Effective Date: April 1st, 2022.

INTRODUCTION

This is the website of World Vapers’ Alliance (“WVA“), which is supported by Consumer Choice Center (‘‘CCC’’).  WVA is an alliance of individual vapers from around the world and national groups representing vapers’ interests.

World Vapers’ Alliance’s website  www.worldvapersalliance.com  is maintained by the Consumer Choice Center (CCC) on behalf of the World Vapers’ Alliance. The Consumer Choice Center is a non-profit C4 organization registered in the United States.  For the purposes of this website’s Privacy Policy the controller of “personal data” is the Consumer Choice Center, whose contact details are set out in the contact section below.

At both World Vapers’ Alliance and at the Consumer Choice Center, we take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we at the Consumer Choice Center may collect as managers and data controllers of this website, why we collect it, what we do with it, and how you can update and manage your information. When we refer to “CCC”, “we”, “us”, or “our”, we mean our entire group, including all our organizations and brands.     

The information you provide to us, or which we collect, via www.worldvapersalliance.com and other activities we carry out (including conducting surveys online and in-person, and collecting information from people who want to hear more about vaping or want to support WVA’s cause, for example by signing on-line petitions or campaigning on vaping issues), written correspondence (including e-mail), and social media activity is used for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Through your use of WVA’s website and participation in other activities we or WVA carry out (including surveys and issues-based recruitment drives), we may collect personal and non-personal information from you, including:

• Your name, email address, telephone number, postal address, or similar information;

• Your browser type, operating system, IP address, and device information (“Analytical Information”).

We will apply the terms of our Privacy Policy to any personal information received from a third-party, unless we have disclosed to you otherwise. The Consumer Choice Center is not responsible for these third-parties’ use, processing and dissemination of your personal information.

If you are a resident of a country in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the personal information we collect from you may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the EEA. The personal information may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA that work for us or one of our third-party service providers. By submitting your personal information, you agree to this transfer, storing, and processing. We take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We will retain your information for as long as your information is needed to provide you with our services (including information on your confirmed areas of interest), as required to fulfil our legal obligations, or until you tell us to delete your personal information.

If you would like us to delete your personal information or request that we no longer use it to provide you services, contact us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com. 

PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE COLLECT AND PROCESS INFORMATION

The information we collect about you, including any personal data, will only be used in connection with issues relating to WVA, as well as to provide you with information on requested topics and related communications, and to comply with our legal obligations. We use your information to assist you, provide you with the information you have requested, and note your preferences in order to provide the best user experience possible.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The information we collect will only be used in connection with issues relating to WVA to provide you with information on requested topics and related communications, and to comply with our legal obligations. We use your information to assist you, to provide you with the information you have requested, to note your preferences in order to provide the best user experience possible.

We may use your information, including personal data relating to you, for these specific, legitimate purposes:

• If you have signed up to receive information from us, we may contact you by telephone or by written communication (including via electronic communications, for example, email) with relevant content and information, if you have consented to us contacting you in this way. You may unsubscribe from such issues-based lists at any time by contacting us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com.

• If you sign up to participate in any WVA related campaign work, for instance, if you sign one of our online petitions, we may then use your information to contact you in relation to these and other WVA activities and campaigns.

• We may use your contact information to respond to your questions about WVA’s work and to communicate with you about relevant activities and developments.

• When you use our websites, we automatically collect and use Analytical Information, described above, for us to continually improve your experience with our websites and to target marketing communications and advertising to you.

• You may unsubscribe from this list at any time by contacting us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com

WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH

We share your information (including your contact details) with WVA and the Consumer Choice Center for the purposes indicated in the previous section, and so that they may be able to inform and communicate with you about the work of the WVA and vaping developments. For the same purposes, we may also share your information, including your contact details, with one or more national groups or associations representing vapers’ interests that WVA partners with, again so that they may inform and communicate with you about specific issues of interest and developments relating to vaping on a more local, national level.

We also provide personal information to our affiliates and trusted business partners or persons to process it for us based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other confidentiality and security measures. Such tasks include storing and maintaining the personal information we provide to them on a database, analysing website or mobile application usage data, electronic and postal mail services, marketing services, social media services, and calculating, managing, and reporting sales tax.

Third-party service providers may receive your personal information as necessary to perform their role (these include designated data processors, providers of IT infrastructure, telephone service providers, external auditors, offsite data storage providers etc.).

