Privacy Policy 1.1.6

This Privacy Policy was updated and is effective as of November 15, 2025

 

A. Overview

This Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) applies to personal information that is collected, maintained, used, or otherwise processed by the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (collectively, “ABFPRS,” “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) through our website (the “Site”) and any related mobile applications/apps made available by us (each an “App” and collectively the “Apps”; the Site and the Apps are collectively referred to as the “Platform”) when you access the Platform and the services provided through the Platform. This Policy also applies to information we collect in e-mail, text, and other electronic messages between you and the Platform.

This Policy applies only to information we collect on or through the Platform. This Policy does not apply to information that we collect offline, or that you provide to, or is collected by, any third party, which may have their own privacy policies and which we encourage you to read before providing your information on or through them (see “Third-Party Information Collection” below).

Please read this Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. In using the Platform, you agree to be bound by this Policy and you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and other administrative issues relating to your use of the Platform.

If you do not accept the terms of this Policy, you may not access or use the Platform and you should discontinue your use of it.

This Policy may change from time to time (see “Updates to Our Privacy Policy” below). Your continued use of the Platform after we revise this Policy means you accept those changes, so please check this Policy periodically for updates.

The Information We Collect and How We Collect It

Information that you provide to us. When you download, register with, access, or use any aspect of the Platform, we may ask you to provide information by which you may be personally identified, including but not limited to, your name, postal address, e-mail address, and telephone number (“personal information”). When you are asked to provide personal information, you may decline. However, if you choose not to provide information that is necessary, you may not be able to use some of the features or services that are dependent on this information.

Furthermore, we may collect information about you but individually does not identify you. We may collect information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Platform, and usage details.

This information may be provided by you in the following ways:

  • Directly from you. We collect information when you provide it to us, especially when filling in forms on the Platform. This includes information that you may provide when downloading, registering with, accessing, or using any aspect of the Platform, when requesting further services, and when reporting problems with the Platform. This would also include the details of your transactions with us, such as payment details for membership dues, exam fees, or other transactions, as well as credentials and other information related to your membership account with us.
  • Contacting us. This includes information you may provide when you correspond with us, including, but not limited to, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
  • Participating in surveys. This includes information you may provide when you respond to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
  • Searching within the Platform. This includes information you may provide when you perform search queries on the Platform.
  • This includes information we collect as you navigate through the Platform. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, browser type and version, device type, referring/exit pages, URLs, date and time of access, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.
  • Logged-In Member Activity: When logged in, your activity on the Platform (e.g., navigation, form submissions) may be logged for security, debugging, and optimization purposes.
  • From Third Parties. We may receive information about you from third parties, such as our business partners.

If you provide information for publication or display (“Posted”) on public areas of the Platform or websites you access through the Platform (collectively “User Contributions”), then your User Contributions are Posted and transmitted to others at your own risk. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of third parties with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information that we collect automatically. Like many websites, the Platform commonly uses information gathering tools, such as cookies and web beacons, to collect information as you navigate. The Platform automatically collects certain information, such as internet protocol (IP address), browser type, operating system, and other usage information, and stores that information in log files. This information may include statistical data and your personal information. We use essential cookies, which are required for basic functionality, such as member login. We also use performance cookies to help us analyze site performance and uses and functional cookies to remember user preferences to enhance experience.

The technologies we use for automatic information collection may include, without limitation:

  • Cookies (or mobile cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on your smartphone. It may be possible to refuse to accept mobile cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your smartphone. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our App. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Cookies, see “Your Choices About Our Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Your Information” below.
  • Flash Cookies. Certain features of the Platform may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on the Platform. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see “Your Choices About Our Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Your Information” below.
  • Web Beacons. The Platform and our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an e-mail and for other related app statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain app content and verifying system and server integrity).

How We Use the Information We Collect

We use information that you provide to us, including any personal information, to:

  • Provide membership benefits and services.
  • Process and manage payments and transactions.
  • Provide you with the Platform and its contents, and any other information that you request from us. We also may use it to recognize you when you return to our Platform.
  • Fulfill any purpose for which you provide it.
  • Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
  • Notify you when updates for the Platform are available, and of changes to any products or services we offer or provide though it.
  • Develop and improve the Platform, products, and services.
  • Provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
  • Ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
  • Respond to law enforcement requests, or as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
  • Receive communications from us if you agree to receive e-mails or other communications from us, including SMS notifications for deadlines, events, and updates.

The information that we collect automatically helps us to improve the Platform and to deliver a better and more personalized experience by enabling us to:

  • To analyze trends, administer the Platform, track your navigation around the Platform, and gather anonymous demographic information for the purpose of improving the Platform.
  • Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
  • Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize the Platform according to your individual interests.
  • Speed up your searches.
  • Recognize you when you use the Platform.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users and information that does not identify any individual without restriction.

We do not sell, trade, or transfer your personal information to third parties, but we may disclose information that may include your personal information:

  • With your consent.
  • To deliver services or benefits (e.g., payment processors, hosting providers)
  • To any subsidiary or affiliate entity.
  • To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of the Company’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by the Company about the Platform’s users is among the assets transferred.
  • To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business and who are obligated to keep personal information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
  • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
  • To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to a formal or informal government or regulatory request.
  • To enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
  • If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of ABFPRS, our diplomates, or others.

Your Choices About Our Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Your Information

You have many choices concerning the management of cookies on your computer. All major browsers allow you to block or delete cookies from your system, but blocking or deleting cookies may limit your use of certain features or functions on the Platform. To learn more about your ability to manage cookies and web beacons, please consult the privacy features in your browser.

This section describes mechanisms that we provide for you to control certain uses and disclosures of your information.

