Introduction

MSA Professional Services, Inc., (“Company”, “MSA”, “our”, “us” or “we”) is primarily a municipal engineering firm providing professional engineering, urban planning, surveying, fundraising, environmental, architecture, and related services to municipalities, privacy developers, schools, professional services providers, state agencies, and others. We specialize in the sustainable development of communities (collectively our “Services”). We work primarily on a business-to-business (B2B) basis and in doing so collect information, some of which might identify individuals as a natural person. This Privacy Policy lets you know what information we collect, how we use your information, how we share or otherwise disclosure your information, and what rights and/or control you may have about your information.

Please read this Privacy Policy, which includes our policy regarding cookies. By continuing to use our Services, which includes accessing our website http://www.msa-ps.com.com (“Website”); by providing us information about yourself, including information in person at trade shows, exhibitions, etc.; over the phone or via email; when registering for our webinars or events; when contracting for our Services; by subscribing to our email distribution list; or by signing up for one of our partnership opportunities (our “Collection Points”), you are expressly consenting to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

You must be 18 or older to use our Services. Minors under 18 and at least 13 years of age are only permitted to use our Services through an account owned by a parent or legal guardian with their appropriate permission and under their direct supervision. We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register for the Services. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register for the Services or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us.

What information do we collect?

When you engage with us, including through any one of our Collection Points, we may collect the following information from you: name, email, phone number, billing information, employer/company, job title, your message or any other comments to us that you submit via the Website, fax number, general notes on your career path and other employment information, if you are reaching out to us or otherwise communicating with us regarding employment opportunities.

We also partner with third parties, including Google Analytics, to learn more about your use of the Website, and with your demographic information, such as age and gender, that helps us better tailor your Website and other preferences. This is done through the use of third-party cookies. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe’s website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly. This type of technology includes the following:

With our use of Google Analytics, Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to deliver our Services, maintain and improve them, develop new services, measure the effectiveness of advertising, protect against fraud and abuse, and personalize content and ads you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps. To learn more about the Company’s use of Google Analytics and what Google Analytics does, please see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

How you can control your information collected by third-party cookies

If you do not want your information collected with Google Analytics, you can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. This add-on instructs the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.ja) running on websites to prohibit sending information to Google Analytics.

To opt-out of analytics for the web, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page and install the add-on for your browser. For more details on installing and uninstalling the add-on, please see the relevant help resources for your specific browser.

Updates to your browser or operating system may affect the functionality of the opt-out add-on. Learn about managing add-ons for Chrome here. If you are not using Chrome, check directly with the manufacturer of your browser to determine whether add-ons will function properly on the browser version that you are using.

The latest versions of Internet Explorer sometimes load the Google Analytics opt-out add-on after sending data to Google Analytics. Therefore, if you are using Internet Explorer, the add-on will set cookies on your computer. These cookies ensure that any collected data is immediately deleted from the collection server. Please make sure that third-party cookies aren’t disabled for your Internet Explorer browser. If you delete your cookies, the add-on will, within a short timeframe, reset these cookies to ensure that your Google Analytics browser add-on remains fully functional.

The Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on does not prevent data from being sent to the Website itself or in other ways to web analytics services.

What is Do Not Track?

Do Not Track is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. Some Internet browsers – like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari – include the ability to transmit “Do Not Track” or “DNT” signals. When a user turns on the Do Not Track signal, the browser sends a message to websites requesting them not to track the user. Since uniform standards for “DNT” signals have not been adopted, we do not currently process or respond to “DNT” signals. We deploy cookies and other technologies on our Services to collect information about you and your browsing activity, even if you have turned on the Do Not Track signal.

