Website Privacy and Use Policies for Residents of the European Union (EU) And the European Economic Area (EEA)

The EU and EEA adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR”) effective as of May 25, 2018. Under the GDPR, certain requirements are imposed on “data controllers” and “data processors”. A “data controller” is an individual or entity that determines the purposes for which and the manner in which personal data is collected, used and processed. A “data processor” is a person or entity that processes personal information on behalf of a data controller. The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America (“SC”) does not have fraternity members outside of the United States except for individuals who are serving in the military, in the diplomatic corps or NATO or members who have moved to the EU or EEA on a temporary basis. Residents in the EU and EEA generally join foreign Supreme Councils in their jurisdiction, and those jurisdictions do not provide us with their members’ personal data except in limited circumstances. As a result, there are limited circumstances in which we would collect, use and process an EU or EEA resident’s personal information. This document describes how we collect, use, and process personal information that we do collect, use and process. In addition, under the GDPR, the SC is a small employer and is exempt from many provisions.

WHO IS THE DATA CONTROLLER RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PERSONAL INFORMATION SC COLLECTS?

The SC is usually the data controller of the personal data it collects from its website, membership petitions, events, its online store, etc. It frequently uses third-party vendors to process the personal data it collects. For example, our online store is currently managed by the entity Carpe Diem based in Florida, and it may collect your personal data to sell and deliver to you a book you may have ordered on that site. Under the GDPR, data controllers and data processors must enter into agreements to protect the personal information that the data processor obtains from the data controller. The SC in its contracts generally requires any third party processing data for it to keep the information confidential, to use it only for the purposes set forth in the contract and to use commercially reasonable techniques and organizational safeguards to protect the personal information SC provides to those third parties.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

When you simply visit the public areas of the SC Website, SC does not collect any personal information about you or require you to submit to it any personal information. SC relies on obtaining your consent or other lawful principles established for data collection under the GDPR and applicable laws. You have the option to abstain from providing any personal information when visiting publicly available portions of our website. If, however, you register to attend an event such as the SC’s Biennial Session, or you purchase products or services from SC, its affiliates or vendors or through SC’s online store, or if you are a member and access your membership record (i.e. members in the military) through the membership portal, then SC does require you to submit and does collect personal information about you in order to enable SC to register you for such events, send you information or materials related to that event, to send you the products or services you requested to purchase from us or our vendors, to allow you to update your membership record and to aid our sales and marketing efforts. While some information collected is for membership or business engagement purposes, other information is voluntarily given by an individual visiting our website.

In addition, if you are a member of SC and are resident in the EU or EEA due to service in the military, diplomatic corps or NATO, we collect personal information about you from your membership petition, when you access the member portal to submit and update your personal information, and through your communications and interactions with us.

The personal information that SC may collect could include:

• Your full name, address, telephone number, fax and email contact information
• Your payment information
• Your membership information
• Your password, user name and security questions and answers
• Information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings, events, webinars and other programs, including dietary preferences and requirements, necessary accommodations for any disability, and your travel arrangements
• If you are a member, we also may collect your date of birth, full name and name preferences, your marital status, your spouse’s name, your contact information, your occupation, your Masonic degrees, where and when you received your Masonic degrees, and your title if you hold an office in the fraternity. You provide this information voluntarily when you petition the fraternity to become a member and during your membership.
• If you are a dignitary in a foreign Supreme Council, we may collect your information to send you invitations to the biennial session and help you register for it, to help you book your hotel reservations, to assist you if you have any technical problems registering for programs and events or booking your hotel, and as needed for the ceremonies, events and programs at the session, such as your title and country of residence.

Some countries consider some personal information particularly sensitive or special. In some countries, membership in the fraternity may be deemed sensitive information. SC only collects this data when voluntarily given by the individual such as for processing attendance at an event, to provide membership services and benefits to the individual, such as newsletters, magazines and books or special meals, to provide accommodations for disabilities, to process an individual’s donations to our charities and for statistical purposes. Such information may include: date of birth, ethnicity, nationality, gender, fraternal memberships, disabilities, dietary preferences, marital status, spouse and children’s names.

WEBSITE USAGE INFORMATION AND HOW WE OBTAIN YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information when you provide it to us by using the “contact us” feature on our website, or by communicating with us or our staff by telephone, email, fax, direct mail or social media pages. We collect information from other sources such as from foreign Supreme Council administrative persons when they notify us of the election of their new directors and officers or resignations or deaths of members.

We collect certain information automatically when you use the website, such as the IP addresses, screen resolution, type of computer, and domain names of visitors, browser type, history of pages viewed, and other similar usage information. We collect this information for site administration purposes, such as analyzing the data for trends and statistics or for site maintenance and improvements. We may share statistical and aggregated non-personal information about our users with advertisers, business partners, sponsors and other third parties.

HOW DO WE USE THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT?

