Privacy Policy

At the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), we understand that privacy is important.

This privacy policy (“Policy”) describes the information practices regarding how the Offshore Technology Conference, Inc. (”OTC”) collects, uses, discloses, or transfers the Personal Information that you share with us or that we collect about you when you  attend one of our events, visit our websites, or use our mobile applications.

We care about the protection of your Personal Information, and this Policy also describes your data subject rights and choices regarding the Personal Information that you provide to us.  Please read this Policy carefully before providing Personal Information to OTC.

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this Policy:

Offshore Technology Conference, Inc. is the Data Controller for the purposes of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Society of Petroleum Engineers Europe Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the sponsoring organizations, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Inc., is the place of central administration for OTC in the European Union (“EU”) and as such is the “Main Establishment” for OTC in the EU.  OTC is located at 222 Palisades Creek Dr., Richardson, TX 75080-2040 USA.

OTC is a nonprofit corporation organized and operated exclusively to promote and further the advance of scientific and technological knowledge of offshore resources and related environmental matters through organizing, managing, operating and controlling conferences relating to scientific and technological developments regarding such matters, to be held from time to time and known as the "Offshore Technology Conference" and allied and kindred activities.  The sponsoring organizations of OTC are (i) The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Inc. (“SPE”), (ii) Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., (iii) The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, (iv) The American Association of Petroleum Geologists, (v) The American Institute of Chemical Engineers, (vi) The American Society of Civil Engineers, (vii) ASME International Petroleum Technology Institute; (viii) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, (ix) The Marine Technology Society, (x) The Society of Exploration Geophysicists,  (xi) The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and (xii) The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.  The managing organization of OTC is SPE.

Accordingly, the Personal Information that we collect in furtherance of these objectives enables us to provide timely and relevant information and content based on individuals’ technical interests and geographic locations. This Policy will provide information regarding your choices and rights regarding how we use this Personal Information.

The scope of this Policy includes Personal Information collected through OTC websites and subdomains, OTC mobile applications, events, conferences, customer service and registration call centers, telephone communications and email correspondence, and any offline mechanisms including paper-based correspondence and forms, as well as Personal Information provided by the sponsoring organizations to OTC for communication with members of the sponsoring organizations.

General - We collect Personal Information such as your address, email, telephone number(s), and other contact demographic and billing information.

Events - We collect information that you voluntarily provide us when you register for an event. Personal Information can be collected on an order form, an event registration form, online, or in another manner when information is requested or products and services purchased from OTC. SPE collects contact information (address, phone number, etc.), payment information (an account or credit card number), and other information. This information is used to fulfill event registration and to contact the attendee as necessary.

Networking - OTC provides with opportunities for education and professional growth through networking. In order to maximize the opportunity for professionals, additional Personal Information may be requested in order to facilitate the coordination of the networking event. This information is voluntarily given by you.

Exhibition, Advertising, and Sponsorship Opportunities - We may collect Personal Information that we receive from you in connection with and for opportunities for you and/or the companies for which you work. These opportunities include exhibition, advertising, and sponsorship opportunities at our events.     

Contacting OTC - We may collect Personal Information when received from you when you contact us for event-related questions. This information will be used to address any event related questions or other OTC-related issues.

Internet Protocol (IP) Address - OTC’s websites automatically record the IP address of your computer when you access the site as well as the time and date of access. This information does not identify you personally, nor does it contain your name or email address.    

Geolocation Information - When you visit our website, it is crucial for us to provide you with geographically-relevant information. Therefore, your IP address is collected, in order for us to serve you content regarding events, and other content specific to your geographic region. If you do not want this geolocation information to be collected, please use Private Browsing or a proxy setting when visiting any OTC website. 

Website Usage - Additionally, we use third-party vendors to track our OTC website usage traffic. Personal information is collected via third-party cookies, but the information is provided back to OTC in aggregate form only. This enables us to continue to analyze our web content and usage patterns while keeping the information anonymous within OTC. Furthermore, this information is kept in server logs that are separate from customer personal information for further protection. We may also track certain Personal Information using third-party analytics providers.

Cookies - We use cookies to provide personalized advertising and services on OTC’s and other’s websites, to personalize content, and to ensure you receive the services you have subscribed to. More about our cookies and how to disable them can be found in our cookie policy here.

While it is not our practice to buy details from external providers of marketing lists, there may still be occasions where we receive data about you from a third-party.

Under the GDPR, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
• for our legitimate interests or those of a third-party; or
• where you have given consent.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

In more detail, we process certain types of Personal Information for the reasons below:

General - We use Personal Information about our customers and attendees of our events in order to provide these individuals with services and goods in performance of our contract with them. 

Events - The Personal Information OTC collects is used to allow OTC to communicate with you regarding an event, process your transaction effectively and efficiently, and plan future events, programs and services to better serve you. We have a legitimate interest in processing Personal Information for these reasons.

Email Marketing – When you registered with us for an event we asked you whether you would like us to email you selected OTC promotions about material goods and services, such as events, programs, and publications that may be of interest to you. If you opted-in to receiving email promotions, we may share your Personal Information with companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc., so that our promotions may be displayed to you on their websites. We rely on your consent to sending you these promotions. If at any stage you wish to opt-out of receiving these emails, please email us at privacy@OTCnet.org to remove your name and email address from this database.

