Privacy Policy

Home

Last Update: November 22nd, 2008

The Service Management Society ("SM-S") SM-S is a leading service management certification body.  This website ("sm-s.org") provides products and services in support of stated objectives and our Society's Associate members and Customers.

We recognize that building a long-term business relationship with you depends a great deal on trust. This trust begins with our commitment to respecting as well as protecting your privacy.  This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting any of SM-S's websites, accessing our utilities, content or other online services (hereafter referred to as "web services") you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

We have structured our web services so that, in general, you can visit without identifying yourself or revealing any personal information. Once you choose to provide us personally identifiable information (name, address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.) you can be assured that it will only be used to support your relationship with SM-S in any capacity (e.g. Associate, Partner, etc.)

Our Associate membership application process, registration process for seminars, certification and educational programs and store may request and/or require you to submit personal information. You can be assured that any such personal information that you submit will be protected by industry standard security and management procedures and will be used only for the purpose for which it was submitted, unless you request or agree otherwise.

Our privacy statement covers seven main areas:


Transparency

This Privacy Policy is intended to make you aware of our privacy practices and of the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.

What Information We Collect

Through the website, phone, mail, or email, you can order our products or services, apply for Associate membership, and register for seminars, courses, and certification. The types of personal information collected may include your name, your employer and job title, your contact and billing information for business and home (including telephone number and e-mail address), and your credit card information (if applicable). In order to tailor our subsequent communications to you and continuously improve our products and services, we may also ask you to provide us with information regarding your personal or professional interests, demographics, experience with our products, and contact preferences.

How We Use the Information

We use your information to better understand your needs and provide you with better service. Specifically, we use your information to help you complete transactions requested by you, to communicate back to you, and to offer and update you on our services and their benefits. Credit card numbers are used only for payment processing and are not retained for other purposes.

As a benefit to Associate members and certificants, SM-S will (at no charge) include your name and relevant biographical information in the Qualification Registry. From time to time, we may also desire to contact you for market research purposes or to provide you with marketing information we think would be of particular interest. You will not be included in any directories nor will SM-S reveal your personal information publicly or to any third party (except as stated below), unless we receive your explicit permission to do so.

Your name will not be used for any such purpose unless you affirmatively request SM-S to do so. In addition, if at any time you would like to have your name removed from our lists and/or directories, please follow the directions given below in the "subscribe" section of this document to opt-out of such contact.

With Whom We Share the Information

SM-S does not sell, rent, or lease your personally identifiable information to others without your permission. Unless we have your permission or are required by law, we will only share the personal data you provide to us with other SM-S entities and/or business partners who are acting on our behalf to help us provide you with our products and services. Such entities and/or business partners are governed by our privacy policies with respect to the use of this data and are bound by this Privacy Policy and applicable confidentiality agreements.

Choice

SM-S will not use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us for purposes other than for which the information was originally submitted, without your express permission. We will also provide you the opportunity to inform us at any time if you choose to opt-out of partial or total contact from us and we will comply with such requests.

This choice regarding communications from may be offered on our Associate membership and certification applications, registration forms or webpages, or at the bottom of online or off-line communications from us. If you have any difficulty exercising your choices, please send your request to privacy@sm-s.org. You may also exercise your choices by contacting SM-S (see Contact Us for further information). Your permission will always be secured first, should we ever decide to share your information with third parties that are not acting on our behalf and not governed by our privacy policy.

Accuracy

SM-S strives to keep your personally identifiable information accurate. We will provide you with access to your information, including making every effort to provide you with online or telephone access to your registration data so that you may review, update or correct your personal information. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or enabling you to make corrections. If you are a SM-S Associate, you can access your personal information by logging into My SM-S with your user ID and password, following the directions listed under "My Profile" You may also request a change in your personal information by contacting us directly.

Security and Integrity

We are committed to ensuring the security of your information. To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. For example, we use encryption when collecting or transferring sensitive data online such as credit card information.

Your access to some services and content is password protected. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. We will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email. You should not disclose your user name and password to others. In addition, if applicable, you should remember to sign out of your SM-S account or service at the end of each session. You may also wish to close your browser window when you have finished your work. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Accordingly, despite our best efforts to protect your personal information, SM-S cannot completely ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, or to or from our online products or services. You transmit all such information at your own risk. However, once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Additional Website Items

Links to Third Party Websites

Links to third party websites are provided solely as a convenience to you. If you use these links, you will leave the SM-S website. SM-S has not comprehensively reviewed all of these third party sites and does not control and is not responsible for any of these sites, their content or their privacy policies. We do not endorse or make any representations about them, or any information, software or other products or materials found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party sites linked to this site, you do this entirely at your own risk.

How SM-S Uses Cookies

A cookie is a piece of text asking permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. If you agree, then your browser adds the text in a small file. The general purpose of a cookie is to help a website owner analyze web traffic on their site or allow an owner to tailor its web application for you based on your individual preferences. SM-S’s website uses only temporary "Session" cookies as part of the customer web navigation experience, tracking unique IDs and information you input for a particular website session only. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.)

We want to ensure that you understand that accepting a cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any personal information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. This practice is strictly enforced. We are aware that a lot of people have concerns about cookies, but we believe that the benefit we both gain from their proper use is worthwhile. We value the relationships we have with our customers, so we respect these concerns. SM-S works to continuously improve the user experience of our web services and enhance our personal data privacy policy and practices.

Enforcement/Contact Information - Governance

If you have any questions or comments regarding our privacy practices, please contact us directly.  SM-S is subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission. Any disputes arising out of a breach of this policy will be submitted to and resolved by the privacy dispute resolution procedure.

Changes to this Statement

If there are updates to the terms of this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes and update the revision date listed on this document, so you will always know what information we collect online, how we use it, and what choices you have. For material changes to this Policy, SM-S will provide notification to affected parties.