Privacy Policy

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. The policies below are applicable to all websites and applications produced and maintained by Seattle Art Museum (collectively referred to as the “SAM Website”.) We have established this privacy policy to let you know the kinds of information we may gather during your visit to the SAM Website, why we gather this information, what we use it for, why we might disclose it, and how you can manage it.

Please be advised that the practices described in this privacy policy apply only to information gathered through the SAM Website and do not necessarily reflect our practices with respect to information gathered off-line.

By visiting the SAM Website, you are accepting the practices described in our privacy policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this privacy policy, please do not use the SAM Website. We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of our privacy policy from time to time without notice. Your continued use of the SAM Website following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or don’t see your concerns addressed here, you should contact us by email at webmaster@seattleartmuseum.org.

Personal information

SAM collects and stores the information that you enter into the SAM Website in order to provide the products and services that you have ordered or requested, to process orders, to send order and donation confirmations, and to provide customer service. For example, when you join the museum, make a donation or purchase tickets online, we may collect and store your name, billing address, email address, telephone number, credit card number and credit card expiration date. In addition, certain portions of the SAM Website may require registration in order to participate, such as comments sections, suggestions, or customer service requests; SAM collects the personal information that you have knowingly provided in order to complete that registration.

Anonymous information: traffic data
Apart from personal information, SAM also automatically gathers certain “anonymous information” about your interaction with the SAM Website, which is information that does not identify you individually. Generally, this information is collected through "traffic data" and may involve the use of Cookies, IP addresses or other numeric codes used to identify a computer. We also collect information regarding user traffic patterns and site usage. This information is used to analyze and improve the SAM Website.

Online surveys
From time to time, SAM may deploy surveys online to help us understand our audience. You may decide whether or not you want to answer our survey questions. While SAM may publish the survey results or share the results with other parties, we will never disclose personal information that you provide in the course of participating in the survey.

Blogs, comments sections, and other public areas

Certain public areas, such as blogs, message boards and comments sections, may require you to provide an email address in order to participate. SAM will not share the email addresses with third parties, but please remember that any information you share in the body of your message, becomes public, and therefore this privacy policy does not apply to any information you choose to make public. Please be careful about what you disclose and do not post any personal information that you expect to keep private.

ENews and evites
SAM provides free monthly enews and evites to keep you up-to-date on programs and events. Except as set-out below, we do not sell, rent or share your email information with anyone. You always may opt-out of receiving future email messages and newsletters. You can stop receiving email communications from us at any time by selecting the “unsubscribe” text link provided at the bottom of all email communications.

Emailing Seattle Art Museum
If you email SAM, we may save your message and email address in order to respond to your queries and to improve our products and services. Please be aware that any ideas, suggestions, business information, or other information that you include in emails to Seattle Art Museum will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary.

Children 12 and under
Please be aware that the law requires visitors to the SAM Website aged twelve and under to obtain permission from a parent or guardian before supplying any personal information to this or any other website.

Cookies

SAM may place Internet “cookies” on visitors’ hard drives. Cookies save data about individual visitors, such as the visitor’s name, password, user-name, screen preferences, the pages of a site viewed by the visitor, and the advertisements viewed or clicked by the visitor. When the visitor revisits the Site, SAM may recognize the visitor by the Internet cookie and customize the visitor’s experience accordingly. You may decline cookies, if any, by using the appropriate feature of your Web client software, if available; however, this may impair certain features of the SAM Website.​

SAM will not sell, rent or share your contact information with commercial businesses. We use the personal information you provide to the SAM Website for internal purposes such as fulfilling orders, providing customer service, tracking your compliance with the website’s rules and regulations, or for editorial and feedback purposes. We may combine the personal information you have entered into the SAM Website with information that we already have on file from other sources, such as our stores and catalogs, as well as with information that is publicly available or that is provided to us by third party agents.

Promotional communications

SAM may use personal information collected from the SAM Website in order to contact you about sales, special offers, and new site features. You can stop receiving email communications from us at any time by selecting the “unsubscribe” text link provided at the bottom of all email communications.  You may opt out of receiving print communications by sending your name and mailing address to webmaster@seattleartmuseum.org.

Sister arts organizations

While SAM does not share your contact information with any commercial businesses, we occasionally trade our membership mailing list with sister arts organizations. We may also use this list for contribution drives. You may instruct us not to allow such contact by contacting our membership office at membership@seattleartmuseum.org or 206.654.3180.

Personal information disclosed to outside vendors

On occasion, SAM may contract with third-party vendors to perform certain functions on SAM’s behalf, such as email sign-up and distribution, marketing, analytics, credit card processing, customer service, fraud protection, fundraising, etc. These entities have access to the personal information needed to perform their functions. SAM requires its vendors to maintain the confidentiality and security of personal information, including information collected on SAM’s behalf through the use of cookies, and prohibits the vendors from using, selling, distributing or altering this data in any not expressly authorized by SAM.

Anonymous information

SAM uses visitors’ anonymous information to compile statistics on how our users collectively use the SAM Website, and we provide this statistical information in aggregated form to our partners and other third parties. We may also use or share anonymous information in any other manner that we deem appropriate or necessary.

Emergency situations

SAM may use or disclose personal information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to applicable law or comply with legal process served on us or the SAM Website; (b) protect and defend our rights or property, the SAM Website or our users; and (c) act under emergency circumstances to protect the personal safety of us, our affiliates, agents, the users of the SAM Website or the public.​

The SAM Website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. Please be aware that the practices described in this privacy policy do not apply to information gathered through these other web sites. These other sites may also send their own cookies to you, collect your data or solicit your personal information. SAM is not responsible for the actions and privacy policies of third parties and other websites. We encourage you to be aware of when you leave the SAM Website, and to read the privacy policies of each and every website that you visit.​

Personal information collected by the SAM Website is stored in secure operating environments that are not available to the public. In many instances, such as in the case of credit card numbers and all online purchases, the personal information is encrypted before you conduct your transaction. Only those employees who need access to your personal information in order to do their jobs are allowed access.

To protect the security of your information during transmission, we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts the information you input. Most browsers will give a visual indication of when your connection is secure. For example, Internet Explorer will show a lock icon in the lower right of the browser window. While SAM makes reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information once we receive it, no transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, SAM cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or information we transmit to you from our website.

Online purchases

Please be advised that when making a purchase through the SAM Website, your personal information will be protected in accordance with the laws of the United States, which may not be at the same level of protection legally required in other jurisdictions.​​​​​​​​​​​​

Seattle Art Museum reserves the right to modify or amend the terms of our privacy policy from time to time without notice. We recommend that you read this privacy policy each time you use our website in case you missed our notice of changes to the privacy policy.​

By using the SAM Website, you agree that the laws of Washington State shall govern in any and all disputes, without regard to its conflict of laws principles, including privacy or defamation issues or other concerns. Further, you agree that the courts of King County, Washington will have jurisdiction over all matters arising out of or related to the use of the SAM Website.​