Privacy Policy

Summary

We’re sorry this is so long. We’ll do our best to keep you safe and never use your personal data outside of Plant Biologists of South Florida.

Who we are

Plant Biologists of South Florida is an association of people who meet informally in the spring each year to share discoveries on and be curious about plant biology in South Florida, the land and coastal waters south of Lake Okeechobee.

Plant Biologists of South Florida is not incorporated, has no officers, and does no financial transactions or commercial activities. We have no official membership but we come together for plant talks and/or register at https://silver-dragonfly-938956.hostingersite.com to stay in touch and talk about plants.

Plant Biologists of South Florida is guided informally by plant biologists. Currently Philip “Phil” Busey

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 manages the website including WordPress user registration and the electronic Plant Biologists newsletter. Contact him if you have any concerns or questions on the website.

Plant Biologists of South Florida does not have a Data Protection Officer. If you have privacy concerns, please write to the administrator of the website at info@silver-dragonfly-938956.hostingersite.com

Personal data we collect and why

Meeting attendance and plant talks

When you email or telephone or otherwise speak with someone involved with Plant Biologists of South Florida about your interest in attending a meeting, presenting a talk at a meeting, hosting a meeting, or your interest in plants, that person will try to keep a copy of your:

  • name *
  • email address
  • institutional affiliation *

and sometimes also your:

  • telephone number
  • plant biology interests
  • title of your talk *
  • similar information for co-authors *

Items above marked with an asterisk * may be included in the meeting agenda which may be published on the website and in the Plant Biologists newsletter (see below).

By your providing this information, you consent to the individual(s) who you contact that they may have this personal information for use in planning the meeting, keeping you informed then and in the future, and in the case of talks, keeping other prospective attendees informed.

If you provide information for your co-authors, you are attesting that they have agreed with you to be co-authors and they have consented to the use of their personal information for use in planning the meeting and keeping them informed and keeping other prospective attendees informed.

All the forgoing information may be shared with other organizers of the annual meeting. Individuals organizing the meeting may keep your information and exchanges with them for an indefinite time, in their computers or email accounts, over which Plant Biologists of South Florida has no control. Therefore, if you have concerns or questions, contact the person(s) with whom you have had the contact. If you have concerns or questions on information on the web site, contact:

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During the annual meeting we may distribute an attendance sign-in sheet which we may use to obtain personal reimbursement for expenses through our institutions and/or to add to the Plant Biologists newsletter subscription. If you add your email address to the sign-in sheet, you consent to be subscribed to the Plant Biologists newsletter (below).

Website pbsf.org

As mentioned above, meeting information including plant talk titles, authors and co-author name(s) and institutions may be published on the website.

Your subscription to the newsletter is separate from your membership on the website to post messages and to comment on posts.

Plant biologists newsletter

If you voluntarily register through the Plant Biologists of South Florida website to receive the Plant Biologists of South Florida newsletter, or ask to be registered either through your signing in at a meeting or your direct personal request, your name and email address are added to a bulk email contact list called the Plant Biologists newsletter. The newsletter is currently managed on the website by the MailPoet plugin. The first name that you provide is only used as a salutation in the newsletter and does not need to be your real first name.

If you wish to be removed from the list, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email that you receive from pbsf.org that will remove you as a subscriber from that list. Each month, I permanently remove any unsubscribed users, which information is thereby destroyed. If you have any difficulty unsubscribing or have questions, contact me, Phil Busey, at

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Posts and comments on website

In addition to subscription to the Plant Biologists newsletter you can register as a user to create posts on the website or comment on posts.

You need to submit your email address to us so you can recover your password. To protect your privacy, you need to take three steps.

  1. Choose and enter a “Username” (which will be your login name) that is not the same as your email address. For privacy, your “Username” should not be your real name and should not say anything about you personally. (Your “Username” is not case sensitive.)
  2. Enter a strong password not in the dictionary, ideally with at least letters and numbers. It is case sensitive.
  3. After registering, login and edit your profile to tighten security. Your “Username” (your login name) is initially displayed in posts and comments. Not a good idea!

    To display a name different than your “Username” go to the upper right corner of the task bar and click the little “Gravatar” image that looks like a person’s silhouette and click “Edit my profile.”

    When your profile appears, look underneath “Editing ‘Base’ Profile Group” where it says “Name (required)” Enter the name you want everyone to see. Consider not using any name that is personally identifiable with you.

Initially once you have confirmed your user registration you will be given the role of Contributor so you can draft posts and submit them for review. Once your post on the subject of turfgrass is approved, it will show up to the world on the website, and you will soon be promoted to the role of Author. Thereafter you will be able to publish, edit, and delete your posts on your own. If you have any difficulty, contact me, Phil Busey, at

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When you post or leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also your IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection and prevention. If you post personal information in posts or comments, that information will be viewed by the world.

While every reasonable effort is made to screen the website and to prevent intrusion of spammers, hackers, and others who have no apparent interest in plants, website users should remain skeptical and cautious about what they see and read, and not carelessly click outside links that could be harmful.

If you choose to use the outside Gravatar service, an anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) is provided to Gravatar to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/ After approval of your post or comment, your profile picture, if you submit one, is visible to the public in the context of your post or comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on Plant Biologists of South Florida website you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login username will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish a post, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited or published. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Posts on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves similarly as though you had visited the other website directly and should be considered cautiously as we have no control over it.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. That includes the use of social media which is not currently linked from Plant Biologists of South Florida website, but might be so linked in the future.

Analytics

Plant Biologists of South Florida uses Google Analytics to track and report website traffic as a basis for improving performance. When you visit the Plant Biologists of South Florida website, your IP address is tracked which may reveal your geographic location. Most modern browsers allow website users to reject the use of cookies and other tracking methods.

Your personal data

Data retention

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are intended to be retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

If you register on the Plant Biologists of South Florida website, either to subscribe to the Plant Biologists newsletter or to add posts and comments, we also store the personal information you provided in your user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site or have left posts or comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us, which you will receive within 30 days. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you, in which case we will “anonymize,” basically, erase, your data within 30 days.

However, if you unsubscribe to the Plant Biologists newsletter, we consider that a consent for us to delete that information and it likely will no longer exist.

This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How we protect your data

Plant Biologists of South Florida web site protects your data by the use of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to establish an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. Additional software is used on the website and is regularly updated for automatic spam detection and removal, and to protect against hacking and data breach. Today attempts at website intrusion are abundant and aggressive.

Data breach procedures

If the Plant Biologists of South Florida website should be hacked and/or if we learn that your personal data may have been compromised, we will contact you to the extent that we are able to do so.