Privacy Policy
Effective Date: May 25, 2018
Last Updated: May 10, 2023
Your privacy is important to us at the Science History Institute and its affiliates and subsidiaries (collectively “Science History Institute,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), and we are committed to safeguarding, preserving, and respecting your privacy rights. This online privacy statement (the “Statement” or “Policy”) describes how we collect, use, disclose, and secure the personal information we gather about you through our website, https://www.sciencehistory.org/, including https://digital.sciencehistory.org/ (collectively, the “Site”), our applications, and when you interact with us as a customer or otherwise (collectively, our “Services”).
For purposes of this Statement, personal information means data that classifies as personal information, personal data, personally identifiable information, or similar terms under applicable data privacy and security laws and regulations. It does not include data excluded or exempted from those laws and regulations. Nothing in this Statement will constitute an admission or evidence that any particular data privacy or information security law or regulation applies to the Science History Institute generally or in any specific context.
1. You Consent to This Statement
You should read this Statement carefully so that you understand our privacy practices. We recommend printing and retaining a copy for your future reference. By accessing, browsing, downloading, or otherwise using the Services, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed with this Statement. If you do not agree to this Statement, you may not use the Services.
This Statement applies regardless of how the Services are accessed and will cover any technologies or devices by which we make the Services available to you.
We may provide you with additional privacy notices where we believe it is appropriate to do so. It is important that you read this Statement together with any other privacy notice or terms we may provide on specific occasions, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.
Your use of our Services, and any dispute over privacy, is subject to this Policy and our Terms of Use incorporated by reference into this Policy.
If you have any questions or concerns about our personal information policies or practices, you can contact us in the methods described in the “Contact Us” section below.
2. What Types of Information Do We Collect?
We collect information you voluntarily provide directly to us, information that we collect automatically when you interact with the Services, and information collected from third parties. The categories of personal information that we collect and the purposes for which we collect that information are described below.
Categories of Personal Information We Collect
The following list describes the categories of personal information we collect.
Analytics Information. We collect certain analytics information automatically as you navigate our Services. This includes cookies, tracking pixels, tags or similar tools, which may collect information about your browser, device, geolocation, and interactions with the Services, Site, or emails. For more information, please view the “How Do We Use ‘Cookies’ and Other Tracking Technologies?” section below.
Contact Information includes name, zip code, mailing address, group/school name, email address, and phone number. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us such as when you fill out a form on the Site or in person or when you use our Services (including when you rent our physical locations).
Commercial and Donation History includes information regarding purchases or donations you have made through our Services. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us.
Demographic Information includes name, email address, school name, and age or grade level of students. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us.
Interests and Preferences includes visit types, exhibitions, catering preferences, programs, and events for which you have indicated your interest. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us.
Payment Information includes conference center client name or donor name, address, phone number, gift dedication information if applicable, debit or credit card information, bank account number, routing number, and expiration date. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us, such as using a check or paper credit card form, or to our third party service providers.
Social Media Information includes information that you post by sharing on a blog or another social media platform. We collect this information when you provide it directly to us. Please note that your comments will be visible to the public, so you should never share personal information that you would like to keep private.
User-generated Content. If you post, upload, comment, or otherwise submit content on the Services such as through a product review, we may collect certain information about you. Be aware that as a default, any information you post on the Services, including without limitation review, comments, and text, will be available to and searchable by other users of the Services.
How We Use and Share Personal Information
We reserve the right to collect, use, or share personal information for the following purposes:
Providing the Services. We may use the various types of personal information to provide you with the Services you request.
Presenting our Site. We will use personal information to present our Site and its contents in a suitable and effective manner for you and your device.
Providing Information and Opportunities. We will use your personal information to advertise opportunities, events, exhibitions, and programs we think may be of interest to you.
Customer Service. We will use your personal information to provide you with customer service, troubleshoot issues, manage accounts, and respond to requests, questions, or comments.
Legal Purposes. We reserve the right to cooperate with local, provincial, state, federal and international officials in any investigation requiring either personal information or reports about lawful of unlawful user activity on this Site. We also reserve the right to share your personal information to establish, exercise, or defend our legal and property rights, including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention. We may also share your personal information with any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.
