Rigpa Fellowship is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy

This policy explains the context in which we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to info.us@rigpa.org. Although the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) only applies to citizens living in the EU, we have taken their guidelines on the processing of personal data as our standard across our site.

Who are we?

Rigpa Fellowship is registered in the U.S. as a religious non-profit. We are classed under the GDPR regulations as a data controller. That means we decide how the personal data you provide is processed and for what purposes. Rigpa Fellowship  (“Rigpa U.S.”, “us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the website https://usa.rigpa.org along with its subdomains & subdirectories (the “Service”, “our website”).

What type of information do we collect?

Contact Information

If you signed up to receive our communications, registered for an event, subscribed for our membership or made a donation on our website, we collect contact information that may include your name, email, address, or phone number. These are generally referred to as contact information.

Payment & Billing Information

If you process any sort of financial transaction through our website, we will collect information related that transaction. All credit card information is processed by a third party payment processor, who specializes in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. We do not retain any sensitive credit card information on our servers. We do retain other pertinent details about the financial transactions for our bookkeeping purposes.

Event-Specific Information

For certain courses, events and retreats, we may ask additional questions on our registration forms to help event organizers and instructors to best prepare for and facilitate the event.

Cookies

Like many other websites, our website uses cookies, which are small pieces of information our site stores on your hard drive to allow our website to recognise you when you visit. They collect anonymous statistical data about your browsing actions that help us generally understand how people engage with our website so we can improve our service. It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences, however this may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Analytics Information

We use analytics services by third parties to collect information about the use of our website, such as how many people visit our site and which pages are most often visited. Analytics tools use tracking technologies (like cookies) to track how you engage with our website. We use this information to help us improve our website. 

reCAPTCHA Information

To guard against spam from the communication forms on our site, this site may be protected by Google’s reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. This just lets us know that you’re not a malicious robot.

Where do we collect your information?

Our Websites

This privacy policy only applies to information collected by Rigpa Fellowship on websites owned and operated by us. Our network of websites currently includes:

Our U.S. National Sites:

U.S. local centers’ websites:

Any webpage you visit that includes ‘usa.rigpa.org’ in its URLs, (with the addition of rigpabayarea.org and dlp.rigpa.org) is operated by Rigpa Fellowship.

We obtain information about you when you use our website, sign up for our mailing list, register for our courses and events, make donations, register or renew your membership subscription, or fill in surveys or questionnaires on our site.

Our Mailing Lists

This policy also covers email lists that are operated by Rigpa Fellowship which currently includes:

  • The Rigpa Fellowship (Rigpa U.S.) email list

  • and the Glimpse of the Day

For these lists, in addition to your email, we may ask for your name, country & zip code, and communication preferences.

Other Websites

There are other Rigpa websites, including our international website (www.rigpa.org) as well as other national Rigpa websites and sites associated with specific Rigpa centers and projects. We (Rigpa Fellowship) do not collect information on these sites and therefore they are not covered by our privacy policy. If you engage with Rigpa websites other than the ones listed above under ‘Our Websites’, we encourage you to read their respective privacy policies.

Our websites may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on other websites you visit. We assume no responsibility for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

How is your information used?

Communications

Email lists

We may use your Personal Information to send you communications which may be of interest to you, based on your communication preferences. These may include newsletters, special announcements, information about our programs and activities, appeals, and notifications about changes in our services.

Email preferences & unsubscribe

You may opt out of receiving certain types of communications from us by clicking the ‘Update preferences’ link at the bottom of our emails, or you may unsubscribe from our email list entirely by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe from this list’ link at the bottom of our emails.

Other forms of communication

We may occasionally use your information to mail certain printed material to you. If you wish for us to discontinue all forms of communication to you, or have specific requests, please contact us (info.us@rigpa.org) and we will update your account accordingly.

Processing and fulfilling contracts

If you register for a course or event, make a donation, or subscribe for or renew a membership, you will receive an email receipt with the details of the transaction. Please keep this for your records.

