IES Abroad Privacy Policy

The Institute for the International Education of Students (hereinafter “IES”, “IES Abroad” or “IES Global” interchangeably) respects the privacy of your information.  This Privacy Policy describes how IES Abroad (also referred to as “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, and discloses Personal Information.  It also describes the Personal Information choices and rights you may have, and how you can exercise those rights.  The term Personal Information, and other capitalized terms, are defined in this Policy. For the purposes of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and the version of the legislation that is incorporated into the laws of the United Kingdom (together, the “GDPR”), the relevant data controller of your Personal Information is the Institute for the International Education of Students, an Illinois nonprofit corporation. 

This Policy applies to the Personal Information we collect from and about you when you interact with our Services, which include when you:

• Visit our website: www.iesabroad.org
• Engage with IES Global on another communication platform such as: Cvent, Guidebook, WhatsApp, Trip Tracker, Moodle
• Create an account with us
• Start or complete an application for our programs on campus or through our website
• Accept enrollment in one of our programs
• Communicate with us by phone or email
• Attend our events
• Make a donation
• Become a volunteer, Ambassador, or advisor
• Connect with us on social media
• Interact with our promotions, advertisements, or surveys 

We may collect additional or different information from employees or job candidates through job applications, benefits enrollment, and payroll or direct deposit enrollment. We maintain a separate collection notice and privacy policy for employees and job applicants. 

Please note that our online Services may offer links to websites or services operated by third parties including social media networks. Third-party websites may independently collect information from you, and IES Abroad does not have control over the privacy practices of third-party websites and services. When you access a third party’s website through links on our website, the information that is collected from or about you on those websites is governed by the third party’s privacy policies. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every website you visit. 

Personal Information means any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated or linked, directly or indirectly, with an individual. Personal Information does not include information that is de-identified, aggregated, or anonymized. The categories of Personal Information we collect from and about you include:

Personal identifiers and contact information such as your name, mailing address, telephone number, personal and/or university email address, internet protocol (IP) online identifiers, Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number, identity reference numbers, or other similar government-issued identification numbers, social media accounts, and your emergency contacts’ information.

Demographic information such as gender, gender identity, pronouns, age, date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, racial, ethnic or national origin, and country of residence. 

Education information such as the college or university you attend, and any partner universities, your school residential address, transcripts, disciplinary history, grade point average, class year, graduation year, major and minor, course resignations, credits, attendance and participation records.

Financial information such as student loan or grant information (including your FAFSA information) when you apply for our programs, or your payment card information and billing address when you make a donation on our website. Note that your payment card information is transmitted directly to our payment card processor and is not stored by IES Abroad.

Professional information, such as your employer, title, and business contact information.  

Medical and other supportive information such as information relating to student health and well-being, student housing, student disabilities and accommodations, student emergencies, accidents, injuries, serious illness, crisis, incident, complaint, criminal act, disciplinary violation, incident of harassment, discrimination, or allegation, as well as any academic, behavioral, or disciplinary problems, emergency contacts, medical providers and mental health consultants .

Internet activity and user interaction information including device IP address and other information about the device you use to visit our website, online identifiers, browsing or search history, webpages you were visiting when you came to our website and pages you went to when you left the website, pages browsed, items you hover over or click, information you submit in a website forms, interaction with our advertisements, and social media information.  We may combine this information with other information we have collected about you in our systems to draw inferences about programs and other IES information you may be interested in to provide you with tailored advertisements and communications.

Geolocation data such as the general location of your device’s IP address when you visit our website.

Audio, visual, or similar information such as your photograph when you attend our events, or a recording of your voice when you contact us by phone.

Inferences about your interests or preferences that are drawn from other information we have collected. 

We do not knowingly collect or disclose Personal Information from individuals who are under the age of 16. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under the age of 16 that you believe may have provided us with Personal Information, please contact us through the channels provided below.

