1. Personal Information Collected
The purpose of the Florida FarmLink website is to permit Users to voluntarily provide information about themselves for the purposes of developing, maintaining and enhancing a network of within the local food system. You willingly provide us certain personal information, which we collect in order to allow you to benefit from the Florida FarmLink website. If you have any hesitation about providing such information to us and/or having such information displayed on the Florida FarmLink website or otherwise used in any manner permitted in this Privacy Policy and the User Agreement, you should not become a member of the Florida FarmLink community. Florida Farmlink will take every sensible precaution to maintain the security of your information, however, Florida Farmlink will not be held legally responsible for any unlawful access to any data submitted.
We collect your personal information in the following ways:
Registration
In order to become a User, you must first create an account on our website. To create an account you are required to provide the following contact information, which you recognize and expressly acknowledge is personal information allowing others, including Florida FarmLink, to identify you: name, email address, address, ZIP/postal code, and a password chosen by you.
Profile Information
Once you become a User, you may provide additional information in the Profile section including pictures, web address and product availability/requests. Providing additional information beyond what is required at registration to become a User is entirely optional, but enables you to better connect with the local food system and find new opportunities in the Florida FarmLink system to build and leverage your business or involvement in local food.
Network Information
By becoming a part of Florida FarmLink, you agree to allow your profile and updates to be visible within your chosen network. You can choose the size of network (zip code, multi-zip code or state). If you do not wish your profile to be visible, then please do not join Florida FarmLink. You may add contacts outside of your network by searching for them. All individuals requesting you as a contact outside of the network must first be approved by you.
Customer Service
Florida FarmLink may collect information through the Florida FarmLink website in order to, among other things, accurately categorize and respond to a customer’s inquiry and deliver appropriate service levels.
Cookies
Like most websites, Florida FarmLink uses cookies and web log files to track site usage. A cookie is a tiny data file which resides on your computer which allows Florida FarmLink to recognize you as a User when you return to the Florida FarmLink website using the same computer and web browser. If your browser settings do not allow cookies, you will not be able to use the Florida FarmLink website. Like the information you enter at registration or in your Profile, cookie and log file data is used to customize your experience on our website.
Log files, IP addresses and information about your computer
Due to the communications standards on the Internet, when you visit the Florida FarmLink web site we automatically receive the URL of the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave Florida FarmLink. We also receive the Internet protocol (IP) address of your computer (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web), your computer operating system and type of web browser you are using, email patterns, as well as the name of your ISP. This information is used to analyze overall trends to help us improve the Florida FarmLink service. The linkage between your IP address and your personally identifiable information is not shared with third-parties without your permission or except when required by law.
Consent to Florida FarmLink Processing Information About You
Certain information you provide to Florida FarmLink may reveal, or allow others to identify, your nationality, ethnic origin, religion or other aspects of your private life, and more generally about you. Please be aware that in providing information to Florida FarmLink for the purposes of opening your user account, you are expressly and voluntarily accepting the terms and conditions of this Privacy. The supplying of all such information by you to Florida FarmLink, including all information deemed “sensitive” by applicable law, is entirely voluntary on your part. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and the User Agreement, but please note that your withdrawal of consent will not be retroactive.
Rights to Access, Correct and Eliminate Information About You
You have a right to access, modify, correct and eliminate the data about you which has been collected pursuant to your decision to become a User. If you update any of your information, we may keep a copy of the information which you originally provided to us in our archives for uses documented herein.
We take your rights seriously and encourage you to use them if you deem this to be appropriate. You may exercise these rights by emailing us at info@FloridaFarmLink.org or by contacting us at:
Florida FarmLink
Attn: Privacy Policy Issues
945 25th Drive East
Ste 11
Ellenton, FL 34222
2. Uses of personal information
Florida FarmLink is an online service dedicated to helping all those involved in the local food system more effectively connect with one another. The personally identifiable information you choose to provide on our website is used to help you describe yourself to other Users. Other information, that does not personally identify you as an individual, is collected by Florida FarmLink from Users (such as, for example, patterns of utilization) and is exclusively owned by Florida FarmLink. This information can be utilized by Florida FarmLink in such manner as Florida FarmLink, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate.
Florida FarmLink Communications
Florida FarmLink will communicate with you through email and notices posted on the Florida FarmLink website. These include a series of up to three welcome emails which help inform new Users about various features of the service. Please be aware that you will always receive certain emails from Florida FarmLink related to the proper functioning of your account, such as email notices when another User in your network sends you an opportunity. Florida FarmLink may send you promotional information unless you have opted out of receiving such information. You can change your e-mail and contact preferences at any time by logging into ‘My Account’ and amending your email notification choices.
