AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD, INC.

PRIVACY & COOKIES NOTICE

American Citizens Abroad, Inc. (“ACA”) is committed to the lawful, fair, and transparent collection and use of your personal data. This statement of our privacy policy is intended to help you understand how our organization collects and uses your personal data, as well as how we share, store and protect that data. If at any time you have questions about this notice, please contact us at info@acareturnpreparerdirectory.com

SUMMARY

At ACA, we are committed to protecting your privacy. ACA safeguards any information you provide with appropriate security measures that protect the confidentiality of your personal information. ACA is a membership-based, volunteer, nonprofit, tax-exempt organization organized under the laws of the State of Delaware. Additional information about ACA can be found here: .  It provides services for its members and information for the public at large (“Services”). One such service is this online directory and services related to it.

ACA will use the information provided to it by persons listing in this directory (“Listers”) and persons using this directory (“Users”) in furtherance of its rendering of Services.  Listers and Users may be ACA Members or they may be others (“Nonmembers”).  

More specifically, ACA will use such information to provide listings for persons wishing to have their information and services, such as classifieds/special offerings, events and articles/publications, made available to Users that access the directory. Some of the information, such as, contact information and web address (URL), is included in the listing.  Other information, such as, username and password, used to log into the Lister’s listing, payment record and traffic reports, is not available to Users or other Listers.

Information, including tax return information which is provided by a User directly – not through the workings of the directory or in any way through ACA – to a Lister, for example, a return preparer, is in no way provided to ACA. It is not accessible by ACA. It is the responsibility of the User, to whom the information pertains, and the Lister to safeguard this information.  Users are urged to read the privacy policy of any Lister who services they utilize.

By using our Services, the Lister or User acknowledges that he or she has read and understood the terms of this Privacy Policy, including how we use information provided to us.

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time by changing it as it applies to your use of any of the Services.  The date of the current Privacy Policy is the Effective Date set out above. We want you to enjoy using our Services and urge you to follow common sense whenever disclosing personal information – in connection with our Services or elsewhere.

If a User accesses the Directory, information may be collected. See below.

If a Lister chooses to list in the directory, in the process of acquiring a listing, information will be provided by the prospective Lister.  See below. After a listing has been acquired, the Lister will provide additional information, according to choices made by the Lister. The Lister controls the process of transferring this information to his/her/its account record. This information and all other information relating to the listing is accessible by ACA. A Lister can revise or update information at any time by logging into its records with the directory.

Except for the purpose of assisting officers and individuals overseen by officers in administrating the directory in this privacy policy, personal information will not be shared with others.

 

ACA utilizes software developed by third-party provider and consulting services of that provider. User and Lister information is not shared with this entity.

ACA will not use any information provided to us here for any purpose other than in connection with your use of the directory or listing in the directory. ACA will not disclose your information to third parties for any other purpose unless we first obtain your consent, except as required by applicable law or regulation. ACA may use aggregate information about Users and Listers for statistical reports, but it will not be possible to personally identify you from such reports.

Any information that you provide to ACA will be collected and maintained on a database on a secure server. You should be aware, however, that applicable laws and regulations protecting personal information in the United States may not be the same as those that apply in other jurisdictions, including the European Economic Area.

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this site or your interaction with this website, please send an email to: admin@americancitizensabroad.org 

 

  1.  LEGAL BASIS FOR COLLECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

When we collect and process personal information from you, your consent and agreement to abide by our contractual terms establish the primary legal basis for doing so:

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND RECEIVE

We collect personal information about you and the devices you use to access and interact with us and our Services. We collect the following:

(a) Lister Information

When you sign up to use our Services, we collect information about you including your name, email address and other contact information. As described above, additional information about a Lister and persons to whom it renders services, will be made available to ACA.

We do not control the information that is sent from your browser to unrelated third parties, including social media platforms, analytics companies and advertising networks that receive information in the normal course of your online activities.

(b) Financial Information

If a Lister purchases a listing and perhaps in doing so selects one or more options, it pays a fee according to level of listing and features chosen.  You will be maintained as a Lister in our database for communication purposes. ACA may authorize third-party payment service providers to process your financial information, and only authorized officers of ACA or individuals acting under their supervision will have the ability to access this information.

In other situations, and only based on direct communication with you and with your consent, we may collect payment information, such as, credit or debit card details (including expiration dates), your name and your address, in order to verify your financial payments, process any refunds and payments, contact you to resolve any issues, and/or deliver Services to you. We may collect this information from you and/or third-party services that have been authorized to receive financial contributions for ACA.

