Privacy Policy

Southface Institute respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it. We provide this statement to inform you of our privacy policy and practices.

Effective December 2017, this privacy statement covers personally identifiable information and anonymous data collection through aggregate reporting. Personally identifiable information is any information that is associated with your name or personal identity (such as your name, address, email address, social security number, credit card number, etc.). Anonymous (non-personal) data is information about usage and service operation, reported in aggregate, which is not associated with a specific personal identity (such as browser type, IP addresses, etc.).

From time to time, we may ask you to provide us with personally identifiable information about you through our website. We use this information to better understand your needs and interests, and to provide you with better service. Once you choose to provide us with personal information, it will only be used to support your relationship with the Southface. Only Southface and its authorized agents have access to the personally identifiable information you provide us through our website. We will not sell, rent or lease your personally identifiable information to others, nor will we share, trade or exchange your personally identifiable information with anyone outside of Southface without your permission, except under requirement by law or judgment or when we explicitly notify you at the time we ask for your personally identifiable information.

Anonymous (non-personal) data is collected in aggregate for reporting about our website usability, performance, and effectiveness. It is used to improve the customer experience, usability and site content.

This site contains links to other websites. Southface is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.

Our Commitment to Our Donors

We will not sell, share or trade our donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations other than joint mailings which further our mission.

This policy applies to all information received by Southface, both online and offline, on any Platform (“Platform”, includes the Southface website and mobile applications), as well as any electronic, written, or oral communications.

To the extent any donations are processed through a third-party service provider, our donors’ information will only be used for purposes necessary to process the donation.

What We Collect

On the Southface website, you can make donations, order products, register for events, make information requests, or sign up to receive news and information from us. The types of personal information you provide to us on these pages may include name, address, phone, email address, user IDs and passwords, billing information, credit card information and contact preferences.

Anonymous (non-personal) data we collect may include the pages visited on www.southface.org, unique URLs visited within our website, browser type and IP address. Most anonymous data is collected via cookies (see below) or other analysis technologies.

From time to time, we may share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers. This is not linked to any personally identifiable information.

To help us improve the quality of our website, Southface uses an external service that provides real-time reporting on the use of our website, including page views, unique views, unique visitors, repeat visitors, frequency of visits, and peak-volume traffic periods. We do not use this service to gather, request, record, require, collect or track a user’s personally identifying information.

Because we care about the safety and privacy of children online, we comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). COPPA and its accompanying FTC regulation establish United States federal law that protects the privacy of children using the Internet. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 and our products and services do not target information to children under 13. Our sites are not intended to solicit information of any kind from children under 13, and we have designed our sites to block our knowing acceptance of information from children under 13 whenever age-related information is requested.

It is possible that by fraud or deception by others, we may receive information pertaining to children under 13. If we are notified of this, as soon as we verify the information, we will immediately obtain parental consent or otherwise delete the information from our servers. If you want to notify us of our receipt of information by children under 13, please do so by contacting us through the contact us form. Southface is committed to protecting the privacy needs of children and we encourage parents to take an active role in their children’s online activities and interests.

How We Use the Information We Collect

Southface uses your information to help us understand your needs and interests and provide you with better services. Specifically, we use your information to help you complete a transaction or order, to communicate with you, to provide service and support, to update you on services and benefits, and to personalize promotional offers.

Credit card information is used only for payment processing and fraud prevention, and is not used for other purposes. We use an outside shipping company to ship orders and a credit card processing company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.

We partner with other parties to provide specific services. When the user signs up for these services, we will share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services. These parties are not permitted to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.

Data collected online may also be combined with information you provide through other sources, such as conferences or personal contacts with members of Southface.

Opt-Out Policy

From time to time, we may send emails and other information to users about the Southface and its activities. Our site provides users the opportunity to opt out of receiving such communications from us at any time. To opt out, please send an message through the contact us form, call 404-872-3549, or mail your request to:

Southface Energy Institute
241 Pine Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30308

Access & Accuracy

Southface strives to keep your personally identifiable information accurate. We have put in place managerial data standards review processes and technological tools to maintain customer data accuracy. We will provide you with access to view and change your information. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to your data. Certain areas of the Southface’s website may limit access to specific individuals through the use of passwords and other personal identifiers.

