Last Updated: September 1, 2023
What is Personal Information?
This Privacy Policy describes the types of information the National Council of Teachers of English (“NCTE”) collects from you, how we use such information, and to whom and under what circumstances we may disclose it. This Privacy Policy applies to all users (“Users”) of our website, www.ncte.org (the “Website”); our online blogs and other websites developed by NCTE now or in the future (the “Sites”); and all Users of the Sites who provide personal identifiable information (“personal information”). When this Privacy Policy uses the term “personal information,” we mean information that identifies a particular individual, such as the individual’s full or partial name, postal address, email address, photograph, and telephone numbers.
What Is the Scope of Our Privacy Policy?
This Privacy Policy addresses our policies and procedures relating to the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of personal information, and is applicable to NCTE, its successors and assignees, and any affiliates of NCTE. This Privacy Policy is applicable to the personal information of all Users of the Sites and personal information you provide to us through other means. Please note that each third-party site has its own privacy policy and terms of service that are not affected by this Privacy Policy.
By accessing the Sites on any computer, mobile phone, tablet, or other device; making a donation; becoming a member or special interest group; publishing in our blog; applying for an award, grant, or contest; attending our events; making a purchase from us; or otherwise interacting with us, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Sites.
If any member takes actions to attempt to access information of other members through the Sites in contravention of our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy, NCTE reserves the right to terminate that member.
Personal and Other Information Collected, Used and Shared by NCTE
To optimize your experience on the Sites, we may need to collect certain personal information that is voluntarily provided by you when you explore the Sites, use our services, or communicate with us by mail, telephone, or electronically. For the 12-month period prior to the date of this Privacy Policy, we explain here what categories of personal information we have collected, where we got it from, why it is needed, and with whom we shared it:
| Category of Personal Information Collected | Source of Information | Purpose for Collection | Categories of Recipients |
| Contact information: such as your name, address, photograph, email address, telephone numbers, or other contact information | From you | To provide and deliver information, products, or services you have requested; to provide information we think may be of interest to you; to send you information related to our services; to communicate with you about upcoming events, including the NCTE annual convention, and other news about services offered by NCTE and our selected partners; and to manage and administer our community features and member programs and services | Our service providers, who administer our community features and member programs and services; and selected partners, affiliates, and sponsors that we believe may have offers or be of interest to you |
| Purchase and order information: contact information, together with purchase details, delivery details, payment details, and/or any communications we have received about your purchase | From you | To validate, confirm, verify, deliver, and track your order, including to arrange for shipping, handle returns and refunds, maintain a record of the purchases you make; and to provide you offers that may be of interest to you | Our service providers, who process, fulfill and ship orders |
| Payment information: name, card issuer and card type, credit or debit card number, expiration date, CVV code and/or billing address | From you and your payment card issuer | To check that the right person is using the right card or account; meet the requirements of the card brands or account issuers; and to make sure we are paid for what you purchase | Our service providers, who process payments for us, who are prohibited from using personal information for any other purpose and are contractually required to comply with all applicable laws and requirements, which may include Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards if they process payments for us |
| Legal information: fraud checks or flags raised about you, suspected crimes, complaints, and/or claims | From you, the police, crime and fraud prevention agencies, the public, regulators, and your and our professional advisors and representatives | To protect you and our business against criminal activities and risks; and to make sure we understand and can meet our legal obligations to you and others and can defend ourselves | Our service providers, who help us with fraud protection and credit risk reduction; and law enforcement and/or other governmental authorities in accordance with applicable law |
| Preference information: your account settings, including any default preferences, any preferences you have indicated, the types of services/offers that interest you, the areas of our Sites that you visit, or complaints you may have about the Sites and any of their content and offerings | From you, from our website technology interaction with your browser/devices and cookies and other similar technologies tracking the pages you visit, the marketing messages you open, and the links you follow | To properly investigate and respond to any complaints or questions you may have about our Sites; to enhance your online experience and make the Sites more useful to you; and to provide you with information or services we think may be of interest to you | Our third-party vendors and other service providers that perform website analytic services for us |
| Demographic information: such as your gender, race, ethnicity, date of birth, and personal interests | From you | To make the Sites more interesting and useful to you; to provide services we think may be of interest to you, through other third-party sites or applications; and to understand which areas of our Sites are most appealing or least appealing | Our service providers, who administer our community features and member programs and services; and third-party vendors and other service providers that perform website analytic services for us |
| Communications: communications we have with you | From you | To handle your requests, and to contact you when necessary or requested, including to respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service | Our service providers, who assist us with customer service |
| Personalization: your journey online and how you use our Sites; and whether and when you open our emails and respond to our communications | From you, from our Site technology’s interaction with your browser or devices and cookies tracking the pages you visit | To make the Sites more interesting and useful to you; and to improve services, customer service, and customer experience | Our third-party vendors and other service providers that perform website analytic services for us |
