Privacy Policy

Introduction

At the National Fire Protection Association, we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy.

This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you, including information that you may provide when you visit the website http://www.nfpa.org (our “Website”), other NFPA web-based properties and any NFPA applications (all of these collectively, the “NFPA Web Properties“) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information we collect:

online, including but not limited to information collected on NFPA Web Properties, social media and networking channels
through telephone, email, text, live chat and other electronic messages between you and NFPA Web Properties that you visit;
through surveys, questionnaires or other forms
through mobile and desktop applications you download from NFPA, including those which provide dedicated non-browser-based interaction between you and NFPA;
when you interact with our advertising and applications on third-party websites and services

It does not apply to information collected by a third party. When a third party collects or uses your information, their policies apply.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Web Properties, or, to the extent applicable, to opt out of a particular data collection, use or sharing practice. By accessing or using NFPA Web Properties, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to this Privacy Policy). Your continued use of NFPA Web Properties reflects your consent to the terms of this policy and any changes that may be made to it, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Children Under the Age of 16

Except for the NFPA website www.sparky.org, which is designed for children, including children under age 13; our Web Properties are not intended for children under 16 years of age who are not supervised by a parent or guardian. No one unsupervised under age 16 should provide any information to or on NFPA Web Properties. We do not knowingly collect information from or about unsupervised children under 16. If you are under 16, do not register on NFPA Web Properties, make any purchases through the Web Properties, use any of the interactive or public comment features of our Web Properties or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received information from a child under 16 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 16, please contact us at:

One Batterymarch Park
Quincy, MA 02169-7471
https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences
+1 617 770-3000

Important definitions

The following definitions are used throughout these policies:

Our “Website” means http://www.nfpa.org

NFPA “Web Properties” means our Website, any NFPA web-based properties and any NFPA applications

“Personal Information” means your name, email address, postal address or telephone number

Types of Information We Collect About You

We collect several types of information about you, including:

contact information such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number;
profile information, which may include contact information, purchase information, job title, your company or organization name or affiliation, your industry, job function, membership number, length of time as a member, NFPA topics of interest, membership sections, materials that you have downloaded from our Web Properties (e.g. white papers, fact sheets, tip sheets, checklists, etc.) and other materials that may be of interest to you based in part on your profile preference settings;
purchase information, which may include products and services you have purchased, payment method, payment information (such as credit card number and information)
licenses or permissions we have granted to you, such as a license to use the Firewise USA® logos or NFPA membership logos;
information about you, including but not limited to information that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as collecting information about how many Website visitors download a white paper or research report or products you have viewed;
about your internet connection, your location, the equipment you use to access our Web Properties and usage details;

We collect this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to us;
Automatically as you navigate through the NFPA web properties or open and click through NFPA email messages. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, pixel tags, and other tracking technologies.
From third parties, for example, our business partners.

How we collect information

Information You Provide to Us. The information we collect on or through the NFPA Web Properties may include:

the information that registered users, NFPA members or NFPA committee members provide in connection with creating a profile or completing an application;
information that you provide by filling in forms on our Web Properties. By way of example, this includes information provided at the time of registering to use our Web Properties, subscribing to our service, posting material, or requesting further services. This may also include information you provide when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, and when you report a problem with our Web Properties;
records of your correspondence;
your responses to surveys or questionnaires that we might ask you to complete;
details of transactions you carry out through our Web Properties and of the fulfillment of your orders for products and/or services. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through our Web Properties;
your search queries on the Web Properties;
any information provided by job applicants through the Web Properties;
any input or other information provided to us in connection with the NFPA standards development process;
any information you provide in connection with an NFPA application, such as conferences attended, conference sessions attended, feedback, downloaded materials;
any information you provide in connection with using an online tool or other offering provided by NFPA;

You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted“) on or within the Web Properties, or transmitted to other users of the Web Properties or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions“). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although certain of the NFPA Web Properties allow you to set certain privacy settings for such information by logging into your account profile (for example, in NFPA Xchange™), please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Web Properties with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies. As you navigate through and interact with our Web Properties, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and behavioral patterns, including:

Details of your visits to our Web Properties, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Web Properties.
Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).

The information we collect automatically may include information that identifies you personally or we may maintain it or associate it with other information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Web Properties and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

Estimate our audience size and usage patterns;
Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Web Properties according to your individual interests;
Speed up your searches;
Recognize you when you return to our Web Properties.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Web Properties. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Web Properties. For more information about cookies, you can visit websites such as https://www.aboutcookies.org/ or http://youronlinechoices.eu/
Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Web Properties may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Web Properties. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information, below.
Pixel Tags. Pages of our Web Properties and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). We also may use third party pixels, which are provided by a third party and allow us to learn more about you and the effectiveness of our advertising on third-party.
Google Analytics. Pages of our Web Properties are designed to collect cookies from you and aggregate data to help us track usage patterns and analyze the effectiveness of our marketing and/or communication efforts and Web Properties performance.

Third-party use of cookies and other tracking technologies

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Web Properties are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Web Properties. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

How we use your information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

To present our Web Properties and their contents to you.
To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us or which we think might be of interest to you.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
To provide you with notices about your account, including expiration and renewal notices.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts.
To notify you about changes to our Web Properties or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Web Properties
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose with your consent.
We may also use your information to contact you about our own or third-parties’ goods and services.

We may use the information we have collected from you to enable us to display advertisements to our advertisers’ target audiences. Even though we do not disclose your personal information for these purposes without your consent, if you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement, the advertiser may assume that you meet its target criteria.

Disclosure of your information to third parties

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose information (including personal information) that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of National Fire Protection Association’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which information held by National Fire Protection Association about our Web Properties’ users is among the assets transferred.
To third parties to market their products or services to you.
To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you give us an email address to use the “email a friend” feature of our Web Properties, we will transmit the contents of that email and your email address to the recipients.
For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
We may also disclose your information:
To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request or requirement.
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of National Fire Protection Association, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Data security

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Web Properties, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of our Web Properties like message boards. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of our Web Properties.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Web Properties. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on our Web Properties.

Choices about how we use and disclose your information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information, including your personal information:

Disclosure of Your Information for Third-Party Advertising. If you do not want us to share your personal information with unaffiliated or non-agent third parties for promotional or other purposes, please contact us at https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences.

Promotional Offers from NFPA. If you do not wish to have your email address used by NFPA to promote our own or third parties’ products or services, you can opt out by contacting us at https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You can review and change your personal information and preferences by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page.

You may also contact us at https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement, NFPA policy or cause the information to be incorrect.

If you delete your User Contributions from the Web Properties, copies of your User Contributions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other Web Properties users. Proper access and use of information provided on the Website, including User Contributions, is governed by our terms of use found here: https://www.nfpa.org/termsofuse.

Your California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 permits users of our Web Properties that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us at: https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences or write us at: One Batterymarch Park, Quincy, Massachusetts 02169-7471.

Changes to our privacy policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page with a notice that the privacy policy has been updated on the Website home page. If we make material changes to how we treat information, we will notify you through a notice on the Website home page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact information

To make a complaint, ask questions or comment about this privacy policy or any related concerns, please contact us at:

One Batterymarch Park
Quincy, MA 02169-7471
https://www.nfpa.org/managepreferences
or via our toll-free number:
+1 617 770-3000

Last reviewed November 2, 2018