Privacy Statement
RPEC understands how important privacy is to our members We are committed to protecting your privacy and want to make sure that you understand how your membership information is used. We also want you to be aware that you have choices about how we use this information.
What We Collect
When you apply for membership, we ask for basic information such as your name, contact information, social security number, retirement date and former employer, and date of birth. We keep track of your participation in RPEC activities and member services so we can understand our members’ interests and evaluate the effectiveness of our offerings. We may ask for additional information in your visits to RPEC Website. All of this information helps us better serve our members and improve our programs.
Information Sharing
We share your personal information with the Department of Retirement Systems, if you have decided to pay dues by pension deduction, and with AFSCME, as membership with RPEC entitles you to membership with the AFSCME Retiree’s Program. We do not sell or rent member information to telemarketers, mailing list brokers, or any other companies.
Information We Gather, and What We Do with It
Some of the types of information we gather on the site include basic information required to complete the membership process, anonymous traffic information, and anonymous information that tells us what is most important to our site visitors. You can browse our site without entering any personal information and therefore remain anonymous during your visit. However, we hope that you will choose to become a member so that you can take advantage of our services and community.
Legal Disclaimer
We may disclose personal information when required by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary in order to conform to the edicts of the law or comply with a legal process served on our Web site.
Security
At RPEC, we know that our members are concerned about their security on the Internet, and so we ourselves are serious about the security of the data we collect from our members. We proudly take great care to reinforce this with every person on staff with the company. Finally, our database of member information is accessible only to our system administrator using a password that is changed from time to time to lower the risks of outside access; however there is no 100% secure way to transmit data on the internet given the current state of internet technology.
Links
The RPEC site contains links to other Web sites. Please be aware that our privacy policy does not apply to these linked sites. We encourage you to read the posted privacy statement whenever interacting with any Web site.
Surveys
RPEC occasionally conducts customer surveys to better target our content and member services to our audience. We never share any information about specific individuals with any third party, except as noted previously.
Traffic Information
In order to learn which areas of RPEC are most popular with users and how users prefer to use and get around the site, we log each user’s IP addresses and browser types, but we do not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable. This means that a user’s session will be tracked, but the user will be anonymous.
Cookies
A cookie is a small data file that certain Web sites write to your hard drive when you visit them. A cookie file can contain information such including a user ID that the site uses to track the pages you’ve visited. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. If you’ve set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser.
Use of the information
RPEC uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. RPEC does not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. RPEC uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help understand our audience. We do not share information about individual users with any third party.
Opt-Out Policy
RPEC gives users options wherever necessary and practical, such choices include: • Opting not to receive our electronic newsletters when registering for a site • Opting not to provide certain personal information when registering for a site or service • Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need for any information from our users
How to Contact Us for Corrections/Updates
We use email links located on the “Council” page to allow you to contact us directly with any questions or comments. We read every message sent in and try to reply promptly to every one. We then either file your comments to improve on our site, features, and programs, or review and discard the messages.