| Device information: IP address, internet provider, operating system and browser used, type of device, such as laptop or smart phone, and/or device cookie settings and other device details, such as MAC address and geolocation, if you permit it to obtain your precise geolocation | From you and from our website’s interaction with your browser or devices | To collect information regarding the frequency with which you visit various parts of our Sites; to make sure our Sites work properly with your device, for analytical and demographic purposes; and to provide offers that may be of interest to you. We also will use this information to protect the security or integrity of the Sites and our business, such as by protecting against and preventing fraud and unauthorized transactions and managing risk exposure. We may combine IP addresses with personally identifiable information. | Our service providers who help us with fraud protection, and third party vendors and other service providers that perform website analytic services for us |
| Information automatically collected from your browser: When you use the Sites, some data is automatically transferred from your browser to our server, including your browser type, operating system type or mobile device model, viewed webpages, links that are clicked, IP address, mobile device identifier or other unique identifier, sites or apps visited before coming to our Sites, the amount of time you spend viewing or using the Sites, the number of times you return, or other click-stream or site usage data, and emails we send that you open or click through to our Sites. | From you and from our website’s interaction with your browser or devices | We will use this information in an aggregated non-specific format for analytical and demographic purposes. We also will use this information to protect the security or integrity of the Sites and our business, such as by protecting against and preventing fraud and unauthorized transactions, and managing risk exposure. | Our third-party vendors and other service providers that perform website analytic services for us |
In addition to the sharing of your personal information as described above, we also may disclose personal information we collect as follows:
To a Third Party in the Event of a Significant Transaction or Other Event
In the case of any significant transaction or event involving NCTE or any of its affiliated entities such as, by way of example, a sale, merger, amalgamation, financing, re-organization, liquidation, or insolvency, other parties to the transaction and their professional advisors may need to have access to NCTE’s various databases as part of the due diligence process. Upon completion of the transaction or event, your personal information would be transferred to NCTE’s successor-in-interest.
Interest-Based Advertising
We may use on the Sites third-party advertising companies and platforms, such as Google Ads, which use tracking technologies to serve our advertisements across the Internet. These advertising companies may collect information about your visits to Sites and other websites and your interaction with our advertising and other communications. These advertising companies serve ads on behalf of us and others on nonaffiliated sites, and some of those ads may be personalized, meaning that they are intended to be relevant to you based on information collected about your visits to the Sites and elsewhere over time. Other companies may also use such technology to advertise on the Sites.
You have the choice to tell us not to collect and use this information, and in some jurisdictions, we will only engage in interest-based advertising if you opt-in. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices concerning interest-based ads, visit: https://optout.networkadvertising.org/ or https://youradchoices.com/control.
User Content
Certain areas of the Sites may permit you to send to NCTE materials, information, and other submissions. Upon submission, all content, materials, or information of any nature, save and except any personally identifiable information as defined in our Privacy Policy (collectively, the “ User Content”), submitted by you to NCTE or otherwise posted on the Sites, shall be deemed to be, and shall remain, licensed to NCTE. You hereby grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) to NCTE, a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, sublicense, edit, adapt, publish, translate, broadcast, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, and publicize such User Content anywhere, for any purpose and in any form, through any media or technology now known or later developed, without any additional compensation to you. Except as set forth in the Privacy Policy, none of the User Content shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of NCTE, and NCTE shall not be liable for any use, non-use, or disclosure of all or part of the User Content. Without limiting any of the foregoing, NCTE may, but is not obligated to, use and publish the User Content on the Sites or elsewhere for purposes that include, without limitation, new or enhanced services, marketing, and public relations.
You acknowledge and agree that you will not receive any compensation whatsoever in connection with the use and exploitation by NCTE or its affiliates of any User Content. You are responsible for all User Content posted by you. NCTE HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUCH USER CONTENT. You hereby represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights in and to all User Content that you provide. NCTE does not and cannot review every submission by Users and is not responsible for, nor does it endorse the content of such submissions. However, NCTE retains the right, but not the obligation, to review, edit, or delete any User Content that NCTE deems to be illegal, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate. All information submitted by you that constitutes personal information shall be subject to our Privacy Policy.
What Security Measures Does NCTE Have in Place To Safeguard Personal Information?
NCTE has implemented physical, electronic, and administrative measures to protect your information from error, loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. For example, when you enter sensitive information (such as your credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer (SSL) technology. In addition, our employees and any third parties that we use are contractually bound to protect the confidentiality of your information, and access is restricted to those with a need to know the information to carry out the identified purpose. From time to time, we review our security procedures to protect our Users’ personal information to consider appropriate new technology and methods; however, despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. In this regard, we urge you to take every precaution to protect your personal data while you are on the Internet.
Where is my Personal Information Located?
Your personal information may be stored and processed in servers, including those of our authorized third parties, currently located in the United States. These servers shall always be subject to the safeguards described in this Privacy Policy to protect against unauthorized collection, use, or disclosure, and you shall be able to access the personal information stored in such servers in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
How To Control How Your Personal Information is Collected, Used, and Disclosed
You have control over how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information. You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Sites and visiting your account profile page. You may also send us an email at [email protected] or call our toll-free number, 877-369-6283, to request access to, or to correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. Any comments, questions, or changes regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information shall be directed to a NCTE representative, as described below.
