Privacy Policy

At the International Hobie Class Association (“IHCA”), we believe your trust in us rests in the ways we handle your personal data. We want you to know how we collect, use, and share your personal data. Whether you visit our websites, call us with questions, or participate in our communities and events, we do our best each day to safeguard the information we have about you.

Our goal is to be clear and honest about our data management practices. Here’s a summary of what you’ll find:

• When and Why We Collect Your Personal Data
• Personal Data We Collect
• When and Why We Use Your Personal Data
• When and Why We Share Your Personal Data
• How We Retain and Safeguard Your Personal Data
• Your Choices and Rights

This Privacy Notice applies to our class association worldwide, and to our websites. The IHCA enjoys a worldwide community, and we may transfer data from other countries to our servers. This Privacy Notice describes the ways we comply with data privacy laws.

The IHCA may collect personal data about you to provide you with goods and services. We collect only the personal data that you freely provide to us. We may receive your data from your local Hobie Fleet, country and/or regional Hobie Class Association.  We often ask for your consent before we use the data we collect. When we collect your personal data, we limit our request to only the information needed to serve you.

When we collect your personal data	Personal data you provide to us	Data we collect automatically
Visit IHCA websites	Yes	Yes
Enter the IHCA Championships	Yes
Participate in our surveys	Yes
Participate in our questionnaires	Yes
Subscribe to our email updates	Yes
Use our social media pages	Yes
Contact us by email or phone	Yes

In most cases, we collect your personal data when you provide it to us. This may also be from your local Hobie Fleet, country and/or regional Hobie Class Association. Some of the data we collect happens automatically when you visit our websites.

When and What Personal Data We Collect

When we collect your personal data	Personal data you provide to us	Data we collect automatically
Visit our website		IP address, browser type and version, referrer URL, time zone, device ID, browser plug-in types, geolocation data, operating system and version; cookie data
Enter the IHCA Championships	name, address, phone, email, password, desired language, time zone, content you provide	same as above
Participate in our surveys	name, address, phone, email, content you provide	same as above
Participate in our questionnaires	name, address, phone, email, content you provide	same as above
Contact us by email or phone	name, address, phone, email, content you provide	same as above
Subscribe to our email updates	name, email	web beacon data (opens, clicks)
Use our social media pages	user handle, content you provide
Contact us by email or phone	email, phone, content you provide

Our websites also use “cookies” to make your virtual visit more convenient and enjoyable. A cookie is a small file stored in your browser that lets our websites know if you’ve visited us before. These same cookies help us track the performance of our websites and keep parts of the websites working as we expect. If you do not wish to receive cookies you may be able to refuse them by not agreeing to the use of them upon entering the website. If you do so, we may be unable to offer you some of our functionalities, services, or support. If you have previously visited our websites, you may also have to delete any existing cookies from your browser.

We also use cookies from other companies, like Google Analytics™ service, that provide us with visitor statistics and help us manage special functions on the website. If you want to know more about how Google’s cookies work, you can review their policies here.

The IHCA uses your personal data to run our class association. This may include personal data from your local Hobie Fleet, country and/or regional Hobie Class Association and provide you with the services you request. We strive to handle your personal data fairly and ethically. We use your personal data to serve our legitimate class needs.

We avoid using your personal data in ways that you don’t expect. If we say that the IHCA uses your personal data for one purpose, we will not use it for another purpose. If we need to use it for another purpose, we will ask for your consent.

We may combine your personal data with data from other sources. We do this to add value to our services.

The IHCA has not and will not sell or lease your personal data to third parties. We may share your personal data with third parties to help us provide services to you.

These third parties include the following:

• Website hosting and development services
• User authentication tools and services
• Mailing services

There may be other situations when we need to share your personal data with others.

