision is mandatory or not) is needed so that we may facilitate your access, purchase, use and/or participation in our service offerings, such as (collectively "Services"):

  • Membership;
  • Conferences & Events;
  • Educational programs;
  • Online forums;
  • Certification/accreditation activities;
  • Volunteer opportunities; 
  • Products for sale;
  • Career services;
  • Surveys; and
  • Exhibitor, sponsor, or advertiser (Collectively "Affiliated Partners") programs and properties; and 
  • Any other services and products that are updates or extensions to our Services or relate to other member benefits.

If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, you may not be able to enjoy certain components of our Services.

Additionally, we will also collect personal information when:

  • You request us to contact you via mail, e-mail, or telephone to provide information, updates, or promotions about our Services; or
  • We enter into agreements with affiliated partners.  

We will provide you with the choice and means for limiting the use and disclosure of your personal information before we use or disclose the information for a purpose that is materially different than the purpose described below.

  1. Personal Information We Collect Automatically

In addition to the Collection Places, we may use any number of tools to collect information about you, your computer access points, and the web browser that you use to connect to our Website. For example, cookies are tiny text files that we place on your computer's hard drive when you visit our Website. We may use cookies to personalize your interactions with our Website, help to navigate from page to page on our Website, provide secure connections, gather statistics about the usage and effectiveness of our site and remember preferences from a previous visit.  

We may also collect additional information from your web browser each time you visit our Website. We may collect information about the pages that you visit and the time spent on each web page or area of the Website, the promotions or advertisements that you click on, and other actions that you take while using our Website. This information may include your Internet Protocol ("IP") address, the type of browser, the time that your browser was used to access our Website, and the referring website's address. We may also use tools such Google Analytics.

We may also collect information that cannot be used to identify you.  For example, we may aggregate non-personal information about you and other individuals who visit our Website. Aggregated information will not contain any information that can be linked directly back to you.

Our Service Providers (defined below) may also use other standard web-based technologies to analyze your movements while accessing our Websites.  The technologies include web "beacons," "pixel tags," and "clear gifs." These technologies help us ascertain the effectiveness of our product and service campaigns and marketing programs, allow us to customize the services offered on or through our Website, and help determine the best use for Website content, and product and service offerings. Some of this information, including the IP address, may be stored on our Internet service provider's server logs, and may be available for extended periods of time

  1. Our Use of Your Personal Information

The following is a description of how SPN may use the personal information we have collected about you. Automatically-collected information and other personal information may be combined with other information that we collect directly from you or that we receive from other sources and is used for the purposes described below:

  • Provide information about our Services and Affiliate Partners;
  • Fulfill your member benefits;
  • Facilitate your attendance/participation at our conferences and events (both in person and virtual);
  • Track your attendance at conferences and trade shows (including exhibitor spaces);
  • Prepare invoices and process payments;
  • Respond to any of your questions or requests or other communications you send to us;
  • Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contract entered between you and us;
  • Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide information to us;
  • Present our Website effectively to you; or
  • Perform any other legitimate purpose reasonably consistent with your membership or Affiliated Partners. 

Additional uses of your non-personal and personal information will allow us to tailor our Services specific to your needs, to help organize and manage our relationship with you or your business, to conduct business, to provide you with support, and to perform functions that are described to you at the time of collection.

In general, we will use the personal information we collect from you only for the purposes described in this privacy policy or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your personal information. However, we may also use your personal information for other purposes that are not incompatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable data protection laws.

  1. Our Sharing of Your Personal Information to Third Parties

We may share your personal information with the following categories of recipients and in the following ways:

  • Third party service providers ("Service Providers") who provide (without limitation) administrative/operational services; data processing; membership services; marketing & communication services; meeting management services; website hosting services;  membership database services; credit card processing; conference registration; conference mobile applications; ; conference/event hotels and venues; or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this privacy policy or notified to you when we collect your personal information;
  • Other SPN members may receive certain items of your personal information as part of a membership directory or through collaboration portals. In addition, if you sign up to attend a member meeting or other SPN-sponsored event, all other SPN members who sign up for the event will be notified of your intended attendance at the event and may be given your full name, address, company name, and email address. We are not responsible for other members use or misuse of your personal information; and 
  • Affiliated Partners, such as exhibitors, sponsors and advertisers, may receive membership lists or event attendance lists that include your full name, address, company name, and email address. We are similarly not responsible for the use or misuse of your personal information by our affiliated partners. 

