Privacy Policy

Art by Prasanna Sivalingam

The Pearl Protectors is a national conservation organization in Sri Lanka that inspires people to protect the marine environment through awareness and advocacy while promoting volunteerism. We connect individuals of all ages and demographics to the marine environment, inspiring them to learn, care, and protect.

We collect personal information for two purposes: 1) so that we can reach out and share our important stories while mobilizing volunteers for all volunteer opportunities and 2) to process business transactions on your behalf. We value the trust that you place in us when you share your personal information. This privacy policy reflects our commitment to respecting your privacy and explains how we collect, use and safeguard your personal information.

Information we collect and how we use it

Personal information

“Personal Information” is any information that can be used to identify (or infer the identity of) a specific person, including, for example, your name, address, phone number, email address, birth date, gender, etc.

We collect Personal Information so that we can reach out to you to provide information about The Pearl Protectors and in mobilizing volunteers for initiatives that might be of interest you. Personal Information is also used when applying for ‘Pearl Protector Approved Accredited Standardization Certificate, program and event registration, volunteer memberships, marine animal death reports, donations, contests, exhibitions etc. as well as managing our volunteers.

Cookies and data technology

We use cookies and other technology on our websites to make them easier to use and so that we can learn about how you use them. Information collected this way may include (but is not limited to) your IP address and internet service provider, the type of web browser and operating system you used and which of our website pages you visited. We use links in our emails to track open and click-through rates to help us learn what emails appeal to you most.

In some cases, interacting with our web sites, social media accounts or emails provides us with “anonymous” data, such as IP address, link clicks, page visits, the time spent on a page, etc. We use Google Analytics on our website to learn where you are, when you are using our site and what content you find most interesting. This helps us stay relevant.

We may also use 3rd party cookies, beacons and other storage technologies to understand what website content is most important to you so that we can measure our performance and target sponsored and
unsponsored content to you on those 3rd party platforms. For example, we use Facebook’s tracking pixel to learn about what content you are interested in on our website so that we can serve only our most relevant advertising to you on Facebook. You can opt out from such Facebook advertising by clicking “Why am I seeing this?” on our Facebook ads, clicking “Options” and then selecting “Hide all ads from this advertiser”.

It’s possible for us to put anonymous data together with personal information you give us to find out more about you. This helps us respect what we know about you. For example, when we have petitions that are meaningful locally, we try our best to send them to the affected communities and avoid sending irrelevant or too many emails.

Use of third parties

In many cases, we use a third-party to send out our emails and subscriber newsletters. The third-party services that we use have resources dedicated to maintaining security and confidentiality, and we ensure that any third-party partner has written policies about never sharing your information with anyone other than The Pearl Protectors.

Credit card information

The Pearl Protectors may collect credit card information in order to process your purchase or donation. We do not record or store any credit card information electronically; any paper copies of credit card information are kept secure and destroyed as soon as the information is processed.

Fundraising communications

As a non-governmental environment conservation charity organization, we cannot do our work without the financial support of our many generous donors. We do our best to reach out to as many possible individual supporters as we can. Sending you an email helps us see if we are a good fit for you when it comes to making donations. You may opt out of these communications at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

Links to other websites

Our websites contain links to websites owned and operated by other organizations. They may have their own privacy policies and terms and conditions and are not governed by this policy. We encourage you to review carefully the privacy policy and terms of use of each website you visit.

Consent

By providing personal information to us, you allow “deemed” consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your information in accordance with this policy. When you provide contact information to us for one purpose, we may contact you using that information for other areas of our work.

Updating your consent

We respect your right to control your personal information — please contact us immediately if you want us to stop using it in any particular way. We will fulfill your request in the timeliest way possible.

Because different email management tools are used for different programs, email unsubscribes are managed on a program-by-program basis. All emails contain an unsubscribe feature at the bottom of the email that unsubscribes the recipient from the specific program that sent the email. To unsubscribe from all The Pearl Protector Volunteer mobilization emails, please email wave@thepearlprotectors.org and type “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Upon reasonable request and notice, you may view and have corrections made to the personal information we hold about you, subject to any legal or contractual restrictions. If you are aware of any inaccuracies in the personal information, we hold about you or to remove all of your information from our databases, please contact us at wave@thepearlprotectors.org.

Ways to prevent us from collecting anonymous data

Our websites use cookies and JavaScript-based tracking scripts to collect the anonymous data referred to above. To stop this from happening, adjust your web browser’s “cookie”, “cache” and JavaScript settings. Please note that doing so may affect the performance of our web properties, and in some cases may completely prevent you from using some of our pages and forms.

Information we share

We do not give, rent, or sell personal information except when required by law.

We do collaborate with other organizations in the delivery of some of our programs. Personal information may be shared with these organizations so that they may also communicate with you. These partner organizations are clearly identified, and their use of your personal information is consistent with The Pearl Protectors use.

In order to communicate with you, we may work with external organizations to help us with our communications or to contact you on our behalf. We only work with organizations that have comprehensive security and confidentiality policies, including written policies to safeguard your information properly and only use it for the purpose specified by us; they are not permitted to use or share your information with anyone other than The Pearl Protectors.

How we keep your information secure

We endeavor to maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical safeguards for your personal information. Some information we collect may be stored and processed on servers located outside your jurisdiction of residence, including outside your country. As a result, this information may be subject to disclosure to governments, courts or law enforcement agencies in those areas, according to their laws, without notice to us or you.

Policy updates and changes

We may change this policy from time to time without notice. Changes will be reflected on this page.