Privacy Policy
The Lotus Institute is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Privacy Policy explains when and why we collect personal information for our courses, about how we use the information collected, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, and how we keep it secure.
We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this policy.
Who are we?
The Lotus Institute offers Buddhist practice(s) for change makers on the journey of individual and collective healing, transformation and liberation.
We are a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization incorporated in the United States.
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you visit our website or virtual academy, sign up to receive our email newsletter, register for an event, program or initiative offered through Lotus Institute, place an order, or contact us through the website or email.
What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, which retreats you have attended, donations made, if you have volunteered with us, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online or book a retreat with us, your banking information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialize in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below.
How is your information used?
We may use your information to:
process a donation that you have made
process a reservation that you have made
to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us
seek your views or comments on the services we provide
notify you of changes to our services
send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, appeals, and other fundraising activities
process an application
Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.
When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by a third party payment processor, who specializes in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us by sending an email to support@thelotusinstitute.org.
We may transfer your information if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and retreatants. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
Your choices
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email support@thelotusinstitute.org.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date or you want to delete your information, please email us at support@thelotusinstitute.org
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information The Lotus Institute holds about you.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected with the following software 128 Bit encryption on SSL.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security in our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password, which enables you to access certain parts of our website or virtual academy, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Profiling
We may analyze your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Use of cookies
Like many other websites, The Lotus Institute website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organization to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognize you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better, more personalized service.
It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organizations. This privacy policy applies only to our website and virtual academy‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
Under 18 years of age
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children under age 18. If you are under age 18‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.
Review of this policy
We keep this policy under regular review. This policy was last updated in September 2018.