Privacy Policy

Who we are

The non-profit organization, Science of Spirituality, Inc. (“SOS”), is the controller of the personal data you submit to us and is responsible for your personal data under applicable data protection law. SOS is a nonstock corporation registered in Delaware, Corporate No. 871450 and headquartered at 4105 Naperville Road, Lisle, Illinois, USA 60532, Ph: 1-630-955-1200. SOS is recognized as a tax-exempt organization by the United States Internal Revenue Service and is registered as a charitable organization in the State of Illinois.

Scope of this Policy

SOS is committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy. This privacy policy sets out the type of information we collect from the public, what we use it for and the rights that you have in relation to this information.

This privacy policy applies to use of data collected by us from the public, particularly those who use the SOS public website www.sos.org. Because SOS is an international organization, this privacy policy also provides the terms for cross-border data transmission of your data within SOS and to its affiliated organizations. If you are a member and want to know what additional information we collect on our members who give it to us, go to our member website at sangat.sos.org and look for SOS’s member website privacy policy.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of our Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first visit to our website. If you do not accept and agree to this Privacy Policy, you should stop using our website.

Who we collect information from

We collect information from anyone who is or says he or she is 18 or older and connects with us and volunteers their contact information, such as on our public website, by email, at our meetings and programs, or by calling us or talking to one of our members.

Our website is not intended for individuals under 18 years of age, without the valid consent of their parent or guardian. If we learn that we have collected or received personal information from an individual under the age of 18 without verification of legal guardian or parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under age 18, please contact us at privacy@sos.org.

What information and the types of information we collect

Some data will be only be collected if you voluntarily submit it and consent to us using it for the purposes set out below or in the consent form you sign; other data will be collected automatically by our website.

Voluntarily submitted data

The type of information we collect from the public who volunteer it is generally limited to your contact information: Name and contact details (e.g. postal address, email address, telephone number, and mobile number). You can also email or talk to us to ask questions, send messages and receive answers.  If you submit any personal information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with us or our websites, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Automatically collected data

This is information that does not reveal your specific identity. It is used by us to help us with the operation of our website and deliver a better user experience. Example of such information includes (1) Information about the browser type and version used; (2) your operating system; (3) your Internet service provider; (4) your IP address; (5) Date and time of access; (6) information collected through cookies, pixel tags and other technologies as more fully explained below.

In the event of abuse, we may block certain IP addresses and/or report them to the authorities.

How we use your information

For the public connecting with us, we use your contact information to deliver information to you about our programs, services, meetings, activities and spiritual messages and to answer your questions about SOS and what it offers.

All personal data is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

We use your data and personal information to:

• Personalize and tailor for you our services and information on our website;
• Supply information and news about our services to you;
• Respond to communications from you;
• E-mail you newsletters, program information, spiritual messages, alerts and other information you have asked to be given;
• Unsubscribe you or let you opt-out at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link
• Give us information and feedback on your use of our website to improve our website and your use of it.

In some cases, your data that you give to us may be subject to a legal requirement that limits our use of it without your further or more explicit consent for us to be able to use such data.

With your permission and/or where permitted by law, we may also use your data to contact you by email, telephone, text message, post and/or message services with information, news and event details. We will not send you unsolicited messages or messages after you tell us you do not want.

As stated above under the heading of “Automatically collected data,” automatically collected information obtained through your browser or device, links, cookies and pixel tags is used to deliver a better website user experience and, as explained below, to better promote and make available to you and others like you who may be interested, the benefits of what we have to offer through our messages, talks, education, programs and website information.

We will take reasonable steps to process your personal data without adversely affecting your rights under the rules and laws governing our use of it.

How we obtain your information

We obtain your information through a variety of means, including by direct contact on our website, at or by your registering for our meetings and programs, by your calling or emailing us, by your speaking to one of our members, and where you otherwise volunteer it to us.

