Privacy Policy

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1. Sources and Types of Information Collected

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We are committed to protecting the privacy of the data we collect from you when visit or use the services we provide through our website, or when you otherwise contact or interact with us.

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We recognize personal data as any information related to an identified or identifiable individual.

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This policy covers information collected through this website, including ‘personal data’ from website visitors.  These categories of data subjects include individuals who reside outside the United States in the European Economic Area (EEA).

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Sources and Types of information we collect:

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Information Submitted via the Contact Page: Visitors to the site who submit a message via the Contact page are sharing their email address, first and last names, and affiliation with the members of the Meridian Secretariat monitoring the contact form.

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Information Collected Automatically: There is other information that we collect automatically when you visit our site, through the use of cookies, pixel tags, or similar technologies. These technologies allow us to collect additional information such as your IP address, device and browser type, and pages visited.

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In addition, we utilize the following third-party technologies to capture data:

1. Google Analytics

 

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2. Use of Information: Purposes and Legal Basis

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The purposes for which Meridian Institute collects and uses your personal data may vary depending on the type of relationship you have with us: whether you are a project participant, a newsletter subscriber, an employee or fellow, or a vendor.

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We collect and use Personal Data from you according to the following purposes and legal basis:

We have a legitimate interest in conducting the following activities:

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Information Submitted via the Contact Page: First and last name, email address, and affiliation help us respond to the inquiries submitted via the website Contact page.

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Information collected automatically: this information is used to support the operation of our website and to analyze the traffic patterns on our site. 

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3. International Transfers of Personal Data

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If you are located outside the United States and you interact with this website or provide us personal data, then your personal data may be transferred to the United States.

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We transfer your personal data to the United States whenever you interact with us. The US has not sought, nor obtained adequacy status from the European Union. The level of protection of your personal data is not deemed equivalent to the one in the EEA, unless the receiving organization is self-certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield. As a not-for-profit organization, we are not able eligible to adhere to the EU-US Privacy Shield Principles.

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For any project with European clients, we sign standard contractual clauses. When this is not possible, we transfer your personal data based on the derogations in Article 49 GDPR, particularly:

• Explicit consent, for newsletter subscribers and certain processing in relation to organizing events or facilitating access to information - such as storing photos or documents;

• necessity to enter and for the performance of a contract for with our project participants; and for working with third party contractors or vendors.

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

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4. Retention Periods

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We retain personal data in our records only for the length of time required to fulfill the purpose for which the data was collected. According to 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.

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5. Your European Privacy Rights

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If you reside or otherwise find yourself in the European Economic Area (EEA), we are committed to processing your personal data lawfully and to facilitate the exercise of your data protection rights granted by European data protection law. You can contact us at any time to discuss your privacy concerns or to exercise these rights.

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Privacy rights under the European regulation:

Transparency and the right to information. We provide notice to our website users and other third parties who interact with us on 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 greater transparency.

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Right to access, rectification, restriction of processing, erasure, and data portability. We provide you with access to your own personal data. In addition, we will rectify 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.

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To exercise your rights:

You should send a communication in writing and provide the following information in order to verify your identity: Your first and last name, phone number, and email address. 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.

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If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority of your habitual residence, place of work, or place of the alleged infringement.

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6. Data Security

 

We are committed to the security, confidentiality and integrity principles. We take commercially reasonable precautions to keep all information obtained from our online visitors secure against unauthorized access and use and we periodically review our security measures.

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

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7. Changes to this Policy

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We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. We will duly inform you of any changes.