Privacy Policy and Compliance
Effective Date: August 1, 2024
1. Introduction
Modular Building Institute (“MBI”) is committed to protecting your personal data.
This Privacy Policy applies to the websites, online services, and mobile applications controlled by MBI (“MBI,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), where this Privacy Policy is posted (the “Services”). This Privacy Policy applies to all users, including both those who use the Services without being registered with or subscribing to an MBI service, and those who have registered with or subscribed to an MBI service. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By using the Services, or purchasing products or services from us, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.
Currently, our Services include https://www.modular.org/ and https://www.worldofmodular.org/ websites.
2. What Information Do We Collect About You?
MBI collects (i) personal data voluntarily supplied by you when you register on the Services, and (ii) tracking information collected as you navigate the Services. In particular, MBI collects the following information from and about you:
Registration information — Registration information is information you submit to register for an MBI Service; for example, to create an account, make a purchase, register for an MBI event, become an MBI member, or register to receive email communications from MBI. Registration information may include, but is not limited to, first name, last name, company name, job title, profile images, email address, phone numbers, and user names.
Details of transactions you carry out through our Services and MBI’s fulfillment of products or services in connection with those transactions -- For any registration fees or other payment transactions on our Services, MBI will use third-party services for payment processing. MBI will not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to our third-party payment processors whose use of your personal information is governed by their privacy policy. MBI currently uses GrowthZone and Stripe as third-party service providers for financial transactions and payment services to MBI. GrowthZone’s privacy policy can be viewed here. Stripe’s privacy policy can be viewed here.
Activity data — When you access and interact with the Services, we may collect certain information about those visits. For example, in order to permit your connection to the Services, our servers receive and record information about your computer, device and browser, browser type, IP address, and other software or hardware information.
Cookies, web beacons and similar technologies — MBI uses cookies for your convenience and security. Cookies are text files stored on the browser of your computer. Cookies are used to make your experience on our web sites more personal and less cumbersome. You may choose to decline cookies, but doing so may affect your ability to access or use certain features of our sites. For more information, see Section 9 below.
3. How is it Used?
We use the personal information we collect from, and about you, to:
Provide our Services, features, products, programs, and events to you;
Measure and improve those Services and events;
Provide you with customer support and to respond to inquiries;
Protect the rights of MBI and others. There may be instances when we may disclose your personal information, including situations where we have a good faith belief that such processing is necessary in order to: (i) protect, enforce or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety or property of MBI, our affiliates or their employees, agents and contractors (including enforcement of our agreements and terms of use); (ii) protect the safety, privacy and security of users of the Services or members of the public; or (iii) protect against fraud or for risk management purposes;
Send marketing communications customized to your interests and needs in accordance with applicable law;
Comply with applicable laws or legal process and/or respond to requests from public and government authorities.
4. On What Legal Basis Do We Process Your Personal Information?
We process personal information per applicable law and with transparency and fairness. Our processing activities are conducted:
With your consent;
In order to fulfill our contractual obligations to you;
For the legitimate purpose of operating our business, including to improve and develop the Services for fraud prevention purposes, and to improve use experience; and
As otherwise in compliance with law.
5. How Do We Share Your Personal Information?
MBI may share your personal information for the purposes of Section 3 above to the following categories of recipients (subject further to Sections 6 and 7), and such may have their own policies and procedures:
Service providers, helping to administer the Services, products, programs, and events;
Subsidiaries and affiliates to better serve MBI membership and its evolving needs;
Sponsors and exhibitors, where you have consented to such release;
Other registered attendees of the MBI events or conferences you attend. For example, when you register for an MBI event or a conference, you will have an option to add your email address and phone number if you wish to share such information with other registered attendees. This is an optional feature, and if you do not wish to share your email and phone number with other registered attendees, you can leave these optional fields unpopulated at the time of registration;
Some of the information you provide is made publicly available and can be seen by the general public. For example, our active member directories published on the Services will disclose your organization name, phone number, and mailing address, and these directories are made publicly available for the benefit of our members;
Companies which may be the result of any mergers, acquisitions, asset sales, or joint ventures to which MBI is a party, pursuant to Section 11; or
Competent authorities, including law enforcement, in order to comply with applicable laws or court orders.