You may choose not to receive emails from us, even after granting permission, by unsubscribing. If you do not wish to receive promotional emails from us about NCTE or third parties’ products, services, and offers, you can unsubscribe by clicking on the unsubscribe link in each such email, by sending us an email stating your request to [email protected], or by calling our toll-free number: 877-369-6283. This does not apply to information provided to NCTE as a result of a product purchase, warranty registration, product service experience, or other transactions.
If you do not want us to share your personal information with unaffiliated or non-agent third parties for promotional purposes, you can opt out by checking the relevant box located on the form on which we collect your data (e.g., the registration form). You can also always opt out from future third-party advertising by emailing your request to [email protected], or by calling our toll-free number: 877-369-6283.
A request for a copy of the personal information we keep about you, depending on the laws of your country, must be made in writing,explaining the details with which NCTE can identify you. Information will be furnished in accordance with applicable law.
Children’s Privacy
NCTE complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (as amended, “COPPA”), which prohibits collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent. The Sites are not directed at children, nor do we knowingly solicit or collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent. If it comes to our attention that we have unknowingly collected information from a child under the age of 13, we will take all reasonable measures to delete it as soon as possible, and will not use such information for any purpose (except where necessary to protect the safety of the child or others as required or allowed by law). If you become aware of any personally identifiable information that we have collected from children under 13, please call us at 877-369-6283 or email us at [email protected]. Please note that, while we make reasonable efforts to comply with such requests, deletion of your personal information does not ensure complete and comprehensive removal of that data from all systems.
Links to Third-Party Sites
Users may, through hypertext or other computer “links,” gain access to other websites on the Internet that are not operated or monitored by NCTE. NCTE is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by NCTE of the website or linked content linkedo. NCTE ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY MATERIAL OUTSIDE OF THE WEBSITE OPERATED BY NCTE AND ITS AFFILIATES, INCLUDING ANY WEBSITE THAT MAY BE ACCESSED THROUGH A LINK ON A NCTE-OPERATED SITE. Unless otherwise indicated at a NCTE-operated Site, NCTE is not sponsored by or affiliated with the linked website, and trademarks used in connection with linked websites are not trademarks of NCTE. NCTE specifically disclaims responsibility for any inadvertent viewing by a minor of any material intended for adults on a website accessed through use of a linked website. If you click on a link for Facebook, X, or any other third-party website, you should know that our Privacy Policy will not apply on those sites. Accordingly, we recommend that you review the privacy policy posted on any third-party site before.
Users Outside of the United States
The Sites are intended for use of residents of the United States. If you are visiting the Sites from outside the United States, you understand and agree that your personal information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States or other countries in accordance with the Privacy Policy. The data protection and other applicable laws of the United States or other countries may not be as comprehensive as those laws or regulations in your country or may otherwise differ from the data protection or consumer protection laws in your country. Your information may be available to government authorities under lawful orders and law applicable in such jurisdictions. By using the Sites and/or providing personal information to us, you consent to the transfer of your information to the United States or other countries as described in the Privacy Policy.
Do Not Track. Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in some Web browsers, allowing users to opt out of tracking by Sites and online services. At the present time, the World Wider Consortium (W3C) has not yet established universal standards for recognizable DNT signals and, therefore, NCTE and the Sites do not recognize DNT.
Cookies Policy
NCTE may also collect information that is stored in cookies, and we may associate this information with your personal information. Cookies are small pieces of information stored on your hard drive, not on our Sites. We may use cookies for a number of reasons, including to: (1) allow you to use the Sites without having to re-enter your user name and password; (2) enhance or personalize your Sites usage and shopping experience; (3) monitor the Sites usage; and (4) improve the Sites and our products and services. Additionally, NCTE may use first-party and third-party cookies for integrated services, external services, and applications that our website(s) support. If you choose, you can set your browser to reject cookies or you can manually delete individual cookies or all of the cookies on your computer by following your browser’s help file directions. However, if your browser is set to reject cookies or you manually delete cookies, you may have some trouble accessing and using some of the pages and features that are currently on our Sites, or that we may put on our Sites in the future. Note that browser-management tools for cookies are outside of our control, and we cannot guarantee their effectiveness.
Questions, Comments, or Accessing or Updating Your Personal Information
If you have any questions or comments about NCTE’s Privacy Policy, would like to advise us how you would like your personal information not to be used or disclosed, or would like to access or update your personal information, please email us at [email protected], or call our toll-free number: 877-369-6283. You can also write to us at National Council of Teachers of English, PO Box 416, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701-0416.
Acceptance of Privacy Policy/Amendments to Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy outlines the information usage practices of NCTE. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use the Sites. We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy at our discretion and at any time, including as required to keep current with rules and regulations, new technologies, and security standards. If, at some point in the future, there is a material change to our information usage practices that affects your personal information, you will be notified of such change by a conspicuous posting on the Website. Your continued interaction with NCTE following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes, subject to your continuing right to notify us at any time as to how you would like us to treat your personal information.