Albanian-American Development Foundation (hereinafter referred to as “AADF” “us” “we” or “our”) is committed to respecting your privacy and to complying with all applicable data protection and privacy laws.
The objective of this policy is to inform you how we handle your personal data. Our goal is to protect personal information you provide us whenever you contact us, visit or use our Masters and Internship Program (“ MIP”) website. By visiting, using this website or applying for a Master’s or Internship fellowship program, you agree to these policies and practices.
AADF may amend or update this Privacy Policy in the future. Any amendment to our Privacy Policy will become effective upon its publication on MIP website.
We collect and process personal data from individuals only as necessary in the exercise of AADF’s legitimate interests, functions and responsibilities as a private, non-profit organization governed by a Board of Trustees, whose mission is to facilitate the development of a sustainable private sector economy and a democratic society in Albania.
We receive and store any information you enter on MIP website through the application forms or give us by telephone, e-mail or in any other way. This includes information that can identify you, including your name, birth date, identification number, gender information, education and professional history, personal interests and hobbies and contact details (including your e-mail, telephone number and address). These personal data are required in order to process your MIP fellowship application in the selection and placement process and fulfil your rights and responsibilities during the MIP fellowship. Bearing in mind that the Master’s and Internship programs are implemented in the United States through AADF Partners as identified in our website and throughout the selection process, you acknowledge that we may provide all information that you have submitted to us via the website, the application forms or in any other ways, to our relevant partners via electronic means and you explicitly consent to full disclosure. In addition, you understand and explicitly consent that disclosure of personal information of selected fellows with host institutions and universities is required to complete the placement process.
We automatically collect some information about your computer when you visit the website, such as your IP address, web browser software and referring website. We also may collect information about your online activity on MIP website. This statistical and analytical information is collected on an aggregate and non-individual specific basis of all browsers who visit the website, unless you choose to provide to us your individual information. No personal data shall be collected by AADF without MIP website visitors’ consent. One of our goals in collecting the above information is to help us monitor traffic on the website so that we can manage the website’s capacity and efficiency, for security purposes as well as to customize your user experience. This type of non-personal information and data can be collected through the standard operation for Internet servers and logs, as well as “cookies” and other technical mechanisms.
Cookies are small data files that a website can use in order to recognise visitors who revisit a website, for example by assigning a unique number to the visitor, so as to facilitate their ongoing access to and use of the website. Cookies are used by websites to store a visitor’s user settings – therefore most browsers are initially configured to accept cookies. AADF provides you the choice to accept or deny cookies upon your first visit to MIP website. However, you should realize that certain cookies may be necessary to access or use certain parts of our website or in order to provide you with certain features, such as the customized delivery of certain information. For more information, please refer to our Cookies policy.
We use the personal information you provide us to identify you as a MIP fellowship applicant, to process your application, deliver the relevant information about you to host institutions and universities, in order to facilitate your placement and carry out our rights and obligations under the terms and conditions applying upon your award of a MIP fellowship, to manage fellow’s accounts, disburse payments applicable to your fellowship, track your progress during and after your participation in the program, as well as to analyze and improve MIP fellowship program.
We may also use your contact details, telephone number and e-mail address to respond to any queries you might have on the MIP Program, to contact you in relation to your application, providing you with relevant information about your application, to manage your fellowship and travel to the United States and to communicate with you to respond to your questions and comments, to measure interests in and improve our fellowship program and website, to notify you about opening call for applications for MIP fellowship, to solicit information from you through surveys, to resolve any issues during your participation in the program and potential disputes. You explicitly consent to allowing us to contact you in this regard.
AADF will not collect or keep your personal data unless it is necessary for the purpose(s) outlined above, nor will we keep your personal data for longer than is necessary. Thereafter, your personal data identifying you shall be permanently deleted or anonymised.
AADF does not give, sell or disclose your personal information to any third parties for purposes or services you have not requested or for marketing purposes without your consent.
You acknowledge and explicitly consent that in order to participate in the MIP program, AADF in its capacity of owner and sponsor of the MIP program, has the right to transmit your personal data to its partners located in the United States, in accordance with the legislation in force on the transfer of personal data and AADF shall enter into contractual relations with such partners and take reasonable care to ensure that our partners are bound by confidentiality and privacy obligations and that they take all necessary security measures for protecting your personal data.
AADF may share your personal data with the following entities:
- AADF partners and their contractors, assisting us on the implementation and follow-up of MIP fellows while in the U.S., i.e. participating in all phases of the application and selection and facilitating the orientation and fellows’ placement in the U.S., as well as monitoring performance; AADF partners may further share your personal information with other providers, such as hotels, airline companies or other providers for any services that may be requested on your behalf to for your travel, housing or other arrangements during your stay in the U.S..
- Host universities and institutions, in which you have chosen (or have been assigned for you) to perform your studies or internship, which are part of the selection and placement process to be awarded a MIP program fellowship.
We reserve the right to share your personal data with other companies and organisations in response to any claims or legal proceedings to establish or exercise our legal rights, to defend against any claims or as may be otherwise required by the law, as well as for the purposes of fraud protection.
We may share statistical aggregate or anonymous information (such as the number of visitors of our website, applications per field of study/internship, age group etc.) with third parties, including our partners or public institutions. This information does not contain any personal information and is used to develop and improve MIP program and its content to better achieve MIP fellowship program objectives.
You have the right to request access to, a copy of, rectification, restriction of processing or erasure of your personal data or oppose their processing by us. You may exercise these rights at any time by sending a written request to AADF at the address: Ibrahim Rugova street, Building no. 42, Entrance 7, Apartment 61, 1019, Tirana, Albania.
The erasure of your personal data shall be subject to applicable laws and retention periods in accordance with AADF policies and procedures. If you have provided consent to the use of your information, you have the right to withdraw consent without affecting the lawfulness of AADF’s processing of the information prior to receipt of your request.
Protection of secrecy and confidentiality of your personal data is of crucial importance to AADF and its partners. For this reason, we have implemented the necessary organizational, technical and physical security procedures to protect the personal data you provide to us. Only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information, and they may do so only for permitted functions as explained to you above. We use encryption when transmitting your sensitive personal information between your system and ours, and we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your information.
We do not and will not, at any time, request your login name or password in an insecure or unsolicited e-mail or telephone communication. We will only call or e-mail you in response to your inquiry or application.