NCA Convention Policies

Electronic Monitoring & Use of Likeness

By attending our in-person or virtual meetings, conventions, or other events (“Conventions”), you agree to the use and distribution of your image or voice in recordings, photographs, videotapes, electronic reproductions, and audiotapes by the NCA and other third parties. You also agree that we may record details about your attendance, such as which sessions you choose to attend.

Code of Conduct

All attendees, exhibitors, speakers, sponsors, vendors, partners, NCA staff, and NCA Convention volunteers (collectively, “Participants”) are required to adhere to the following Code of Conduct (“Code”) for all aspects of NCA Conventions. We expect all organizations participating in Convention activities to follow this Code.

The National Coffee Association (“NCA”) has zero-tolerance for discrimination and all forms of harassment, including, but not limited to, sexual harassment. Protected classes include but are not limited to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, or disability. This zero-tolerance policy means that no form of discriminatory or harassing conduct by or toward any Participant will be tolerated.

Unacceptable behavior includes but is not limited to disruption of presentations during sessions, in the exhibit hall, or at any in-person or virtual meetups or events throughout the Convention; the NCA reserves the right to have disruptors removed from the Convention, with no refund of any fees that may have been paid by the disruptor(s). All Participants must comply with the instructions of the moderator and any NCA staff.

Please use caution when discussing products, companies, and organizations, including those of competitors. Information shared during Convention is shared in an open forum, and potentially reposted by attendees and made available for others, and is potentially subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.

Session presentations, postings, and messages should not contain promotional materials, special offers, job offers, product announcements, or solicitations for services. Participants may not post content that violates NCA’s commitment to compliance with antitrust laws, for example, content that encourages or facilitates Participants to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott or blackballing of another’s business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. The NCA reserves the right to remove such messages and potentially ban the sources of those solicitations.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, NCA Convention Exhibitors are permitted to post promotional materials, special offers, product announcements, and solicitation for services within their exhibit booths that have been purchased from the NCA. NCA Convention Sponsors will be permitted to post promotional materials at the discretion of the NCA and according to the terms of their Sponsorship Agreement with the NCA.

Participants may not publish or distribute in any way pictures, video, or copies of presentation materials without prior written consent from the NCA. The attendee list may not, in whole or in part, be reproduced, copied, disseminated, or otherwise used in any way except for your individual, personal and confidential reference. Use of the attendee list to send unsolicited marketing emails is not permitted without the explicit consent of the NCA. Infractions are policed and may result in legal or disciplinary action, which may include cancellation of membership and/or inability to attend future NCA events.

Reporting an Incident

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact an NCA staff member immediately. NCA staff can be identified by the official staff badge or can be reached via the info@ncausa.org email address that is monitored on an ongoing basis. All complaints will be treated seriously and will be investigated promptly.

Disciplinary Action

All reports of harassment will be directed immediately to the NCA leadership. In response to a report of harassment, the NCA leadership team may take any action they deem appropriate, including, but not limited to verbal warnings, ejection from the Convention without refund, and prohibition from participating in future NCA Conventions.

Be Well Acknowledgement

NCA is committed to following all current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as state, local, and corporate (hotel) requirements to be mindful of the safety of attendees, partners, guests, and staff.

Any public space where other people are present holds an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 and other communicable diseases. By attending this event, I agree to voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure and agree to not hold the NCA or any of their affiliates, including partners, sponsors, employees, volunteers, or sponsored venues, liable for illness.

I will take necessary precautions as recommended by the CDC and local authorities at the time of the Convention. I agree not to attend any NCA event if I feel ill or have had recent exposure to a COVID-19 case.

I acknowledge that, depending upon the current CDC guidelines at the time of the Convention and the status of the impact of COVID-19, the requirements imposed by the NCA to attend the Convention may be revised accordingly.

