General Terms & Conditions

FSMA is committed to protecting your personal information. The purpose of this policy is to help ensure that FSMA collects, uses, shares, and protects personal data in accordance with applicable law and the FSMA's data privacy principles.

Click on the drop down menu below to read our Privacy Statement, Digital Property Policy and Code of Conduct. 

The Faecal Sludge Management Alliance is a member-based network, promoting the global development of inclusive sanitation approaches, particularly faecal sludge management (“FSM”) and non-sewered sanitation (“NSS”). Our goal is to create a platform to advocate for the adoption and implementation of FSM, to ensure human health and dignity, and the health of urban ecosystems. We are governed by both a Supervisory Board and a Management Board and managed by our staff members.

Through our activities we process personal data. In this Privacy Statement we inform you how we process such personal data.

Contact details

Stichting Faecal Sludge Management Alliance (“FSMA”, “FSM Alliance”, “we”, “us” of “our”) is responsible for the processing of your personal data. We are a Dutch foundation having its address at Boompjes 40, 3011 XB in Rotterdam. FSMA is registered with the Chamber of Commerce under number 76674045. All questions regarding the processing of personal data by FSMA can be addressed to [email protected].

To whom does this Privacy Statement apply? 

This Privacy Statement applies to you when you use our website www.fsm-alliance.org (“Website”). Through our Website you can obtain information about our organization and our work, contact us, subscribe to our newsletter, submit articles for our e-magazine, apply for a job or volunteer position with us and become a member of our global member network. This Privacy Statement is also applicable to you when you participate in a FSM meeting, webinar or podcast, whether in person or as a virtual participant.

How does FSMA process your personal data? 

We process your personal data for various purposes. We are only allowed to do this if we have a reason to do so (this is called a legal ground). In the overview below we indicate the personal data FSMA uses for which specific purpose, what the legal ground is for processing these data, and how long FSMA stores the data. Retention periods mentioned in this Privacy Statement may be extended if and to the extent necessary to live up with a statutory obligation.

  1. Visit of the Website. If you visit the Website, we collect some technical information about your visit. For example, we collect the date and time of your visit, IP address, MAC address or other unique number, browser, items you visit and other log information (such as URL referrer and the country of the IP address). These personal data are necessary to allow the Website to function optimally and to display information in the desired manner. The processing of these personal data is therefore necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by FSMA. We store your personal data one month after your last visit.

We also collect information about your visit to our Website via cookies. You can find more information about the personal data that we process about you when you visit the Website in our Cookie Statement.

  1. If you are interested in our newsletters and/or other communications, you can subscribe for such mailings by providing your name and email address and click ‘Sign up’. We also send you emails if you have purchased a product or service.

In addition to your email address, we also use the information we receive via tracking software. These include the time the email was received and opened, the content of the opened email, the hyperlinks clicked on, your IP address, your operating system and the browser you are using.

If, at any moment, you do not wish to receive newsletters of FSMA anymore, you can unsubscribe by using the opt-out option that is provided in every newsletter that FSMA sends you. You may also opt-out of receiving electronic notifications or communications from FSMA by the following means:

  • Send an e-mail to: [email protected]
  • Call FSMA at +31 (0) 10 899 0192 and request to be removed from all communications.

We will take reasonable steps to implement your opt-out requests promptly; but you may still receive promotional information from us by email for up to 14 days.

We process your email address to send you an email. The other personal data mentioned here is processed by FSMA because it is important for us to keep improving our emails. The processing of these personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by FSMA.

The personal data we process in the context of email tracking will be deleted one month after collection. The email address and the data that show that you have subscribed to the newsletter will be deleted five years after you unsubscribe from the newsletter, as this is prescribed by the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets.

  1. We are also open for a membership, which allows you to network with other members and enjoy numerous other benefits. Membership is open both to individuals as well as organizations. If you sign up for the membership as an individual, we ask you to provide us with your first and last name, your email address and the desired password, your title, gender, the organization you work for, the corresponding industry and your area of expertise, your address as well as the city and the country/region you live in. You may also provide us with your postal code, position, phone number and student ID.

If an organization signs up for the membership, we also process the abovementioned data, which could include personal data, for example of the responsible contact persons of the organization.

By signing up for our membership, you automatically create an account. Through the account, you can get access to the member area of the Website. The member area contains a database with contact details of other members and offers you the possibility to share your own, in order to broaden your network and enter in contact with other professionals. Through the member area you can further see which members are in close proximity, which makes the networking process easier. Via the member area of the Website you can also establish online contact with other users and exchange messages via the public forum or with the users privately. This information will be processed by FSMA and shown to other users. Via your account, you can get also access to interesting FSM related content, such as trainings, webinars, podcasts and our e-magazine.