Personal information – We and our service providers may collect personal information in a variety of ways, including:

• Through Our Websites or E-Mailing Us: We may collect Personal Information through the websites, e.g., when you register for an SOS event, program or talk or contact us, subscribe to our email newsletter, download content (e.g. audio, video or literature), or send us an email.
• Offline: We may collect Personal Information from you offline, such as when you attend one of our events, programs or talks, during phone calls with our volunteers, or when you directly speak to one of our members.
• Through You: Our service providers and processors may collect information such as your location or your preferred means of communication when you voluntarily provide it.

Automatically collected information – We and our service providers may collect other information in a variety of ways, including:

• Through Your Browser or Device: Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device such as computer type (Example Windows or Macintosh), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, Internet browser type and version, and the name and version of the Sites you are using.
• Through Links: In order to operate our services, we keep track of how you interact with links across our services. This includes links in emails we send you and links on the website.
• Through Cookies, Pixel Tags and Other Similar Technologies: A cookie is a small piece of data that is stored on your computer or mobile device to enable SOS to give you a better website experience and operate our services we offer on our website. Pixel tag is a small block of code on a webpage that allow websites to do things like read and place cookies. The resulting connection can include information such as the person’s IP address, the time the person viewed the pixel and the type of browser being used.
• Like many websites, we also use cookies, pixel tags and similar technologies to collect additional website usage data to operate our services and to remember and analyze how visitors use our website, what pages they visit, the region they are in, and how we can better reach people like our visitors to get our messages and information to them, including when they search on the web for services or information of the kind or type that we offer.
• By Aggregating Information: Aggregated Personal Information does not personally identify you or any other user of our website.  For example, we may aggregate Personal Information to calculate the percentage of our users from a particular region.

Purposes for which we use your information:

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• Providing you with access to the information, services, spiritual messages in various media, and support you asked for or want to know from SOS;
• Sending you communications about services, meditation sessions, events, programs, talks, children’s activities, Veggie Fest, projects we are undertaking, charitable endeavors, and uplifting messages in the field of spirituality;
• Registering you for attendance at and/or arrangements for, an SOS event, activity or program;
• Answering your questions about SOS and what it offers;
• We may also use your personal information for other purposes which we specifically notify you about and, where appropriate, obtain your consent.
• Unless you are a member, we do not solicit or accept donations or offer to sell anything other than occasional purchases of books, CD’s, DVD’s and similar items about SOS if you visit our bookstore and choose to make a purchase.   Accordingly, the only financial information from nonmembers we receive is payment information used by us and our service providers to process occasional purchases from our bookstore.

• Automatically collected information obtained through your browser or device, links, cookies and pixel tags is used to deliver a better website user experience and give us information to help us improve our ability to reach you and others with messages and information about SOS.

If you are a member, there is more information about you that we obtain and other purposes for which we use it. As noted above, the SOS privacy disclosure for members is on the SOS website for its members at sangat.sos.org.

Who we may share your information with

We will not sell your personal information to third parties or share it with other charities or religious organizations.

We may share your data within SOS and with its affiliated organizations.

We may sometimes share your information with our trusted service providers who perform services and functions on our behalf to support our interactions with you, including, for example, cloud computing services, email outreach service providers, website administrators, search engine and social media platforms, and as mentioned previously, payment processors when a visitor makes a purchase from an SOS bookstore.

We may also have to disclose your information in order to comply with a legal obligation imposed on us.

Where we will store your information

Your information may be stored by us or transferred and stored outside SOS’s own computers, for example on website host servers.

Some or all of your data may be stored or transferred outside of your country of domicile. You accept and agree to this by using our website and submitting information to us. If we do store or transfer data outside of your country of domicile, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your data is treated as safely and securely as it would be within your country of domicile.

Data security is important to us and to protect your data we have put in place reasonable procedures to safeguard data collected through our website. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we maintain precautions for the protection for your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site.

Cookies

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognizes that cookie. Cookies are widely used because they allow a website to recognize a user’s device and therefore allow enhanced functionality.