Other sharing situations:

• When you give the IHCA consent to do so, for example, when we notify you that we may share your personal data in some way, and you voluntarily provide us that personal data or that data has been given to us by local Hobie Fleet, country and/or regional Hobie Class Association;
• When we believe it is authorised and/or legally required to do so, or that doing so is necessary and appropriate to comply with the law or legal processes or respond to lawful requests or legal authorities, including subpoenas, warrants, court orders or other legal requests;
• To enforce or apply this Privacy Notice, our Terms of Use, or other policies or agreements; or
• To protect and defend the rights and property of the IHCA and the safety of our members.

When the IHCA shares your personal data with other firms, we make clear the ways these third parties can and cannot use your personal data.

We ask these third parties to protect your personal data in the same way we do. We use contracts to make sure that third parties follow relevant privacy laws. In these contracts, we restrict third parties from sharing personal data with their subcontractors without our written permission. Lastly, we take steps to only share the minimum personal data to meet a specific business need of the Hobie Class.

We may also share aggregate information about our users with strategic partners. In these circumstances, we do not share personal data that can uniquely identify you.

You have choices regarding the ways we share your personal data with third parties. Sometimes, you can opt-out by using the method given by our third-party service providers, like clicking the “unsubscribe” link in the email message. If you want to opt out of our sharing of your personal data, please contact us using the information in the How to Contact Us section below.

Please know that for us to manage this website, provide you with the services, and operate our class association, we must continue to share your personal data with certain third parties – even after you opt out of sharing.

The IHCA retains your personal data for at least as long as you do business with us. We may also retain your personal data to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

To determine the retention period for the personal data we hold, we consider:

• The amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data;
• The risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data;
• The reasons why we handle your personal data; and
• Whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and applicable legal requirements.

We constantly strive to align our data security practices with industry standards for processing your personal data. To prevent unauthorised access, maintain data accuracy and the proper use of information, the IHCA implements administrative, physical, and technical measures to safeguard and secure the information we collect and use for our class operations. Despite our best efforts, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

For your own privacy protection, please do not send payment card information or any other sensitive information to us by unsecured e-mail. If you create an online account, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your username and password.

The IHCA does not knowingly collect, use, or share personal data from children under thirteen (13) years old. If we learn that we have collected the personal data of a child under thirteen (13) years old, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the IHCA is a “data controller” which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purpose and means of the processing of personal data belonging to natural persons in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA). In this capacity, the IHCA, and by extension our “data processors” (i.e., third party service providers), must abide by the data protection principles defined in the GDPR.

We may process your personal data only when we have a legal basis to do so. Depending on the reason for our processing, there are three ways the IHCA may lawfully process your personal data.

We may ask for your consent before we process your personal data. You can always change your mind. If you have previously given consent to our processing of your personal data, you can freely withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting the IHCA using the How to Contact Us section below.

Please note that if you withdraw your consent, and we do not have another legal basis for processing your information, then we will stop processing your personal data. If we have another legal basis for processing your information, then we may continue to do so subject to your legal rights.

We may have contracts with third party service providers to ensure that they agree to have controls in place to protect your personal data before they can process it on the IHCA’s behalf.

We may process your personal data for our “legitimate interests.” This legal requirement means that the IHCA’s business interests may not outweigh your privacy rights. In practical terms, our “legitimate interests” for processing your personal data are:

• Process orders and related business transactions;
• Personalise users’ experiences on our website;
• Send you newsworthy updates and related material;
• Send you invitations to events;
• Manage event registrations;
• Answer questions and concerns you submit to us;
• Run our business operations; and
• Comply with our legal and contractual obligations.

Purpose	Description	Legal basis
Geotargeting	Added convenience for users looking for Hobie’s authorised dealers	Legitimate interests
Website analytics	Semi-anonymous personal data used to assess website performance	Legitimate interests
Augmented information from others	Data from other sources and companies, combined with your personal data to add value to our products and services	Legitimate interests

If you are in the EU/EEA, please be aware that we operate in Australia. As such, we may transfer your personal data from the EU/EEA to the AUS to provide you with products and services, or otherwise communicate with you. The IHCA takes measures to adequately safeguard your personal data when transferred, processed, and stored in Australia or elsewhere. In doing so, we aim to comply with applicable EU data privacy laws and regulations.