The processing of above-mentioned personal data is necessary for the performance of the user contract. Without these personal data no account can be created, no information can be shared with other members and we cannot give you access to the member area. We will only share your contact details and location data with other members if we received your consent.

FSMA stores your personal data for as long as you are a member and will delete your data one year after you deactivate your membership. FSMA has a legal obligation to retain financial records of your membership for a period of seven years.

  1. Meetings or events. When you participate in one of our (physical) meetings, for example our international FSM meeting, we process the following personal data of you.
    1. Registration (attendee). When you register you will be asked to provide your name, email address, company/organization, professional title, email address, phone number, emergency contact name and phone number, citizenship or country of residence, and any dietary or disability-based accommodation needs.


We use the personal data of you as a visitor to register you to attend the event, send an email to you to confirm your registration, provide you with updates regarding the event, contact you about future events, print your physical name badge at the event, send you reports, materials, and updates, review and respond to feedback, comments, photos, videos, or other information you submit via registration forms or post-event surveys.
The processing personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interest pursued by FSMA, in order to provide you with a tailored and safe event and allow for your safe and successful participation in it.  We store your personal data for a period of one year after the event.

We process any dietary- or disability-based accommodation needs if you have (also) given your consent, as it may contain special categories of personal data. If you do not wish to share this information with us, we cannot tailor your event experience to your needs.

  1. Participation (speaker). If you participate as a speaker, presenter, panelist, exhibitor, or facilitator, we collect your name, contact details, title, organization, photograph, professional biography, and presentation materials. These may be used on the Website, on the program and in event marketing materials for the primary purpose of promoting the event and your work. We also collect evaluations about you as one of our presenters, panelists, exhibitors, or facilitators by means of an evaluation form. This way we can improve our meetings and events and develop relevant future meetings and events. We will also provide you with this evaluation form in advance. We process these data on the basis of our legitimate interest, which consist of the ability to update visitors about the content of the meeting and to conduct an evaluation in order to measure and improve the quality of our meetings. We delete this personal data one year after the event.Please note that we also can also share your contact details at the request of persons interest in your work – with your explicit consent only.
  1. Simultaneous Interpretation. The presenters may deliver presentations in another language. Simultaneous translation will in some cases be provided for visitors of a meeting or event. Headsets will be provided for this purpose. To be sure that we collect the headsets after the program, we may ask you to sign a liability form with your contact information, so that we may track the headset in the event you forget or fail to return the headset. The processing of the personal data is therefore necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interest pursued by FSMA, namely to protect our goods. We delete this personal data one year after the event.
  2. Event photography and audio video recordings. We frequently take photographs and record audio and/or video in public areas during our events. If so, we may take and store photographs containing your likeness, and some of these may include recordings of your voice and likeness. These photos and videos may be published by FSMA for communication purposes. During registration, you can indicate your preference to opt-in or opt-out from the above recording/publishing activities. We process this personal data only on the basis of your consent. We store your personal data for a period of one year after the event. We can request you in specific situations for your consent to retain the photos/videos for a longer period.
  1. Online webinars and events. FSMA also organizes webinars and meetings online.
    1. Registration (attendee). If you sign up for a webinar or event, we process, if applicable, the account ID of your FSMA membership. If you are not a member, we ask you to provide your email address and name. If it is not a free event, we also process your preferences regarding payment – see more information under “payments” below. We process these data for the purpose to fulfill the contract, as we cannot provide you the webinar without those personal data. We delete this personal data one year after the webinar or, if you are a member, one year after you deactivate your membership.
  1. Participation (speaker). If you participate as a speaker, we process, where applicable, your contact details, your photograph, professional biography, and presentation materials. We can also collect evaluations about you. We process your contact details in order to fulfill the contract with you. The other information is processed for the purposes of the legitimate interest pursued by FSMA, which consists of the ability to update visitors about the content of the webinar and to conduct an evaluation in order to measure and improve the quality of our webinars. We delete this personal data one year after the webinar. Please note that we can also share your contact details at the request of persons interested in your work – with your explicit consent only.
  1. Please note that webinars may be recorded. If the webinar is recorded, we will inform you before the presentation starts so you have the opportunity to indicate your preference to opt-in or opt-out from the above recordings. Recorded webinars are published on our Website and visible for our members only. We only process this personal data only on the basis of your consent. We store your personal data for a period of one year after the webinar.
  1. Magazine. By submitting an article for our (digital) Magazine , FSMA collects your title, gender, first name, last name, email, phone number, country, and the information provided by you about yourself (author bio and photo), and the article (title, references). We also ask that you provide us with your job title, affiliation (acronym), province/state, city and zip code. We process your contact details and name in order to publish the article, and to further use it in line with the agreement with you. We will keep this personal data for the duration of the agreement and for one year thereafter.