We use the personal information we collect for our legitimate business purposes, to provide member services to our members and members of affiliated Masonic organizations, to provide and improve this website, to perform a contract between you and us or our affiliated charities, to ensure the security of products and services we sell or provide to you, and to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject. The purposes for which we collect this information include:

• To provide this website to you and to improve its functions, appearance and efficient operation
• To determine your membership eligibility in the fraternity
• To do research on famous Masons and Scottish Rite members, to inform individuals and society about Masonry, and to help individuals find out about their family members’ Masonic history or Masonic history generally
• To register individuals for events like the fraternity’s biennial meeting, online videos, podcasts, courses and lectures and other programs
• To provide you with member benefits, products or services that you have requested, to provide related information about those products or services, and to administer the benefits of SC membership that are provided to you
• To develop membership directories for our Valleys, Orients, foreign Supreme Councils and Grand Lodges
• To process your payments for SC services, products and events
• To provide you with marketing materials and send you, or for our third-party partners to send you, information about products, services and events that may be of interest to you based on your known preferences
• To administer surveys
• To respond to your inquiries
• To solicit charitable contributions to our affiliated charities
• To prevent and detect fraud
• To protect and enforce our legal rights

WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

SC reserves the right to disclose and/or transfer personal information to a third party in the following scenarios:

• To identify, contact or bring a legal action against someone who is causing damage to or interfering with our rights or property, this website, other website users, and other third parties who may be harmed by that individual’s actions.
• To respond to a subpoena, warrant or other court order, or when we in good faith believe that a law, regulation, subpoena, warrant or other court order requires or authorizes us to do so
• To respond to an emergency situation.

SC also may share your information with the following third parties:

• Accountants, lawyers, and other advisors who help us carry out our business activities.
• Third parties engaged to assist SC in providing services to you or to carry out the purposes listed previously.
• Third party service providers, contractors, and subcontractors who help support the operations of our fraternity, for sales and marketing of our products and services, to provide this website, to provide products and services to you that you request, and to help plan and oversee events and programs. For example, we use a third party to process credit card payments; we use hotels to host and help manage our events; and we provide analytics or use third-party software like Raiser’s Edge or Patriot Membership Software, to manage our membership and donor relationship system. These service providers are prohibited from using your personal information for any purpose other than to provide the assistance specified and are contractually required to protect the personal information SC provides to them.
• To third parties hosting our donor database and donor contribution records and to our direct mail providers who help us to solicit charitable donations sending out solicitation mailings so that they can provide tax receipts, administer donations, and track giving trends

RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

SC will retain your personal information as long as you are a member of the fraternity or one of its Valleys or Orients and will keep it thereafter for historical and research purposes. If you are not a member of the fraternity, then we retain your personal information for as long as is needed to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected by us or provided by you and for at least ten years thereafter.

Personal data collected pursuant to this policy shall be retained as long as you continue to interact with SC or its vendors or for as long as we have a legitimate business interest in retaining your data. Additionally, SC will keep membership records for its legitimate interest in preserving Masonic history and helping scholars, researchers, and family members interested in Freemasonry and the Scottish Rite and interested in finding out about the Masonic background of their family members and ancestors.

TRANSFERS ACROSS BORDERS

SC may share information you provide to it or it obtains as a result of your use of the SC website with SC’s affiliates and vendors working on its behalf including vendors or providers who are located outside of the United States. Some of your information may be processed and transferred to the United States and be subject to United States law or may be stored and processed in another country and be subject to different data protection rules than those of the United States or your country. If SC provides your personal information overseas, it does so in connection with providing you with member benefits, requested information or services, or as required or authorized by law. Some of the overseas entities with whom we may share your information may not be subject to foreign laws that provide the same level of protection of information as your country of residence or may not be subject to any privacy obligations. Overseas entities may also be required or compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party. If we transfer information outside of the EEA, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure that it remains protected and secured in accordance with applicable law.

YOUR RIGHTS TO REMOVE, CORRECT, ACQUIRE, SUSPEND OR UPDATE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Subject to exemptions and exclusions, including our exemption as a small business under the GDPR, you have the following rights:

• To receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you provided you provide proof of your identity and sufficient information to help us locate the personal information you desire
• To ask us to correct your personal information that we have where it is incorrect or incomplete
• To ask that your personal information be deleted if it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or used; if you withdraw your consent and we have no other legal ground to continue to use your personal information; we have used your personal information illegally, or it needs to be erased for you to comply with a legal requirement.
• To obtain your personal information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and for it to be transferred to another organization if technically feasible provided the use of your personal information is based on your consent or for the performance of a contract, and its use is carried out by automated means.
• To object to the use in certain circumstances, such as for direct marketing purposes
• To withdraw consent at any time where we rely on only personal consent to use your personal information.

To exercise these rights, contact our membership department by email at [email protected] or by calling the Membership Department at 1-202-777-3109, or by writing to us at Supreme Council, 33, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, 1733 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009 Attention: Membership Department.

You also have the right to complain to the relevant data protection authority in your country if you think we have not used your personal information in accordance with the GDPR. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE PRIVACY AND USE POLICIES OUTLINED IN THIS DOCUMENT, YOU DO NOT HAVE OUR CONSENT TO ACCESS AND USE THE SC WEBSITES.

IF YOU AGREE TO THESE WEBSITE PRIVACY AND USE POLICIES, CLICK ON THE POP-UP BOX TO PROVIDE YOUR CONSENT.