(c) Technical and Device Information

We collect information from your web browsing activity about the way you use our Services. We may also collect information about you from the notifications or messages you post or send online, as well as what you search for, view or engage with.

By accessing our Services, we may collect technical information from your mobile or computer device, for example your location information if you choose to share this with us based on privacy settings within your electronic devise, which devices are connected to the Internet, hardware settings, components of your devices, installed software, updates and plugins to facilitate the use of our Services. We may automatically collect information such as your operating system, internet protocol address, your browser type, browser language preferences and when, how often and how long you interact with our Services. We also use software to enable us to provide safe environments for all users of our Services and when you log in to one of our Services, or make financial payments.  We and our third-party service providers may use cookies and similar technologies, or collect data about your device(s) to create a device fingerprint of the components of your specific device(s).

(d) Feedback

We will collect personal information from the messages sent directly to us or via a website contact form or comments/reviews you post on social forums.  When you contact us, for example with a question, problem or comment, we may transmit elements of your message to our third-party software developer.  This feedback may be maintained in databases and other electronic storage.

(e) Third Party Information

We may share information obtained from your use of our Services with third parties to provide you with an optimal experience, to facilitate your use of our Services and to enable you to use our Services on various platforms.

3. HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

As to Listers, we may use the information we collect from you in the following ways:

(a) Listing Information

(i) to create your account and so you can access our Services;

(ii) to identify you when you sign-in;

(iii) to give you access to your user preferences;

(iv) to contact you for your views on our Services;

(v) to notify you of changes or updates to our Services.

Your information enables us to provide you with access to our Services under the agreements we have with you. It helps us to authenticate your access, to contact you for your views or to provide information to Listers, and to notify you of important changes or updates to our Services. 

When we have your consent and in accordance with your stated communication preferences, we may also contact you for marketing purposes to let you know by post, email, telephone, mobile or in-app messaging about our other services or provide you with information important to Users and/or Listers, such as, news and events.

If you no longer want us to use your data in this way, you can unsubscribe at any time, either by using the unsubscribe option in the communication you receive or by changing your communication settings. Please note that we will retain a record of the user information when you unsubscribe from our marketing information for the legitimate purpose of ensuring that we do not contact you further in this way, during the period of your objection.

(b) Listers’ Financial Information

(i) to verify your payments to ACA and process payments if needed;

(ii) to reply to any queries and questions and to resolve problems;

(iii) to carry out analysis and research to develop our Services; and

(iv) to protect you, our other Listers, Users, and our Services by seeking to detect and prevent fraud or other acts in breach of our agreements or policies relevant to our Services.

This information will enable us to verify your financial payments with third-party services and to contact you in order to assist with resolving any problems with your payment and to process any refund payments that you may be due.

We will also use and analyze information on transactions on your account for our legitimate interests by data matching or statistical analysis so that we can administer, support, improve, and develop our Services and to help us detect and prevent fraud, or other illegal activities, or acts prohibited by our terms of service or any policies applicable to such Services.

(c) Technical and Device Information

(i) to provide you with an optimal experience;

(ii) to understand how you interact with our Services;

(iii) to provide Services you request;

(iv) to measure and analyze the use and effectiveness of our Services;

(v) to understand which of your devices are using our Services;

(vi) to provide a safe and fair online environment in connection with our Services;

(vii) to operate and improve our Services; and

(ix) to fix errors.

We analyze information about how you engage with our Services to understand how our Services are used and to provide you with an optimal user experience.   We use anonymous data in order to analyze and produce statistics relating to the habits, usage patterns and demographics of users as a group or as individuals.  This allows us to deliver you personalized content, helps us understand the features of our Services that appeal to you and allows us to manage our communications strategy, among other things.

When you interact with or visit our websites, we may automatically collect information about you such as the type of internet browser or mobile device you use, any website from which you have come to the our website, and your IP address (the unique address which identifies your device on the Internet) and your operating system, which are automatically recognized by our web server.

We use internet log files to monitor traffic related to our Services, resolve technical problems and to detect and prevent fraud.  We use these technologies to provide us with information, such as, when an email is opened, or to develop statistics on the effectiveness of communications with you on or through our website. In some cases, we use this information to send you communications based on your interests.

