The Learning Center Privacy Policy

Your right to privacy is very important to us. We recognize that providing us with personal information is an act of trust. Therefore, we have created a privacy policy to protect your personal information. This policy covers The Learning Center, Land Conservation Clearinghouse, and Pathways to Accreditation which are owned and operated by the Land Trust Alliance. We encourage you to take the time to read this privacy policy and those of any website you visit. To this end, the Land Trust Alliance supports the following principles:

Consumer Choice

We believe a visitor to our site is the one to best determine: When—and under what conditions—to provide "personally identifiable information" (i.e. data that may be used to identify, contact, or locate a person).
1. When such information may be shared with other organizations.
2. When to remain anonymous.
3. When they are asked to provide informed consent for us to use this information.

If personally identifiable information is collected, we believe a visitor to our site has the right to:
1. Know when we are collecting personal information.
2. Know what personal information is collected, and the purpose of collection.
3. Expect the opportunity to choose whether or not personal information will be provided to any third parties.
4. Expect reasonable steps to be taken to protect personal information from unauthorized use.
5. Review the accuracy of personal information and update it.

Personal Information Collected

In order to use The Learning Center, you need a password, and we ask you for your full name before you receive it. We do this for three reasons:
1. To help ensure that only Alliance member land trust staff and board members have access to the The Learning Center community.
2. To facilitate information sharing.
3. To make site administration easier.

Other than your full name, you are not required to provide any other personal information. There are occasions when we will ask for additional information, and your response is optional. We do this to better understand and respond to your information needs, and provide you with services that may be valuable to you.

Use of Information

Personally identifiable information is made available to other non-profit organizations and occasionally to for-profit organizations unless you request otherwise. Whether or not you choose to share your information will have no impact on your interaction with us. Members may choose a confidentiality option by calling Karen Spern, Information Services Manager at the Land Trust Alliance, Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. EST at 1-202-638-4725. We will not provide any of your personal information to other organizations if you elect to keep your record private.

Security of Your Credit Card Information

We take appropriate steps to protect your privacy. We also protect your personal information in storage. For the personal data under our control, we have implemented security policies, rules, and technical measures to ensure protection from unauthorized access, improper use or disclosure, unauthorized modification, unlawful destruction, and accidental loss.

All our employees who have access to, and are associated with processing of personal data, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of our visitors' personal data. For example, if you supply us with your credit card information to become a member or make a donation, we encrypt the card number and send it using a secure transmission method.

Links to Third Party Sites

We provide links to third party sites. Since we do not control those Websites, we encourage you to review the privacy policies posted on these third party sites.

Our Website Services

The Learning Center enables our visitors to communicate with other members of their organization via electronic mail, and may allow visitors to post information to be accessed by others.

Cookies

What are "Cookies"? "Cookies" are small files sent from a Web server to your computer through your browser program. There are two types of cookies: non-persistent and persistent cookies.

Non-persistent cookies enable The Learning Center to temporarily keep information on your computer as you travel from one page to another on our site. This cookie is automatically deleted from your machine when you close your browser. Because these cookies are necessary to successful navigation of The Learning Center, failure to allow such cookies will make our Website unavailable to you.

Persistent cookies are kept even when you close your browser. You can manually delete these cookies using commands specific to your browser and computer system. These cookies store information that would generally not change from session to session. They also contain information that you would otherwise have to reenter each time you visit the Website. For example, a common use of persistent cookies is to allow a registered site visitor to enter the site without having to specify their user-id and password.

Use of Cookies

The Learning Center uses cookies for various reasons. The Learning Center only reads cookies written by our site. It does not use cookies to obtain information on other Websites that you may visit. We may use cookies to store some history about the parts of our sites that you have visited to help you navigate our site more easily or to alert you to related pages on our site that may interest you.

How to Close Your The Learning Center Account

If at any time you wish to discontinue your membership in The Learning Center community, please contact the Webmaster at the Land Trust Alliance (webmaster@lta.org).

Electronic Mail Sent to the Land Trust Alliance Containing Personal Information

You may decide to send the Land Trust Alliance personally identifying information, for example, in a message containing information about your membership. We will only use this information to determine how to respond to the electronic mail. We will not use this information for any purpose other than to resolve the matter identified in the email.

Access to the Personal Data We May Hold About You

You can ask us whether we are keeping personal data about you, by: Sending an email (info@lta.org)
Calling us at this telephone number: (202) 638-4725. Ask for the Information Services Manager.

Questions

The Land Trust Alliance welcomes comments and questions on this policy. We are dedicated to protecting your personal information, and will make every reasonable effort to keep that information secure.

You can help the Land Trust Alliance maintain the accuracy of your information by notifying us of any changes to your address, title, phone number or email address.

To update your membership file, email us at info@lta.org, or write us at:
Land Trust Alliance
1660 L St. NW, Ste 1100
Washington, DC 20036

The information you provide to us will also be covered by this policy. Due to the rapidly evolving technologies on the Internet, we may occasionally update this policy. All revisions will be posted to this site. A revised Privacy Policy will apply only to data collected subsequent to its effective date.

Last Revised: March 1, 2010