Privacy Policy | Amer. Microscopical

The American Microscopical Society (collectively, “AMS”, “The Society”, or “We”, “) is committed to protecting your privacy and your personal information. We have designed our Society’s website so that unless you access member-only pages, you can visit us on the Web without identifying yourself or revealing any personal information, such as your name and email address.

This Privacy Policy describes how AMS protects, collects, and uses personal information you provide to The Society. For authors submitting manuscripts for publication in The Society’s journal, Invertebrate Biology, the Kriyadocs privacy policy will be in effect for any personal data shared during the publishing process.

How AMS Protects Your Data

AMS will use appropriate physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the personal data you share with the Society. The AMS website is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Wix.com provides us with the online platform that allows us to collect membership dues and deliver our products and services. Your data may be stored through Wix.com’s data storage, databases, and the general Wix.com applications. Wix stores your data on secure servers behind a firewall.

All direct payment gateways offered by Wix.com and used by AMS to collect membership dues and donations adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of credit card information by AMS.

While AMS makes every reasonable effort to safeguard your personal information collected through its website, please recognize that we can’t guarantee that our website is 100% safe from illegal tampering or “hacking” and that there is always some risk when submitting data over the internet.

Third-Party Websites

The Society’s website may include links to third-party websites. In using such links, please be aware that each third-party website is subject to its own privacy and data protection policies and is not covered by the AMS Privacy Policy.

How AMS Collects Information Through Its Website

The AMS website may collect information from you in the following ways. (1) Similar to most websites, we gather certain information automatically when you visit our web pages which helps us administer our website. This information may include IP addresses, browser type, Internet service provider ("ISP"), referring and exit pages, the files viewed on our site (e.g., HTML pages, graphics, etc.), operating system, date/time stamp, general location data, and clickstream data. (2) When you become an AMS member, we ask you to provide us with your name, email address, and AMS website login password. This personal information is used to grant you access to member-only webpages that are associated with your category of membership and to provide you with information about the Society. We also ask you to provide AMS with information concerning your areas of professional expertise, and if you would consider serving as a reviewer for our journal. By submitting your personal information to AMS you consent to the practices described in this policy. If you are less than 18 years of age, then you must first seek the consent of your parent or guardian before submitting any personal information.

How AMS Uses Your Information

AMS uses personal information to provide you with products, services, and information associated with different categories of Society membership, which may include: (1) accessing member-only webpages containing links to articles published in Invertebrate Biology and the minutes of AMS Business and Annual Meetings, (2) sharing AMS newsletters, (3) notifying you about changes or updates to our website, products, or services, and (4) to comply with legal obligations. AMS also uses your information to detect fraud, investigate suspicious activity, and otherwise keep our site safe and secure.

The information automatically collected when you visit our website, or when the Society has a legitimate business interest in using your information to enhance the services and products we provide. Legitimate business purposes include but are not limited to one or all the following: providing direct marketing and assessing the effectiveness of promotions and advertising; modifying, improving, or personalizing our services, products, and communications; detecting fraud; investigating suspicious activity and otherwise keeping our site safe and secure; and conducting data analytics. This usage data may be processed to analyze the use of the website and services.

The AMS website uses four types of Cookies:

Essential Cookies - These cookies enable core functionality such as security, verification of identity, and network management. These cookies can’t be disabled.

Marketing Cookies - These cookies are used to track outreach effectiveness and assess user interest in our web pages. We use this information to provide more relevant services and content to suit your needs.

Functional Cookies - These cookies collect data to remember choices users make to improve and give a more personalized experience at the AMS website.

Enable Analytics Cookies - These cookies help us to improve our website by understanding how visitors interact with our website and allow us to discover errors.

How AMS Discloses and Shares Your Information

AMS will not disclose, share, or sell your personal information with any unaffiliated third party except where AMS is required to disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities and government agencies, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; to comply with a subpoena or other legal process; when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our services, users or others; and to investigate fraud.

AMS may share navigational and transactional information in the form of anonymous, aggregate usage statistics and demographics information that does not reveal your identity or personal information with our publishing partners, Kriyadocs and BioOne.

Your Rights

You have the right to make a written request to be informed whether we hold or process any of your personal information by emailing AMS@amicros.org. In your written request, you may:

Request that we provide you with details of your personal information that we process, the purpose for which it is processed, the recipients of such information, the existence of any automated decision-making involving your personal information, and what transfer safeguards we have in place;
Request that we rectify any errors in your personal information;
Request that we delete your personal information if our continued processing of such information is not justified;
Request that we transfer your personal information to a third party;
Object to automated decision-making and profiling based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest (in which event the processing will cease except where there are compelling legitimate grounds, such as when the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract between us);
Object to direct marketing from us; and
Object to processing for purposes of scientific, historical research, and statistics.

Where applicable under your local laws, we will not use your personal information for marketing purposes, nor disclose your information to any third parties, unless we have your prior consent, which we will seek before collecting your personal information. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the consent forms we use when collecting your personal information and rejecting our cookies. If at any point you wish to review or change your preferences you can use the "opt-out", an unsubscribe mechanism, or other means provided within the communications that you receive from us or by sending an email to AMS@amicros.org with the subject line of Unsubscribe.

California residents may request and obtain from us, once a year, free of charge, a list of third parties, if any, to which we disclosed their information for direct marketing purposes during the preceding calendar year and the categories of information shared with those third parties. If you are a California resident and wish to obtain that information, please submit your request by sending us an email at AMS@amicros.org with "California Privacy Rights" in the subject line.

Comments, Complaints, or Questions

Any comments, complaints, or questions concerning this policy or complaints or objections about our use of your personal information should be addressed by directing your comments to AMS@amicros.org with Privacy Policy in the subject line.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Please note that the Society’s Privacy Policy is reviewed periodically. AMS reserves the right to modify its Privacy Policy at any time without notice. Any changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on this page and will become effective on the date of posting. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

The American Microscopical Society – Privacy Policy 14 December 2024