If any personal information is provided to third parties outside the EEA or who will access the information from outside the EEA, we will ensure approved safeguards are in place, such as the approved standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Privacy Shield. Examples of where these safeguards are in place include where we provide your information to our other subsidiaries and divisions (for our legitimate business purposes) or to our trusted third-parties who provide the following services: data processing, IT infrastructure, telephone services, external auditing, offsite data storage, etc. All our subsidiaries and divisions sign standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission to safeguard the personal information transferred across our businesses to and from the EEA.

We will disclose your personal information if required by law, regulation, or as part of a legal process. If we receive a request from a regulatory body or law enforcement agency, and if permitted under GDPR and other laws, we may disclose certain personal information to such bodies or agencies.

INFORMATION SECURITY

We work hard to protect our users from unauthorised access to or unauthorised alteration, disclosure, or destruction of information we hold. In particular:

• We review our information collection, storage, and processing practices, including physical security measures, to prevent unauthorized access to our systems.

• We restrict access to personal information to CCC employees, contractors, and agents who need to know that information to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or their contracts terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.

While no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, we strive to protect the information submitted to us. We consider the sensitivity of the personal information we collect, process, and store and use the appropriate technology to protect your personal information. We cannot, however, guarantee its absolute security.

YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS 

Individuals in certain countries, including the EEA, have certain rights in relation to their personal data. For example, you have the right to request access to your personal information, the right to have a machine-readable copy of your data transferred to another organisation, the right to correct or update your personal information, and the right to have all your personal information deleted. You also have the right to object to our processing activities (as summarised below).

If you have any questions or wish to exercise your rights as described above, you may contact us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com.

COMPLIANCE AND COOPERATION WITH REGULATORS

We regularly review this Privacy Policy and make sure that we process your information in ways that comply with it.

Data transfers

We use servers around the world and your information may be processed on servers located outside of the country where you live. Regardless of where your information is processed, we apply the same protections described in this Privacy Policy. 

European requirements

If GDPR applies to the processing of your information, we provide the controls described in this Privacy Policy so you can exercise your right to request access to, update, remove, and restrict the processing of your information. You may also object to the processing of your information at any time for: (1) marketing purposes; or, (2) where we rely on our legitimate interests (unless we have compelling grounds to continue processing).

We process your information for the purposes described in this policy, based on these legal grounds:

With your consent. We ask for your agreement to process your information for specific purposes and you may withdraw your consent at any time.

When pursuing legitimate interests. We process your information for our legitimate interests while applying safeguards that protect your privacy. This means we process your information for things like:

• Communicating with you, with your prior consent, on issues of concern to WVA;

• Providing, maintaining, and improving our websites to meet the needs of our users;

• Developing new features;

• Understanding how people use our websites to improve the performance of our websites;

• Marketing to inform users about our work

• Detecting, preventing, or otherwise addressing fraud, abuse, security, or technical issues with our websites, and

• Protecting against harm to the rights, property, or safety of WVA, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law.

When complying with legal obligations. We will process your data when we have a legal obligation to do so, for example, if we are responding to legal process or an enforceable governmental request.

If you have questions about our legal basis for processing information, you may contact us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com. You can contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns regarding your rights under local law or would like to make a complaint against us.

LINKS TO THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES

Our websites contain links to other vaping associations and relevant vaping interest group websites, social networking and mobile applications operated and controlled by third-parties. Unless otherwise stated, any personal information you provide to any third-party website will be collected by that party and not by us and will be subject to that party’s privacy policy rather than this Privacy Policy.

COOKIES

We use “cookies” and other similar technologies to help provide you with a better, more personalised user experience. A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. We use these technologies to help us understand and improve how visitors use our websites, including which pages and products are viewed most frequently. 

AGE LIMIT

We do not intend to solicit or collect personal information from anyone who is either under the permitted age for vaping or subject to other legal restrictions in their country of residence that prohibit them from viewing or submitting personal information to this site. If you are not legally entitled to do so in your country of residence then we require that you do not view or enter information into this site or engage in our services, including completing surveys conducted online or in-person.

CONTACTING US

If you have questions about this Privacy Notice, please email us at signup@worldvapersalliance.com

CHANGES 

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Please check the “Effective Date” at the top of this page to see when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Unless otherwise noted, any changes we make to this Privacy Policy will become effective immediately once posted on this page. Your continued use of our website following any changes to this Privacy Policy indicates your consent to the practices described in the revised Privacy Policy. Unless stated otherwise, our Privacy Policy applies to all information we have about you and your account.

CONSENT

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.