The Society for Neuroscience Privacy Notice

1. Introduction

The Society for Neuroscience (hereafter may be referred to as “SfN”, “we,” “us,” or “our”) is the world’s largest nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and the nervous system. SfN is also the publisher of The Journal of Neuroscience and eNeuro. SfN is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors, members, and customers.

By using our websites (SfN.org, BrainFacts.org, JNeurosci.org, eNeuro.org) and agreeing to this privacy notice, you consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of information and use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this notice.

SfN has privacy controls that affect how we will process your personal data. By using the privacy controls, you can specify whether you would like to receive direct marketing communications and limit the publication of your information in member directories. This can be done within the direct marketing communications, your MySfN profile, or by contacting Member Services at membership@sfn.org.

All staff members who have access to data or personal information collected by SfN are expected to uphold the SfN privacy notice.

2. Information We Collect

Data that SfN collects via our websites is used to further the mission, programs, operations, and services of SfN, and to provide the best experience for members and website visitors. Unless otherwise stated, the legal basis for processing all member and program data is contractual and based on your SfN membership or becoming a registered user of the website.

There are two different types of data that can be collected: Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and Non-Personal Identifiable Information (Non-PII). PII is any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, address, email, place of employment, or other information that is linked or linkable to an individual. Non–PII data is anonymous to SfN and cannot be used by SfN to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, such as: device IDs, cookies, and IP addresses.

Information we collect:

Usage Data – This may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths. This data is provided by Google Analytics.
Account Data – Account data may include your name and email address. The source of the account data may be you, your authorized agent, your employer or affiliated institution.
Profile Data – Profile data may include: your name, address, telephone number, email address, profile pictures, gender, date of birth, interests, educational details, and employment details.
Service Data – Any data that is provided by you when using, applying for, or participating in any of SfN’s services or programs.
Publication Data – Information that you post for publication on our website through our services.
Inquiry Data – Information contained in any inquiry users submit to SfN regarding goods and/or services.
Transaction Data – May include: your contact details, your credit card details, and the transaction details provided by the purchase of any goods and services on our website. The transaction data may be processed for supplying the purchased goods and services and keeping proper records of those transactions.
Notification Data – Information provided for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications, newsletters, journals, and webinar services.
Correspondence Data - Data may include: the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and record-keeping.

We may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another person. Please do not supply any other person's personal data to us, unless we prompt you to do so under the basis of providing goods, services, or programs.

We may automatically collect and generate information from and about you when you interact with us or our websites, that may include the following categories of personal information:

Unique Identifiers: We might automatically collect information that uniquely identifies you or the device through which you interact with our websites, such as your name, email address, username, social media identifiers, IP address, and device and mobile advertising identifiers.
Device Information: We might automatically collect information pertaining to the device through which you interact with our websites, such as the type of device used, that device’s operating system and version, your browser type.
Interaction Information: We might automatically collect information about your interaction with our websites, such as the content you view and features you access on our websites, the pages you view immediately before and after you access our websites, whether and how you interact with content available on our websites, and the search terms you enter on our websites. We might also collect information about the events and materials in which you have indicated interest or for which you have registered or requested.

We may obtain personal information from other sources, such as employees, business partners, or from business contact databases and enrichment services. We may also receive information about you from social media platforms, such as when you interact with us on those platforms or access our social media content. We may collect information about you from publicly available sources, such as public social media profiles, publications, and other websites or materials available through search engines.

We may collect the following categories of information from these other sources:

Unique Identifiers, such as name, telephone number, postal or email address, social media identifiers, and device and mobile advertising identifiers.
Professional and Educational Information about your occupation and professional activities, such as professional licenses held, employers, business contact information, or information about your education, such as your degrees, fields of study, institutions attended, languages, professional memberships, qualifications, and certifications.
User Content you post or make available online, such as your social media posts or publications.

SfN members can add, correct, or update their personal information on your MySfN profile, or by contacting Member Services at membership@sfn.org or (202) 962-4911. To exercise individual rights, please refer to Section 7 of this Privacy Notice.

