Privacy Policy

We collect information you provide directly to us. For example, we collect information when you create an online account, become a SAM member, make a purchase or donation, fill out a form, participate in a SAM-sponsored contest, sweepstakes, survey, or promotion, sign up for our marketing communications, request customer support, engage with one of our blogs, or otherwise communicate with us. The types of information we collect depend on how you interact with us, but may include:

• Contact Information, such as your name, email address, postal address, and phone number;
• Membership and donation information, such as your member status, member number, and donation amounts; and
• Demographic information, such as your age or age range, date of birth, gender, race, and ethnic origin, and any other information you choose to provide.

We automatically collect information about your interactions with us or our Services, including:

• Transactional Information: When you make a purchase, exchange, or return, we collect information about the transaction, such as product details, purchase price, and the date and location of the transaction.
• Visitor Information: When you visit SAM or attend our events, we collect information, such as the days and times of your visits or attendance at our events or special exhibits.
• Device, Usage, and Activity Information: We collect information about how you access our Services, including data about the device and network you use, such as your hardware model, operating system version, mobile network, IP address, browser type, and unique device identifiers. We also collect information about how you arrive at our Services (such as via referrer URLs), access dates and times, and your activity on our Services, such as pages viewed, links clicked, and items placed in your cart.
• Audio and Video Recordings, Photos: We capture photographs and video recordings in our museum and at our events for security and loss prevention purposes, we also use these images and recordings for marketing purposes. If you contact customer service by phone, we may monitor and retain those conversations, including for training purposes.
• Information Collected by Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies: We use tracking technologies, such as cookies and pixels to collect information about your interactions with the Services and our marketing communications. These technologies help us improve our Services and marketing communications, personalize your experience, and analyze your interactions with us, including to see which areas and features of our Services are popular. They also allow us to recognize and alert you if you leave items in your shopping cart. For more information about the cookies and similar tracking technologies we use, and the choices available to you, see the Targeted Advertising and Analytics and the Your Choices sections below.

We obtain information from other sources. For example, we may receive demographic and contact information from sister arts organizations, mailing list providers, and data cooperatives that facilitate data sharing between non-profit organizations. If someone registers a group visit, we will receive information about members of the group related to the visit. We may also receive information if someone makes a donation in your honor, including your name and address.

If you disclose personal information relating to other people to us in connection with SAM services, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We may derive information or draw inferences about you based on the information we collect. For example, we may infer which types of events or exhibits interest you based on your past attendance.

We use the information we collect to meet your needs and accomplish our museum-related programs and offerings, including to process memberships and ticket purchases, communicate about exhibitions and events, personalize visitor experiences, and support SAM’s fundraising and educational activities. We also use information to:

• Provide and administer our membership program;
• Process donations and send you related information, including charitable donation receipts;
• Send you marketing communications (see the Your Choices section below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);
• Analyze and improve our understanding of our customer base and determine how to best service your needs;
• Maintain and improve our services and your online account, including to personalize your online experience;
• Process transactions and fulfill your orders;
• Send you technical notices, security alerts, support messages, and other transactional or relationship messages;
• Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities;
• Target advertisements to you on third-party platforms and websites (for more information and to opt out, see the Targeted Advertising and Analytics section below);
• Facilitate contests, sweepstakes, and promotions and process and deliver entries and rewards;
• Detect, investigate, respond to, prosecute, and help protect against security incidents and other malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, enforce this Privacy Policy, the Terms of Service, and other terms you have agreed to, and help protect the rights, property, and safety of SAM and others; and
• Comply with our legal and financial obligations.

If you make a purchase or donation, we work with a third-party payment processor to process your payment information and do not collect or process this information directly. When you use such services to make a payment to us, your personal information will be collected by the third party and not by us and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, instead of this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, such third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information.

We engage others to provide analytics services, serve advertisements, and perform related services across the web and in mobile applications. To do this, SAM and these partners may use cookies, pixels, SDKs, and similar technologies. Cookies are small data files that are sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Pixels are tiny clear images embedded in emails or webpages. Software development kits (SDKs) are tracking technologies embedded in mobile apps. Each of these tracking technologies are used to collect information about your use of our Services and other websites and mobile apps, including your device identifiers, IP address, web browser and mobile network information, pages viewed, time spent on pages or in mobile apps, links clicked, order information, items added to cart, and conversion information. This information is used to deliver advertising targeted to you on third-party websites and mobile apps, understand the effectiveness of this advertising, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand your activity. If you do not want us to use your information for these purposes, you can adjust your cookie settings at any time (see the Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies section below for information).

In addition to ad targeting activities that rely on cookies and similar technologies, we work with advertising partners to translate other identifiers, such as your email address or phone number, into a unique identifier (called a hashed value) that such partners can then use to show ads that promote SAM that are more relevant to you across the web and in mobile apps.

We may need to disclose your information to service providers, data brokers, third-party advertisers, payment processers, and/or government agencies who help deliver our mission, services, goals, and fundraising activities. We disclose information about you as described in the Targeted Advertising and Analytics section above and in the following scenarios:

• Vendors and Service Providers. We may make personal information available to our vendors, service providers, contractors and consultants who perform services on our behalf, such as companies that assist us with email sign-up and distribution, marketing, analytics, survey analysis, customer service, fraud protection, fundraising, membership management, visitor and event management, web hosting, and shipping and delivery.
• Sister Cultural Organizations. We may disclose personal information to other arts organizations to use for their own marketing and advertising purposes. You can opt out of these disclosures by contacting our membership office at webmaster@seattleartmuseum.org or 206-654-3210.
• Data Co-ops. We may disclose personal information to data co-ops that work with nonprofits, for nonprofit participants to use for their own marketing and advertising purposes. You can opt out of these disclosures by contacting webmaster@seattleartmuseum.org or 206-654-3210.
• With Your Consent. We may disclose personal information when we have your consent or you intentionally direct us to do so.
• Law Enforcement Authorities and Individuals Involved in Legal Proceedings. We may disclose personal information in response to a request for information if we believe that disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law, regulation, or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.
• To Protect the Rights of SAM and Others. We may disclose personal information if we believe that your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies, if we believe that you have violated the law, or if we believe it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of SAM, our users, the public, or others.
• Professional Advisors. We may disclose personal information to our legal, financial, insurance, and other professional advisors where necessary to obtain advice or otherwise protect and manage our business interests.
• Nonprofit Transactions. We may disclose personal information in connection with, or during negotiations concerning, any merger, acquisition of all or a portion of our organization by another entity, joint venture, reorganization, insolvency, bankruptcy, financing, or asset sale.

We may also disclose aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

If your information has already been shared by us in the manner described above, we may direct you to submit your opt-out request to the relevant third-party service provider. Please note that the privacy policies of these organizations and companies may differ from ours.

Our Services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that SAM does not own or operate. We also maintain a presence on several social media platforms that are owned and operated by third parties and incorporate some of those third-party social media features into our Services. We are not responsible for the contents, nature, or privacy practices of such websites and platforms. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these third parties before providing any information to them. If you choose to visit or use any third-party products, websites, or services, including those offered by our vendors or other partners, please be aware that this Privacy Policy will not apply to your activities or any information you disclose to these third parties. The information we receive from third parties may depend on the privacy settings you have on the third-party platform.

SAM does not knowingly collect any personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that an individual under the age of 13 has submitted personal information without consent from their parent or legal guardian or as permitted under applicable law, we will delete the information as soon as possible from our database. If you believe we have personal information from an individual under 13, please notify us immediately using the contact information provided in the Contact Us section below.