If your personally identifiable information changes (such as your zip code), or if you no longer desire our service, we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove the personally identifiable information you provided to us.

This can usually be done at the member information page or by emailing our Customer Support through the contact us form.

The most effective way to view and change your personal information is to send a message through the contact us form.

Security

Southface is committed to ensuring the security of your information.To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, maintain data accuracy and ensure the appropriate use of the information, we have in place appropriate physical, managerial procedures to safeguard the information we collect.

We use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption when collecting or transferring sensitive data such as credit card information. Credit card numbers are only used for processing payments and are not used for other purposes. Our efforts to protect credit card fraud help protect your financial data security.

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. This includes a firewall and 24-hour monitoring of site activities by our hosting service provider as well as 128-bit SSL encryption (where allowable by law) on all transaction-oriented operations between you and PCF via our transaction service provider.

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our employees must use password-protected screen savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their password to regain access to your information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Every quarter, as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our customers’ information is protected. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment, behind a locked cage.

Cookies

Our website uses “cookies.” A “cookie” is a small data file transferred by our website to your computer’s hard drive containing information that helps us make your experience of using our website more individualized and convenient. We send cookies when you surf our site, make purchases, request information, or register yourself or for certain services. Accepting the cookies used on our site does not give us access to your personally identifiable information, but we may use the cookies to identify your computer. Some cookies are “session” cookies, meaning the cookie is removed from your computer after you leave our website or quit your browser. The aggregate information collected by cookies also helps us to analyze traffic patterns at our site. This can enable us over time to provide a better experience on our site by improving content or personalization and make it easier to use. Cookies that remain on your computer are often called “permanent” cookies. These types of cookies are used to facilitate shopping, personalization and registration services.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually adjust the preferences on your browser to refuse cookies, selectively accept certain cookies or notify you each time a website attempts to place a cookie on your computer. If you refuse to accept cookies, there may be certain features of our site that will not be available to you and some web pages may not display properly. You can find information on how to adjust your cookie preferences on three of the most popular web browsers by visiting the following websites:

Microsoft Internet Explorer: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie11-iewindows_10/enabling-cookies-in-internet-explorer-11-with/fd5cc3f5-a53a-4567-9bad-0cd42e439a25

Microsoft Edge: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/apps_windows_10-msedge/edge-how-do-i-enable-cookies/275b58e3-d741-4b21-8042-3059b1902d0e?auth=1

Mozilla Firefox: https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Cookies

Another good resource for information about cookies is https://www.cookiecentral.com/faq.

The cookies we place on your computer are not shared with or revealed to other sites, nor do we look at the cookies that have been placed on your machine by other websites.

Southface does not post third-party ads on its own website. However, Southface may use third-party media companies to place ads for its products or services on other companies’ websites. If you view a web page where a Southface ad appears, the online media company may place a cookie on your computer. This allows the online media company to recognize your computer when it is used to return to that site or measure advertising response. This data is anonymous and is not linked to personal data on your computer or the Southface database. To prevent online media companies from placing cookies on your computer, you will need to visit each media company’s website and use their cookie removal (opt-out) process (see “Opt-Out Policy” above).

Southface – Tell-A-Friend

If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask them for the friend’s name and email address. Southface will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site. Southface stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email. The friend may contact Southface through the contact us form to request the removal of this information from our database.

Conditions of Use, Notices and Revisions

We will always use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected. However, our business changes constantly, and our privacy policy may change as well. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post the changes here so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we may disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by email. Users will then have a choice as to whether or not we may use their information in this different manner. We may email periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our website frequently to see recent changes.

If you have any concern about privacy at www.southface.org, please send a thorough description through the contact us form, and we will try to resolve it.

Contacting Us

We value your comments and opinions. If you have comments or questions about our privacy policy or need help, or to remove your name from our database, contact us by phone at 404-872-3549 or through the contact us form.