Effective Date: May 6, 2021

The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (“SPJA”) is a Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating and promoting the unique and deep culture that surrounds Japanese animation. We strive to educate the public about Japanese animation, manga, video games, and traditional culture.

We are so happy you have decided to join us. As part of our educational goals, we have created this Privacy Policy to inform you about how we collect, use, store, and protect your information. This Privacy Policy pertains to information collected at SPJA events, on the SPJA site (www.spja.org), the Anime Expo^® site (www.anime-expo.org), the Project Anime^® site (www.project-anime.org), sites for any other events we may produce, and through the AX App and any other SPJA Event mobile applications (collectively, our “Services”).

• The terms “you,” “your,” and “yours” refer to you, the person utilizing our Services and agreeing to this Privacy Policy. The terms “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to SPJA and to SPJA’s affiliates and subsidiaries (if any).
• “SPJA Events” include all events produced by SPJA, including, without limitation, the Anime Expo (commonly known and referred to herein as “AX”), Project Anime: Los Angeles, and Project Anime: Tokyo.
• “SPJA Event Sites” are the SPJA site (www.spja.org), the Anime Expo® site (www.anime-expo.org), the Project Anime® site (www.project-anime.org), the World Cosplay Summit USA site (http://worldcosplaysummitusa.org), and the AX App and any other SPJA Event mobile applications.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand how we will treat your information.

Data Controller

• Unless otherwise noted, the Data Controller of all data described in this policy is SPJA.
• SPJA is located at 19675 Temescal Canyon Rd., Corona, CA, 92881, USA

How We Collect Information

Directly From You

You may provide us with personal information in several ways, such as when you:

• Purchase tickets and register for events. When you purchase tickets for SPJA Events or register as an attendee (fan, industry, or press), exhibitor, sponsor, panelist, workshop leader, or photographer, we ask for your name, email address, age, and gender. This information is sometimes collected directly by SPJA and sometimes indirectly through SPJA’s service providers, such as the event registration platform. We may collect additional information from individuals who register as an exhibitor, sponsor, panelist, workshop leader, press, or photographer related to that individual’s role. For example, exhibitors must provide information about their company, details about plans for tables, and additional contact information;
• Communicate with us by e-mail or phone;
• Subscribe to our e-mails or newsletters;
• Report a problem or request support for any of our Services;
• Interact with our Social Media Accounts; or
• Participate in our contests, promotions, sweepstakes, applications or surveys

Information We Collect From Other Sources

We work closely with third parties (for example, technical service providers, payment providers, promotion companies, advertising networks, and analytics providers) and may receive information about you from them.

Depending on the relationship and activity, they will provide us with certain information that will help us understand how you interact with our Services so we can tailor our marketing and provide better, more personalized Services to you. In some cases, third parties also provide us with information that helps us keep track of transactions, address technical or logistical issues, prevent fraud, or keep our community safe from security threats.

We may also receive and display information and content which you make publicly available on your social media account when you interact with any of our content, such as when you post using one of our promoted hashtags or respond to posts on our social media accounts.

How We Use Your Information

• Purposes Directly Related to Our Services. We use your information to provide you with the Services you have requested, contact you if there is a problem with providing you with those Services, add your name to the lists for Services you have asked to receive, update your information with any changes you have requested to us, and to notify you if there are any issues with the Services.
• Responding to “Contact us” requests. If you have submitted a “contact us” form on one of our websites or apps or emailed us asking us to contact you, your information will be used to respond to your request.
• Partner Marketing. With your consent, we may send you messages regarding products or services offered by our partners that you may be interested in.
• Sending Newsletters. With your consent, we will use your email address to send you SPJA’s newsletter. You may withdraw this consent by using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter or by contacting us at privacy@spja.org.
• Technical support/assistance. We use your information to provide you with technical support and other assistance to use our websites or apps.

How We Share Your Information

We share your information under the following circumstances:

• With your consent.
• When we have a legitimate business interest.
• To comply with our legal obligations, such as laws, regulations, search warrants, subpoenas, or court orders, or to exercise or defend legal claims.

