IKO takes your privacy seriously. Please read the following Privacy Policy carefully to learn more about IKO and IKO’s business partners' use of your personal identifying information that IKO collects when you visit www.ikointl.com and IKO mobile App (hereinafter referred as the "Website"). IKO reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time without notice to you. You are therefore responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Policy.

Information we collect

Personal Data Provided by You: We collect and store any personally identifiable information you provide to us when you create your profile and by using certain features of our Website. You are under no obligation to provide us with personal information of any kind, however, your refusal to do so may prevent you from using certain features or accessing certain products provided on our Website.
Automatic Data: We and our authorized 3rd-party agents receive and store various types of information when you interact with our Website that does not include any of your personal information such as IP address, cookies, device you are using, language displayed, geographic location and other data in order to analyze statistics and trends, diagnose and administer our Website and also improve the quality of our services.

Information we collect falls into one of two categories: “voluntarily provided” information and “automatically collected” information.

“Voluntarily provided” information refers to any information you knowingly and actively provide us when using or participating in any of our services and promotions.

“Automatically collected” information refers to any information automatically sent by your devices in the course of accessing our products and services.

Log Data

When you visit our website, our servers may automatically log the standard data provided by your web browser. It may include your device’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, your browser type and version, the pages you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on each page, and other details about your visit.

Additionally, if you encounter certain errors while using the site, we may automatically collect data about the error and the circumstances surrounding its occurrence. This data may include technical details about your device, what you were trying to do when the error happened, and other technical information relating to the problem. You may or may not receive notice of such errors, even in the moment they occur, that they have occurred, or what the nature of the error is.

Please be aware that while this information may not be personally identifying by itself, it may be possible to combine it with other data to personally identify individual persons.

Device Data

When you visit our website or interact with our services, we may automatically collect data about your device, such as:

Device Type
Operating System
Unique device identifiers
Device settings
Geo-location data

Data we collect can depend on the individual settings of your device and software. We recommend checking the policies of your device manufacturer or software provider to learn what information they make available to us.

Personal Information

We may ask for personal information — for example, when you submit content to us or when you contact us — which may include one or more of the following:

Name
Email
Social media profiles
Date of birth
Phone/mobile number
Home/mailing address
Nationality
Gender

Sensitive Information

“Sensitive information” or “special categories of data” is a subset of personal information that is given a higher level of protection. Examples of sensitive information include information relating to your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion, trade union or other professional associations or memberships, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, sexual practices or sex life, criminal records, health information, or biometric information.

The types of sensitive information that we may collect about you include:

Health information

We will not collect sensitive information about you without first obtaining your consent, and we will only use or disclose your sensitive information as permitted, required, or authorized by law.

User-Generated Content

We consider “user-generated content” to be materials (text, image and/or video content) voluntarily supplied to us by our users for the purpose of publication on our website or re-publishing on our social media channels. All user-generated content is associated with the account or email address used to submit the materials.

Please be aware that any content you submit for the purpose of publication will be public after posting (and subsequent review or vetting process). Once published, it may be accessible to third parties not covered under this privacy policy.

Legitimate Reasons for Processing Your Personal Information

We only collect and use your personal information when we have a legitimate reason for doing so. In which instance, we only collect personal information that is reasonably necessary to provide our services to you.

Collection and Use of Information

We may collect personal information from you when you do any of the following on our website:

Register for an account
Enter any of our competitions, contests, sweepstakes, and surveys
Sign up to receive updates from us via email or social media channels
Use a mobile device or web browser to access our content
Contact us via email, social media, or on any similar technologies
When you mention us on social media

We may collect, hold, use, and disclose information for the following purposes, and personal information will not be further processed in a manner that is incompatible with these purposes:

to provide you with our platform’s core features and services
to enable you to customize or personalize your experience of our website
to deliver products and/or services to you
to contact and communicate with you
for analytics, market research, and business development, including to operate and improve our website, associated applications, and associated social media platforms
for advertising and marketing, including to send you promotional information about our products and services and information about third parties that we consider may be of interest to you
to consider your employment application
to enable you to access and use our website, associated applications, and associated social media platforms
for internal record keeping and administrative purposes
to run competitions, sweepstakes, and/or offer additional benefits to you
to comply with our legal obligations and resolve any disputes that we may have
to attribute any content (e.g. posts and comments) you submit that we publish on our website
for security and fraud prevention, and to ensure that our sites and apps are safe, secure, and used in line with our terms of use
for technical assessment, including to operate and improve our app, associated applications, and associated social media platforms

We may combine voluntarily provided and automatically collected personal information with general information or research data we receive from other trusted sources. For example, Our marketing and market research activities may uncover data and insights, which we may combine with information about how visitors use our site to improve our site and your experience on it.

