IMA Privacy Policy
Updated: January 2020
Introduction
IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) is the association of accountants and financial professionals in business. Provided below is our Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, disclose, transfer, and store your personal data. We use your personal data to better serve you by providing an efficient, meaningful, and customized experience. When you use IMA products and services, you agree to accept our policy, as well as our agreements. You can manage your information and privacy settings by visiting your IMA profile at myIMA.
We encourage you to read this Policy before using this website(s) and providing your personal data to us. IMA knows that you care about how your information is used and shared and believe in protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your Personal Information. Your use of our websites signifies that you understand and agree with all practices and terms of this Policy.
What Information Does IMA Collect?
IMA collects data from members and customers with the intention of providing the best level of service. It is our overall policy to collect only personally identifiable information that you knowingly provide. The types of personal information we collect may include your name, postal address, email address, phone number, gender, date of birth, education and employment information, and professional designations achieved. We may collect additional personal information from you on occasion as needs arise. Any personal data you provide will enable us to keep you informed, process your requests, or offer services to you with respect to our programs, products, and services.
IMA always strives to use in-house and/or standard marketing analytic tools within our platforms to better serve our customers. We may collect non-personally identifiable information (i.e., information of an anonymous nature) such as device type, browser type, operating system, page views, usage, and similar data from your visits to our websites.
When a visitor performs a search within our websites, IMA may record information identifying the visitor or linking the visitor to the search performed. We may also record limited information associated with every search request made by a visitor. That information is used to, among other things, solve technical problems with the service and to calculate overall usage statistics.
How Does IMA Use My Data?
IMA uses information voluntarily submitted by members and customers in the following ways:
- To provide you with programs, products, services, or information you have requested from IMA
- To develop new and improved services by analyzing demographic or usage trends and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of IMA (including the website)
- To communicate with you about your IMA account
- To process payments, including membership dues, registration and exam fees, subscriptions, voluntary contributions, and products and services. IMA is compliant with the data security standards of the payment card industry (PCI-DSS compliant)
- To administer our certification programs, examination scheduling, and registration processes with our partner exam providers
- To manage your participation in IMA governance activities, such as Global and local Boards, Standing Advisory Committees, and other volunteer leadership roles
- To provide you with prompt and effective customer service
- To support the operations of IMA such as account maintenance and recordkeeping, troubleshooting problems, resolving disputes, and for internal controls and audits
- To inform you about programs, products, and services offered by IMA and/or its contracted business partners
- To provide advertisements that are consistent with IMA’s organizational purpose
- To conduct surveys for IMA or on behalf of individual members performing scholarly research
- To carry out IMA’s Ethics Compliance Policy and/or conduct investigations as required by law
- To promote networking between members
There are a number of different basis on which we will process your personal data, depending on the type of data and the purpose. Generally, we will process your personal data to provide you with the programs, products, services, and information that you have requested from us or where it is necessary to perform our contract with you (i.e., membership benefits). If none of these conditions apply, we may process your personal data in instances when it is in our legitimate interests and in alignment with the purposes defined in this Policy.
Unless a longer retention period is required by applicable laws or regulations, we will retain your information for as long as your IMA account is active, as well as for an additional period afterwards to cover any outstanding issues or queries that may arise in relation to your account. This period of retention is subject to our review and alteration.
How Does IMA Share or Disclose My Data?