The following paragraphs give further detail on circumstances when we may share your data:

• Service Providers.  Like any other company, SPJA uses a variety of third-party businesses and partners to market and provide our Services to you (“Service Providers”). These include but are not limited to business partners, suppliers, and sub-contractors we contract with to provide you with the Services such as third-party payment processing. These Service Providers’ access to your information is limited to the information reasonably necessary to perform their limited functions, and our contracts with these vendors require that your data be treated in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.
• Press list. SPJA will share the press list for an SPJA Event with industry members for the purpose of coordinating press and public announcements. The press list shows the full name, outlet, and email address of everyone who registered as press.
• Giveaway sponsors/their affiliates. When you sign up for one of our giveaways, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotions, with your consent, we may share your information with the sponsor of the promotion and/or its affiliates. See specific promotion rules for details.
• Exhibitors and Sponsors with badge tap stations. By tapping your badge at an SPJA Event exhibitor/sponsor booth, we may provide the exhibitor and any affiliated organizations with your name, gender, email address, and/or badge type and/or price. We may also provide booth and timestamp data from any badge tap-in. By tapping your badge, you consent to this sharing. This information is controlled by the respective privacy policies of these exhibitors and sponsors and not by our Privacy Policy.
• Exhibitors and Sponsors at SPJA Events. Please note that you may be able to enter drawings or provide information to exhibitors and sponsors at SPJA without using your badge. Once you provide information to an exhibitor/sponsor, the privacy policy of that exhibitor/sponsor is controlling. Each exhibitor/sponsor has its own privacy policy. Please review their privacy policies before providing your consent to their collection of your data. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies or for the data collection and use by these exhibitors/sponsors.
• Safety. The owner of any SPJA Event Site may disclose your information if it believes such disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the safety, rights, or property of the public, any person, or SPJA; to investigate, prevent, or otherwise address suspected fraud, harassment, or other violations of any law, rule, or regulation; to detect, prevent, or otherwise address security or technical issues; or as SPJA believes is required by law, regulation, or legal process.
• Change in control. If SPJA engages in a merger, acquisition, disposition, change of control, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, or similar transaction or proceeding, or otherwise transfers the operations of such SPJA Event or website that relates to your information, SPJA will transfer your information to the successor entity.
• Similar Entities: With your consent, we may share your information with third parties that offer products or services that you may be interested in.

Cookies

We and our third-party service providers use cookies and other tracking mechanisms to track information about your use of our Services. We may combine this information with other personal information we collect from you (and our third-party service providers may do so on our behalf).

“Cookies” are small data files that a website places on your browser when you visit the website. Cookies allow a website or third party to recognize your browser. There are three primary types of cookies:

• Session cookies are specific to a particular visit and carry information as you view different pages within a website. Session cookies expire and delete themselves automatically in a short period of time, e.g., when you leave the website or when you close your browser.
• Persistent cookies enable us to recognize you when you visit an SPJA Event Site and remember your preferences. Persistent cookies are stored on your browser or mobile device until you choose to delete them, and otherwise typically delete themselves at expiration.
• Third-party cookies are placed by someone other than SPJA. They may gather browsing activity across multiple websites and sessions. They are usually persistent cookies and are stored until you delete them or until they expire based on the time period set in each third-party cookie.

The cookies used in connection with your use of the Services will generally fall within one of the following categories:

• Necessary functionality: These cookies are essential to enable you to navigate the SPJA Event Sites and access the Services in a safe and secure manner.
• Important functionality: These cookies help us authenticate registered users.
• Performance and Analytics: These cookies provide data on how the Services are functioning to help us improve the performance of the Services and the user experience.
• Personalization: These cookies allow us to personalize the content we display to you.

Choices Regarding Cookies

Most browser software can be set to reject all cookies, including third-party cookies. If you choose to reject our cookies, however, your ability to access and use the Services may be limited. Typically, the cookie settings are within the “options” or “preferences” menu in your browser. The links below provide information about cookie settings for some commonly used browsers:

• Internet Explorer
• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox

You can opt-out of interest-based advertising on the SPJA Event Sites by rejecting cookies. Please note that even if you reject cookies and opt-out of interest-based advertising, you will continue to receive generic advertisements through the Services.

To opt out of interest-based advertising, you may use the following links provided by third parties that manage opt outs for some ad networks:

http://preferences-mgr.truste.com
http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
http://www.aboutads.info/
https://policies.google.com/privacy/partners

Note: If you delete cookies, use a different device, or change web browsers, you may need to opt out again.