We may also disclose your personal information as is necessary to: (a) comply with a subpoena or court order; (b) cooperate with law enforcement or other government agencies; (c) establish or exercise our legal rights; (d) protect the property or safety of our company and employees, contractors, vendors, suppliers, and customers; (e) defend against legal claims; (f) help with internal and external investigations; or (g) as otherwise required by law or permitted by law. We may disclose your information in connection with the sale or merger of SPN or any transaction that involves the sale or assignment of some or all of our assets.

  1. Your Choices
  • Information Provided by You.  To access, review, or update your information stored by SPN, you may contact us at the information provided in the “General Information and Privacy Support Contact” section below.
  • Email.  The first time that you provide us with registration information through our Collection Places, you may be offered the opportunity to subscribe to and receive additional information about our products and services. Each commercial e-mail that we send to you will offer you the opportunity to opt-out of continuing to receive such messages.  We may take up to 10 business days to process your opt-out requests. In some instances, we may have already shared your information with one of our authorized third parties before you changed your information preferences, and you may briefly continue to receive e-mail even after you have opted out. FTC e-mail compliance guidance allows us to send you transactional and relationship e-mail without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving those types of e-mail.
  •  Cookies and Other Tracking Technology Choices. 
    • Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can change your browser’s settings to disable all or certain cookies. For more information on how to manage browser cookies, see http://www.allaboutcookies.org. Please note that by disabling or deleting cookies, you may not be able to access the full functionality of our Website. Disabling or clearing cookies also may affect cookie-based opt-outs by either preventing you from using such cookie-based opt-outs or clearing opt-outs that you previously set.
    • In addition to any management tools described above in this policy, you can manage third-party advertising preferences for some of the third-party partners we work with to serve advertising across the Internet by utilizing the choices available ahttp://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp and http://www.aboutads.info/choices.  For mobile users, you also have numerous controls in your operating system that enable you to choose whether to allow cookies or to share your advertising ID with third parties. For some information on controlling your mobile choices, visit https://www.networkadvertising.org/mobile-choices. To help control or block certain ads in mobile applications, you may choose to download and utilize the Digital Advertising Alliance’s mobile app by visiting https://youradchoices.com/appchoices. We do not guarantee that all of the third parties we work with will honor the elections you make using any of these options.
  1. Public Forums
Our Website may make digital forums available to its users, such as message boards, chat rooms, or any other public areas of our Website, or other third-party websites that the Website may link to. Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes public information, and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose information through these areas of the Website. We reserve the right to remove any posting or content at our sole discretion.

  1. Links to Other Websites

The Website, and email messages from us, may contain links to third-party websites, which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. The inclusion of a link on the Website does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us. You should be aware that the collection, retention, and use of any data you provide on these third-party websites will be governed by the privacy policy of the company providing the website and not by this policy.  We are not responsible for the practices of such websites.
  1. Data Storage and Security

We make reasonable efforts to ensure that we and our Service Providers have implemented physical, electronic, and procedural security measures to assist with safeguarding your personal information, and to help protect against unauthorized access and disclosure. Notwithstanding our efforts, the Internet has inherent security risks.  We cannot promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information, personal searches, and other communications will always remain secure. You should take care with regard to how you handle and disclose your personal information or any username or password that you are required to use to access all of our Collection Places.

We will not keep your personal information longer than necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.  We will securely destroy or erase personal information from our systems when it is no longer required to accomplish the purpose for which it was collected. We also will endeavor to ensure the deletion and destruction of personal information stored and maintained by third parties. We may, however, retain some personal information in order to comply with applicable laws, regulations, rules and court orders.

  1. Children and Data Collection
Our Collection Places content is not directed toward children who are under the age of 16.  We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.  If we or our Service Providers become aware that a child has provided us with personal information without parental consent, that information will be deleted from our databases.  If you have questions about personal information that may have been submitted by a child, please email us at [email protected].