6. Is your personal information transferred from abroad?
For individuals located in the European Union (EU) or accessing the Services outside of the US, your personal information may be transferred to countries outside the EU, in particular to the United States. By accepting the terms of this Privacy Policy, you acknowledge and accept the processing of your personal information on servers located in the U.S. In the event we transfer your personal information to third parties, such transfer will be done pursuant to contractual safeguards to protect your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you are an individual located in the European Economic Area, the transfer will be made (i) on the basis of data protection adequacy decisions made by the European Commission or (ii) pursuant to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers of personal information.
7. What are your rights with regard to your personal information?
We give you choices regarding our use and disclosure of your personal information for marketing purposes.
If you have an account on the Services, you can update your account or profile information by logging into your account. You may also have your account deleted at any time by contacting us at info@modular.org.
You may withdraw your consent to:
Receiving electronic communications from us — If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails from us, you may opt-out of receiving these by following the unsubscribe link in our communications. If you hold an online account with MBI, then you may also manage your electronic communications by signing in to your account.
Additionally, EU subjects may:
Obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal information exists and to be informed of its content and source, verify its accuracy and request its integration, update or amendment;
Request the deletion, anonymization, or restriction of the processing of your personal information processed in breach of the applicable law;
If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent;
Object to the processing, in all cases, of your personal information for legitimate reasons;
Receive an electronic copy of your personal information, if you would like to port your personal information to yourself or a different provider; or
Lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority.
The above rights are subject to applicable limitations and restrictions. In certain cases, your request may be denied based on a legitimate exception such as where we are prevented from disclosing such information based on legal requirements, fraud prevention, or security concerns, or when we need to maintain the information. For more information or to make a request, please contact info@modular.org.
Remember that even after you cancel your account, or if you ask us to delete your personal information, copies of some information from your account may remain viewable in some circumstances where, for example, you have shared information with other services. We may also retain backup information related to your account on our servers for some time after cancellation or your request for deletion, to comply with applicable law.
8. Children’s Privacy
Our Services are not intended for use by children under the age of eighteen (18). No one under the age of 18 may provide any personal information on the Services. If you are under 18, do not use or provide any information on this Service or through any of its features, register on the Services, make any purchases through the Services, or provide any information about yourself to us. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18 years of age. If you believe we may have collected information from a child under 18, please contact us, and we will promptly delete the information.
9. Cookies
We use, and allow certain third parties to use, cookies, web beacons, and other similar technologies to enhance the Services and to help collect data. We, or third parties, may use session cookies or persistent cookies. Session cookies only last for the specific duration of your visit and are deleted when you close your browser. Persistent cookies remain on your device’s hard drive until you delete them, or until they are set to expire. Some web browsers will automatically expire persistent cookies at thirteen months, but others will respect the date set by the owner of the cookie, which may be shorter or longer than that. Different cookies are used to perform the following different functions:
Strictly Necessary — Some cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our websites and use their features, such as accessing secure areas of the Services via a personal log in. Strictly Necessary cookies are also used to manage technical processes like server load balancing, caching, and security; to anonymize user sessions; and to store your cookie preferences so that we can honor them. Without these cookies, we cannot enable appropriate content based on your permission level.
Functional — Functional cookies store data for essential website services such as online shopping and media players. They may also be used to customize the user interface, and to store settings other user-based preferences. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services are used on our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
Performance — We use our own cookies and/or third party cookies to see how visitors use our Services, in order to enhance performance and improve our site, according to best practices. We use Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, for example, to track website usage and activity.
Targeting — We receive audience-based data (such as pixel traffic and conversion data) from certain third-party providers, including Feathr Marketing, advertising partners, and others based on information such as IP addresses. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social Media — These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
You can also set your cookie preferences specifically for this website, using the button below. Note that the preferences you set here will only remain in place on the device and browser you are currently using, and you will need to make the same selections again if you change devices or browsers, or if you clear your cookies.
Ways to Manage Cookies
There are several ways to manage cookies. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. The help feature on most browsers provide information on how to accept cookies, disable cookies, or to notify you when receiving a new cookie. Please note, however, that many of the cookies we use are “strictly necessary” cookies. By blocking or deleting them, you will not be able to access certain features of the Services. For more information about cookies and how to block them, please visit https://allaboutcookies.org.