  • Tracking Technologies. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. Regarding Flash Cookies, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe’s website to learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings. However, if you disable or refuse cookies or block the use of other tracking technologies, some parts of the Platform may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
  • Promotions by the Company. Users may request to be removed from mailing lists at any time.

To review or request corrections to your personal information collected by us or removal from any promotional communications, please contact us by one of the means noted below under “Contact Us.”

Third-Party Information Collection

  • Generally. When you use the Platform or its content, certain third parties may use automatic information collection technologies to collect information about you or your device. These third parties may include, without limitation:
    • Advertisers, ad networks, and ad servers. For instance, we may use Google Tag.
    • Analytics companies. For instance, we may use Google Analytics.
    • Your mobile device manufacturer.
    • Your mobile service provider.

These third parties may use tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use the Platform. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites, apps, and other online services websites. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

We also do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. These third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You may be able to opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative on the NAI website: https://thenai.org/.

  • Our Use of Google Products. We may use a tool called “Google Analytics” and “Google Tag” to collect information about use of this site. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit or use the Platform, what pages users visit when they do so, and what other sites user used prior to coming to the Platform. Google Tag is a tag we may add to our Platform that allows us to use a variety of Google products and services. For more information regarding how Google uses such information, please visit the following website:

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

We may use the information we get from Google Analytics to improve the Platform. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to the Platform is subject to and restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You should be able to access Googles terms and policy online at:

https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/

https://policies.google.com/privacy

If you are not able to access those terms, please contact us.

You should be able to prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to the Platform by disabling cookies on your browser. For more information on disabling cookies on your browser, see “Your Choices About Our Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Your Information” below.

  • Other Sites. We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to/from the Platform nor the information contained therein. Often links to other websites are provided solely as a way for the user to obtain information that may be useful to them. The third party’s privacy policy and/or that of its service provider will govern the use of this information, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such companies. To better protect your privacy, we encourage you to read these businesses’ privacy policies to learn about how they treat your information.
  • Social Media Sites. You may share information from the Platform with people associated with your social media account and your social media account provider. By sharing this information, you authorize us to share information with your social media account provider, and you understand and agree that the use of the information we share will be governed by the social media provider’s privacy policy. Please note that any information you post within these public forums or social media pages may become public and may be read, collected, and used others, including the public. If you do not want people to know your e-mail address, for example, do not include it in any message you post publicly. Please exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information in public posting areas. We are not responsible for the use by others of the information that you voluntarily disclose in public posting areas.

Security Measures

We have taken certain precautions that are intended to protect the users of the Platform’s information, such as encryption of sensitive data, secure payment processing, and controlled access to personal information. Despite our efforts, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. You use the Platform at your own risk, and the safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password and/or user name for access to certain parts of our Platform, you are responsible for keeping your password and user name confidential. Please do not share your password or user name with anyone. Because the information you share in public areas may be viewed by other users of the Platform, we urge you to be careful about disclosing information in any public areas of the Platform that may exist, such as message boards.

Notwithstanding our efforts, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be perfectly secure or private. Because of this, while we try to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or guarantee the security or privacy of any information transmitted to us, and you transmit such information at your own risk. You are responsible for keeping the information you provide confidential. We are not responsible if someone else accesses your account through information they have obtained from you or through a violation by you of this Policy or our Terms of Service.

Accessing and Correcting Your Personal Information

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Platform and visiting your account profile page. You may also send us an e-mail at the e-mail noted below under “Contact Us” to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

If you delete your User Contributions from the Platform, copies of your User Contributions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other users of the Platform.

Do Not Track

The Platform does not respond to web browser “do not track” signals or other similar mechanisms.

Retention of Your Information

We try to retain personal information only for as long as is necessary to fulfill the reason for which the personal information was collected and as necessary to process such personal information. In addition to the above, we try to retain your personal information for the purposes of satisfying any professional, legal, accounting, or reporting requirements to which we are subject. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the scope, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the personal information, the purposes for which we collected and processed your personal information, and whether we can reasonably achieve those purposes through other means, as well as any applicable legal and professional requirements.

Children or Adolescents

The Platform is intended strictly for adult users. By agreeing to this policy through use of the site, the user is verifying that they are an adult aged 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18. If we discover or are made aware that we have received personal information from an individual who indicates that they are, or whom we otherwise have reason to believe is, under the age of 18, we will delete such information from our systems. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a child under the age of 18 and believe that your child has disclosed personal information to us, please contact us as provided below so we may address your situation.

Linking Policy

We may permit text links to the Platform. However, linking should not: suggest or falsely claim endorsement by us or our affiliation; be used for commercial or fundraising purposes; or conceal the fact that the reader has left the linking site. We reserve the right to withdraw permission for any link at any time. Please contact us with any related questions by using one of the means noted below under “Contact Us.”

SMS Notifications

If you opt into SMS notifications, we may send you messages related to membership deadlines, events, or updates via our provider. You may opt-out at any time by following the instructions provided in the messages or by contacting us directly.

Your State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information. For instance, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and maybe other states provide (now or in the future) their state residents with rights that may allow them to (1) confirm we process their personal information; (2) access and delete certain information; (3) correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information’s nature process purpose; (4) implement data portability; (5) opt-out of personal data processing for targeted advertising, sales, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects; and (6) either limit (opt-out of) or require consent to process sensitive personal data. The extent of these rights may vary by state. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us according to this Policy.

Updates to Our Privacy Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will notify you by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page, and we will update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Policy. We will let you know via e-mail and/or a prominent notice on our Services, in the event of a material change. Please review this Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

 

B. Contact Us

If you have any questions about matters addressed in this Policy, please contact us by one of the following methods:

By Mail:            Address

By E-mail:         E-mail address