IES Abroad collects information about you in a variety of ways, including information you provide to us, information collected by website technologies, and information we obtain from other entities. 

Information You Provide To US: You may choose to give us information about you when you interact with us, on campus or online. Examples include: 

• Providing your contact information when you initially create an account with us or subscribe to our emails.
• Filling out our study abroad application and related forms, including financial aid or scholarship forms, consent forms, health and safety forms, and admissions/passport forms.
• Providing financial information before donating through our alumni portal and applying for scholarship aid on our website.
• Submitting your contact information with a comment or question on our website.
• Signing up to be an IES ambassador, correspondent, or partner.
• Visiting us at our offices or attending our events.
• Providing us with, media, including IES Film Festival submission, posting or tagging us in photographs or videos depicting your participation in a program, or providing feedback about our programs.
• Entering or participating in IES contests or events
• Connecting with us on social media or publishing content on our social media pages.

Information Collected By Website Technologies: When you interact with our website, email features, or other online Services, the cookies, pixels, web beacons and other technologies we and our advertising partners use (collectively “website technologies”) may collect internet activity and user interaction information as described in the Personal Information We Collect section above.  The information collected by website technologies may reveal or be connected with you by name, email address, or other personal identifier when our systems correlate it with the Personal Information you provided directly to us. 

The Kinds of website technologies we use includes:

• Necessary, functional, and performance cookies to maintain functionality of our website and help us deliver our Services, authenticate your identity, and remember your website preferences.
• Analytics technologies to research, understand, and improve our Services’ features and content.
• Marketing and targeted behavioral advertising technologies such as social media and analytics pixels (e.g., Meta, TikTok, Google Analytics, LinkedIn, Snapchat) to provide you with personalized advertisements, communications, and other content about Services we think you may be interested in.
• Location technologies (including your general location based on your IP address) to verify your location, prevent fraud, deliver or restrict content based on your location, and provide Services personalized to you with location-relevant content.
• Security technologies for purposes such as to detect activity that might violate our Terms and Conditions, prevent fraud, unauthorized access or activity.
• Communication technologies to determine whether you have opened, viewed, or otherwise interacted with the emails we send to you.   

Some of the technologies on our website transmit Personal Information to third party advertisers that may combine the Personal Information they collect on our website with other information they have collected about you from other websites to provide you with targeted advertisements from other companies. You may decline the placement of any cookie on your browser or device by opting out of non-essential cookies.

You may also set your browser or modify your device settings to block or refuse all cookies, to indicate when a cookie is being sent, or otherwise control what cookies your browser or mobile device accepts via your browser or mobile device settings. Additionally, you can choose to modify your settings and delete those cookies that are otherwise stored on your device. Please consult instructions provided by your browser or mobile device manufacturer to find out how you can control the placement of and/or remove cookies or other technologies. 

Please note, however, that limiting or disabling the use of certain functional website technologies may impact or adversely affect your ability to use certain features of our website. 

Information We Obtain from Other Entities: We may also obtain information about you from other people and entities that help us provide our Services to you. For example:

• Information from member schools, partner organizations, international partners, donors
• Information or photos from faculty, contractors, or vendors to advertise programs
• Information learned over the course of the program, such as from parents, professors, medical professionals, landlords, etc., on a need-to-know basis.
• Information about you or your use of our Services from our third-party marketing partners that provide analytics or advertising services to us. You may give us permission to access your information from services that third parties offer, such as social media networks. The information we receive or obtain from third parties generally depends on your account or privacy settings with those third parties and their privacy policies, and may include social sentiments, opinions, feedback, and interests. We do not control these third-party websites, and we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

We use your Personal Information for our commercial, operational, and compliance purposes, including:

To provide students, faculty, alumni, donors and universities with our Services:

• Applying to and facilitating our study abroad and internship programs, including to process applications for enrollment and financial aid.
• Processing donations through monthly giving, planned, giving, sponsoring a student, president’s passport club, and partnering with an organization.
• Registering as an IES Abroad ambassador, faculty advisor or other volunteer.
• Becoming a university partner.
• Facilitating alumni engagement.
• We process this personal data on the basis of our performance of contractual obligations and other legal obligations we may be subject to.

