The American Women’s Club of Hamburg (“AWCH”) takes the privacy of its members seriously. Because you provide us with personal information as a member of our organization, we are a “controller” of personal information as defined by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

In compliance with the GDPR, this privacy notice describes what personal data we collect as part of your membership; how, why, and for how long we will use it; and how we keep it secure.

What type of information is collected from you?

When you apply to be a member of the AWCH or when you renew your membership, we ask you to provide or confirm the following personal information:

• Contact details – e.g. name, address, email address, and phone number.
• Personal Information
  • Gender
  • Month/day of birth
  • Your citizenship(s)
  • Voting status in the US
  • Employer
  • Partner’s name, citizenship, employer
  • Names and birth dates of children
  • Residency (date moved to Hamburg, have you lived in the US for 5+ years)
• Other information
  • Your hobbies, interests, and skills
  • How you heard about the club
  • Reasons for joining
  • Picture of yourself
  • Communication preferences (club newsletter, event invitations by email, inclusion in the membership directory)

What type of information is collected from you?

We process our members’ personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests:

• To verify that applicants fulfill membership requirements.
• To communicate with you about your membership account and notify you of any changes to our services.
• To provide you with news and updates about the activity of the club, opportunities to get involved in club activity groups, training, general meetings, or other events.
• To understand the needs and interests of our members.
• To respond to and investigate your questions, comments, support needs, complaints, or concerns.

How do you access and update your personal information?

You always have the right to:

• Access the personal data that we hold about you.
• Restrict the processing of your personal data for specific purposes.
• Request that we correct your personal data if you believe it is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Request that we delete your personal information.

How can you accomplish this?

Accessing Your Data

Online: You can view all the personal data we hold about you at any time via your website login. Log in to the website at https://www.awchamburg.org and click the menu item dropdown “Member Section -> Update Your Membership Information”.  This displays all the information we hold about you in our membership database.  

Offline: You must contact the Membership Chair or any member of the board to request your information be sent to you.

Updating Your Data

Online: You can view all the personal data we hold about you at any time via your website login. Log in to the website at https://www.awchamburg.org and click the menu item dropdown “Members Section -> Update Your Membership Information”.  Make any changes you would like and then click “Save My Data” at the bottom of the form.

Offline: You must contact the Membership Chair in writing by email or postal mail to request changes.

Deleting Your Data

The AWCH retains your data for the duration of your membership.  You have the right to request deletion of that data at any time; however, be aware the AWCH may not be able to continue your membership benefits without it. To request the deletion of your data, send a written request by email to the President (pres@awchamburg.org) or Data Protection Officer (webmanager@awchamburg.org). To request deletion by post, send a written request to the club address listed at the bottom of this policy.

At the completion of your membership (through cancellation or non-renewal), we will ask if we may keep some of your personal data for historical reasons (we sometimes try to contact former members for anniversaries, galas, and historical information regarding their experiences with the club).  If you do not consent, we will review and delete your personal data for a maximum of 2 years after you have canceled/not renewed.

We may also keep anonymized demographic data for historical reporting purposes. This demographic data will not contain any individually identifiable personal information.

When does the AWCH contact you, and how can you manage your club communication preferences?

The AWCH utilizes several club-wide communication channels as part of its mission:

• Periodic (usually bi-weekly) email newsletters of club information and activities
• “Currents” magazine (publication by and for members of the AWCH – can be read online, or members can receive a printed copy)
• Periodic email invitations to club events
• Publication of a Membership Directory (to assist members in networking with each other)

Each member always has the right to control their participation in these channels:

Online: Log in to the website at https://www.awchamburg.org and click the menu item dropdown “Member Section -> Update Your Membership Information”. At the bottom of the displayed form, four options allow you to select your preferences for each channel.

An additional option for the email newsletter ONLY: every email newsletter includes an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom. You can always click that link to unsubscribe from the email newsletter.

Offline: A request must be made in writing (either by post or email) to the Membership Chair.

Note: the AWCH may contact members individually at any time regarding membership issues.  This is required to maintain the membership.

How do we protect your personal information?

Internal Processes

Your personal information is only accessible by AWCH board members or board-appointed officers and only for the purposes set out above. Those allowed access to this data are given strict GDPR-compliant guidelines about how the information may be accessed and used.  Every six months, the club’s President and Data Protection Officer audit, review, and reapprove these access rights.

Your data is stored by our club in a password-protected database on our web server. When filling out the online application or updating your membership data online, your personal data is sent directly via an encrypted HTTPS connection to our password-protected database.  Data from paper applications are input directly into the password-protected database by the Membership Chair.

External Service Providers

The AWCH never shares or sells your personal information to any third party for any purpose not directly related to our club’s mission.

However, the AWCH does use third-party suppliers to provide some services necessary to serve our membership. These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as “processors” and are subject to contractual conditions to only process that personal information under our instructions and protect it.

In the event that we share personal information with external third parties, we only share such information strictly required for specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure recipients shall only process the disclosed personal information in accordance with those purposes.

These third parties currently provide services for the AWCH, and we have documented that they are GDPR compliant:

• FAWCO – provision of the website and database hosting
• Dropbox – storage of periodic backups of the website and membership database (the backup files themselves are encrypted)
• Mailchimp – distributes some of our email communications

Whom can you contact with questions, comments, and complaints?

American Women's Club of Hamburg e. V.
Postfach 13 04 05
20104 Hamburg 
info@awchamburg.org

Stephanie Matlock Allen, President: pres@awchamburg.org
Adrienne Bulow, Membership Chair: membership@awchamburg.org
Catherine Conner, Data Protection Officer/Webgineer: webgineer@awchamburg.org

Looking for more information?

The EU GDPR Information Portal
AWCH website terms of use/data security policy