Privacy Policy

The Aquarium of the Pacific (herein referred to as “Aquarium”) respects the privacy of our guests, members, donors, sponsors, website visitors, wifi users, and clients. The following privacy policy defines our procedures in regard to the collection and use of both personal and anonymous information via mail, phone, in-person interactions at the Aquarium, and through our websites and online services. Our Privacy Policy has been created to give guests and users confidence as they visit, join, renew, donate, or use our services and to demonstrate our commitment to fair information practices and privacy protection.

Information Sharing

Data that is collected from users of the website while registering for something from the Aquarium or signing up for one of the Aquarium’s enewsletters are only used for official Aquarium business. The Aquarium does not sell any information or share this information with any business or corporation for any purpose.

The information of members at the steward-level and above, guests, clients, web users, those who sign up for our mailing list, sponsors, donors is not shared with any other organization.

The Aquarium does not sell or share the phone numbers or email addresses of members with any other organization. The Aquarium may share the names and addresses of members at the plus, family, grandparents, dual, senior couple, individual, senior individual, and student levels with similar nonprofit organizations. These members may opt out of this at any time by contacting the Aquarium at (562) 437-3474 (FISH) or at memberservices@lbaop.org and asking that their names and addresses not be shared with other nonprofit organizations. This request may take up to three to four weeks to be processed.

The Aquarium may disclose personal or financial information if required by law or legal process served on the Aquarium or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Personal information may also be disclosed in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to facilitate compliance with laws, to protect and defend the rights or property of the Aquarium or its guests, or to act under exigent circumstances to protect the safety of the public or Aquarium guests.

The Aquarium’s services may include or access interactive forums or third-party sites and services such as message boards, online registration, social media platforms, chat rooms, and third-party websites and applications. The Aquarium’s sites and services may also be accessible through or access third-party sites or platforms, such as social media sites. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas may become public. Guests should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information through public forums and should carefully review third-party privacy policies and terms and conditions, as the Aquarium is not responsible for third-party sites or services.

Information Collection

The Aquarium may collect personal and anonymous information from our guests. This information may be used to create aggregate information or shared as further described in the “Information Sharing” section.

The Aquarium of the Pacific obtains contact details and other personal information regarding media contacts and influencers from a variety of sources, including Cision. If you wish to know more about how such information is collected and used, please refer to Cision’s privacy notice at www.cision.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/.

The types of information the Aquarium collects may consist of any or all of the following:

• Location information: Domain names, IP addresses, and general physical location. No personal information is revealed. IP addresses can be used to identify guests’ computers and shopping carts and to gather broad demographic information.
• Traffic data: Anonymous information collected, such as what pages are visited, how the services are accessed, how long the services are used, and what sites are visited by users immediately before arriving at one of the Aquarium’s sites or using our wifi. This anonymous data is used for marketing purposes, is shared with contractors, business partners, and advertisers, and is analyzed to help the Aquarium improve its services.
• Cookies: Some forms on the Aquarium’s sites may use “cookies”. These data files can contain information such as a user ID that the site can use to track the pages the user has visited. However, the only personal information a cookie can contain is information supplied by the users themselves. Cookies are able to track user traffic patterns and recognize a user’s browser when he or she returns, and could provide personalized content without signing in. Guests can turn off cookies in their browser in order to refuse them.
• Personal information: To access certain services and information or to make donations and purchases, the Aquarium requires guests to provide certain personal information. This personal information may be provided through the Aquarium’s virtual services, in person, or through the mail and may include the following:
  • Contact information: This includes information such as name, mailing address, email address, etc. The Aquarium may use this data to contact guests regarding their purchases, donations, visits to the Aquarium, or use of the Aquarium’s websites or services. This information may also be used to send guests surveys, promotional material about the Aquarium, or to solicit guests for donations or invite them to become Aquarium members.
  • Financial information: This includes bank account or credit card information, which guests would only be asked to provide if they make purchases or donations through the Aquarium’s online services. Financial data may be used only to bill guests for the products or services they have requested, and as per law all financial information provided to the Aquarium is kept confidential and secure.
  • Demographic data: This can include information such as age, zip code, income, etc. This type of data may be used to help customize guests’ experiences by displaying content on the Aquarium site based on guests’ possible interests and preferences.
  • Other: Guests may provide other information by communicating with the Aquarium through email, social media sites, text message, or other electronic means, by accessing the services through third-party services or sites, by posting messages to any of the Aquarium’s forums, or by completing online forms, surveys, or contest entries through the Aquarium sites.
  • Third-party services: Any promotions or advertisements displayed through the Aquarium’s services may also use cookies. The Aquarium does not have access to or control over any information collected by third-party advertisers. Guests may turn off cookies in their browser to refuse these. The Aquarium site may also contain links to sites maintained by other organizations. Once a guest accesses an individual document or another site belonging to a third party, the guest is subject to the privacy policy of the third-party organization and not that of the Aquarium.

Children and Privacy

The Aquarium is especially concerned with protecting the privacy of children who use Aquarium services. The Aquarium fully supports and is in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, although nonprofit organizations are not subject to its provisions.

Please note the following:

• The consent of the parent or legal guardian of any guest under the age of 18 is required before the Aquarium collects or uses any personal information.
• If personal information is collected from children, it is only to furnish information regarding participation in programs such as our education programs.
• At any time, a child’s parent may review the child’s personal information, ask the Aquarium to delete it, and refuse to allow any further collection or use of information from the child.

Session Tracking

We partner with Microsoft Clarity and Microsoft Advertising to capture how you use and interact with our website through behavioral metrics, heatmaps, and session replay to improve and market our products/services. Website usage data is captured using first and third-party cookies and other tracking technologies to determine the popularity of products/services and online activity. Additionally, we use this information for site optimization, fraud/security purposes, and advertising. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit the Microsoft Privacy Statement.