Security of Your Personal Information

When we collect and process personal information, and while we retain this information, we will protect it within commercially acceptable means to prevent loss and theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification.

Although we will do our best to protect the personal information you provide to us, we advise that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure, and no one can guarantee absolute data security.

You are responsible for selecting any password and its overall security strength, ensuring the security of your own information within the bounds of our services. For example, ensuring any passwords associated with accessing your personal information and accounts are secure and confidential.

How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We keep your personal information only for as long as we need to. This time period may depend on what we are using your information for, in accordance with this privacy policy. For example, if you have provided us with personal information as part of creating an account with us, we may retain this information for the duration your account exists on our system. If your personal information is no longer required for this purpose, we will delete it or make it anonymous by removing all details that identify you.

However, if necessary, we may retain your personal information for our compliance with a legal, accounting, or reporting obligation or for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific, or historical research purposes or statistical purposes.

Disclosure of Your Information

IKO will not sell or rent your personal identifying information without your consent. IKO may send personal identifying information about you to third parties as follows:

Service Providers: We may share the information we have collected to various third-party services that help us provide our services (“Service Providers”). All our Service Providers are required to protect your information and limit their usage to the completion of services for our Website only.
Our Team Members: Our team or authorized consultants may have access to your personal information in order to be able to develop and conduct our business properly.
Transfers: If our company would be acquired, your personal information would be among the transferred assets.
Required by Law or to Protect Rights: If we believe the release of information about you is necessary to respond to legal process, to investigate or remedy potential violations of our policies, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of others, we may share your information as permitted or required by any applicable law, rule, or regulation.

Cookies

We use cookies in order to capture log data and improve your experience on our Website. There are two types of cookies that we use, session based(that are deleted once you close your browser) and persistent cookies (that are deleted manually by you or once their expiration date is met by the browser). Here are the cases when we use cookies:

Account Access: We use cookies in order to allow you to access your customer account.
Tawk.to Chat Access: We use cookies to provide you a better customer support. You can disable Chat by opting out in user profile or in the cookie banner.
Google Translate: This feature uses cookies to offer some translation in our content.
Security: Cookies help us protect you from various security risks. For example, we use cookies and Google CAPTCHA to validate that the contents of the forms on our Website came from the current website and not from somewhere else.
Analytics and Service Providers: We use various Service Providers (such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Facebook Pixels among other) to help us analyze and improve our products and services. You can disable Analytics by opting out in your Account or in the cookie banner.
Advertising: We also may use third-party advertising services like Google AdWords or Google Sense to promote our products or services. Some of these services may read or set cookies in order to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns.

If you do not want to accept our cookies, you can opt out in your Account or in the cookie banner. You can also adjust your browser settings to decline cookies for our website as described here.

We recommend you to leave the cookies activated in order to be able to use all our Website’s features. Some of our business partners may use cookies on our Website. We do not have any access or control over these cookies.

Security

If you communicate with IKO by email, you should note that the secrecy of Internet email is uncertain. By sending sensitive or confidential messages or information which are not encrypted you accept the risk of possible lack of confidentiality over the Internet. IKO uses industry standard SSL encryption to protect data transmissions. Despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other types of misuse. Any information disclosed online is vulnerable to interception and misuse by unauthorized parties. Therefore, we cannot guarantee complete security if you provide personal information.

Third-Party Websites

Our Website contains referrals to and links to other websites. Such links should not be seen as an endorsement, approval or agreement with any information or resources offered through our Website. If in doubt, always check the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address provided in your browser to see if you are still in our Website. Those websites are not covered by this Privacy Policy, and we cannot guarantee the safety and privacy of your information. Inform yourself of the privacy policies and practices (if any) of the third party responsible for that website. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of any third parties, including other websites, services or applications that may be linked to or from our Website.

Updating your personal information and privacy preferences

You have the right to access and correct your personal information at any time and request to receive an exported file of the personal data from your Account. You can request that we can erase any personal data we hold about you except the data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

If you no longer wish to receive communication, emails, or other communications from us, you may edit the tab subscription in your Account. Keep in mind that you will still receive emails regarding the services you have subscribed unless you terminate your account.

