Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy details how we process Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”), including the personal data of individuals residing in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) when they interact with our services. In summary, ASGCT

Collects, uses and stores the minimum amount of personal data that is necessary for one or more legitimate business purposes and to comply with legal obligations.
Limits who has access to the personal data in its possession to only those who need it for legitimate business purposes.
Protects personal data through physical and technical security measures tailored to the sensitivity of the personal data we hold.
Communicates with our employees, customers, suppliers, business partners and others about how we intend to use personal data in our day-to-day operations.
Takes reasonable steps to ensure our personal data is accurate and up-to-date.
Integrates privacy in the design of our activities, the software we develop and projects that involve the use of personal data.

Changes to This Policy

ASGCT reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. We will inform you of any changes via an email communication or by placing a prominent notice on our Website. The time stamp you see on the policy will indicate the last date it was revised.

Types of Information Collected

We recognize personal data as any information related to an identified or identifiable individual. Depending on the context of your interactions with ASGCT, we collect and use different types of personal data from website visitors, members of our Society and others that interact with us.

Types of information we collect:

When you apply for an ASGCT membership you will be asked to complete the appropriate form providing your contact and professional information.
We may require your contact details and financial details to register you for events, conferences and our annual meeting. Additional information may be required of registrants seeking additional services such as accommodation preferences.
We may collect information from our customers and partners who advertise in our publications or at our events, including at our annual meeting.
All members and customers have the possibility to create an online account. In addition to the information you provide us when becoming a member, we also process your username, passwords, and we log your activity on our website.
As part of our marketing efforts, we may also send surveys and collect various responses to these surveys which may include contact and professional information. ASGCT uses this information to improve customer service, gather customer feedback and gauge interest in new products or services.
If you attend one of our events, we may take your picture and record you on video. We collect and use videos and photos of members and event attendees in publicly available educational and promotional materials. Some of the videos may include testimonies of persons who authorized us to share their personal experiences.
Event registration service: we rely on Maritz Holdings Inc., on behalf of its subsidiaries and divisions (collectively, “Maritz”) to manage certain event registration services for the ASGCT Annual Meeting, which collects information including device ID, login credentials, content preferences, and social media profiles. The full privacy policy of Maritz is available.
If you submit an article for one of our journals, we collect your name, contact details and professional qualifications and affiliations.
We collect non-personally identifiable information automatically when you visit our site through the use of cookies or similar technologies, such as your IP address, browser type, access times.

Why We Process Your Personal Data

The purposes for which we collect and use your personal data may vary depending on the type of relationship you have with us, such as if you are one of our members or a website visitor.

See below how we use your information:

We process personal data of membership applicants for the purpose of verifying their credentials to see if they meet the criteria to become members and for the purpose of processing the membership fee.
We process personal data of our members when they log into their online accounts for the purpose of managing their membership and providing them membership related services.
We process personal data in the context of article and abstract submissions for the purpose of publication of research in the field of gene and cell therapy.
We process personal data in the context of our educational content to properly award credit and provide evidence to third parties of awarded credit.
We process personal data of participants to our events for the purpose of organizing those events.
We process personal data in the context of marketing activities for the purposes of marketing our services and of communicating with our members and customers.
We process personal data of our members and customers to better discern and serve their needs and improve our products and services.
We process personal data in the context of videos and photos to promote and inform our members and the public about our activities and events.
We process personal data collected through cookies placed by our website to support the operation of our website and to analyze the traffic patterns on our site so as to provide better service to visitors and members. See our Cookies Notice for more information.
We process personal data collected through our annual meeting app for the purpose of helping attendees locate content of interest to them.
For archiving purposes according to our internal regulations as a nonprofit membership organization.
We process personal data to comply with laws and enforcement requests, to enforce applicable agreements and policies for our services, to prevent fraud, and to comply with all applicable laws; including tax and other local regulations.

Disclosures to Third Parties

At times, ASGCT engages third party contractors, service providers, and other vendors to help us accomplish our business objectives. There are other circumstances where we are required by law to disclose personal data to third parties such as public bodies or judicial authorities.

We engage with contractors, service providers or other third parties for the following services:

authorization of credit card transactions
order fulfillment
membership management
marketing email and print partners
event registration

If the engagement involves the transmission of personal data, we require the service provider to treat that data consistent with this Policy. A contract to protect the personal data is executed before any data is disclosed, if that vendor will process personal data of individuals in the EU/EEA on our behalf.

ASGCT may also disclose information in special cases when it has a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process; (b) protect and defend our rights or property; (c) enforce the Website Terms and Conditions of Use; or (d) act to protect the interests of our users or others. Occasionally, ASGCT may be required by law enforcement or judicial authorities to provide personally identifiable information to the appropriate governmental authorities. We will disclose such information upon receipt of a court order or subpoena in cooperation with a law enforcement investigation. ASGCT reserves the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we in good faith believe to be unlawful.

Our Policy Towards Children

ASGCT services are not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. We may incidentally process personal data of children, for instance where participants to our events travel with family. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with personal data without their consent, please contact us. If we become aware that a child has registered for our services and has provided us with personal data without the consent of their parent or guardian, we will delete such information from our files.