Interest-Based Advertisements – We sometimes work with third-party online advertisers (Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook) to serve relevant ads to you. This type of advertising is known as interest-based advertising. We may also partner other companies that serve ads on behalf of us and partner organizations on non-affiliated websites.

To learn more about interest-based ads and how to opt-out of this form of advertising by companies participating in the Digital Advertising Alliance self-regulatory program, please go to www.aboutads.info/choices/.

To learn more about the advertising settings in these individually, please visit the below websites.

• To opt-out of Google Analytics and Google-served ads, visit: www.google.com/settings/ads. You may also use the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-On to prevent data from being collected and used by Google Analytics: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
• To opt-out of ads shown on Facebook, visit this page for instructions from Facebook: www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217.
• To learn more about LinkedIn’s advertising preferences, you may review that information at www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/62931/manage-advertising-preferences?lang=en. To review and update your advertising preferences on this platform, visit: www.linkedin.com/psettings/advertising.  

Exhibition, Advertising, and Sponsorship Opportunities- We use Personal Information that we receive from you in connection with and for exhibitions, advertising, sponsorship, and other opportunities for you and/or the companies for which you work to facilitate the opportunity and to offer you additional opportunities. We have a legitimate interest in processing Personal Information for these reasons.

General - We do not sell Personal Information to anyone and only share it with third-parties in accordance with this Policy to facilitate OTC business and services or to provide you information on OTC products and services if you have consented to receive such material.

Sponsoring Organizations – We share with sponsoring organizations the name, job title, company and physical mailing address of members of the sponsoring organization who attend our events. 

Service Providers - We work with carefully selected service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. These include, for example, companies that help us with technology services, storing and combining data, processing payments, and delivering orders. We only share personal data that enable our service providers to provide their services.

• Hosted or Cloud-based (SaaS) Applications - We may use various third-party service providers who provide hosted or cloud-based (SaaS) applications. While we process your information using the tools on these third-party hosted sites, those third-parties do not access your Personal Information.
• Third-Party Processors - We may use vendor partners to whom we provide your Personal Information in order to process it on our behalf, such as payment processing companies. These companies are carefully selected and do not have access to your Personal Information beyond the processing that we have defined for them. We also require these third-party processors to contractually agree to abide by our data protection and security requirements.
• Third-Parties with Joint Responsibility - We have partners with whom we share your information for various services for which we have joint responsibility. Based on each processing situation, you may be asked to provide consent to one or both of us.

Events - We share your Personal Information to facilitate events that you choose to attend, exhibit, or sponsor; including sharing your Personal Information with hotels, catering companies, and payment processors.  Attendee Personal Information allows data processors to provide relevant marketing material for a specific event and insightful reporting to our Staff. Exhibitor Personal Information is provided to vendors to enable event facilitation.

Personal Information related to any transaction or purchase that you have made (such as an  event registration) is reconciled with a data processor.

Education and Publications – The Personal Information of authors is carefully gathered during the publication process and shared with data processors in order to build out a comprehensive library of content for purchase or download on the OnePetro® online library. Photos of speakers and event attendees are sometimes made available publicly in online/print materials for promotional purposes and/or to recognize those individuals.

Networking - OTC may provide access to Personal Information to an OTC committee in the interest of networking.

Security - The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. As such we make no warranties as to the level of security afforded to your data, except that we will always act in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations. We will ensure that in our contracts with data processors we are given all appropriate guarantees as to the use and security of your Personal Information and that the Personal Information may not be processed other than in accordance with our instructions.

It is important that you keep your personal data private in order to further protect your Personal Information.   

Third-Party Sites - OTC links to third-party sites. These sites contain privacy statements that govern the use of your Personal Information when you are using their websites. OTC does not have any responsibility regarding the processing of your Personal Information on these external websites. Please be sure to review the privacy policies on these third-party websites before sharing your Personal Information with them.

We retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary to accomplish the purpose for which it was originally collected (or as otherwise set forth in this Policy) – unless we are required to hold the information in order to meet additional legal or regulatory requirements.

You have the right to obtain from OTC confirmation as to whether or not we hold Personal Information concerning you in our databases. You have the right to access any Personal Information that we hold on you (with certain restrictions) and, in addition, the rights below:

We have our main office in the United States (“US”). Personal Information that we collect from you will be processed in the US.  We collect and transfer Personal Information to the US only with your consent, to perform a contract with you, or fulfill a legitimate interest of OTC in a manner that does not outweigh your rights. 

OTC events and services are not designed to target children under the age of 16, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 16.  If we become aware of Personal Information that was inadvertently obtained from children under the age of 16, we will eliminate this Personal Information immediately from our databases.     

This Policy was last updated on the date indicated below. Your continued use of the OTC services after any changes or revisions to this after any changes or revisions to this Policy shall indicate your agreement with the terms of such revised Policy.

This Policy has been updated and is in effect as of 23 August 2018.  OTC reserves the right to change or update this Policy from time to time so please check back regularly to keep informed of updates.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us:

(a) by general mail at one of the addresses listed below

(b) using our website contact form

(c) by telephone at the telephone numbers listed below 

(d) by email, using privacy@otcnet.org