When the IHCA transfers personal data from the EU to countries or international organisations that are based outside the EU/EEA, the transfer takes place on the basis of legally permitted grounds, such as with your informed consent prior to the transfer, or standard contractual clauses (i.e., pre-defined data protection clauses added to contracts) with parties whom we transfer such personal data.

If you are in the EU/EEA, you have certain data privacy rights under the GDPR. We outline these rights in the sections below. Please note that we may only grant your request to exercise your rights after we verify your identity. We may deny a request to exercise these rights to any person other than the individual who is the subject of such personal data.

You have the right to receive a notice that describes the ways we collect, use, and share your personal data. The IHCA honours this right by publishing this Privacy Notice on our website and providing a paper copy upon request.

You have the right to access your personal data held by the IHCA by contacting us using the information in the How to Contact Us section below.

You have the right to correct or amend your personal data held by the IHCA.

You also have a right to request that the IHCA delete certain personal data about you. When we receive such a request, the IHCA will decide whether to delete certain personal data based upon our obligations and rights under GDPR Article 17(3).

You have the right to restrict processing of your personal data held by the IHCA if you contest the accuracy or the lawfulness of our processing of such data.

You have the right to receive a copy of your personal data held by the IHCA in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. You also have the right to transmit your personal data to another organisation, if technically feasible.

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your situation, to the IHCA’s processing of your personal data. You also have the right to object to any automated decision-making (such as user profiling) used by the IHCA.

You have the right to lodge a complaint or concern about our data privacy practices with the IHCA directly and/or with an appropriate supervisory authority, as defined by GDPR and related laws.

If you are an Australian citizen, please note that the IHCA may be subject to the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) defined in the Australian Privacy Act of 1988 (“Australian Privacy Act”).

The following are specific points you should know:

• We require our subcontractors to undertake a similar obligation.
• We will not use or disclose your personal information for our direct marketing purposes unless:
  • You have consented (opted-in) to receive direct marketing;
  • You would reasonably expect us to use your personal information for marketing; or
  • We believe you may be interested in the marketing material, but it is impractical for us to obtain your consent.

You may opt-out of any marketing materials we send you through an unsubscribe mechanism or by contacting us using the information in the How to Contact Us section below. If you have requested not to receive further direct marketing messages, we may continue to provide you with messages that are not regarded as “direct marketing” under the Australian Privacy Act, including changes to our terms and other information related to your account.

Our website servers are located inside of Australia. In addition, we or our third party service providers may use “cloud” technology to store or process personal information, which may result in storage of data outside Australia. It is not practicable for us to specify in advance which country will have jurisdiction over this type of offshore activity. Our third party service providers, however, are required to comply with the Australian Privacy Act in relation to the transfer or storage of personal information overseas.

If you believe the personal information that we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, please contact us using the information in the How to Contact Us section below. We will take reasonable steps, consistent with our obligations under the Australian Privacy Act, to correct that information upon your request.

If you want to exercise any of your rights, as described above, please send your request to the IHCA by using the information in the How to Contact Us section below.

If you are in the EU and wish to lodge a complaint about our data privacy practices with a regulatory authority in your country, you can find details at this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rights-citizens_en.

If you are an Australian resident and have a complaint about a privacy matter, please contact us by using the information in the How to Contact Us section below. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at this link: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints.

The IHCA will respond to your request within thirty (30) calendar days of receipt. If we find that we cannot reasonably address your request within 30 calendar days, we will inform you of the delay and communicate our reasons for delaying action on your request.

If you wish to contact us regarding a data privacy matter, please email us at:

david.brookes@hobieclass.com

The IHCA reviewed and updated this Privacy Notice on February 14, 2024. We may change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Privacy Notice at any time.If we do, we will let our visitors know by posting an alert on the website. Thank you for reading this Privacy Notice!