Privacy Policy for the Society of Animal Artists (SAA) ~ UPDATED 6.14.2018

Overview: This policy applies to all of the SAA’s physical activity and online social media accounts, although they may vary based on platform specifics.  The SAA respects the privacy of our membership and that of the public interacting with us.  We do not sell or distribute any user information.  Content submitted to us is used for the specific purposes noted and is shared only within our organization unless it additionally applies to other social media accounts or venues hosting our exhibitions.

Location: The SAA Office is currently housed in locations in Colorado, Illinois and Tennessee
Our website address is: https://societyofanimalartists.com

What we store: The SAA maintains databases with the following information on computers and external storage devices:

  • The SAA retains on members: Name, Address, Phone, Email, Society Activity
    • This information is kept for the duration of the Society and includes information on past members.
    • We have Date of Birth and Date of Death information as submitted or determined
  • The SAA retains on applicants: Name, Address, Phone, Email, Society Acceptance
    • This information is kept for the duration of the Society unless specifically requested to be deleted by the applicant
      • Note that our process of resubmission and potential waiving of fees requires records be kept!
      • Once accepted, applicants’ activity with the SAA will be maintained

Why and how long we store: The information kept by the SAA is for the purpose of historical records, staging exhibitions, producing catalogs, our website and for current communications.  Applicable information is shared only with museum venues and within the Society. ALL information posted on our website, our social media accounts, printed materials and in our exhibitions, should be considered fully open to the public.

  • The SAA maintains: Excel databases, catalogs and website files
    • This information is held and maintained at the SAA Office location(s)
    • The SAA website server holds only files related to the website
  • The SAA Privacy Policy is located on the Society’s website and may be requested from the office
  • The SAA does not store any data currently considered as “sensitive” (i.e. race, religion)
  • Data maintained by the SAA is collected from individual submissions to the Society

Newsletter and Communications: Society newsletters are for members only and are used for distributing information.  The SAA does track response activity with the newsletters to determine if they are being opened by the membership.  Email communications may be stored indefinitely in the SAA archives for the purpose of conducting future business and as a historical record.

Applicant and Member Rights: You have the right to request what data we store pertaining to you and your activity with the SAA. You also have the right to request that we stop maintaining this data. For applicants, this means you may be required to submit jury fees again (we maintain a record of those whose fees were waived by jury vote). For members, terminating your membership with the SAA means we will no longer actively maintain records pertaining to you. Prior printed records in historical archives, catalogs and records of past members are still maintained.

Additional Website Data Submission/Collection

Media: If you upload or email to the SAA webmaster or social media accounts images, you should avoid including embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from these images. 

Forms on this website: Information submitted via forms is for SAA internal use but may be shared in part with venues hosting exhibitions if applicable. 

Cookies: The SAA website does not use cookies to track users.

Embedded content from other websites: Social media articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.  These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics: This website, and some of our social media accounts, collects anonymous visitor information to determine how they are being used.  This information is only shared in a general sense within the organization.  We do not identify, review or discuss individual user’s browsing activity.

How we protect your data: The information we collect is general in nature and considered publicly available via the website, social media and in our printed catalogs.  We have installed an SSL certificate on the SAA website to protect data transmission and temporary storage.  Offline data is stored on local office machines protected by firewalls and anti-virus/intrusion software.  The latter is updated daily.

What data breach procedures we have in place: Information stored by the SAA is not sensitive in nature.  If a data breach occurs, we will notify those affected as soon as possible.

Questions: Contact our Executive Director at admin@societyofanimalartists.com or see the website for the current phone number.