Using Other Sites to Login to our Websites or Services

Some users may choose to connect to our Website or Services using third-party account credentials (for example, your Facebook login or LinkedIn account). If you choose to connect with us using a third-party account, you understand some of your information may be shared with us or the respective third-party platform. Your information may also be subject to separate policies of such third-party platform. You should review the policies of these third-party platforms before providing consent. Connecting your account to third-party applications or services is optional. You can revoke this permission anytime in your account settings. Currently, our Website allows users to link directly to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What do we use your information for?

How we use your Information will depend on which Services you use, how you use those Services and the choices you make in your settings. The primary reason we collect information is to provide and improve our Services, and to provide you with a more customized experience on our Services. The following is a summary of more specific ways we may use your information:

• To deliver our Services to you.
• To personalize your experience. Your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
• To improve our Website. We continually strive to improve our Website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you.
• To improve customer service.  Your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs.
• To process transactions. Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering information or service requested by you.
• To send periodic emails and to otherwise communicate with you. The email address you provide may be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your request for information, in addition to receiving occasional company news, updates, related service information, etc. Note: If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include detailed unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.
• To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other website feature.
• To determine your level of engagement with email or promotional marketing materials that are sent to you, including whether you opened an email or promotional marketing materials and/or otherwise engaged with it.
• To improve our Services, for example by reviewing information associated with stalled or crashed pages experienced by users allowing us to identify and fix problems and give you a better experience.
• For security purposes. To prevent, detect, mitigate, and investigate fraud, security breaches or other potentially prohibited or illegal activities and/or attempts to harm our users.
• To monitor and improve the information security of our Websites and mobile applications.
• To comply with governmental regulations or to respond to a subpoena or other governmental, court, administrative order/requirement.
• To hire, train, and manage our staff.
• To enforce this Privacy Policy, or other policies, and to monitor for violations of our policies or applicable laws.
• We also use Information as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, permitted by law, or as we may notify you.

The collection of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified above.

How do we protect your information?

If you provide any information to parties who operate websites that are linked to or from our website, different rules may apply to their collection, use, or disclosure of your personal information. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of such other sites before revealing any sensitive or personal information.

Regardless of the precautions taken by you or by us, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet. We cannot ensure or warrant the ultimate security of any information you transmit and are not responsible for any lost or breached information.

Do we share or otherwise disclose your information to outside parties?

We share your Information with third parties as listed below and as otherwise described elsewhere in this Policy:

Internally With our Employees/Agents

We will share your information with are employees/agents who are responsible for providing you the Services in line with the scope of their employment/agency with us.

Externally with Business Partners and Trade Agencies

We will share your information with analytic companies, such as Google, that will help us gain a better understanding of who uses our Services, understanding their preferences, their demographics so we can better market and find service offerings for you and perform similar analytic functions. We may also share your information with our third-party consultants and trade agencies/associations who perform some of our marketing for us. These third parties are contractually prohibited from sharing your information with any other enterprises and are contractually barred to only use the Information we provide them for the reasons we are disclosing to you in this Privacy Policy. For more information about our business partners’ data sharing and use practices, please review their privacy policies and disclosures, which are all available via their websites.

Business Transfers

We may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer/client information is typically one of the business assets that would be transferred. Also, if we (or our assets) are acquired or merged, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, Information would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.

Protection of Company and Others

We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we reasonably believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our conditions of use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, interests, or safety of our Company, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Legal Obligations

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements or policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, our customers/clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Compliance

Where we are requested to provide information by authorized third parties or regulatory or governmental agencies investigating illegal activities;

Emergency

Where we believe that an emergency, illegal activity or some other reasonable basis exists for notifying the relevant authority.

Aggregated and Anonymized Information

We also may share (within our affiliated entities or with third parties) aggregated or anonymized information that does not explicitly identify you or any individual user of our Services. From time to time, the Company may provide demographic and statistical information to prospective partners for the purposes of securing advertising and/or for general promotion of the Services. This disclosure will not share any personal information of individual users but is intended to give a broad overview of who uses our Services and/or access our Website.

We do not sell your personal information and the disclosures we make of your information are those set forth directly above.

