Privacy Policy

 

USA Swimming (“USA Swimming,” “us,” “we,” or “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy of its website users, swimmers, and families. We have prepared this privacy policy to describe our practices regarding the collection, use, and sharing of personal information. USA Swimming operates a general audience website as well as the SWIMS platform, and the privacy practices of both are discussed below. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time.  If we make revisions that change the way we collect, use, or share personal information, we will post those changes in this Privacy Policy.  Please review this Privacy Policy periodically to keep up to date on our most current policies and practices.  We note the effective date of the latest version of our Privacy Policy at the end of this Privacy Policy.

 

THE WEBSITE

As an interactive website, we collect certain personal information, which is more fully outlined below. While we encourage children to engage in our interactive website, we also wish to educate parents and kids about issues of privacy when visiting our site. We encourage parents and kids to use and enjoy our website but urge parents to discuss with their children the importance of protecting the confidentiality of personally identifiable information.

 

THE SWIMS PLATFORM

The SWIMS member management platform performs logistical and organizational tasks for USA Swimming, Local Swimming Committees (“LSC”), clubs and athlete and non-athlete members. Some data in SWIMS is entered by USA Swimming staff, while other data may be entered by third parties like an LSC, a local team, or a vendor or representative of a local team. Please review the SWIMS Terms of Use for more information.

 

WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED AND HOW WE COLLECT IT

We collect information when you, your team, a representative or vendor of your team, or an LSC submits information to us. To enable visitors to participate in some of our online activities, we may ask them to provide personal information including name, e-mail address, telephone number and date of birth. Here are some of the ways we may collect personally identifying information from our visitors:

  • During contest registrations
  • Online surveys
  • Online purchasing
  • Forums registration
  • Web server logs
  • Gathering device information
  • Biographical data that you submit to your team
  • Time information submitted by your team or a LSC

 

COOKIES AND HOW WE USE THEM

“Cookies” are small bits of information that may be placed on the hard drive of a computer. Cookies are used to gather basic tracking information and to monitor the presentation of advertisements and are placed on your hard drive by many major websites. They are especially necessary when ordering a product online. Cookies allow websites to determine the type of computer operating system and browser that you and other viewers are using, which enables websites to improve access to content.

We do not link the information collected through cookies to personally identifiable information provided by users from participating in our activities. Cookies do not contain any information that is, in itself, personally identifying.

 

SWIMS

We collect information for the SWIMS member management platform when you voluntarily submit it to us, but also when your information is submitted on your behalf by a third party. The SWIMS platform may collect information such as a name, birth date, address, email, ethnicity, disabilities, gender, club affiliation, results, awards, and honors. Some of the ways information is collected for the SWIMS platform include:

  • Submission of data by your team, LSCs, or other third parties
  • Registration of a team or swimmer on the platform
  • User submission

 

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION

Information we collect may be used for record and score keeping, internal marketing purposes, to help us determine how to fix or improve our site, monitor usage, customize content, facilitate transactions, and contact you for verification purposes. We do not sell, distribute, trade or otherwise transfer personally identifiable information obtained from a user to any third party, either within our own organization or outside it, unless the user has provided his or her consent.

 

SWIMS

We, an LSC, or a club may share, without your prior permission, information contained on the SWIMS platform including an athlete’s name, age, affiliation, and results. When your information is being entered into SWIMS during registration, SWIMS may suggest information about you stored in SWIMS to the enterer in order to ensure the correct person is registered. Suggested information may include things like name, location, birth date, and USA Swimming member number.

 

HOW WE SHARE INFORMATION

We may share information with service providers that perform services for USA Swimming such as hosting, marketing assistance, and website optimization. There may also be instances where we may disclose information without providing you a choice such as to protect our legal rights or those of affiliated companies, employees, or agents, to protect the safety and security of other users, for risk management purposes, or to comply with the law.

 

THIRD-PARTY SITES AND SPONSORS

Our site contains links to other sites whose information practices may be different from ours. Visitors should consult the other sites' privacy notices, which may differ from ours. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any third party website or applications before transmitting information to such third party. 

 

SECURITY 

We employ reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect personal information.  While there is no such thing as “perfect security” on the Internet, we will take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of personal information.

In the event that we are required to contact you regarding the security of your data, we may do so by email, mail, or telephone as permitted by law.

 

COMMUNICATIONS 

Questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy or any other privacy or security issue, please contact us.