Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.bfi.org.

BFI Statement of Privacy

The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Statement of Privacy applies to BFI’s website and governs data collection and usage on all BFI sites, programs and services; it does not apply to other online or offline sites, products or services. Please read the BFI Statement of Privacy. BFI is a general audience web site, intended for users of all ages. Personal information of all users is collected, used and disclosed as described in this Statement of Privacy.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Collection of Your Personal Information

As a non-profit website collecting program fees, accepting donations, e-commerce, and distributing newsletters and other communications, BFI collects personal information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. Information collected by BFI is used for the purpose of populating its mailing lists, collecting donations, billing and shipping your online purchases. BFI does not collect any information about your computer hardware and software.

BFI encourages you to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to from BFI so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use and share your information. We are not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the BFI Web site.

Use of Your Personal Information

BFI and its operational service partners collect and use your personal information to process product orders and deliver the products requested. It is possible that BFI may also use personal information to inform you of other products or services available from BFI and its affiliates or send you organizational communications. BFI may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered. BFI may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your personal information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party unless otherwise approved by you.

We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and delivery of mailings, providing customer support, processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
BFI does not use or disclose sensitive personal information, such as race, religion, or political affiliations, without your explicit consent.

BFI may access and/or disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on BFI or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of BFI, including its Web site; or (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of BFI or the public.

Personal information collected on this site may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which BFI or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using this site, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country. BFI abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

BFI offers its community choices for the collection, use and sharing of personal information. You may notify us of your preferences by emailing [email protected]. Please be sure to provide complete account information so we can identify you in our records.

You may also stop the delivery of future promotional e-mail from BFI by responding directly to any email you receive with a request to remove you from the mailing list using the unsubscribe protocol offered.

BFI uses several services from Google Analytics, including Advertising Features, that are used to optimize site functionality and help improve the user experience of our community members. BFI does not facilitate the merging of personally-identifiable information with non-personally identifiable information collected through any Google advertising product. If you would like to opt out or preclude collection of any data by Google’s Analytics, you may do so at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ BFI is not responsible for the collection of any Google Analytics tracking data.

Where we send your data

BFI is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on computer systems with limited access that are located in controlled facilities. When we transmit highly confidential information (such as a credit card number) over the Internet, we use a secure payment gateway so your information is protected. Internet-based payments and donations to BFI are processed through Stripe, unless otherwise noted.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Changes to This Statement

BFI will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. If there are material changes to this Statement or in how BFI will use your personal information, BFI will prominently post such changes prior to implementing the change. BFI encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how BFI is protecting your information.