The information provided in submissions is further processed for purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by FSMA, namely to report out to current and potential donors in order to get donations in the future. We will aggregate this personal data before sharing it to donors, so they will not be able to identify you directly. For example we will provide the following information: four out of eight authors are female, 78% of authors are from low-middle income countries, or 55% of authors were below the executive level. The donors will use this information to verify whether their donations match their needs and is therefore necessary for purposes of the legitimate interest. Your personal details will be deleted one year after your contribution to the Magazine. After that period we will only keep the aggregated data for reporting purposes to our donors.

  1. Payments. FSMA allows both online and offline payment for event participation, memberships and other services. When you make a transaction and you choose for an online payment, your transaction data is sent to a payment service provider in order to process your payment. We only administer the amounts for which you have made a purchase. For the actual execution of the payment, you are automatically forwarded to the secure environment of your chosen payment service provider. You will automatically be redirected back to the Website if the payment is successful or if the payment cannot be made. These payment service providers are responsible for the processing of your personal data. We advise you to look at the Privacy Statement of these service providers.

FSMA further allows offline payments, for example by sending an invoice after you have signed up for our membership, event or webinar. In order to send invoices for our services, we process your contact details. The processing of personal data for this purpose is necessary for the execution of the contract we have with you. Pursuant to the applicable law, we are obliged to retain (part of) these financial data for a statutory retention period of seven years. The other information will be retained for a period of one year.

  1. Podcasts. Via our Website, you can listen to our podcasts. You can also listen to our podcasts directly via YouTube, Soundcloud or other podcast apps. Except from the personal data we process as described under “Website” as mentioned above, we do not process any further data from you. However, if you participate as a speaker in our podcast, we process, where applicable, your contact details, your photograph, and the content of your contribution. We process those data for the purposes of the legitimate interest pursued by FSMA, which consists of publishing an informative podcast to those interested. Please note that we can also share your contact details at the request of persons interested in your work – with your explicit consent only. We retain the podcasts (and contact details of participants) in principle for a period of five years.
  1. Careers. If you apply for a (volunteer) position at FSMA, we will process your name, email address, information from your CV and / or application letter (references, list of marks, certificates, etc.). We also consult (business) social media, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The personal data we collect in the first phase of the application process is needed to assess whether you would be suitable for the position. The processing of these personal data is therefore necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interest pursued by FSMA. FSMA retains your personal data for four weeks after rejection or, with your consent for a period of one year.
  1. If you contact us, we will process personal data that you fill in or provide to us (by telephone), such as your name, email address and the content of your question or complaint. We use this personal data to ensure that we can answer your questions or respond to your complaint. The processing thereof is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by FSMA.

If you have a membership account, your personal data is stored for as long as you are a member and will delete your data within one year after you deactivate your account. In other cases if you contact us by phone, FSMA will delete your personal data within one month after responding to your message or resolving your complaint. If you contact us by email, we will delete your personal data one year after responding to your message or resolving your complaint.

  1. Other data processing activities. We process personal data if supervisory authorities and inspection services oblige us to do so, such as the Tax and Customs Administration (“Belastingdienst”) or the Dutch Data Protection Authority (“Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens”). These personal data are stored as long as necessary for these purposes or as prescribed by specific legal obligations.


Access to personal data

The following third parties may have access to your personal data.

  1. Members of FSMA. As described under ‘How does FSMA process your personal data?’, we share personal data of members who have given their consent. This information can be seen by other FSMA members.
  1. We engage parties that process personal data on our behalf (processors), for example to host the Website, store and manage personal data (including backups) and send newsletters.
  2. Other third parties. FSMA provides your personal data to external parties (partly) acting as a data controller. This is the case, for example, to manage our online registration for events and memberships, event partners (transportation services), online meeting tools or donors. Because these third parties are (partly) responsible for processing your personal data themselves, they must inform you of this themselves.
  1. Authorities and legal-aid counsellors. We may also share personal data with external parties if FSMA is required to do so on the basis of applicable laws and /  or regulations, such as police and government institutions. FSMA can also share personal data on the basis of a court order, judicial decision or with your consent.


Data processing outside the European Economic Area        

Some of our service providers are established in a country outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), mainly the United States and India. In order to comply with EU data protection legislation for international transfers, we carefully consider whether an adequate level of protection can be guaranteed. Where necessary, we lay down arrangements in a data transfer agreement based on standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission (Article 46(2)(c) GDPR). For more information about the safeguards for international data transfers, please contact us using the contact details listed in this Privacy Statement.

Your rights 

Under the privacy law, you have a number of rights with regard to your privacy.