If we are ordered by a legal process or government to provide data about one or more individual users, we will notify those users of our compliance with that order, to the extent permitted by law.
Business Transactions or Mergers. We reserve the right to share your personal information to third parties as part of any potential business or asset sale, merger, acquisition, investment, round of funding, or similar type of transaction. Additionally, if we are entering into a corporate transaction with a third party, we may receive personal information in connection with the diligence. If we close a transaction, the third party may transfer personal information, which we would use as described in this Policy.
Bankruptcy or Insolvency. In the event of bankruptcy, insolvency, or dissolution proceedings, we may share your personal information with third parties as part of the sale or reorganization process.
Information From Our Partners. We may collect information from our partners such as market research firms and our affiliates, subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control. We may combine that information with other information we collect about you, but we will always use the information as described in this Policy. We may also share information with our affiliates, subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control.
3. How Do We Use “Cookies” and Other Tracking Technologies?
We may send one or more cookies to your computer or other device. We may also use other similar technologies such as tracking pixels, tags, or similar tools when you visit our Services. These technologies can collect data regarding your operating system, browser type, device type, screen resolution, IP address, and other technical information, as well as navigation events and session information as you interact with our Services. This information allows us to understand how you use the Services.
What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small files created by websites, including our Services, that reside on your computer’s hard drive and that store information about your use of a particular website. When you access our Services, we use cookies and other tracking technologies to:
- Estimate our audience size and usage patterns
- Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Services according to your individual needs
- Contact you to provide you with information or services that you request from us
- Advertise new content, events, and services that relate to your interests
- Provide you with more personalized content that is most relevant to your interest areas; and
- Recognize when you return to our Services
We set some cookies ourselves and others are set by third parties. You can manage your Cookies preference as described in the “Managing Your Cookies” section below.
| Type of Cookies | Purpose | Who Serves (for example) |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | These cookies are required for the operation of the Services and enable you to move around the Services and use its features. Disabling these cookies can negatively impact the performance of Services. | Science History Institute Adobe SoundCloud Vimeo |
| Functionality | These cookies are used to recognize you when you return to the Services. This enables us to personalize content for you and remember your preferences. These cookies also enable your interactions with the Services such as emailing us and customer support chat. | Amazon Akamai Technologies Bootstrap Browser Update Sentry |
| Analytics, Performance, and Research | These cookies, beacons, and pixels allow us to analyze activities on the Services. They can be used to improve the functioning of the Services. For example, these cookies recognize and count the number of visitors and see how they move around the Services. Analytics cookies also help us measure the performance of our advertising campaigns to help us improve them and to optimize the content on the Services for those who engage with our advertising. | Google HotJar Loggly Meta Mixpanel |
| Social Networking | These cookies are used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on our Services through third-party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes. | Google Meta |
| Advertising | These cookies and pixels are used to deliver relevant ads, track ad campaign performance, or track email marketing. |
What Types of Cookies Do We Use and Why?
The following chart lists the different types of cookies that we and our service providers use on the Services, examples of who serves those cookies and links to the privacy notices and opt-out information of those cookie servers.
We do not use analytical tools in a manner that discloses to third parties that a specific person has viewed specific video materials.
How Long Do Cookies Stay on My Device?
Some cookies operate from the time you visit the Services until the end of that particular browsing session. These cookies, which are called “session cookies,” expire and are automatically deleted when you close your Internet browser.
Some cookies will stay on your device between browsing sessions and will not expire or automatically delete when you close your Internet browser. These cookies are called “persistent cookies” and the length of time they will remain on your device will vary from cookie to cookie. Persistent cookies are used for a number of purposes, such as storing your preferences so that they are available for your next visit and to keep a more accurate account of how often you visit the Services, how your use of the Services may change over time, and the effectiveness of advertising efforts.
Managing Your Cookies
It may be possible to block cookies by changing your Internet browser settings to refuse all or some cookies. If you choose to block all cookies (including essential cookies), you may not be able to access all or parts of the Services.
You can find out more about cookies and how to manage them by visiting www.AboutCookies.org.