IMA will not sell your personally identifiable information to anyone. IMA may disclose your personal data to third parties. Our third-party data processors are required to securely maintain your personal data, following regulations and best practices, and will use the data only as needed to support the delivery of services to you on IMA’s behalf. Further, personal data will be disclosed only to contracted third-party service providers under the following categories:
Technology/Operations
- Hosting facilities to securely store, transmit, and process your data
- Technology solution providers who assist in the development of our software platforms
- Credit card processors to securely process your payments to IMA
- Compliance authorities we utilize for legal issues, audits, and tax purposes
- Mailing houses for the fulfillment of our products and services
- Identity management providers for user access to confidential information
- Legal authorities to comply with an inquiry made regarding a subpoena, warrant, or other court order
Marketing/Communications
- Advertising, marketing, and social media providers to conduct targeted advertisements related to professional development and educational opportunities
- Research providers who may conduct surveys and studies on behalf of IMA
- Reporting and analytic tools to allow data mining and monitoring
- Affiliate partners to provide special offers as a benefit to our members
- Marketing automation solutions to provide outbound email marketing services
Product and Services
- Third-party call centers to conduct outreach initiatives on behalf of IMA regarding our programs, products, and services
- Learning platform providers who develop, host, and store information related to Continuing Professional Education (CPE) products
- Professional certification providers for the delivery of digital badges and scheduling of IMA examinations
- Online community platform providers to allow member/customer networking benefits
- Event solution providers for the hosting and delivery of webinars and conferences, including onsite support
- Verification purposes related to credentials from IMA/ICMA.
How Does IMA Use Cookies?
Cookies are stored on a user's computer and are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website. We use cookies to make IMA’s websites easier to use and to better tailor our services to your interests and needs which may expedite your future activities and experiences on our websites. We also use cookies to compile anonymous, aggregated statistics to help us improve our websites’ structure and content.
We cannot identify you personally from this information. Some of the website pages you visit may also collect information using pixel tags (also called clear gifs) that may be shared with contracted third parties to support our promotional activities and website development. We use a number of contracted suppliers who may also set cookies on your device, on IMA’s behalf when you visit IMA websites, to allow them to deliver their services to you.
Upon visiting IMA websites, you may receive cookies from third-party websites or domains. We endeavor to identify these cookies before they are used so that you can decide whether or not you want to accept them. You can change the settings to block cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent to your device.
By using IMA websites, you are consenting to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy. If you do not agree to our use of cookies in this way, you may set your browser settings accordingly or not use IMA websites. If you disable the cookies that IMA uses, this may impact your user experience while on IMA websites.
Please see IMA Cookie Policy for further information about cookies.
Does IMA Collect Personal Data from Children?
IMA does not knowingly collect or post information from individuals under eighteen (18) years of age (“Children” or “Child”) to the extent that IMA is able to determine the age of users by their submissions to or communications with IMA.
International Data Privacy Protection
We may transfer your data (including personal information) to our regional offices and contracted affiliates outside the United States. They may use your personal information in connection with IMA activities to offer you products and services in your local region. All of our providers/partners will only process data on IMA’s behalf and will be held to the same provisions listed in this Privacy Policy. Your personal data will be handled using the appropriate safeguards following best practices.
IMA’s Security Measures
The security of a customer’s personal data is important to us. IMA takes technical, contractual, administrative, and physical security steps to protect the personal data that you provide and we have implemented numerous security features to prevent the unauthorized release of or access to personal data. IMA restricts access to your personal data by our employees by only allowing it on an as-needed basis for the purpose of providing benefits, programs, products, or services to you. In addition, IMA employees are trained about the importance of confidentiality and maintaining the privacy and security of your personal data. While every effort is made to maintain the privacy and security of your personal data, our security practices, processes, or technology do not guarantee absolute security of your information. It is in your best interest to take all normal personal precautions as well. Examples of precautions you can take are, but are not limited to, not sharing passwords, closing browsers when not using them, and not using public networks (e.g., internet cafes, etc.).
Subject Access/User Rights
IMA will provide you with access to your information and make every reasonable effort to ensure your rights are fully supported. Your rights are:
- The right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data (per this Privacy Policy)
- The right to access and/or correct your personal data. You can access your data by logging into your myIMA account
- The right to object to or stop the processing of your personal data (which may lead to termination of programs, products, and services)
- The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling
- Under certain conditions, you may have the right to receive your personal data for portability in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format
Although IMA may make changes to its Privacy Policy in the future, we will not reduce or eliminate any of your rights under this Policy without your consent. Any changes to the Policy will be published on this site and IMA will retain earlier versions of the IMA Privacy Policy in an IMA archived file.
