AAAIP Privacy Policy

The Association of Animal-Assisted Intervention Professionals (AAAIP) respects your privacy and understands the importance of protecting your personal information. Our Privacy Policy was created to inform you of how we will use your personal information and how you can communicate with us about your preferences.

Information Collection
When users join AAAIP as members, participate in AAAIP’s events, purchase a AAAIP course, subscribe to AAAIP's eNewsletter, or otherwise contact AAAIP by email, users may be asked to provide personal information from which you can be identified, such as your name, date of birth, postal and e-mail address, phone number, and credit card information. AAAIP only collects personally identifiable information you voluntarily submit to AAAIP. The AAAIP website also collects certain additional information, such as the type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using (e.g., Windows 10), information about your geographic location, and the domain name of your Internet service provided. This information does not identify you personally when you visit our website.

Use of Personal Information
AAAIP respects your privacy and has developed policies intended to ensure that your personal information is handled in a responsible manner. AAAIP may use your information to contact you about your membership, respond to your inquiries, and provide ways that you can help support our mission. We may use your information to conduct research about AAAIP programs and services. Occasionally, AAAIP may make your information, excluding credit card information, available to sponsors or licensees that provide special programs or services we think you might find interesting or beneficial. Although we make inquiries to determine that these select organizations maintain privacy policies similar to AAAIP, we are not responsible for the enforcement of such policies. If you wish to update or remove your information, or if you do not wish your information to be shared with these third parties, you can opt out at any time by contacting AAAIP and providing your complete name and address.

AAAIP may share, rent, or exchange member names and postal addresses with third parties, including other reputable nonprofit organizations. In such cases, the other organization is only permitted to use the information for a one-time mailing. You may opt out of this exchange at any time by contacting AAAIP and providing your complete name and address. Except in the limited circumstances outlined below, AAAIP will not intentionally share your e-mail address, phone number or financial information.

AAAIP may disclose your personal information in certain situations:
1) You give us information to do so.
2) Transactions. Sharing the information with a third party is necessary to complete a transaction (e.g., to process credit card information).
3) Necessity. We will disclose personal information if compelled by a legal or regulatory authority of if we have reason to believe that there has been some inappropriate interference with or use of our website.

Privacy of Certification Information 
AAAIP shall hold in confidence, and in a secure manner, the information obtained in the course of certification program activities at all levels of the organization, including the activities of all personnel (paid, contracted, or volunteer) acting on its behalf. Except as required in addressing complaints or appeals, information about a particular individual is considered confidential information and shall not be disclosed to a third party by AAAIP staff, volunteers or contractors without prior written consent of the individual. Where the law requires information to be disclosed to a third party and unless the law restricts it, the individual shall be notified in writing beforehand of the information disclosed.

Requests for verification of progress in attaining certification will be responded to in writing or electronically only to the applicant/candidate. Requests by any person for verification of an individual’s certification status will typically be directed to the directory of certificants on the Prolydian website. They may be responded to by phone, online or in writing when the requester can provide the individual’s name and certification number. Only an indication of whether an individual is certified or not and certification date and/or term shall be provided (ensuring that the status of in-progress or unsuccessful candidates is not disclosed).

Protection of Children's Personal Information
The AAAIP website is intended for adults, such as AAAIP members and the participants of AAAIP's programs. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to provide us with their personal information. If you are under the age of 13, do not send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. In the event we learn that we collected such information from anyone under the age of 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have collected personal information from anyone under the age of 13, please contact AAAIP.

Security
We take every precaution to protect your personal information. It is kept confidential and stored in a secure environment. Access to your information is restricted only to authorized staff with a legitimate and specific business purpose. Whenever you visit or log into aaaiponline.org, you are connected to our website via a secure and encrypted connection. Wherever we collect sensitive information (such as credit card data), that information is also encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar, and looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the web page of any page or form on our website.

Use of Cookies and Pixels
A “cookie” is a small piece of data that is sent to your browser from AAAIP’s web server and is stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies are used to collect non-identifying information about the user’s activity on the website and deliver content that is specific to your interests. They help us improve our website by tracking and targeting the interests of our users as they visit different sections of our site. Cookies do not contain any personal information. AAAIP uses pixels, or transparent GIF files, to help manage online advertising.