Additional Disclosures for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance (EU)

Data Controller / Data Processor

The GDPR distinguishes between organisations that process personal information for their own purposes (known as “data controllers”) and organizations that process personal information on behalf of other organizations (known as “data processors”). We, International Scuba Diving Organization, located at the address provided in our Contact Us section, are a Data Controller and/or Processor with respect to the personal information you provide to us.

Legal Bases for Processing Your Personal Information

We will only collect and use your personal information when we have a legal right to do so. In which case, we will collect and use your personal information lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner. If we seek your consent to process your personal information, and you are under 16 years of age, we will seek your parent or legal guardian’s consent to process your personal information for that specific purpose.

Our lawful bases depend on the services you use and how you use them. This means we only collect and use your information on the following grounds:

Consent From You

Where you give us consent to collect and use your personal information for a specific purpose. You may withdraw your consent at any time using the facilities we provide; however this will not affect any use of your information that has already taken place. You may consent to providing your name and contact details for the purpose of entering a giveaway or promotion. While you may withdraw your entry at any time, this will not affect any selection or judging that has already taken place. If you have any further enquiries about how to withdraw your consent, please feel free to enquire using the details provided in the Contact Us section of this privacy policy.

You agree to give the IKO full commercial rights to use your online content for IKO marketing purposes, including on social media. This includes but is not limited to photos and videos on your IKO Center website and social media profiles

Performance of a Contract or Transaction

Where you have entered into a contract or transaction with us, or in order to take preparatory steps prior to our entering into a contract or transaction with you. For example, if you contact us with an enquiry, we may require personal information such as your name and contact details in order to respond.

Our Legitimate Interests

Where we assess it is necessary for our legitimate interests, such as for us to provide, operate, improve and communicate our services. We consider our legitimate interests to include research and development, understanding our audience, marketing and promoting our services, measures taken to operate our services efficiently, marketing analysis, and measures taken to protect our legal rights and interests.

Compliance with Law

In some cases, we may have a legal obligation to use or keep your personal information. Such cases may include (but are not limited to) court orders, criminal investigations, government requests, and regulatory obligations. If you have any further enquiries about how we retain personal information in order to comply with the law, please feel free to enquire using the details provided in the Contact Us section of this privacy policy.

International Transfers Outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)

We will ensure that any transfer of personal information from countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) to countries outside the EEA will be protected by appropriate safeguards, for example by using standard data protection clauses approved by the European Commission, or the use of binding corporate rules or other legally accepted means.

Your Rights and Controlling Your Personal Information

Restrict: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information if (i) you are concerned about the accuracy of your personal information; (ii) you believe your personal information has been unlawfully processed; (iii) you need us to maintain the personal information solely for the purpose of a legal claim; or (iv) we are in the process of considering your objection in relation to processing on the basis of legitimate interests.

Objecting to processing: You have the right to object to processing of your personal information that is based on our legitimate interests or public interest. If this is done, we must provide compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which overrides your interests, rights, and freedoms, in order to proceed with the processing of your personal information.

Data portability: You may have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. Where possible, we will provide this information in CSV format or other easily readable machine format. You may also have the right to request that we transfer this personal information to a third party.

Deletion: You may have a right to request that we delete the personal information we hold about you at any time, and we will take reasonable steps to delete your personal information from our current records. If you ask us to delete your personal information, we will let you know how the deletion affects your use of our website or products and services. There may be exceptions to this right for specific legal reasons which, if applicable, we will set out for you in response to your request. If you terminate or delete your account, we will delete your personal information within 30 days of the deletion of your account. Please be aware that search engines and similar third parties may still retain copies of your personal information that has been made public at least once, like certain profile information and public comments, even after you have deleted the information from our services or deactivated your account.

Privacy for Children

You must be at least 16 years old in order to use our professional services. We do not knowingly solicit information from or market to children under the age of 16. If you become aware of any data we have collected from children under age 16, please contact us using the contact information provided below. We recommend that minors must ask their parents’ permission before using our Website or sending any information over the Internet.

Contact Us

If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us using the information below:

International Kiteboarding Organization S.R.L
Plaza Novus Mare

Cabarete, Dominican Republic
Email: office[at]ikointl.com

IKO privacy policy