We may provide aggregated anonymous data about the usage of our services to third parties for such purposes as we deem, in our sole discretion, to be appropriate, including to prospective advertisers on Florida FarmLink. We may segment our Users by role (i.e. farmers, chefs, consumers), industry,or geographic location. If you would like to be excluded from the aggregated research or products based upon aggregated data about our Users’ activities on the site, please email info@FloridaFarmLink.org.
Surveys and Polls
As a User, you will receive requests to participate in market research including polls and surveys submitted by other Florida FarmLink members. If you participate in surveys and polls offered through our website, the information you provide may be visible to others using the Florida FarmLink website. You may opt-out of participating by changing your Account & Settings to stop receiving these inquiries and requests.
Forums/Chats
If you post on the Forum section of Florida FarmLink, or use a bulletin board or participate in a chat room on Florida FarmLink, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you choose to provide there can be read, collected, or used by other Users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. Florida FarmLink is not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.
Communications to other Users
Many emails you initiate through Florida FarmLink, e.g., an invitation sent to a non-User, will list your email address and name in the header of the message. Emails you initiate may also provide aggregate information about your network (for instance how many people are in your network), but will not list the people to whom you’re directly connected. Other communications that you initiate through the Florida FarmLink website, like a request for contact, will list your name as the initiator but will not include your personal contact information. Your contact information will only be shared with another User if both of you have indicated that you would like to establish contact with each other.
Legal Disclaimer
It is possible that we may need to disclose personal information when required by law, such as responses to civil or criminal subpoenas, or other requests by law enforcement personnel. We will disclose such information wherein we have a good-faith belief that it is necessary to comply with a court order, ongoing judicial proceeding, subpoena, or other legal process or request to Florida FarmLink brought in any country throughout the world, or to exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
3. Your Information Choices
Accessing and Changing Your Account Information
You can review the personal information you provided us and make any desired changes to the information you publish, or to the settings for your Florida FarmLink account including your email, and contact preferences, at any time by logging in to your account on the Florida FarmLink website. Please be aware that even after your request for a change is processed, Florida FarmLink may, for a time, retain residual information about you in its backup and/or archival copies of its database.
Closing Your Account
You can also close your account through the Florida FarmLink website. If you close your Florida FarmLink account, we will remove your name and other personally identifiable information from our publicly viewable database. To request that we close your account and remove your information from the Florida FarmLink website, please send your request to info@floridafarmlink.org. Please send your request using an email account that you have registered with Florida FarmLink under your name. You will receive a response to requests sent to info@FloridaFarmLink.org within five business days of its receipt.
4. Your Obligations
As a User, you have certain obligations toward the other Users with whom you will be communicating. Certain of these obligations are imposed by applicable law and regulations, and others have become commonplace in user-friendly communities of like-minded members, such as Florida FarmLink:
- You must, at all times, respect the terms and conditions of the then-current Privacy Policy. This includes respecting all intellectual property rights which may belong to third parties (such as photographs).
- You must not download or otherwise disseminate any information which may be deemed to be injurious, violent, offensive, racist or xenophobic or which may otherwise violate the purpose and spirit of Florida FarmLink and its community of Users.
- You must not provide information to Florida FarmLink and /or other Users which you believe might be injurious or detrimental to your person, professional or social status.
Any violation of these guidelines may lead to the restriction, suspension or termination of your account by Florida FarmLink, as we take these principles seriously and consider them to be the basis on which our Users adhere to the Florida FarmLink website and the services which it offers.
5. Important Information
Children
Children are not eligible to use our service and we ask that minors (under the age of 18) do not submit any personal information to us or use the service.
Business Transfers
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores or assets. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets. Also, in the unlikely event that we are acquired, customer information will be one of the transferred assets. We will at no point sell our customer information as a product or service.
Other websites
Various Web sites may be linked to from this site. If you link to another site, your privacy depends on the policy of that site. We strongly urge you to check their privacy policy. Not all sites guarantee that they will not share your personally identifiable information with others.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
Florida FarmLink may update this privacy policy at any time, with or without advance notice. In the event there are significant changes in the way we treat your personally identifiable information, we will display a notice on the Florida FarmLink website or send you an email, as provided for above. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.
If you use the Florida FarmLink service after notice of changes have been sent to you or published on our site, you hereby provide your consent to the changed practices.
6. Security
In order to secure your personal information, access to your data on Florida FarmLink is password-protected. To protect any data you store on our servers we also regularly audit our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks and we use a tier-one secured-access data center. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that emails and instant messaging and similar means of communication with other users of Florida FarmLink are not encrypted and we strongly request you not to communicate any confidential information through these means.
7. How to contact us
If you have questions or comments about this privacy policy, please email us at info@floridafarmlink.org or contact us at:
Florida FarmLink
Attn: Privacy Policy Issues
945 25th Drive East
Ste 11
Ellenton, FL 34222