You can find out more information about cookies at: www.allaboutcookies.org

Like many websites, we use cookies and similar technologies to collect additional website usage data and to operate our services. Cookies and other similar technologies may be used to collect other information, like statistical data on the use of our website and its functioning.  We do so to monitor and improve our website information messages to you and to facilitate your ability to navigate through our website, and to allow us to share and make available our web pages to people like you who may be interested in our spiritual, healthy lifestyle, vegetarian and ethical living messages and programs via social media platforms such as Google and Facebook.

We may use third parties to provide information about us on other websites that may be of interest to you and people like you or who have similar interests in spirituality, meditation or our events and programs, based on information collected about your use of our websites and other websites. To do so, these companies may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser (including through the use of pixel tags and web beacons).

By continuing to use the SOS website, you agree to the placement of these cookies and similar technologies.

Our cookies may be session cookies (temporary cookies that identify and track users within our websites, applications or services which are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service) or persistent cookies (cookies which enable our websites, applications or services to “remember” who you are and to remember your preferences within our websites, applications or services and which will stay on your computer or device after you close your browser or leave your session with us).

We use the following different types of cookies:

Essential / Necessary  Cookies 

These cookies are essential to make our Site work correctly, they enable you to move around our Site and use our features. Examples include remembering previous actions (e.g. entered text) when navigating back to a page in the same session. These cookies don’t identify you as an individual. If you do not accept these cookies, it may affect the performance of the site, or parts of it.

Functionality cookies

These cookies allow our websites, applications and services to remember choices you make (such as language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customize. These cookies help to maintain the continuity, features, format, and audio video effects of the session. They can also enable visitors to watch videos and engage with social tools, such as blogs, chatrooms and forums. The information these cookies collect is anonymized and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. If you do not accept these cookies, it may affect the performance and functionality of the Site and may restrict access to content on the Site.

Analytics cookies and technologies

These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our Site by providing information about the areas visited, the time spent on the Site, and any issues encountered, such as error messages.

They also help us improve the performance of our site. We might use information that we hold about you to show you relevant and „targeted advertising“ through search engines and social media  sites, like Google and Facebook. These cookies don’t identify you as an individual. All data is collected and aggregated anonymously.

Other tracking technologies

In addition to cookies, we may use web beacons, pixel tags, and other tracking technologies on the Site to help customize the Site and improve your experience. A “web beacon” or “pixel tag” is tiny object or image embedded in a web page or email. They are used to track the number of users who have visited particular pages and viewed emails, and acquire other statistical data. They collect only a limited set of data, such as a cookie number, time and date of page or email view, and a description of the page or email on which they reside. Web beacons and pixel tags cannot be declined. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies.

Targeting or promotional cookies

These cookies are used to deliver messages more relevant to you and your interests in us. They are also used to limit the number of times you see a message about us as well as help measure the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns.

These cookies can also help with retargeting. Retargeting involves following our website visitors around the web who have previously visited our website and showing them ads for our content, services, details of free webinars or free talks and events that they have viewed or interacted with previously. Retargeting works across different channels, including social media, display, and email.

IP Address and traffic data

We or our service providers keep a record of traffic data which is logged automatically by our servers, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, device information, the website that you visited before ours and the website you visit after leaving our site. We also collect some site, application and service statistics such as access rates, page hits and page views. We are not able to identify any individual from traffic data or site statistics.

List of current primary cookies being used or which may be used on our website.

Cookie	Description	Duration	Type
wp-wpml_current_language	Null	1 day	Other
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary	The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category „Non-necessary“.	1 year	Necessary
csbwfs_show_hide_status	Null	1 day	Other
_gcl_au	This cookie is used by Google Analytics to understand user interaction with the website.	2 months	Analytics
_ga	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.	2 years	Analytics
_gid	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.	1 day	Analytics
test_cookie	This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the users‘ browser supports cookies.	15 minutes	Advertisement
_gat_UA-24570231-1	This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.	1 minute	Performance
_fbp	This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.	2 months	Advertisement
fr	The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisements to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.	2 months	Advertisement
vuid	Null	2 years	Other
PHPSESSID	This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users‘ unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.		Necessary
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category „Necessary“.	1 hour	Necessary

 

Find out more about the individual cookies and analytics technologies some of which we use at www.allaboutcookies.org 

How do I refuse or withdraw my consent to the use of Cookies?

