privacy policy

Last modified: March 10, 2023

Key Takeaways:

We only collect information that we need and do not sell your data

By using the Website, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by this Privacy Policy.

Additional terms and policies may apply to specific portions of the website (ex. registering for an event)

We may update this policy from time to time and you can see the last modified date at the top of this page

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@venturewell.org

Introduction

National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, d/b/a VentureWell (“Company” or ”We”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.venturewell.org (our “Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information. This policy applies to information we collect on this Website and through email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website. It does not apply to information collected by:

Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by us or any third party; or
Any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or on the Website.

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 Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Children Under the Age of 16

Our Website is not intended for children under 16 years of age. No one under age 16 may provide any information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you are under 16, do not use or provide any information on this Website or through any of its features, register on the Website, make any purchases through the Website, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Website, 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 personal 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 support@venturewell.org.

Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We may collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, including information:

By which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline (“personal information”);
That is about you but individually does not identify you; and/or
About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website, and usage details.

We collect this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to us.
Automatically as you navigate through the site. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.
From third parties, for example, our business partners.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our Website, posting material, or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, and when you report a problem with our Website.
Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
Your search queries on the Website.

You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted”) on public areas of the Website, or transmitted to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although we may limit access to certain pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website 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 Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

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

The information we collect helps us to improve our Website 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 Website according to your individual interests.
Speed up your searches.
Recognize you when you return to our Website.

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 Website. 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 Website.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, 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).

Third-Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website 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 website. 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.

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 Website and its contents to you.
To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
To provide you with notices about your account.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide through it.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose with your consent.

We may use the information we have collected from you to enable us to display advertisements to our advertisers’ target audiences.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. We may disclose 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 Company’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Company about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
To third parties to market their products or services to you if you have not opted out of these disclosures.
To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
To enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, our customers, or others.

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:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
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 purposes, you can opt-out by emailing us with your request at support@venturewell.org.

We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) on the NAI’s website.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page. If you delete your User Contributions from the Website, copies of your User Contributions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other Website users.

Your California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. We adopt this Section in the context of the Privacy Policy as a whole to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Section. While we collect some personal information, personal information does not include publicly available information from government records, deidentified or aggregated consumer information or information excluded from the CCPA’s scope. See below for a description of certain collection practices that we have completed within the last twelve (12) months:

Category	Examples	Collected
A. Identifiers.	A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.	Yes
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).	A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.	Yes
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.	Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).	No
D. Commercial information.	Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.	No
E. Biometric information.	Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.	No
F. Internet or other similar network activity.	Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.	Yes
G. Geolocation data.	Physical location or movements.	No
H. Sensory data.	Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.	No
I. Professional or employment-related information.	Current or past job history or performance evaluations.	No
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).	Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.	No
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information.	Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.	No

We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose personal information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, the Company has disclosed the following categories of personal information for a business purpose: Category A: Identifiers; Category B: California Customer Records personal information categories; and Category F: Internet or other similar network activity. In the preceding twelve (12) months, the Company has not sold personal information.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you: the categories of personal information we collected about you; the categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you; our business or commercial purpose for collecting that personal information; the categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information; the specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request); and if we disclosed your personal information for a business purpose.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
Comply with a legal obligation.
Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights

To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us at support@venturewell.org. Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative and describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily usable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

Deny you goods or services.
Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt in consent, which you may revoke at any time.

Other California Privacy Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website 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 send an email to support@venturewell.org.

Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. 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 Website, 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 the Website like message boards. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the Website.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. 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 the Website.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal 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 ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at support@venturewell.org.