USENIX supports diversity, equity, and inclusion and condemns hate and discrimination.
USENIX Privacy Policy
USENIX respects your privacy and does not rent, trade, or share your contact information with any other company for their marketing purposes. We process personal information only in ways that are compatible with the purpose for which it was collected or for purposes you later authorize.
This Privacy Policy describes how we collect and use your information, and how you can exercise your privacy rights.
Personal Information You Provide to Us and Our Data Processors
USENIX Membership and Account Creation
When you create an account on the usenix.org website, you provide your name, email address, job title, company, mailing address, phone number, industry, job function, and student status.
We use this information to set up online accounts; process, fulfill, and provide updates on online orders; and send magazines, newsletters, conference announcements, and other notices related to organizing and promoting conferences and the work of USENIX.
Conference Registration
When you register for a conference, you must create a USENIX account and provide the information listed above. In addition, we require an emergency contact name and phone number, and you may be required to select specific conference sessions. You may also choose, at your discretion, to be listed on the attendee list, state your gender, and request special meals. We collect this information to register you for conferences, print your badge, and provide other event services. We also share anonymized statistics about job function and industry with businesses that sponsor our conferences.
Conference Attendee List
If you choose to be included on the attendee list for a conference, it will include your name, affiliation, and state/country. No contact information is included. This list is available for download from our website by the other registered attendees of that conference.
If a registered attendee contacts us to request another attendee's email address, we request permission before sharing this information.
Payment Information
When you purchase a membership or product from us, we collect payment information in order to facilitate the processing of payments. Payment information you submit online will be collected directly by third-party payment processors according to their privacy policies and is not shared with USENIX. If you submit payment information directly to USENIX by another means, we will provide that information to the payment processor and immediately delete it from our records.
Conference Paper Submissions and Talk/Training Proposals
We use third-party processors to collect paper submissions and conference presentation proposals. This information is accessible to USENIX staff as well as volunteer conference organizers, and successful submissions are posted on our website, in conference proceedings, in conference directories, and other publicly available locations. Comments made by reviewers in these systems are accessible only to USENIX and conference organizers, and are not distributed.
Student ID Verification
To obtain the discounted student conference rate, become a student member, or to apply for a student conference grant, we require that you upload and submit a scan of your student ID or other proof of full-time student status to USENIX. We use this information to confirm your current status as a full-time student and corresponding eligibility for discounts and grant consideration.
Conference Grant Applications
To apply for a conference grant, you will provide your name, employer, email, location, and phone number, in addition to a supporting statement and/or biographical data. USENIX uses this information to communicate with you about your grant status and upcoming conferences. We also share this information with the grant funders, who may use the information to communicate about job openings at their companies.
For grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), USENIX is required to file reports with the NSF that contain identifying information of the grant recipients.
Our grant application forms also require that U.S. taxpayers provide their social security numbers so that we can issue the legally required IRS form 1099 to grant recipients. This information is not shared with grant funders, and we keep social security numbers only as long as required for IRS and accounting purposes.
Visa Letters
International conference attendees who need a visa letter issued by USENIX must provide their name, address, and contact information. Optionally, they may provide their passport number and date of birth for inclusion in the letter prepared by USENIX. Letters are issued directly to the individual, who in turn provides it to the visa-granting authority.
Other Voluntarily Shared Data
During your interaction with USENIX, you may choose to provide us with personal information when you email us, chat with us by phone, complete a survey, sign up for event-specific news or a registration waiting list, comment on our blog, communicate with us through social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or through other communication methods. We will use this information only for the purposes it was submitted.
We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.
Website Cookies and Logs
Cookies
Like many websites, we use cookies and similar tracking technology (collectively "Cookies") to collect and use personal information about you. For further information about the types of Cookies we use, please see our Cookie Statement.
Log Data
We collect the information that your browser sends whenever you visit our website. This Log Data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, browser version, the usenix.org pages that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics. We use Google Analytics to view this data in anonymized form to optimize and maintain our website and its content to better serve our visitors. Google has its own privacy policies addressing how they use such information.
Third Parties We Link to
Our website contains links to third-party websites and third-party plug-ins (such as social media sharing buttons) operated by other companies. Please refer to those companies for their privacy practices.
Information Sharing
We may share and disclose your personally identifiable information in these limited circumstances:
- Vendors and other third-party service providers who require access to your personal information to assist in providing and improving our services. Examples of third parties include companies such as Salesforce, which stores data about our members, conference attendees, and other constituents; Act-On, which enables us to send you marketing emails; Spanning, which provides backup services; and SendGrid, which we use to send transactional emails (e.g., password resets, order confirmations, confirmation of grant application submissions, etc.). These providers have limited access to your information to perform these tasks on our behalf and are contractually bound to protect and to use it only for the purposes for which it was disclosed and consistent with this Privacy Policy.
- Where required by law or regulation, court order, or other judicial authorization; in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including for the purposes of meeting national security and law enforcement requirements; to protect or defend our rights, interests, or property, or that of third parties; to investigate any wrongdoing in connection with our products and services; and to protect the vital interests of an individual.
- To any other person with your consent.
We may disclose aggregate, non-identifying information about our members and constituents based on anonymized data.
Legal Basis for Processing Your Personal Information
We collect personal information from you where the processing is in our legitimate interests. As described above, the data is collected to provide services to our members, conference attendees, those who wish to publish papers or present at our conferences, and other interested parties.
We send communications announcing upcoming events, submission deadlines, and other issues of interest to our membership and constituents. You may opt out of these communications at any time.
If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us at privacy@usenix.org.
Data Retention
We retain your personal information and a record of membership, purchases, event attendance, volunteer service, and related data. As a membership association that organizes conferences where cutting-edge research is published, USENIX considers those historical records to be evidence of our significant influence in the field and as important data to help us serve our constituents. As described in the next section, you have the right to request that your personal data be deleted.
Your Data Protection Rights
You have the following rights:
- If you wish to access your personal information that USENIX collects, you can do so at any time by contacting us at privacy@usenix.org.
- You can correct or update your USENIX account details by logging in to your account at usenix.org. To request that your personal data be deleted from our records, contact us at privacy@usenix.org. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information, the following may apply:
- We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, we may keep some of your information for tax, legal reporting, and auditing obligations.
- Because we use backup systems to protect from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, backup copies of your personal information may not be removed from those systems for a limited period of time.
- If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time.
- You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. Contact details for many data protection authorities are available here.
- You can object to processing of your personal information for marketing purposes and have the right to opt out of marketing communications we send you at any time. Marketing emails relate to USENIX events and content, and may include newsletters, conference announcements, and other notices related to organizing and promoting conferences and the work of USENIX. You can exercise this right by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link in the marketing emails we send you, or you may contact us at privacy@usenix.org. Please include your complete name and email address. Note that it may take up to ten business days to remove you from our marketing lists. Afterward, you may still receive transactional emails from us, which may include account information, order confirmations, password resets, or other service-related communications.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
USENIX reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with this provision. When we make material updates, we will take appropriate measures to inform you. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you may cancel your usenix.org account. Your continued access to or use of the USENIX website will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.
How to Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the use or disclosure of your personal information, you can contact us via +1 510.528.8649 or privacy@usenix.org.
Last updated: February 5, 2021