Improving our services

Based on the information we receive from certain questions on forms and registration pages on our website, as well as from information we get through our website analytics, we may make certain improvements to our platforms and the services we offer.

What is our Legal Basis for processing your data?

Based on article 6 of GDPR, our legal basis for processing your data is as follows:

Consent

“The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes.”

We will directly ask for your consent to process data (through an online form)–

  • When you sign up for any email or mailing list

  • When you register for a membership subscription

Contract

“Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject or to take steps to enter into a contract.”

We will collect and use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • When you register for events- so that we can process your application and any payments, and where applicable, arrange accommodation and activities.

  • When you register for courses- so we can process your application and any payment involved as well as inform you of venue and other details.

  • When you apply for or renew a membership subscription- so we can process your application, any payments, and facilitate offering you the services promised.

  • When you place any order on our website- so that we can process your payment, confirm transaction details (typically via email) and arrange delivery of any goods and services.

Security

SSL Encryption

The safety of your Personal Information is very important to us and we take measures to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any information you transmit to us is encrypted and protected with SSL encryption. When you are on one of our secure pages, the URL will be preceded with ‘https://’ and a lock icon will appear on web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

Passwords

Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Sensitive Information

As mentioned above, highly sensitive information such as credit card data is processed directly by a third party who specializes in data security and credit card processing. We do not retain any credit card information on any of our servers.

At your own risk

We strive to protect your personal information and have security measures in place for both the transmission to and storage of your data on our servers. However, no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Data Breaches

If a data breach were to occur and any unauthorized party managed to gain access to your personal information, we would contact you without undue delay to report the breach and the measures being taken to fix it.  

Access to your information

Who can access your information?

The Rigpa Fellowship staff require access to personal information such as name, address, phone, email and other pertinent information in order to process membership and facilitate events or courses for which you have registered. Our bookkeepers maintain access to information about any financial transactions. For certain events, some instructors and key volunteers will be granted temporary access to certain relevant information to help facilitate the running of the event.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf

Credit Card Processing

When you make purchases or donations through our website, your donation or payment is processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us (info.us@rigpa.org).

Email Lists

We also contract with a third party to help us manage our email list, keep it secure, and maintain its integrity.

An important note regarding third parties

  • We will not sell or rent your information to any third parties.

  • We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Where is your data stored?

The servers where our sites are hosted are all located within the U.S. If you choose to provide your information to us, please be aware that we transfer this information to our servers in the U.S. for processing. By agreeing to this Privacy Policy and submitting your personal data through our website, you are agreeing to this transfer and storage.

Retention Period

We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you may hold with us.

Children’s Privacy

Only persons age 18 or older have permission to access our Service. We do not knowingly process anyone’s data who is under the age of 18 without their parent or guardian’s explicit permission. If you are a parent or guardian and learn that your Child(ren) have provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Your data, Your rights

How you can access and update your information

Registration Platform

  • Go to https://crm.usa.rigpa.org/user

  • Enter your email and password and click ‘login’

  • At the bottom of the page, under Communication Preferences, click ‘View/Edit Communication Preferences’

  • Please email us at info.us@rigpa.org to inform us of any changes so we can make sure they take effect system-wide.

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you notice any of the information that we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know at: info.us@rigpa.org.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Rigpa has about you. Please note we have a small staff and any request may take up to a month to fulfill.

How to withdraw your consent?

This pertains to the consent you give us to send you emails through our mailing list, and to contact you based on your membership subscription. For email, you simply have to click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any email to immediately withdraw your consent. For membership, please contact our bookkeeper at finance.us@rigpa.org with your request.

How you can delete your information (right to be forgotten)

If you wish for us to remove all of your personal information, please write to info.us@rigpa.org with your request. We will respond to you within 5 business days.

Changes to this Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of the date posted at the bottom of this page. We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time so please check back periodically. Your continued use of our Sites after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.

Last Update: December 18th, 2018