Policy With Respect To Privacy

 

The policy of the Association is governed by:

• The principles established by the World Wide Web Consortium in its Platform For Privacy Preferences Program (P3P) Guiding Principles, as set forth in NOTE-P3P10-principles-19980721, as stated at <http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-P3P10-principles>.  That document is attached to this policy statement.

•  Article I of the USIIA Code of Practice, which states:

 Members shall base their professional principles on the fundamental value and dignity of the individual, holding that the free exercise of human rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the protection of personal privacy, is essential to the communication process.

 The policy of the Association is:

• USIIA seeks to promote privacy and trust on the Web by enabling service providers to disclose their information practices, and enabling individuals to make informed decisions about the collection and use of their personal information.  Trust is built upon the mutual understanding that each party will respect the agreement reached.  Service providers should preserve trust and protect privacy by applying relevant laws and principles of data protection and privacy to their information practices.

• Service providers should provide timely and effective notices of their information practices, allowing consumers to access these notices and make decisions based on them.  Service providers should communicate explicitly about data collection and use, including information collected through web interactions, identifying the purpose for which personal information is collected and the extent to which it may be shared.

•  Consumers should be given the ability to make meaningful choices about the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Consumers should retain control over their personal information and decide the conditions, if any, under which they will share it.

• Service providers should limit their requests to information necessary for fulfilling the level of service desired by the consumer. This will reduce consumer frustration, increase trust, and enable relationships with many consumers, including those who may wish to have an anonymous, pseudonymous, customized, or personalized relationship with the service.

• Service providers should obtain informed consent prior to the collection and use of personal information, and provide the ability to review and if appropriate correct personal information.

• Service Providers should transfer personal information only to sites with which the consumer has reached an agreement authorizing such transfers or when authorized by the consumer.

• Service providers should accurately represent their information practices in a clear and unambiguous manner -- never with the intention of misleading consumers.  They should use information only for the stated purpose and retain it only as long as necessary and ensure that information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date.

• Service providers should disclose methods of accountability for the data collected and means for recourse in event of an error.

• Consumers’ personal information should always be protected with reasonable security safeguards in keeping with the sensitivity of the information, and use appropriate trusted protocols for the secure transmission of data.

Approved 3/3/00