To facilitate our business and operational purposes in relation to the Services that we provide to you

• Undertaking tasks related to the operations of our Services including our website, including the placement of ads and/or providing customized content to our users.
• Maintaining, improving and monitoring usage of our Services, including the website.
• Providing support and resources to program participants, students, parents, and other partners.
• Detecting security incidents, debugging and repairing errors that impair the functionality of our website or other Services.
• We process this personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest of ensuring the quality of our Services.

To advertise our Services and provide information you may be interested in

• To provide you with marketing or promotional materials, and general information about other services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired, or which we believe may be of interest to you, unless you have opted not to receive such information. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by contacting us at the contact information listed below, or by following, the "unsubscribe" links in such email messages or by contacting us through the methods below.
• To facilitate our website and social media engagement.  For example, we may use your photograph or a video of you to promote our programs on our website or social media channels.
• To provide customized content to you, such as advertisements that may be selected for you based on inferences drawn from your Personal Information.
• We may also use information collected by website technologies to:
  • personalize our Services, such as remembering your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the website
  • provide customized third-party advertisements, content, and information
  • monitor and analyze our effectiveness and marketing activities
  • monitor aggregate usage metrics such as total number of visitors, pages viewed, etc.
  • track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities

Why we disclose your information: We may disclose your Personal Information externally to other organizations for our business purposes and as legally required or permitted by law.  Examples include:

To vendors who help us provide our Services, such as:

• Application processing
• Payment security  
• Data analytics
• Academic, housing, transportation, and cultural activity providers

With marketing partners:

• To manage and deliver advertising, including targeted advertising
• To measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns
• To better understand your preferences and interests

For security and fraud prevention:

• To investigate, protect against, and help prosecute individuals responsible for malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity involving or affecting IES Abroad, our Services, our program participants, partners, or others
• Disclosures to law enforcement, prosecutors, and other entities to investigate potential criminal activity and other civil violations

If we think we are legally required:

• To comply with applicable laws, in response to a lawful and enforceable request by a law enforcement, judicial, or other public authority, or in connection with an applicable legal obligation

You will not be subject to decisions based on automated data processing without your prior consent.

In accordance with our document retention policy, IES Abroad will retain your information only for so long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, for as long as your account is active (i.e., for the lifetime of your IES Abroad membership account), or as needed to provide certain Services to you. If you no longer want IES Abroad to use your information to provide Services to you, you may notify IES via the DPO contact information below. IES Abroad will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this policy. We also may retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period of time, except in cases where they are used for website safety and security, to improve website functionality, or we are legally obligated to retain them for longer time periods.

IES Abroad’s Services are offered and available to individuals in the United States of America, and internationally. Your information, including Personal Information, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those of your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside United States and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Information, to the United States and process it there. If you are located in the European Economic Area, you should be aware that U.S. data protection laws are not deemed to be as adequate as those in the European Union or the United Kingdom.  If your personal data is transferred to the U.S., we may base these transfers on EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (as extended to the UK). 

We maintain safeguards to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, and destruction, but we cannot guarantee its absolute security.  No method of information transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.  By using our website and Services, you acknowledge that there are data security and privacy limitations inherent to the use of the Internet, and that the security, integrity, and privacy of any and all information exchanged between you and IES Abroad, or between you and other related entities, cannot be guaranteed. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or that we store, and you do so at your own risk.

We use third-party payment processors to process any transactions you make with IES Abroad, including via our website. The processing of those transactions is governed by the payment processors’ privacy statement and security practices. IES Abroad is not responsible for the third-party payment processors’ data security practices.