  1. Right to access. This is the right to ask us if we have personal data from you and to have access to it.
  2. Right to rectification. You have the right to request the rectification of inaccurate personal data concerning you.
  3. Right to be forgotten. In some cases, you have to right to ask FSMA to erase your personal data.
  4. Right to restriction. You have the right to obtain restriction of processing of your personal data or to stop the processing temporarily.
  5. Data portability. This is the right to receive your personal data which you have provided to us in order to transmit those data to another controller.
  6. Right to object. You have the right to object to processing of personal data. Where personal data are processed for direct marketing purposes (see “How does FSMA process your personal data?”), you always have the right to object to processing of personal data for such marketing.
  7. Withdraw consent. Where the processing of your personal data is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

You may send your request to [email protected]. FSMA shall respond to your request without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt of the request. That period may be extended by two further months where necessary, taking into account the complexity and number of the requests. FSMA shall inform you of any of such extension within 1 month of receipt of the request, together with the reasons for the delay. If we do not take action on your request, we shall inform you of the reasons for not taking action. We will do that in any case within thirty days of receipt of the request.

Complaints or questions

If you have questions or complaints you can contact us via [email protected], for example with regard to the balancing test that we have made in order to base some of our data processing activities on the legal ground ‘legitimate interest’. We will be happy to find a solution, but you can also submit a complaint to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (“Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens”).

Amendments

FSMA may amend this Privacy Statement from time to time. If there are subsequent substantive or material changes that may affect one or more of the parties involved to a considerable extent, we inform those involved in advance.

This Digital Property Policy applies to you if you participate as a speaker at our events and webinars or if you are on our podcasts. 

It might be possible that you wish to share publications to participants or listeners to back up your story, such as scientific articles or columns. FSMA will make this content available to them at your request. 

FSMA can also make recordings of the events and webinars. We will inform you if that is the case.

This policy is to make sure that FSMA is authorized to publish and share your content and the recordings of any session, podcast, or webinar in which you appear.

Your work (as “creator, speaker, researcher, and/or author”) 

-All original work or research shared with FSMA is owned by you (the creator, speaker, and/or author) and may be shared by FSMA to participants or listeners in any form (printed, electronically, etc.), worldwide, for an unlimited period. 

-You guarantee that you are the author of the work and hold the rights of the work and/or that you are allowed to share it with FSMA to share it with participants or listeners. 

Our work (Stichting Faecal Sludge Management Alliance or FSMA)

-All rights on the content (webinar or session recordings, e-magazines, publications, reports) created in partnership with and made by FSMA will stay with FSMA. FSMA retains the rights of the original media files and those will not be shared without the written permission by FSMA. This includes the video files of sessions recorded for the FSM conference or other FSMA events or recorded webinars. 

-If FSMA makes recordings of events and webinars, you consent with the publication or posting by FSMA electronically – worldwide. We will ask your consent of the recording itself prior to the event. 

-All content of FSMA will first be made available to FSMA members for a limited term before being made publicly available. FSMA reserves the right to set the time frames at its discretion. 

-Once the content of FSMA is made publicly available, it may be shared freely (with name mentioning). 

-No royalties will be paid as FSMA will not sell any work it publishes. 

Personal data

Related to the organization of the event or webinar itself, we might ask for your personal data like name, title, organization and email address. For the collection and processing of your personal data, our Privacy Statement applies. By giving your consent to this Digital Property Policy, you also accept the terms of our Privacy Statement. Please find our Privacy Statement on our website. 

When acting in any capacity as a member of the Faecal Sludge Management Alliance (FSMA), members are expected to adhere to the following principles:

1. FSMA members will demonstrate respectful and honest behaviour and will act in line with the organisation’s mission and vision.

2. The membership provides a safe and inclusive space for all stakeholders in the FSM sector. Any form of harassment or discrimination based on race, sex, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or political opinion will not be tolerated.

3. On its communication platforms and at its events, FSMA encourages open discourse and candid discussions. While we appreciate the diversity of opinions and see the value of intense debates, we ask members to remain tough on the issue, but kind on each other.

4. Members will not engage in activities that bring disrepute upon the FSMA. The use of the organisation’s name and logo is subject to the prior notification and consent by FSMA staff.

5. Members holding an office or position in any current or future board or committee of the FSMA are trusted to fulfil their function with due care and in the best interest of the organisation, the membership and the FSM sector as a whole. They shall not misuse their position, or any information acquired through that position for their personal gain or for activities that are detrimental to the FSMA’s goals. Members may be asked to sign a conflict of interest statement.

For any questions, concerns, or to file a complaint related to this code of conduct, please contact [email protected].

Last Updated: August 2022