3. How We Use the Information We Collect

We may use the information we collect for various purposes, including:

To respond to your inquiries or communications.
To operate, troubleshoot, and improve our websites.
To provide you with newsletters, publications, updates, marketing communications, and other information or materials that may interest you.
To expand and maintain our list of members and contacts.
To understand how people use our services, including by generating and analyzing statistics.
To generate new information about you from the data you have provided to us.
To advertise, provide, and assess the effectiveness of our events, promotional campaigns, publications, and services.
As we believe reasonably necessary or appropriate to comply with our legal obligations, to respond to legal process or requests for information issued by government authorities or other third parties, or to protect your, our, or others’ rights.

We may also use anonymous, de-identified, or aggregate information that does not reasonably identify you for any purpose, as permitted by applicable law.

4. Providing Your Personal Data to Others

Where you are opted-in, SfN might rent your data to a third-party for a business or commercial purpose.

We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice, or the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

We may disclose your personal data to our partners, suppliers, or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the basis of providing goods, services, or programs authorized by SfN.

Financial transactions relating to our website and services are handled by our payment services providers. We will share transaction data with our payment services providers only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunding such payments, and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds.

In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 3, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or to protect your vital interests or the vital interest of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

5. International Transfers of Your Personal Data

We may transfer your data from your country of origin to the USA. The USA does not have an adequacy decision from the European Commission, that means that the Commission has not determined that the laws of the USA provide adequate protection for personal information. Although the laws of the USA do not provide legal protection that is equivalent to EU data protection laws, SfN safeguards your personal information by treating it in accordance with this Privacy Notice. We take appropriate steps to protect your privacy and implement reasonable security measures to protect your personal information in storage. We use secure transmission methods to collect personal data through our website. We also enter into contracts with our data processors that require them to treat personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Notice.

SfN’s sole headquarters office is located in Washington, DC, United States. Data may be transferred outside the USA, for example to vendors located in Canada, The United Kingdom, and India. These transfers are governed by data protection agreements that include strict provisions for data protection and data security.

The hosting facilities for our website is Microsoft Azure and is situated within the eastern United States. Personal data may be hosted by partners, suppliers, or subcontractors for the basis of providing goods, services, or programs authorized by SfN.

You acknowledge that personal data that you submit for publication through our website or services may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.

6. Your Rights

In this section, we have summarized the rights that citizens of the European Union have under data protection law. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Your principal data protection rights are:

The right to access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to object to processing
The right to data portability
The right to complain to a supervisory authority
The right to withdraw consent

You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. You can request a copy of your personal data by emailing data@sfn.org.

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose, going forward.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

Consent
Performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.

You have the right to file a complaint concerning our processing of your personal data with your national (or in some countries, regional) data protection authority. The EU Commission has a list here: https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en. The data protection authority for the United Kingdom is the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk). The federal data protection authority for Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/the-fdpic/task.html.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us by emailing data@sfn.org or call (202) 962-4000.

7. Additional Information for California Residents

Please visit the Society for Neuroscience CCPA Privacy Notice.

8. About Cookies

Cookies are files created by a website that are stored in the user’s computer either temporarily for that session only (session cookie) or permanently on the hard disk (persistent cookie). Cookies provide a way for SfN to recognize you and keep track of your preferences.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies. Ultimately, the user has control of if and how cookies are stored through their web browser.

9. Cookies Used by Our Service Providers

Our service providers use cookies that may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use and performance of our website. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

We may publish Google AdSense interest-based advertisements on our website. These are tailored by Google to reflect your interests. You can view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of the AdSense partner network cookie using those settings or using the Network Advertising Initiative's multi-cookie opt-out mechanism at: http://optout.networkadvertising.org

10. Managing Cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

Chrome
Firefox
Opera
Internet Explorer
Safari
Edge

Blocking all cookies may have a negative impact upon the usability of SfN’s websites. If you block cookies, you may not be able to use all the features on our website. You can update your cookie preferences for www.sfn.org here:

11. Privacy Notice Changes

We may update this privacy notice periodically and will revise the date at the top of this Notice to reflect the date when such update occurred. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share the personal information that you have provided, we will endeavor to provide you with notice before such changes take effect, such as by posting prominent notice on the website(s). We may also notify you of changes to this privacy notice by email.

12. Contact Information

This website is owned and operated by The Society for Neuroscience (SfN).

By telephone: (202) 962-4000
By email: data@sfn.org