Your California Privacy Rights

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 (known as the "Shine the Light" law), ASGCT members and customers who are residents of California may request certain information about our disclosure of personal information during the prior calendar year to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please write to us at the address below or at privacy@asgct.org with "Request for California Privacy Information" on the subject line and in the body of your message. We will comply with your request within thirty (30) days or as otherwise required by the statute. Please be aware that not all information sharing is covered by the "Shine the Light" requirements and only information on covered sharing will be included in our response.

Your European Privacy Rights

If you reside or otherwise find yourself in the European Economic Area (EEA), ASGCT is committed to process your personal data lawfully and facilitate the exercise of your rights granted by the European General Data Protection regulation (GDPR). You can contact us at any time to discuss your privacy concerns.

We only collect and use personal data when there is a legal basis for its collection and use, for instance, when the collection of personal data is necessary to become member of the ASGCT, to meet our legitimate interests to send marketing material, to comply with legal obligations or when we have your authorization. See below the legal basis for each collection:

Membership information: necessity to enter into a contract or for the performance of a contract and legitimate interest
Registration to events, conferences and the annual meeting: necessity to enter into or for the performance of a contract. For certain processing of personal data in relation to our events, we rely on legitimate interest (e.g. taking photos during the event) to advance our mission as a membership organization in providing education and information.
Marketing activities: Consent for email marketing; our legitimate interests for marketing conducted other than through email or phone call;
Business information: necessity to enter into a contract or for the performance of a contract
Videos and photos: Legitimate interest for informational and educational activities with consent to use specific images and video
Annual Meeting registration service: legitimate interest to assist Annual Meeting attendees navigate and organize their meeting experience and consent
Journal submissions: necessity to enter or for the performance of a contract

Privacy Rights Under the European Regulation

Transparency and the right to information. We provide notice to our members, website users and other third parties who interact with us of how we use personal data in our day-to-day activities at the time of collecting personal data, or as soon thereafter as possible. We also publish this privacy notice for a greater transparency.

Right to access, rectification, restriction of processing, erasure, and data portability. If you are based in the EEA we provide you with access to your own personal data. In addition, we will correct your personal data when it is incorrect or inaccurate, and we will ensure the right to erasure, portability and to restriction of processing when these rights are not incompatible with other legal obligations.

Right to object and withdraw consent. At any time, for all marketing materials, you can opt-out anytime, and free of charge. The right to object for other processing activities will be balanced to ensure that it is not incompatible with local regulations or our legitimate interests.

Opt-out requests should be submitted as follows:

Marketing Communications. You can opt-out anytime by following the opt-out instructions in our commercial e-mails or contacting us. You will still continue to receive emails relevant to course registrations or purchases (e.g. registration confirmations or purchase receipts) or necessary to your continued membership in ASGCT (e.g. dues notices).
To exercise any of the other rights listed above: you should send a communication in writing to:

American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy
ATTN: Privacy
20800 Swenson Drive
Suite 300
Waukesha, WI 53188

In order to fulfil an opt out request, we may require information to verify your identity and specify your request. We will attend to your request in a timely manner within 30 days after receiving your request. If for any reason we need to extend this period of time, we will contact you. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data authority.

International Transfers of Personal Data

If you are located outside the United States and you interact with our website or provide us personal data, then your personal data will be transferred to the United States. We transfer your personal data on the basis of the derogations in Article 49 GDPR, particularly:

Necessity to enter and for the performance of a contract for registration information to participate to our events; for processing personal data of our members to maintain their relationship with our organization, provide them services including when they log in to their member accounts; and also for processing personal data for online and offline courses.

Explicit consent, for newsletter subscribers and certain processing in relation to organizing events - such as storing photos, and marketing activities;

As for safeguards to your personal data, we directly apply the GDPR provisions to your personal data. As a matter of principle, we do not engage in any onward transfers regarding your data, beyond the access that our processors have to your data. We select carefully our processors and we require that provide equivalent safeguard mechanisms.

Data Security

ASGCT is committed to the security, confidentiality and integrity principle. We take commercially reasonable precautions to keep all information obtained from our members, conference participants, app users and online visitors secure against unauthorized access and use and we periodically review our security measures. We use identification and authentication processes to insure that access to PII is limited to ASGCT employees who require it. Offsite access to sensitive information requires the use of a VPN. When compiling statistics, we anonymize member data and report on aggregate measures. We employ encryption technology to protect data at rest and in transit. You should be aware, however, that “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet, and third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications.

This site contains links to other sites. While ASGCT strives to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, ASGCT is not responsible for the privacy practices employed by other sites.

Retention Periods

ASGCT retains personal data only for the length of time required to fulfill the purpose for which the data was collected. Per our retention policy, we only keep personal data in our records as long as they are necessary for the purposes they have been processed. The retention period depends on the context in which we process data, for instance:

Complaints involving active members – three years
Membership application, journal article copyright transfer agreements – permanently