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Privacy Policy

Effective Date: April 2022

African Parks (“us”, “we”, or “our”), a conservation NGO that manages protected areas on behalf of governments across Africa, and with entities registered in South Africa, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States, operates the www.visitmatusadona.org website and African Parks’ social media pages (the “Website”) and values the privacy of individuals online.  This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) is applicable to the Website only.  This Privacy Policy informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of personal information when you use the Website and the choices you have associated with that information.  

This Privacy Policy, along with our Terms and Conditions, which are incorporated by reference in their entirety, constitute a legally binding agreement between you and African Parks that conditions your interaction with the Website, where and as permitted by applicable law.  Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before submitting Personal Information (as defined below) to us.  We reserve the right to terminate or limit your access to the Website. 

Collection of Information

The type and amount of information we receive about you depends entirely on how you use our Website. For instance, you may read and download information provided on the Website without providing any Personal Information at all. 

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, device or household.  It does not include de-identified or aggregate information, or public information lawfully available from governmental records.

The Personal Information we collect directly, on a voluntary basis, from you may include, but is not limited to: name, location, e-mail address, company affiliation, telephone number, credit card and payment information, etc.. We use this Personal Information to manage our relationship with you (notably to respond to inquiries and requests for further information).

The legal basis for such processing is your consent. You are informed that you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (without calling into question the processing previously carried out), by writing to info@africanparks.org.

Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that web sites commonly write to the site visitor’s hard drive when a website is visited. A cookie file contains information that can identify a return visitor each time he or she visits the Website. The data is encrypted for added security. The Website may use cookies as a way to measure activity and traffic patterns on the Website in order to continually improve your experience. Cookies also provide visitors the convenience of not having to log in a password more than once the Website, thereby saving the visitor time while on the Website.

If you consent to our use of cookies but later wish to opt out, you may at any time change your browser settings in order to block the cookies. Users do not need to have cookies turned on to visit the Website but will need them to use certain customisable features on the Website that we may launch in the future.

Alternatively, the following links provide instructions in order to manage your cookies preferences:

Finally, you may visit www.aboutcookies.org, a website providing comprehensive information about how to manage your cookies settings on a broad variety of browsers.

We will retain cookies during thirteen (13) months from the collection of your consent.  If you consented to our use of cookies but later wish to opt out, you may change your choice by modifying your browser settings in order to block the cookies.

Use of Personal Information

African Parks uses the collected data for various purposes:

  • To register you for our newsletter and email updates, if you chose to do so;
  • To detect, prevent and address technical issues;
  • To provide and maintain the Website;
  • To notify you about changes to the Website;
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of the Website when you choose to do so;
  • To provide customer care and support;
  • With your permission, to send you the newsletter (if you don’t want to receive these, you may unsubscribe within any e-communication you receive);
  • To provide analysis or valuable information so that we can improve the Website;
  • To process your donation, if you chose to donate;
  • To enhance the accuracy of the information we hold about you;
  • To enforce our Terms and Conditions;
  • To investigate and defend against any third-party claims or allegations;
  • To pursue legitimate interests, such as research and development, processing for historical scientific or statistical purposes, and performing activities carried out in the public interest (we may use data, including public feedback, to conduct research and for the development of the Website and the services and products we provide to you);
  • For other everyday business purposes such as contract management, IT and website administration and security, analytics, fraud prevention, governance, and reporting and legal compliance;
  • To monitor the usage of the Website; and
  • To meet legal requirements and enforcing legal terms, including:
    • Fulfilling our legal obligations under applicable law, regulation, court order, or other legal process, such as preventing, detecting, and investigating security incidents and potentially illegal or prohibited activities;
    • Protecting your, our, and others’ rights, property and safety;
    • Confirming your identity;
    • Enforcing any agreements with you; and
    • Resolving disputes.
Share and transfer of personal information

We will not sell the Personal Information you provide us to a third party at any time.

The processed Personal Information is transmitted to Stripe, Hubspot and Salesforce.

African Park transfers Personal Information to service providers located outside the European Economic Area for the following services:

  • Collecting donations;
  • Communicating with supporters;
  • Making improvements to and optimizing the Website, including through analytics and other technologies (including, but not limited to, data storage, maintenance services, database management, web analytics, and payment processing);
  • With your consent or as you direct;
  • To process payments;
  • To engage in marketing and promotional activities;
  • To protect our interests and legal rights, such as through responding to subpoenas and defending litigation; and
  • To protect against and prevent fraud, illegal activity (such as identifying and responding to incidents of hacking or misuse of the Website), and claims and other liabilities.

Those transfers are carried out in accordance with Standard Contractual Clauses adopted by the European Commission. 

These third parties have access to your Personal Information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose. African Parks takes reasonable precautions to keep all information obtained from our online visitors secure against unauthorized access.

Organizational Transfers

As time passes, African Parks may be sold along with its assets, or other transactions may occur in which Personal Information is one of the assets transferred. In such a case, the Personal Information which we have gathered may be one of the assets we transfer.

Retention of your personal information

African Parks shall retain your Personal Information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes identified under this Privacy Policy.

African Parks will keep your Personal Information for three (3) years after your last correspondence with us.

On the expiry of the applicable data retention period, African Parks undertakes to erase or irrevocably anonymize the relevant Personal Information.

Children and Privacy

African Parks does not knowingly collect Personal Information from or about children age 16 years and under.

External Links

The Website contains links to other Internet websites, and African Parks is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of any linked sites.

Security

The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We seek to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, and disclosure using appropriate physical, technical, organizational, and administrative security measures based on the type of Personal Information and how we are processing that information. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

To the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, you agree and acknowledge that African Parks will not be liable or responsible if any information about you is intercepted, accessed, and/or used by an unintended recipient. If you have reason to believe that the security of your communications or Personal Information has been compromised, please notify us immediately using the contact information below.

Changes to Policy

If African Parks decides to change its privacy policies and practices, we will post those changes to our Privacy Policy on the Website in advance of the changes taking effect, so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will notify users of any material change to this Privacy Policy via email and/or prominent notice on the Website prior to the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy. We will continue to be able to use Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Policy under which the Personal Information was collected.

Notice to EU Users

Please note that the GDPR provides for certain rights. In particular, you have the right to:

  • Access to personal information processed concerning you;
  • Rectification of inaccurate personal information concerning you and a right to erasure;
  • Restriction of processing;
  • Data portability;
  • Object to the processing on grounds relating to your particular situation; and
  • Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

To exercise any of your rights, please contact us by email to the address info@africanparks.org. African Parks will respond to your request in a reasonable time frame, and in any event within one month from receipt thereof.

California Shine The Light

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as “Shine The Light” law, permits California residents to annually request information regarding the disclosure of your Personal Information (if any) to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. We do not share your Personal Information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes.

Do Not Track

“Do Not Track” is a privacy preference that you can set in your Internet search browser that sends a signal to a website that you do not want the website operator to track certain browsing information about you. However, because the Website is not configured to detect Do Not Track signals from a user’s computer, we are do not respond to Do Not Track requests. More information about “do not track” is available at www.allaboutdnt.org concerning such information.

We do not track users over time and across third-party websites. Third parties, other than our service providers (such as our analytics provider), do not have our permission to track which websites you visited prior to and after visiting the Website.

Unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from any African Parks electronic newsletter, please send an email request to info@africanparks.org and type the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Questions

Any questions regarding this privacy policy should be directed to our site coordinator at info@africanparks.org.