AWC Berlin Privacy Policy
Updated July, 2023
Who we are
Our website address is: https://www.awcberlin.org
The American Women’s Club of Berlin e.V. 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?
When you sign up as a member of the AWC Berlin, we ask you to provide the following personal information:
- Contact details:
-Last name
-First name
-Email
-Phone
-Street Address
-City
-Postcode
-Phone Number #2
-Photograph - Background details:
-When did you move to Berlin?
-Projected length of stay in Berlin?
-In which Berlin neighborhood do you live?
-Profession (Current and/or Former)
-Age Range
-Birthday (e.g., August 15)
-Do you have a valid US passport?
-If no, from which country is your passport?
-If you do not hold a US Passport, do you have a family member(s) who holds a US Passport?
-Do you have children under the age of 18?
-If yes, what are their ages and what school(s) do they attend?
-In general, I prefer activities:
-How did you hear about the AWC?
-If you chose Friend/Colleague or Other Organization, please list their name.
-Photo Release-Volunteer Position
-Membership Level
-Date Joined
-Membership Renewal Date
When you register for a public event that is organized and hosted by the AWC Berlin, or when you are added as a guest by an AWC Berlin 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
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 more about you
- 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 activities of the organization, opportunities to get involved, training, meetings or other events
- To respond to and investigate your questions, comments, support needs, complaints, or concerns
How do you access and update your personal information?
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
- Correct your personal data if you believe it is inaccurate or incomplete
- Request that we delete your personal information
How can you accomplish these things?
Accessing or Updating Your Data
On the website: You can view and modify the personal data we hold about you at any time via your website login. Instructions:
– Log in to the website at https://www.awcberlin.org
– Click on “Members Login”.
– Click the blue “Login” button on the lower left
– Click your name under the red “Members Only Area” in the upper right corner
– Select “View Profile”
– Select “Edit Profile” and change any information at any time.
– Click “Save” when you are finished with your changes
Additionally, under the link “Privacy” you may choose to show or hide any of your information to your fellow members.
Via email: You can contact the Membership Chair at membership@awcberlin.org to update your data or request your information be sent to you.
Offline: Send a written request by email to membership@awcberlin.org. To request by post, send a written request to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy.
Deleting Your Data
The AWC Berlin 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 AWC Berlin 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 membership@awcberlin.org. To request deletion by post, send a written request to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy.
At the completion of your membership through cancellation or non-renewal, we will archive your membership profile and keep some of your personal data for historical reasons (we sometimes try to contact former members for anniversaries, galas, historical information regarding their experiences with the club). You have the right to review this data and request in writing to delete your personal data at any time. If you would like to re-join as a member after deleting your information, you’ll need to fill out the registration form again.
We may also keep anonymized demographic data for historical reporting purposes such as year-end reports on membership. This demographic data will not contain any individually identifiable personal information.
When does the AWCB contact you, and how can you manage your communication preferences?
The AWC Berlin communicates with its members via email in several ways as part of its mission:
- A weekly member email
- Occasional system emails (membership renewal reminders, to reset a password, etc.)
- Occasional event emails (invites, confirmations, announcements, reminders, etc.)
- A monthly newsletter
Guests or event attendees will receive relevant system and event-related emails.
Each member or contact always has the right to control whether they receive these emails through:
- On the website: AWCBerlin.org
- Under “Members Login” you can click “Edit Profile,”
- then “Email subscriptions” to manage your subscriptions to event and Club emails.
Please note that if you turn these off you may miss important information about the AWC Berlin, your membership status, or upcoming events.
An additional option for the member newsletter only: every email newsletter includes an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom. You can click that link to unsubscribe from the member newsletter.
Via email: A request to be removed from any or all newsletters may also be made in writing by sending an email to membership@awcberlin.org
Offline: A written request via post may be made to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy.
Note: the AWC Berlin may contact members individually at any time regarding membership issues. This is required to maintain the membership.
How do we protect your personal information?
Internal Processes
Your personal data is accessible by members of the AWC Berlin Executive Board (President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer) and certain Teams (Events and Membership). In addition, other AWC Berlin Members can access your personal data that you have chosen to make public through the Member Directory. Those allowed access to this data must also accept this Privacy Policy and the strict GDPR-compliant guidelines about how the information may be accessed and used.
Your data is stored by the AWC Berlin in a password-protected database on our web server hosted by Wild Apricot. Wild Apricot’s hosting provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is world’s largest cloud provider, offering the most robust and reliable platform.
You can learn more about Wild Apricot’s Security, Data and Privacy Protection and their GDPR compliance status. 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.
External Service Providers
The AWC Berlin never shares or sells your personal information to any third party for any purpose.
However, the AWC Berlin 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 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 AWC Berlin and we have documented that they are GDPR compliant:
-GreenGeeks: hosts our website. You can find its privacy policy here.
-Wild Apricot: membership database, and emailing system. You can find its privacy policy here.
Plugins and Cookies
Really Simple SSL
Really Simple SSL and Really Simple SSL add-ons do not process any personal identifiable information, so the GDPR does not apply to these plugins or usage of these plugins on your website. You can find our privacy policy here.
Akismet
We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself). https://akismet.com/gdpr/
Wordfence Security Plugin
This website is secured with the service “Wordfence Security”, which is operated by Defiant Inc., 1700 Westlake Ave N Ste 200, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. The use is based on justified interest in the sense of the GDPR.
The website uses Wordfence Security as a protection against viruses and malware and as a defense against attacks by criminals. The plugin uses cookies to detect whether the website is actually visited by a person or by a robot. For the purpose of protection against so-called brute force attacks (numerous automated login attempts from the same identity) or hacker comment spam, IP addresses are stored on the Wordfence servers. IP addresses which are classified as harmless are entered on a white list. Wordfence Security protects this website and thus also protects website visitors from viruses and malware. This represents a justified interest in the sense of the GDPR. The gathered information will not be sold or rented to third parties The Live Traffic View option (real-time live traffic) of the PlugIn is reduced to security-related listing.
For more information on the gathering and use of data by Wordfence Security, please see the provider’s privacy policy: https://www.wordfence.com/privacy-policy/.
Yoast
At Yoast we value your privacy. This Privacy Policy provides information on how we collect and process your personal data when you visit our website (https://yoast.com/) or use our services. In this Privacy Policy we also inform you about your rights as a data subject.
We do not collect any of your personal data beyond what is described in this policy. We do not process personal data in a way that contradicts the purpose for which the personal data was obtained. When processing your personal information, we will comply with the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Processing of data when using external services
Whom can you contact with questions, comments, or complaints?
American Women’s Club of Berlin e.V.
Kastanienallee 36A
14050 Berlin
Germany
President@awcberlin.org or Membership@awcberlin.org
Looking for more information?