Individuals residing in the United States may request the following:

• Right to Opt-Out of Targeted Advertising
• Right to Withdraw Consent
• Right to Know/Access/Transport
• Right to Request Deletion
• Right to Correct Inaccurate Information 

Your GDPR Rights

If you are located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom you have certain rights in relation to your personal data under applicable data protection laws, including the GDPR. These “GDPR Rights” may include the following: 

If you would like to make a privacy request, have questions about this Privacy Policy or our information collection practices, please contact us through one of the following methods:

• By Webform/Portal: https://www.iesabroad.org/privacy-policy
• By Email: DPO@IESabroad.org
• By Website: https://www.iesabroad.org/contact  
• By telephone: 1-800-995-2300 (US Only) or +1-312-944-1750 (US or Non-US)

When you submit certain privacy requests, IES Abroad will ask you to provide information about yourself so that we can verify your identity as part of this process. This information may include your name, your address, your account information, and any other information deemed necessary by IES Abroad to reasonably verify your identity, to ensure that your information is not shared with anyone impersonating you. We will only use the information you provide to process your request.

Once we have verified your identity, we will work to fulfill your request in a timely manner. Please note there may be some situations in which we are unable to fulfill your request, such as if we cannot find any information about you within your systems. Additionally, we may not be able to honor a deletion request in some situations, such as if your information is necessary to fulfill your order with us or meet a legal obligation. We will inform you whether we can fulfill your rights request.

If you are a California resident, you may have the right to request information from us regarding the manner in which we share certain categories of Personal Information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, in addition to the rights set forth above. You may send us a request at the designated address listed below to receive the following information:

• The categories of information we have disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes during the immediately preceding calendar year.
• The names and addresses of the third parties that received the information.
• If the nature of the third party’s business cannot be determined from their name, examples of the products or services marketed.

To make such a request, please provide sufficient information for us to determine if this applies to you and attest to the fact that you are a California resident. Please also provide a current California address for our response. You may make this request in writing to us at the address below. Any such request must include “California Privacy Request” in the first line of the description, and include your name, street address, city, state and ZIP code. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per consumer each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through the address provided for this purpose below.

Note that responsive information may be provided in a standardized format that is not specific to you.

We honor and respect the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, which is a legally recognized browser-based signal designed to provide users with a simple and effective way to exercise their opt-out rights concerning the sale or sharing of their personal information under various U.S. state laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA).

When our systems detect that your browser or device is transmitting the GPC signal, we will automatically treat that signal as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information, in compliance with applicable law. This means we will not sell or share your personal data to third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising or other covered purposes.

Note on Do Not Track (DNT):

Please be aware that we do not respond to the older, general "Do Not Track" (DNT) browser signals. The GPC signal is a distinct, legally-binding mechanism specifically designed for privacy opt-outs, whereas DNT never became a universally accepted or legally mandated standard. We specifically recognize the GPC signal as the official method for communicating your opt-out preferences to us via automated means.

While IES Abroad encourages you to take advantage of the personalized Services on the website, you can use most of IES Abroad's online Services without registering your information with IES Abroad. You can change your information at any time by editing your profile. You may opt out of receiving promotional marketing communications from IES Abroad at iesabroad.org, by calling 1-800-995-2300 (US Only), 1-312-944-1750 (US or Non-US), by writing toDPO@IESabroad.org, or by mailing a letter to the address shown below:

IES Abroad
33 West Monroe Street, Suite 2300,
Chicago, IL 60603

Individuals with disabilities who are unable to usefully access our Privacy Policy may contact us at the above-listed contact information to inquire how they can obtain a copy of our Privacy Policy in another, more easily readable format. 

If you are based in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, you are entitled to make a complaint about us or the way we have processed your personal information to the data protection supervisory authority in your home country. If you are in the United Kingdom, the data protection authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office – www.ico.org.uk. If you are in the European Economic Area, you can find your supervisory authority, and how to contact them, by visiting European Data Protection Board .