EU Data Subject Rights
This section applies to individuals located in the European Union (“EU”) (“EU Data Subject”). For these purposes, reference to the EU also includes the European Economic Area countries. IMA is the data controller for the processing of your personal data, and we may use data processors to process personal data and perform services on behalf of our customers and members.
Subject to applicable law, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
Right of access: You have a right to access your personal data. If requested, we can confirm that we are processing your personal data and provide you a copy of the data along with other supplementary information. A reasonable charge may be applied for additional copies.
Right to rectification: You have a right to correct or update your personal data if it is inaccurate or incomplete. If we shared your personal data with third parties, we will seek to inform them of the rectification request, and, if lawful, tell you with whom we shared the data. You can update and correct your data by logging in to your myIMA account.
Right to erasure: You have the right to request us to erase or remove your personal data. We will do so in situations that are lawful and if there are no legal obligations to maintain it. If we shared your personal data with third parties, we will seek to inform them of the erasure request and, if lawful, tell you with whom we shared the data.
Right to restrict processing: You have the right to request the restriction or suppression of processing your personal data in certain circumstances. If we shared your personal data with third parties we will seek to inform them of the restriction request and, if lawful, tell you with whom we shared the data.
Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your personal data which have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format that is portable and safe.
Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data if: it is being used for direct marketing purposes, and/or if we are processing your personal data for our own legitimate interests, unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for such use.
Legitimate Interest. IMA uses legitimate interest in providing you information and updates on new products and services. We also use legitimate interest in processing your personal data to analyze how IMA’s websites, products, and services are being used by you and to improve and ensure proper security and controls. When we process your personal data under legitimate interests we ensure to balance any potential impact on you and consider your rights under data protection laws. We will not automatically override your interests and we will not place our legitimate interests over yours unless we have your consent or unless those activities are otherwise required or permitted by law. You have the right to object to processing that is based on our legitimate interests.
Right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling: You have the right not to be subject to any decision based solely on automated processing of your personal data.
Right to withdraw consent: If we rely on your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your prior consent.
Right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority: If you have a concern about how your personal data has been handled under this Privacy Policy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. If you are located in the European Union, you can find the details of your local supervisory authority here.
You may pursue any of these rights by updating your information online (where possible) or by sending a written request to IMA’s data representative using the contact details listed below:
IMA Data Representative
IMA (Institute of Management Accountants)
10 Paragon Drive, Suite 1
Montvale, NJ 07645
USA
You may also contact us at dataprotection@imanet.org.
California Data Subject Rights
The California Consumer Protection Act (“CCPA”) requires select businesses to disclose policies relating to the sharing of certain categories of your Personal Data with third parties. If you reside in California and have provided your Personal Data to IMA, you may request information about our disclosures of certain categories of Personal data to third parties for direct marketing purposes. Such requests must be submitted to us at the following address:
IMA (Institute of Management Accountants)
10 Paragon Drive, Suite 1
Montvale, NJ 07645
USA
You may also contact us at dataprotection@imanet.org
Third-Party Websites
IMA’s websites may contain links to other Internet websites. Unless we explicitly state otherwise, we have no control over these third-party sites and their privacy practices, and this Privacy Policy applies only to information you supply (or that we collect) in connection with use of IMA’s websites. You should review third-party privacy policies in connection with visiting IMA’s websites.
Communication Preferences
IMA provides you with communications on educational products and services, networking opportunities, certification, industry research, and other topics related to our mission. You can manage your communication preferences by visiting your myIMA account and maintaining the settings on our website(s). Members may opt-out of additional forms of communication used by IMA for secondary purposes or used by IMA to send any correspondence to the member, by contacting IMA as indicated below.
IMA’s Right to Change Privacy Policy
IMA may change the content of its websites and Privacy Policy at any time. Please revisit our Privacy Policy from time to time to be sure you are familiar with our current policy.
Contact Information
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at:
IMA (Institute of Management Accountants)
10 Paragon Drive, Suite 1
Montvale, NJ 07645
USA
Phone: (800) 638-4427 or +1 (201) 573-9000
E-mail: ima@imanet.org