In the US, the opt-out pages offered by the Network Advertising Initiative and the DAA’s AboutAds program also offer a means to opt out of a number of advertising cookies. Please visit the Network Advertising Initiative and the DAA’s AboutAds program to learn more. Note that opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the company or companies from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and usage patterns. Opting out through the above methods will cause one or more opt-out cookies to be set on your browser or device, to indicate that you have opted out. Note that opt-outs are browser-specific, so opting out on one browser will not affect a second browser or device that you use. For the same reason, if you buy a new device, change browsers or clear all cookies, you’ll need to perform this opt-out task again.
Your browser settings may allow you to automatically transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to online services you visit. Note, however, there is currently no industry consensus as to what site and app operations should do with regard to these signals. Accordingly, unless and until the law is interpreted to require us to do so, we do not monitor or take action with respect to “Do Not Track” signals. For more information on “Do Not Track,” visit https://www.allaboutdnt.com.
In addition, you may set preferences with specific services.
Google Analytics: Our websites use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses so-called “cookies”, text files that are stored on your computer and which enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. However, if IP anonymization is activated on this website, your IP address will be truncated by Google within Member States of the European Union or in other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and truncated there. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compile reports on website activity and other information relating to website activity and internet use. services to the website operator. For more information about Google Analytics, please visit https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. For more information on the types of cookies utilized by Google Analytics, please visit https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en-US. You can opt-out of Google’s collection and processing of data generated by your use of the Services by going to https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Note that Google’s opt-out mechanism is specific to Google activities and does not affect the activities of other ad networks or analytics providers that we may use.
Google Tag Manager: Our websites use the Google Tag Manager as part of Google Analytics. Tags are small code elements on our website that, among other things, are used to measure traffic and behavior, to capture the impact of online advertising and social channels, to use remarketing and targeting groups, and to measure their website to test and optimize. Google Tag Manager causes other tags to be set off, which in turn may collect data. If a deactivation has been made at the domain or cookie level, it will remain in place for all tracking tags implemented with Google Tag Manager. Further information about Google Tag Manger can be found at https://www.google.de/tagmanager/use-policy.html.
Feathr Marketing: This is a pixel that allows MBI and its member advertisers to display banner advertisements served by MBI after a user has visited our Services. Feathr.co’s privacy policy can be found at https://www.feathr.co/privacy-policy. To opt-out of Feathr tracking, please visit Feathr’s Privacy FAQs.
X (formerly Twitter): https://help.x.com/en/safety-and-security/privacy-controls-for-tailored-ads
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/62931/manage-advertising-preferences
10. Security & Retention
MBI takes the security and privacy of your personal information seriously. Please be aware, however, that no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. Any information that you transfer to us is done at your own risk. If we learn of a data security system breach, we may attempt to notify you electronically regarding security, privacy, and administrative issues relating to your use of the Services, in accordance with applicable law.
MBI retains personal data for as long as necessary to meet our obligations to you, and for such longer period as may be in our legitimate interests and to comply with our legal obligations. We may also retain data from which you cannot directly be identified, for example where stored against a randomly-generated identifier so we know the data relates to a single user, but we cannot tell who that user is. We may use this kind of data for research purposes and to help us develop and improve our Services; we take appropriate measures to ensure you cannot be re-identified from this data.
11. Assignment
In the event that all or part of our assets are sold or acquired by another party, or in the event of a merger, you grant MBI the right to assign the personal information we have collected from you.
12. Links to other websites
The Services contain links to other websites. MBI is not responsible for the privacy practices of unaffiliated companies or organizations, and once you leave the Services, you should read the applicable privacy policy of the other service.
13. Updates to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so please visit this page periodically and review for changes. We will notify you of material changes to this Privacy Policy by posting a notice on our home page for a reasonable period of time and changing the “Effective Date” above. Your continued use the Services following the posting of changes will constitute your acceptance of the changed terms.
14. Contact Us
Please direct any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices to info@modular.org. You may also write to us via postal mail at:
Modular Building Institute
285 Hydraulic Ridge Road, Ste 6
Charlottesville, Virginia 22901 USA