Do-Not-Track Signals

Some web browsers may transmit “do-not-track” signals to the websites with which the user communicates. Because of differences in how web browsers incorporate and activate this feature, it is not always clear whether you intend for these signals to be transmitted, or whether you even are aware of them. Because there currently is no industry standard concerning what, if anything, websites should do when they receive such signals, we currently do not act in response to “do-not-track” signals.

Aggregated Data

We collect a variety of aggregated data about how you and other users use our Services. This aggregated data is anonymized and not connected to any individual.

• We collect information about your device when you access our Services electronically, including IP address, browser information (including referring URL), cookie information, and advertising ID (which is a unique, user-resettable identification number for advertising associated with a mobile device).
• We automatically collect and store information about your use of our websites and the Services you receive through those sites, such as your engagement with particular content, including links you have followed and pages you have requested, and how often and when you engage with any of our websites.

How We Store Your Information

• We store information that we collect on our websites, on our own servers, and/or on servers operated by third parties. These third-party servers are located in the United States.
• We retain your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or our data retention policies unless a longer retention period is required by law. For example, if you have signed up to receive a newsletter, we will retain your name and email address until you unsubscribe from that newsletter (unless you have provided it for some other purpose as well). Within a reasonable period of time after your information is no longer required for any of the purposes outlined in this policy, we will delete it.

How We Protect Your Information

• We take reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction of data located on and collected by our Services. Sensitive and private data exchange between the Site and its Users happens over an SSL secured communication channel and is encrypted and protected with digital signatures. We exercise reasonable care to protect your non-public personal information. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we strive to protect your non-public personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us or receive from us while it is in transit. Once we receive your personal information, we maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect it. If a data breach occurs, we will notify you and the proper European Economic Area (“EEA”) authority (if required) within 72 hours (if reasonably feasible). If we are unable to notify the proper EEA authority within 72 hours, our notice will be accompanied by reasons for the delay.
• The SPJA Event Sites may contain links or references to other sites in addition to the ones we have already mentioned. Please be aware that we do not control such other sites and that, in any case, this Privacy Policy does not apply to those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every site you visit.

How We Handle Children’s Information (for Parents)

As a nonprofit entity, SPJA is not subject to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). SPJA nevertheless makes commercially reasonable efforts with respect to the collection and protection of the data of children.

Our SPJA Event Sites are general audience websites, intended for use by individuals over the age of thirteen (13).

SPJA does not market to and does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen (13) through the Services.

We also do not share child badge data with SPJA Event exhibitors/sponsors. Should a child tap his or her badge on an SPJA Event exhibitor/sponsor booth, we will not provide the exhibitor any information from that badge.

If you are based in the EEA you may use our Services only if you are over the age at which you can provide consent to data processing under the laws of your country (the “Age of Consent”). If you are not over the Age of Consent, you may not use our Services without the permission of a parent.

If you are a parent or guardian of a child who is under 13 years old and using our Services, please contact us at privacy@spja.org to request deletion of any personal information we may have collected about the child. For privacy reasons, we may request proof of relationship to the child.

Management of Information

• You can update your personal information by going into your online account on the SPJA Event Site where you initially provided the information. If you are unable to update your information yourself, please contact us at privacy@spja.org for assistance.
• If you are from the EEA, in accordance with applicable data protection law, you have the right to (i) access your information; (ii) have your information corrected or deleted; (iii) in certain circumstances, object to our processing of your information; (iv) withdraw consent previously provided; (v) in certain circumstances, request that your information be transferred to another service provider, where feasible; or (vi) if you believe that we have not complied with applicable data protection law, lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us by email at privacy@spja.org.
• For questions about this Privacy Policy and how your information may be collected, stored, used, and shared, please contact us by email at privacy@spja.org.

Links to Third-Party Websites

Our Services, newsletters, email updates, and other communications may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of others, advertisers, and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

We may revise and update our Privacy Policy from time to time at our sole discretion. We will notify you when we make changes to our Privacy Policy by posting on this page and by revising the “Effective Date” date at the top of this page.  All changes are effective immediately when we post them and apply to all access to and use of the Services thereafter. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree or consent to these updates or changes, do not continue to use the Services.

Contact

Questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy should be addressed to:

The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation
19675 Temescal Canyon Rd.,
Corona, CA, 92881
USA

privacy@spja.org