PRIVACY POLICY

INTRODUCTION

The MIT Corporate Relations manages the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) and the MIT Startup Exchange Program. The Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) is industry’s most comprehensive portal to MIT, enabling companies worldwide to harness MIT resources to address current challenges and to anticipate future needs. The ILP helps company executives monitor MIT research developments, identify MIT resources of interest, arrange expert face-to-face meetings with MIT faculty, advise on research sponsorship and technology licensing opportunities, and link member companies to MIT-connected startups. MIT Startup Exchange actively promotes collaboration and partnerships between MIT-connected startups and industry, principally members of MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP). MIT Startup Exchange and the ILP are integrated programs of MIT Corporate Relations. This Privacy Statement explains how we handle and use the personal information we collect about our customers and site visitors.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

While specific information may vary for particular individuals, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you. We collect basic biographic/contact information about you and your representative organization, including name, title, business addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social media contact information, as well as payment information.

For users of our site, we collect and process analytical information – aggregated information related to web visitor activity and email marketing actions.

We may use a third-party tracking service to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate. The information we track is limited to web visitor activity and email marketing actions. Our systems also collect information from cookies, web beacons, log files, pixel tags, local storage objects, and similar technologies.

HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We collect information about you from a variety of sources. A significant portion of the information we maintain is that which you have provided to us, either by updating your profile online, registering for a conference/program or communicating with us. We may also augment the information we collect about you from targeted internet searches and may use third party sources.

HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use your personal information for a number of legitimate purposes, including the performance of contractual obligations. Specifically, we use your personal information to:

Provide you with the programs and services of the MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) and MIT Startup Exchange program and to provide you with news and information around MIT.

Send you information about other MIT offerings which may be of interest to you.

Perform administrative tasks and for internal record keeping purposes.

Create and analyze aggregated (fully anonymized) information about our customers and site visitors for statistical research purposes in support of our corporate relation mission.

If you have concerns about any of these purposes, or how we communicate with you, please contact us at ilp-info@ilp.mit.edu. We will always respect a request by you to stop processing your personal information (subject to our audit and legal obligations).

If you do not wish to receive marketing email, postal mail, or telephone calls from us, please let us know by one or more of the following methods:
1. Click on the opt-out link in the footer of marketing emails
2. Email us at ilp-info@mit.edu with REMOVE in the subject line
3. Call us a 1-(617) 253-2691

Please note that if you are an enrolled participant or applicant, you may still continue to receive non-marketing transactional communications such as invoices, payment reminders, program change information, etc.

WHEN WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

To perform the functions listed above, it may be necessary to share your personal information with third parties and vendors under contract with us. All individuals performing functions for us are informed regarding appropriate handling of your personal information. We do not, under any circumstances, rent or sell your personal information to any outside third party.

Some of our site(s) and service(s) contain links to other sites whose information practices may be different than ours. Visitors should consult the other sites’ privacy policies as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.

HOW YOUR INFORMATION IS STORED AND SECURED

MIT Corporate Relations uses risk-assessed administrative, technical and physical security measures to protect your personal information. Only authenticated users with specific permissions may access the data. We use firewalls and regular monitoring to evaluate any attempts at accessing the systems without permission.

HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We consider our relationship with our Industry community to be lifelong. This means that we will maintain a record for you until such time as you tell us that you no longer wish us to keep in touch. If you no longer wish to hear from MIT Corporate Relations, we will retain a core set of information about you to fulfill administrative tasks and legal obligations.

RIGHTS FOR INDIVIDUALS IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA

You have the right in certain circumstances to (1) access your personal information; (2) to correct or erase information; (3) restrict processing; and (4) object to communications, direct marketing, or profiling. To the extent applicable, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation provides further information about your rights. You also have the right to lodge complaints with your national or regional data protection authority.

If you are inclined to exercise these rights, we request an opportunity to discuss with you any concerns you may have. To protect the personal information we hold, we may also request further information to verify your identity when exercising these rights. Upon a request to erase information, we will maintain a core set of personal data to ensure we do not contact you inadvertently in the future, as well as any information necessary for MIT archival purposes. We may also need to retain some financial information for legal purposes, including US IRS compliance. In the event of an actual or threatened legal claim, we may retain your information for purposes of establishing, defending against or exercising our rights with respect to such claim.

By providing information directly to MIT, you consent to the transfer of your personal information outside of the European Economic Area to the United States. You understand that the current laws and regulations of the United States may not provide the same level of protection as the data and privacy laws and regulations of the EEA.

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide any personal data to us.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

We may change this Privacy Statement from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.

The controller for your personal information is MIT. We can be contacted at ilp-info@mit.edu.

These policies and practices apply to MIT Corporate Relations. If you have relationships with other departments of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, any information you have shared with those departments is subject to separate privacy policies, and you will need to contact them directly should you wish to opt-out out of communications or exercise any other rights related to data stored by these departments.

This policy was last updated in June 2020.