Does the Site Respond to “Do Not Track” Signals?
There is currently no industry agreed-upon response to a Do Not Track signal. At this time, our Site does not respond differently based on a user’s Do Not Track signal.
4. Advertising and Marketing Choice
We respect your rights in how your personal information is used and shared. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you can email us at listmanagement@sciencehistory.org or follow the instructions at the bottom of each email, and we will promptly remove you from marketing correspondence. Please note, however, that we may still need to contact you regarding other matters.
5. European Users’ Rights
This section of our Privacy Policy is applicable to persons located in the European Union (“EU”), an European Economic Area member state (“EEA”), United Kingdom (“UK”), or Switzerland as well as to persons whose personal information is processed in or transferred from the EU, EEA, UK, or Switzerland. You are entitled under the EU General Data Protection Regulation and UK General Data Protection Regulation (collectively, the “GDPR”), to the information in this section of our Privacy Policy.
Your Rights
You are entitled by law to access, correct, amend, or delete personal information about you that we hold. A summary listing these rights appears below. Please note that these rights are not absolute and certain exemptions may apply to specific requests that you may submit to us.
To exercise these rights, please contact us using the information below in the “Contact Us” section. For your protection, we may need to verify your identity before responding to your request. In the event that we refuse a request, we will provide you a reason as to why.
Asking us to access your personal information
You have the right to obtain from us confirmation as to whether or not we are processing personal information about you, and if so, the right to be provided with the information contained in this Policy. You also have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. When making a request, please provide an accurate description of the personal information to which you want access. Where requests are repetitive or manifestly unfounded or excessive, we may charge a reasonable fee based on administrative cost.
Asking us to rectify your personal information
You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Asking us to delete your personal information
You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information if:
- We no longer need it for the purposes for which we collected it
- We have been using it with no valid legal basis
- We are obligated to erase it to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject
- We need your consent to use the information and you withdraw consent
- You object to us processing your personal information where our legal basis for doing so is our legitimate interests and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing
However, this right is not absolute. Even if you make a request for deletion, we may need to retain certain information for legal or administrative purposes, such as record keeping, maintenance of opt-out requirements, defending or making legal claims, or detecting fraudulent activities. We will retain information in accordance with the “How Long Is Your Personal Information Kept” section below.
If you do exercise a valid right to have your personal information deleted, please keep in mind that deletion by third parties to whom the information has been provided might not be immediate and that the deleted information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period (but will not be available to others).
Asking us to restrict our use of your personal information
You have the right to ask us to place a restriction on our use of your personal information if one of the following applies to you:
- You contest the accuracy of the information that we hold about you, while we verify its accuracy
- We have used your information unlawfully, but you request us to restrict its use instead of erasing it
- We no longer need the information for the purpose for which we collected it, but you need it to deal with a legal claim
- You have objected to us using your information, while we check whether our legitimate grounds override your right to object
The right to transfer your personal information to another service provider
You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us from one organization to another, or give it to you (i.e. data portability). This applies to personal information we are processing to service a contract with you and to personal information we are processing based on your consent.
The right to withdraw consent
If we obtain your written consent to collect and process your personal information, you can subsequently withdraw such consent as to any further processing of such information.
The right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
If you believe your rights under the GDPR have been violated, the GDPR gives you the right to file a complaint with your supervisory authority. A list of supervisory authorities is available here: EEA and EU Data Protection Authorities (DPAs); Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC); UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Rights related to automated decision-making
To the extent that we engage in decision-making based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or which significantly affects you, you have the right not to be subject to such decision-making.
Right to object to processing
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information that is based on legitimate interests or your consent (rather than when the reason for using it is to perform an obligation due to you under a contract with us). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or we can demonstrate the processing is for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims. You can object to the processing of your personal information by contacting us using the information in the “Contact Us” section below.
Legal Bases for Processing Your Personal Information
The Science History Institute collects your personal information to provide our products and services to you; otherwise, we may not be able to process the transactions you request. We will only process your personal information when we have a lawful basis for doing so. If you are in a country in the EU, EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you are entitled to an explanation of the legal bases we rely on to process your personal information. The legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it, which is discussed below.