We also use technical and device information to operate and improve our Services, measure our effectiveness, set up and maintain accounts, identify and fix errors and to help keep online content fair and safe and to resolve related disputes.

(d) Feedback

(i) to reply to your questions or queries;

(ii) to share with relevant news organizations, government agencies and third-party vendors;

(iii) to reply to your questions or queries;

(iv) to resolve issues and concerns;

(v) to record comments and information which you provide via our Websites or other forums we provide; and

(vi) to conduct analysis and research to improve and develop our Services.

We use your feedback to reply to your questions or queries, to provide customer support and resolve problems relating to any of our Services under the agreements that we have with you. We may also publish reviews that you submit to us for this purpose about the Services and may conduct analysis of feedback for the purpose of improving and developing our Services.

(e) Third-party Information

(i) to facilitate sharing on social networks and

(ii) to enhance your experience when using our Services.

Based on your affirmative consent, we share information obtained from your use of our Services with third parties to provide you with an optimal experience, to facilitate use of our Services and to enable you to share our content on various platforms. For example, our websites may allow you to share our content via email, Facebook or Twitter. To enable this functionality, we may share your information through the websites and services of third parties and/or use cookies which are stored on your device.

See also our Cookies Policy

4. WHEN WE SHARE INFORMATION

We may share the information we collect about you (subject to the necessary security, contractual and transfer safeguards) in the following instances.  In delivering Services to you, we may share your personal information with:

We do not control information which is sent from your browser to third parties, including social media platforms, analytics companies and advertising networks that receive information in the normal course of your online activities.

Personal information may be transferred to other countries where ACA or its service providers maintain operations. These countries may not have equivalent data protection laws to the country from where you access the Services or, in the case of transfers subject to European law, may not be subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission (EC).   An adequacy decision is a decision taken by the EC establishing that a third country provides a comparable level of protection of personal data to that in the EU, through its domestic law or its international commitments.

Where ACA transfers personal information it will seek to take account of any applicable legal obligations relevant to personal information transfers.  In the case of transfers of personal information out of the European Economic Area, it will, in the absence of an EC adequacy decision relevant to the destination country, seek to rely on appropriate safeguards such as a valid Privacy Shield certification (in the case of a data transfer to a Privacy Shield certified US recipient -  https://www.privacyshield.gov/welcome) or enter into appropriate EC approved standard contractual clauses relevant to personal data transfers between data controllers or between a data controller and a data processor, (see http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/international-transfers/transfer/index_en.htm).

5. SECURITY AND DATA RETENTION

We place great importance on protecting your information from unauthorized access and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage.

Where, as a Lister, you have chosen a password that allows you to access any of our Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We advise you not to share your password with anyone. We will not be liable for any unauthorized transactions entered into using your username, personal information and/or password.

Your personal information will be retained by us for the duration of your use or access to our Services and may be retained for a period after this time as necessary and relevant to our legitimate operations, our terms with you and in accordance with applicable laws and obligations or to identify, issue or resolve legal proceedings.

We may retain a record of your stated objection to the processing of your data, including in respect of an objection to receiving communications from ACA, for the sole purpose of ensuring that we can continue to respect your wishes to not contact you further, during the term of your objection.

We will take appropriate steps to seek to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information at the point this information is no longer needed by us for our business or legal purposes.

6. YOUR CHOICES AND RIGHTS

You have options and choices over how we use your information. You may be required to register or sign in to use or access some of our Services and may need to provide information to create an account or user profile which is associated with your use of our Services. If, as a Lister, you wish to amend the information that you use to access our Services, you can do so by logging into your account at or contacting us at .

If you sign up to receive communications from us, you will be asked to confirm your communication preferences and given the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time.

You can contact us directly with requests to correct, erase, restrict, object to, or remove your personal information. If you do not want us to process and/or access your personal information, you may be unable to use some of our Services.

We respect the rights you may have under applicable law to request access to your personal information and where applicable, to request to receive that information in a commonly used electronic format (or ask for this information to be provided in that format to a third-party where feasible). You may also have the right under applicable law to request the correction or erasure of your personal information, to seek to object to the further processing under certain circumstances of your information or to request that the processing of specific information about you is restricted while we verify or investigate your concerns about this information.

7. CHILDREN’S INFORMATION

In principle, Listers and Users are over the age of 18.  As ACA does not collect age, it is impossible for ACA to know if a Lister or User is over the age of 18.  The aforementioned data collection and privacy rights will apply in all events.