  1. Do Not Track Signals 

Some web browsers incorporate a “Do Not Track” or similar feature that signals to websites with which the browser communicates that a visitor does not want to have his or her online activity tracked. Not all browsers offer a “Do Not Track” option and “Do Not Track” signals are not yet uniform. For this reason, the Website does not respond to “Do Not Track” signals.

  1. California Privacy Rights.

This section supplements the information contained in this privacy policy and provides information for eligible California residents on their rights with respect to our collection, retention, and use of Personal Information under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA). This section also explains California residents’ rights under the California Civil Code section 1789.83 (the “Shine the Light Law”). For the purposes of this section, “Personal Information” has the definition given in the CCPA.

  • Our Personal Information Collection and Use Practices. Depending on how you have interacted with us, we may collect and may have collected from you in the last twelve (12) months the following statutory categories of Personal Information specified in the CCPA: identifiers, sensory information, California customer records, commercial information, internet or network activity information, geolocation, professional or employment related information, and inferences. Personal Information does not include information exempted from the scope of the CCPA. We collect this information directly from you, cookies/action tags, and other tracking technologies as described in this privacy policy. We may disclose the Personal Information we collect for the purposes described in the information sharing section of this privacy policy. We describe the business and commercial purposes for which we use the Personal Information we collect for the business purposes in the information collection and information use sections of this Privacy Policy.

SPN has not sold consumers’ personal information in the twelve (12) months preceding the effective date of this privacy policy.

  •  Your California Privacy Rights Under the CCPA. The CCPA provides eligible California residents with specific rights with respect to our collection, retention, and use of Personal Information. This includes: the right to request that we provide certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information over the past twelve (12) months; the right to request the deletion of Personal Information that we have collected and maintain about you, subject to certain exceptions; and the right to non-discrimination for the exercise of your consumer privacy rights.   
  • Exercising Your California Privacy Rights. To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:

To verify your identity when you submit a request and confirm your California residency, SPN will match the identifying information you provide us to the Personal Information we have about you. If necessary, we may ask you to provide additional information for verification regarding your request. 

  • California Shine the Light Law. In addition to your rights under the CCPA, the California Shine the Light Law permits California residents to request information regarding our disclosure, if any, of their personal information (as defined in the Shine the Light Law) to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes and the categories of personal information disclosed. You may send us requests for this information using our information provided in the “General Information and Privacy Support Contact” section of this privacy policy.

  1. Data Storage and Transfers
Your information collected through the Collection Places may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which SPN or its service providers maintain facilities. If you access and use our Collection Places from a location outside of the United States, any personal data you provide to us or that is otherwise collected may be transferred to and processed in the United States or any other jurisdiction in our sole discretion. The laws that apply to the use and protection of personal data in the United States or other countries or jurisdictions to which we transfer, or in which we process, personal data may differ from those of your country of residence. Users who access or use our Collection Places from jurisdictions outside of the United States do so at their own choice and risk and are solely responsible for compliance with local law. While we take steps to safeguard your personal data, the United States has not been deemed by the European Commission to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data. Accordingly, the level of protection provided in the United States or other non-EEA countries and jurisdictions from which you may access our website may not be as stringent as that under EEA data protection standards or the data protection laws of some other countries, possibly including your home jurisdiction.
  1. Enforcement

We use a self-assessment approach to assure compliance with this privacy policy and periodically verifies that the policy is accurate, comprehensive for the information intended to be covered, prominently displayed, completely implemented and accessible and in conformity with applicable law. We encourage interested persons to raise any concerns using the contact information provided and we will investigate and attempt to resolve any complaints or disputes regarding the use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this policy.

If a complaint or dispute cannot be resolved through our internal process, we agree to dispute resolution using (an independent resourced mechanism) as a third party resolution provider.

  1. General Information and Privacy Support Contact

We may update this privacy policy from time to time, and you should take the time to review it each time that you visit one of our collection places. By continuing to use any of our Collection Places after we post any revised privacy policy, you agree that the terms of the revised policy as of the effective date will apply to information previously collected or collected in the future, as permitted by law.  We are committed to protecting your personal privacy.  If you have questions or comments about our efforts to protect your personal privacy, or if you require additional information about our privacy commitment, please contact us at [email protected].