Privacy Statement

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The Water Environment Federation respects the privacy of its members and website visitors and adheres to best practices, applicable U.S. federal laws, and acknowledges the European Union General Data Protection Regulation implementation.

The WEF website collects data to better serve members and other users of our web properties. WEF provides commercially reasonable security measures in order to protect against unauthorized access that leads to alteration, possible disclosure, and/or data destruction. No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed 100 percent secure. Accordingly, WEF cannot and will not guarantee the security of any information on the site.

Information Collected by WEF

WEF captures individual information, including contact information and demographics for the purpose of doing business with WEF including, membership, store purchases, education and research, event attendance, subscriptions, and other services. Individual information may be disclosed if required by law or if there is a good-faith belief in conforming to legal requirements, protecting property rights, or protecting personal safety.  Non-personal data may be collected when you interact with WEF websites, such as browsing history. WEF websites use cookies, tags, beacons, and other tools. The types of data collected may include search terms, computer type, operating system, date/time stamp, ads viewed, among others. To gain access to members-only areas and personalized features on the website, users must create a WEF account and provide individual information. If the user selects to opt-in, information submitted online may be used for other WEF marketing purposes, such as email and mail notifications of upcoming events that may match the interests provided. This information is submitted voluntarily.

Points of Consent

WEF requests opt-out consent for the following:

  • Topical WEF Connect Communities
  • WEF Newsletters
  • Marketing Emails
  • Marketing Mailings
  • WEF Events Registration Lists

Users may contact WEF at any time to opt out to the above.

Disclosures to Third Parties

WEF does not sell or rent your personal information to anyone except when:

  • We have your opt-in consent to share the information;
  • We need to share your information to provide the product or service you requested; or
  • We need to send the information to companies working on behalf of WEF to provide a product or service.

Companies that receive personal information from WEF in order to execute the business of WEF may use personal information only for that purpose.

Credit Card Account Information

WEF’s standard practice does not capture credit card account information online from purchases.  Credit card payments are processed directly through a certified processor (i.e. Vantiv.com).  Items with auto-renew are encrypted directly with the processor. WEF does NOT store credit card information.

IP Addresses and Cookies

The WEF website uses IP addresses for analytical purposes. The IP addresses are used to identify geo-location. This information is used for marketing research by WEF and online advertisers. Users can opt out of geo-location identification on their browser settings.

Cookies are used to track site login information, order information and other personalization.  In order to use the members-only areas of or personalized features on the WEF website, your browser must be set to accept cookies.

WEF websites also uses cookies to track anonymous data for the purposes of traffic analysis and advertising. Third party vendors, such as Google, display WEF advertising on their sites by using cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to WEF.org. Users may opt out of Google’s use of cookies at any time by visiting the Google Advertising Opt-out page.

WEF uses a number of suppliers that may also set cookies on your device on our behalf when you visit our websites to allow them to deliver the services they are providing. When you visit WEF websites you may receive cookies from third-party websites or domains. We endeavor to identify these cookies before they are used so that you can decide whether or not you wish to accept them. NextRoll is utilized by WEF for some online marketing activities, if you would like to learn more about NextRoll and the California Consumer Privacy Act, please click here. You can opt-out of cookie remarketing at any time by the following link: Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

Links to Non-WEF Sites

WEF is not responsible for content and privacy concerns on non-WEF sites. For further information, please email WEF with any comments, questions or concerns about the WEF privacy policy or its implementation.

How to Manage Cookies

As we explain in our Cookie Policy, cookies help you to get the most out of our websites. If you do disable our cookies, you may find that certain sections of our website do not work. For example, you may have difficulties logging in or viewing articles.

How to Enable and Disable Cookies Using Your Browser

Most browsers allow you to manage cookie settings. These settings can usually be found in the ‘Settings’, ‘Options’ or ‘Preferences’ menu of your browser. The links below are provided to help you find the settings for some common browsers.

For all other browsers, please look for a “help” function in your browser or contact the browser provider.

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Copyright Statement

The text, logos and images on this site are protected under the Trademark and Copyright laws of the United States, as well as other countries. Any downloading, reproduction or further distribution of any original material appearing on this Web site without prior written permission of WEF is strictly prohibited.

Requests to reprint WEF published material should be in written form and should specifically state the item(s) to be reprinted, the purpose, and distribution of the reprints. Requests for permission to reprint materials should be referred to the editor of the publication. The requests will be handled within the following guidelines:

  1. If the material is a minor excerpt from a larger work, a permission request will be routinely executed. WEF will review the material under its Fair Use Test and if it meets its criteria permission will be granted. WEF reserves the right to deny permission. The Fair Use Test, in summation, would examine (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
  2. Blanket permission to publish titles and bibliographic information or abstracts will be granted, if the request or permission specifically excludes selling full-text copies, in either print or electronic formats, of the original work cited.
  3. Permission to use entire technical publications or conference proceedings will not be granted. A request to copy material in full and in bulk should be referred to WEF's Member Services Center and attention noted to the quantity purchase discount.
  4. Requests to reprint material exclusively in electronic format for use on the Internet or other electronic distribution will be evaluated by WEF according to the Fair Use Text set forth above in A). Generally, if an author of an article or conference paper would like to post the material on his/her company's home page for the purpose of public awareness, permission is granted. Conversely, if permission is requested to digitize substantial portions of a technical publication for use in a new publication or program, available on CD-ROM or the Internet, permission is denied.