Notice of Rights for California Consumers

Shine the Light

Under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of personal Information that we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to us. We will respond to one request per California customer each year, and we do not respond to requests made by means other than as set forth above.

California Do Not Track Disclosure

Do Not Track is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. When a user turns on the Do Not Track signal, the browser sends a message to websites requesting them not to track the user. At this time, we do not respond to Web browser “do not track” settings or signals. We deploy cookies and other technologies on our Service to collect information about you and your browsing activity, even if you have turned on the Do Not Track signal.

California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) Notice

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”). We may have collected the following categories of personal information of California residents in the past 12 months:

• Identifiers such as a name, postal address, Internet Protocol address, email address, or other similar identifiers.
• Categories of personal information described in subdivision (e) of California Civil Code Section 1798.80.
• Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law.
• Internet or other electronic network activity information.
• Employment information.
• Inferences drawn from any of the information identified above.

This information is collected and used for the purposes disclosed in this Notice. We may have disclosed your identifiers to our third-party business partners, which are those analytic entities we discussed above, within the 12 months immediately preceding the posting of this updated privacy policy. We may have disclosed any of the above categories of personal information pursuant to your consent or under a written contract with a service provider for a business purpose in 12 months immediately preceding the posting of this updated Notice.

Your Rights and Choices

Under California Laws, California consumers can exercise three privacy rights (Disclosure and Access; Deletion; and “Do Not Sell My Personal Information”) (collectively, “Rights”); however, based on the information we gather, and the fact that we do not “sell” personal information as that term is defined in the CCPA, your rights are somewhat limited as these Rights are not absolute and are subject to certain exceptions. For instance, we are not required to respond to requests concerning employment/application data, B2B data, and cannot disclose or permit access to specific pieces of personal information if the disclosure or access would present a certain level of risk to the security of the personal information, your account with us, or the security of the business’s systems of networks. Specifically, employment/application data is not subject to this Notice if it is personal information that is collected by us in the course of your acting as a job applicant, employee, owner, director, officer, medical staff member, or contractor to us to the extent your personal information is collected and used by us solely within the context of your role or former role as a job applicant to, employee of, owner of, director of, officer of, medical staff member of, or a contractor of ours. This also extends to any emergency contact information or benefits administration information you may have provided us in this context. B2B data is similarly not subject to this Notice if the data reflects a written or verbal communication or transaction between you and us if you are acting as an employee, owner, director, officer, or contractor of a company, partnership, sole proprietorship, nonprofit, or government agency and whose communications or transaction with us occurs solely in the context of us conducting due diligence regarding, or providing or receiving a product or service to or from such company, partnership, sole proprietorship, nonprofit or government agency. If you are a California consumer, we will process your request to exercise your Rights in accordance with California Laws.

A record concerning the requests may be maintained pursuant to our legal obligations. Further, we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to act on a request if such request is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded.

Disclosure and Access Requests

You have the right to request that we disclose to you, for the 12-month period immediately preceding the date of your request to know the following:

Categories of Personal Information Request

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
• If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
  • Sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
  • Disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Specific Pieces of Information Request

• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).

When a request for disclosure is made, we will first take steps to verify your identity to protect your privacy and security. For requests to disclose categories of personal information collected, we will have the requestor provide at least two pieces of information so that we may verify the requestor’s identity to a reasonable degree of certainty. For requests to disclose specific pieces of personal information collected, we will have the requestor provider at least three pieces of information so that we may verify the requestor’s identity to a reasonably high degree of certainty and additionally provide a signed declaration under penalty of perjury that the requestor is the consumer whose personal information is the subject of the request. We are required to retain the signed declarations as part of our record-keeping obligations for 24 months.

Please note that we will never disclose a consumer’s social security number, driver’s license number, or other government-issued identification number, financial account number, any health information or medical identification number, an account password, or security questions and answers in response to a disclosure request.