You can stop cookies from being downloaded on your computer by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however if you disable cookies you may find this affects your ability to use certain parts of our website, applications or services.

Most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to be notified when you receive a new cookie, and how to disable existing cookies. For more information on how to control cookies, check your browser or device’s settings for how you can control or reject cookies, visit the following links for more information on this:

• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Opera
• Apple Safari

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

 

In addition, you may opt-out from cookies by visiting the following websites and selecting which company cookies you would like to opt-out through the Digital Advertising Alliance in the US, the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada in Canada or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance in Europe. Please note that ad blockers and tools that restrict our cookie use may interfere with these controls.

For more information on the development of user-profiles and the use of cookies, please see www.youronlinechoices.eu if you are located in Europe or www.aboutads.info/choices for locations outside Europe.

If you disable the cookies that we use, this may adversely impact your user experience while on our site, for example certain media content may not work or you may not be able to visit certain areas of our site or the way it gets displayed may not be most optimized. 

Links

Our website may include links to other sites not owned or managed by us such as Facebook and You Tube.  If you use our links to go to other websites, we do not manage and cannot be held responsible for the privacy of information you provide on those websites, their use of cookies and other technologies and what information is collected from you by or on those websites.

We cannot be held responsible for the privacy of information you give to or which are collected by websites not managed by us.

How long will we keep your information

We will retain your information for as long as it is required to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, and for as long as is necessary for the legitimate purposes of our legal rights and obligations. After that time, we will delete your data from our systems and require that anyone to whom we have passed your information also delete it.

Your rights.

If you are an EU resident or in cases where applicable country or state law requires them, you have a number of rights under data protection laws. These include the right to:

• Access a copy of the information we hold about you
• Rectify errors in information we hold about you
• Have the information we hold about you erased in certain circumstances
• Restrict the processing of your information
• Object to your information being used for direct marketing
• Transfer the information we hold about you to another entity
• Withdraw any consent you have provided

If you would like access to your information, modify it or erase the information we hold about you, please send a description of the information you want to see or erase, and proof of identity to Science of Spirituality, 4105 Naperville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532 Attn: Privacy Officer or email us at privacy@sos.org. If you would like to invoke any of your other rights, please contact us as at privacy@sos.org   In order for us to process a request from you, we need to recognize your email address (or written address if you write to us) or you may need to supply us with additional information to verify that we are dealing with the proper person making the request.

Cross border data transfers

Our website is maintained in the United States. If you are visiting SOS websites in other countries or you are from another country and visiting SOS U.S. websites, interacting with U.S. volunteers or members, places, or programs, please note that information you give SOS from those visits may be sent to the United States where SOS as data controller is located.  The laws governing data collection and use from your country if other than the U.S., may differ from those in the United States.  You freely and specifically give us your consent to export and use your information within the United States. You understand that data stored in the United States or other countries may be subject to lawful requests by the courts or law enforcement authorities. If you are situated in the European Union, whenever we transfer your personal data to processors outside of the European Union, we use appropriate and suitable safeguards to protect the transfer, use and storage of your personal information.

Contacting us with questions and complaints

If you have a complaint or question about the way we are using your information then initially you should contact us at privacy@sos.org. If you are located in the European Union and have any complaints regarding our privacy practices as data controller, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to your local Supervisory Authority. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach your Supervisory Authority so please contact us in the first instance.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data or to exercise any of the other rights. However, we may refuse or be unable to comply with your request if your request is unfounded, repetitive, excessive, unintelligible or we cannot verify its true origin and have concerns that it is not a legitimate request.

Changes to this policy

We may change our privacy policy from time to time so please check back periodically. The most current version of the policy will govern our use of your information.
This policy was last updated: Aug 2020.