Privacy Policy

Last Revised: February 4, 2026
Effective Date: February 9, 2026

American Composers Forum, a Minnesota nonprofit corporation, provides this Privacy Policy in connection with its website and any other information services that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Services”). “We,” “our,” and “us,” refer collectively to American Composers Forum. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information and to transparency about how we process personal information (also known as personal data). For purposes of this Privacy Policy, we regard personal information as any information that relates to an identified person or a reasonably identifiable person.

To exercise your rights or for other privacy-related inquiries, please contact us via:

American Composers Forum
75 West 5th Street, Suite 416
Saint Paul, MN 55102-1439 USA
(612) 643-0242
info@composersforum.org

This Privacy Policy does not address our collection of personal information of individuals who become our employees, but, where legally required, such individuals receive a privacy policy that explains our personal information processing practices in that context.

Within the context of the Services, this Privacy Policy explains how we process personal information. It also explains how you can control certain uses and disclosures of your personal information. We will update this Privacy Policy from time to time, or as our privacy practices change, to ensure it accurately describes how we use your information. When we do so, we will make the updated Privacy Policy available on the Services. We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy from time to time for the latest information.

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or our use of your information, please contact us using one of the methods detailed above.

1. How we use and share personal information

We limit the collection and processing of personal information to what we need for our business purposes, as explained in the table below and the following text.

Categories of individuals	Categories of personal information	Purposes	Sources/Methods of Collection	Categories of third-party recipients (see below)
All users of the Services	– Device, usage, and activity information, including the country or region of the user’s device	– To provide the Services – Services analysis, improvement, security, and administration	– Directly from the user – Indirectly by observing users’ activities or behavior	– Analytics providers
Individuals who sign up for our newsletter	– Name – Email address	– To provide the newsletter	– Directly from the user	– None
Individuals who participate in the Services’ interactive forum capabilities	– Name – User-provided credentials (username and password) – User-supplied profile information	– To facilitate participation in The Forum	– Directly from the user	– Other users of the Services’ forum capabilities
Donors	– Name – Contact information – Comments (optional) – Payment card information – Donation information	– To process donations – For fundraising campaigns and appeals	– Directly from the user	– None
Individuals who provide feedback, information regarding opportunities for music creators, or suggestions, individuals that send us other correspondence	– Contact information, including country/region – Content of feedback, suggestions, requests or other correspondence – Information about opportunities for music creators	– To consider and respond to feedback, suggestions, requests, or other correspondence – Services analysis, improvement, security, and administration	– Directly from the user	– None
Individuals who apply for employment with us	– Name – Contact information – Employment history information – Professional and academic credentials and references – Equal employment opportunity information – Work eligibility information – Background check information	– To consider the applicant for employment	– Directly from the user – From third party sources of background check information	– To third party sources of background check information (to facilitate background checks) – To third party issuers of credentials (for credential verification)

Please be aware that, in connection with our Services, we may use tracking technologies that share personal information with third parties for analytics purposes, as described in the table above.

We use the SmartRecruiters website to enable applicants to apply for employment with us. Applicants can consult the SmartRecruiters privacy policy at https://www.smartrecruiters.com/legal/general-privacy-policy/ to learn more about how SmartRecruiters processes their personal information.

2. Disclosure and sharing

In addition to the sharing with the third parties described in the table above, we may also share your personal information with:  

• Service providers. We share your personal information with third parties that provide services to us.  We engage these kinds of third parties with contracts that require them to use your personal information only to deliver the services for which we have engaged the third party and as required by law.

• Legal compliance recipients. We disclose personal information to the courts, the government, law enforcement agencies, litigants, and similar recipients when required by law.

• Successors. We may disclose personal information associated with a part of our business to a buyer, potential buyer, or other successor to our business.

We may also disclose personal information to third parties with your consent or at your direction.

If you interact with the features of our Services that link to social media or other third-party services, those third parties will be able to collect and process your personal information as well. Please refer to those third parties’ privacy policies for more information about their processing of your personal information.

3. Security, quality, and retention

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal information in our possession from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorized access, unauthorized modification, or unauthorized disclosure. While we make every reasonable effort to help ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, you should understand that no data storage system or data transmission over the internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be completely secure, accurate, complete, or current. 

We also take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is sufficiently accurate, up-to-date, and complete for the purposes for which we process or disclose it.

We retain personal information for as long as necessary for the purposes we use it, or for the time required by law. What is necessary depends on the context and purpose of processing. We generally consider the following factors when we determine how long to retain personal information:

• retention periods established under applicable law;  
• industry best practices;  
• whether the purpose of processing is reasonably likely to justify further processing;  
• risks to individual privacy in continued processing;  
• applicable data protection impact assessment;  
• information systems design considerations/limitations; and
• the costs associated with continued processing, retention, and deletion.

Please also note that our Services do not process the “Do Not Track” browser signal. The Services also do not process any opt-out preference signals as the Services do not engage in the kinds of processing to which individuals are entitled to opt out. You can, however, make a request to exercise your privacy rights as set forth in section 6 below.

4. International transfers of personal information

If we transfer personal information from one legal jurisdiction to another, we will do so in a way that complies with applicable legal requirements.

5. Children’s privacy

We are very concerned about the privacy of children. We do not knowingly process any personal information from those under the age of 13 and we have designed the Services to notify users that those under the age of 13 may not use the Services.

6. Your privacy rights

Depending on the law in your legal jurisdiction, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information under the law. To exercise your rights, please submit a request by contacting us through any of the means detailed at the top of this Privacy Policy.

Your rights may include the following:

• the right to opt out of the use of personal information for targeted advertising, personal information sales, or profiling resulting in significant consequences;
• the right to confirm whether we process your personal information and to access a copy (from which we may, for security purposes, exclude certain personal information), including a copy that is in a portable data format;
• the right to the correction of inaccurate personal information;
• the right to the deletion of your personal information;
• the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights;
• the right to appeal the action we take in response to any request to exercise these rights; and
• the right to ask us to note a dispute about your personal information in our files and to advise third parties where appropriate.

Although you may also have certain rights to limit our processing of your sensitive personal information, please note that we do not process the kinds of personal information that are generally considered sensitive in connection with the Services except with your consent.

Only you or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf may make a request related to your personal information. We will verify that any requests from persons other than you have your legal authorization. You may also make a request on behalf of your child.

Your request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or a legally authorized representative; and
• Describe your request with sufficient detail so that we can understand, evaluate, and respond to it appropriately.

You may also appeal our decision on your request using the contact information at the top of this Privacy Policy. When you contact us to appeal, please tell us why you believe we erred in responding to your request. We will respond to your appeal in accordance with the timelines set forth in applicable law.