Please note additionally that we are only required to fulfill a Disclosure request from a consumer twice per every 12-month period. If you submit a request in excess, it may be denied or you may be charged for fulfilling your request.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Given the type of personal information we collect, for requests to delete personal information collected, we will have the requestor provide at least two pieces of information so that we may verify the requestor’s identity to a reasonable degree of certainty. We are required to retain the requests to delete for a period of 12 months as part of our record-keeping obligations.

If we are unable to verify a request, to the extent possible, that request will be treated as a request to opt-out and afforded rights associated with that request right as described in more detail below.

Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies. A deletion request may be denied, in full or in part, if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:

1. Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
2. Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
3. Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
4. Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 ).
6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
7. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
8. Comply with a legal obligation.
9. Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Disclosure and Deletion Rights

To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:

• Emailing us at ascheuneman@msa-ps.com with “Deletion Request” or “Disclosure Request” in the subject line and include all information requested on the Consumer Request Form; or
• Visit us at https://www.msa-ps.com/ccpa-consumer-request-form/ and complete and submit the form.

Only you or your agent (with proper authorization and proof of identity) may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

If you choose to utilize an authorized agent, they must complete and submit the Authorized Agent Designation form or emailing ascheuneman@msa-ps.com with “Deletion Request” or “Disclosure Request” in the subject line and include all the information on the Authorized Agent Designation form.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.  Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.  We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request and, to the extent necessary, to identify the browser/device that is the subject of the request.

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt.  If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.  If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account.  If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response electronically.  Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt.  The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable.  For data disclosure requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded.  If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Household Requests

We currently do not collect household data. If all the members of a household makes a Right to Know or Right to Delete request, we will respond as if the requests are individual requests.

Request Made Through Agents

You may designate, in writing or through a power of attorney, an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf to exercise your rights. Before accepting such a request from an agent, we will require the agent to provide proof you have authorized it to act on your behalf, verify the agents identity, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us. (The verification requirement does not apply if the consumer has provided the authorized agent with legal power of attorney under California Probate Code Sections 400 to 4465.)

Requests to Opt-In for Minors

If you are 16 years of age or older, you have the right to direct us not to sell your personal information at any time. We do not and will not sell personal information of consumers we actually know are less than 16 years of age unless we received affirmative authorization from the consumer who is between 13 and 16 years of age, or the parent or guardian of a consumer less than 13 years of age, to opt-in to the sale of their personal information. Upon the receipt of this request to opt-in, we will inform the minor of the right to opt-out later and of the process for doing so.

Sale and Disclosure of Personal Information

Under the CCPA, a “sale” means providing to a third party personal information for valuable consideration. It does not necessarily mean money was exchanged for the transfer of personal information. We have taken substantial steps to identify whether any of our data sharing arrangements would constitute a “sale” under the CCPA. Due to the complexities and ambiguities in the CCPA, we will continue to evaluate some of our third party relationships as we wait for final implementing regulations and guidance. For example, it is currently unclear whether the use of certain types of advertising partners would be considered a sale under CCPA. Based on our understanding of the CCPA at this time, in the preceding 12 months we have not sold any personal information to any third parties. In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed personal information to third parties for business purposes including to customer service, technical support, payment processors, information technology, and sales, recruiting and marketing partners. We will continue to update our business practices as regulatory guidance becomes available and provides clarity on what constitutes a sale transaction, particularly in the advertising ecosystem.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes to it, we will provide you notice through the Website, via email or by other means, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. You shall be responsible for reviewing and becoming familiar with any such modifications. We agree that changes cannot be retroactive. If you object to any changes, you may close your account or discontinue use of the Services. Your continued use of our Services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to these terms means that you are consenting to the updated terms.

This policy was last modified on September 1, 2020, with the prior version being effective August 15, 2014.

Contacting Us

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below.

MSA Professional Services, Inc.
1230 South Boulevard
Baraboo, WI 53913