Consent. We may process your personal information based on your consent such as when you purchase a service or ask us to send you certain kinds of marketing communications. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of the processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
Children’s Consent. We do not knowingly process data of EU, EEA, UK, or Swiss residents under the age of 16 without reasonably verified parental consent.
Our Legitimate Interests. We may process your personal information if doing so is necessary for our legitimate interests relating to our business purposes arising from your relationship with us, and your rights as an individual do not override those legitimate interests. For example, our legitimate interests include but are not limited to when we process your personal information to carry out fraud prevention activities and activities to increase network and information security, identify usage trends, determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns, expand our business activities and improve our services and the content and functionality of our Services. Our legitimate interests also include providing you with the products and services you request, view, engage with, or purchase and communicating with you regarding your account or transactions with us.
To Perform a Contract. We may process your personal information to administer and fulfill contractual obligations to you. We will also collect and process your personal information as necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party.
To Enable Us to Comply With a Legal Obligation. We may process your personal information to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject. This may include any requirement to produce audited accounts, any legal obligation to share information with law enforcement agencies, public or governmental authorities, and to comply with legal process.
Necessary for the Exercise or Defense of Legal Claims. If you bring a claim against us or we bring a claim against you, we may process your personal information in relation to that claim.
Depending on the situation, we may be the controller or the processor for personal information collected from residents of the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland. If you have any questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information for any specific processing activity, please contact us using the “Contact Us” section below.
Cross-Border Transfers of Personal Information
Our Services are operated in part in the United States. Personal information about you provide while in the EU, an EEA member state, the UK, or Switzerland may be transferred to the United States. The United States does not have an adequacy decision or adequacy regulation. The GDPR permits such transfers when necessary for the performance of a contract between you and us, if we obtain your explicit consent to such transfer, or if it is in our legitimate interest to transfer the personal information. The laws in the United States may not be as protective as the GDPR or the laws of other jurisdictions where you may be located. If we transfer personal information from the EU, EEA, UK, or Switzerland, or another country with cross-border transfer obligations, we will provide an appropriate safeguard, such as using standard contractual clauses.
To obtain a copy of the safeguard(s), please contact us using the information provided in the“Contact Us” section below.
6. How Long Is Your Personal Information Kept
We will retain your personal information until the personal information is no longer necessary to accomplish the purpose for which it was provided. We may retain your personal information for longer periods for specific purposes to the extent that we are obliged to do so in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, to protect you, other people, and us from fraud, abuse, an unauthorized access, as necessary to protect our legal rights, or for certain business requirements.
We will delete your personal information when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or upon your request, subject to exceptions as discussed in this Statement or under applicable law, contract, or regulation.
7. Our Commitment to Data Security
The security of your personal information is important to us. We take various reasonable organizational, administrative, and technical measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. If required by law to do so, we will notify you and/or the relevant supervisory authority in the event of a data breach.
However, we cannot and do not guarantee complete security, as it does not exist on the Internet.
8. Where Your Personal Information Is Held
We process personal information on our servers in the United States of America and may do so in other countries. If you use our Services or otherwise provide us with information from outside of the United States, you expressly consent to the transfer of your data to the United States, the processing of your data in the United States, and the storage of your data in the United States.
9. Third Party Links
The Science History Institute’s Services may contain links to third-party websites. When we provide links, we do so only as a convenience, and we are not responsible for any content of any third-party website or any links contained within. It is important to note that this Statement only applies to the Science History Institute’s Services. We are not responsible and assume no responsibility for any personal information collected, stored, or used by any third party as a result of you visiting third-party websites. We also advise that you carefully read the privacy notice of any third-party websites you choose to visit.
10. Children’s Privacy
Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. Our Services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification or parental consent, we will immediately delete that information. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us using the information provided in the “Contact Us” section below.
11. Policy Changes
This Statement may change from time to time. If we need to change this Statement at some point in the future, we will post any changes on this page. You should check these terms when you use the Site. Your continued use of the Site constitutes acceptance of the most current version of this Statement.
12. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at webmaster@sciencehistory.org, by phone at 215-925-2222, or at our Headquarters at 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106.