Badge, refund, and cancellation policy

Refund requests must be made in writing by the cancellation date shown on the NCA site for the pending Convention. Badge sharing and reprints are strictly prohibited.

Hotel policies

A deposit equal to the room rate and taxes for the first night of each reservation will be charged at the time a guest makes a room reservation and, upon check-in, will be applied towards the guest's bill. Deposits paid by guests are not refundable after Monday, February 16, when the Association's room block closes. If you are reserving a group of 5 or more rooms, please contact our housing coordinator at tana@stellatosolutions.com. Name changes will not be permitted.

Your Privacy

We are committed to protecting your personal data and your right to privacy. We developed this privacy policy to clearly explain to you what information we collect, how we use it, and what rights you have in relation to it.

If you have any questions or concerns about our policy or our practices with regard to your personal data, please contact us at info@ncausa.org.

Categories of Individuals
What Personal Data Do We Collect?
How Do We Use Your Personal Data?
How Is Your Personal Data Shared?
How Do We Keep Your Personal data safe?
Do we collect personal data from minors?
Our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.
How long do we keep your personal data?
What are your privacy rights?
Updates to this privacy notice.
Contact Information

1. Categories of Individuals

We collect personal data on six (6) different categories of individuals. This section defines these categories of individuals, so you can efficiently navigate to the other information related to the category you fall under.

Delegates. A delegate is an individual who attends the annual Convention. A delegate may register for the annual Convention as an attendee, speaker, sponsor, or media.

Exhibitors/Exhibitor Booth Coordinators/Exhibitor Booth Staff (“Exhibitors”). An Exhibitor is an organization that registers to exhibit at the Convention. The coordinator is the individual who registers the Exhibitor booth for their company. An Exhibitor staff is an individual who attends the annual Convention to staff their company’s/media publication’s exhibit booth. The booth coordinator will register the Exhibitor booth staff.

Media. Media is an individual who registers to attend the Convention from a media publication. These individuals are considered delegates when they attend the conference.

Speakers. A speaker is an individual who registers as a topic expert at the Convention. The speaker is considered a delegate when they attend the conference.

Sponsors. A sponsor is an organization that has committed to supporting the Convention. If an individual from the sponsoring organization attends the Convention, they would be considered a delegate.

2. What Personal Data Do We Collect?

We only collect personal data that is necessary for the purposes of our Conventions. This includes:

Personal Data You Provide

We collect personal data you provide to us, such as when you register for our Conventions. This may include your personal and business contact information, payment processing information, demographic details, and information about your interest in our products and services.

Personal Data We Passively Collect

We also collect certain kinds of personal data passively. We may do this through cookies and other tracking technologies (i.e., to capture your browsing habits, preferences, and IP address) or to record your participation in our Conventions (i.e., session attendance). We may also record, photograph, livestream, or otherwise capture and distribute photographs and audio/video recordings of your participation in our Conventions.

3. How Do We Use Your Personal Data?

We use your personal data for a variety of business purposes described below. We process your personal data for these purposes on the basis of our legitimate interest.

Common Purposes

We process Participants’ personal data to:

Promote our Conventions, including engaging in Exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities;
Process your registration, communicate with you before and after our Conventions, and offer opportunities to participate in future Conventions;
Conduct surveys to understand your opinions about our Conventions, products, and services
Produce Convention materials (i.e., audio, visual, and printed media displaying Speakers’ names, photos, and companies);
Promote our publications, membership offerings, and products and services;
Provide a pre-Convention virtual platform for access to information about Speakers, session topics, etc.;
Understand your interests and provide personalized suggestions for session attendance;
Host Conventions, including providing appropriate programming and (for virtual Conventions), offering a means of communication between Participants; and
Comply with our legal obligations and the policies and procedures we have implemented for Conventions.

Delegates

We use Delegates’ personal data to publish our Convention registrant list, determine eligibility for our Next Generation Council, and distribute information relating to sponsored events.

Exhibitors and Sponsors

We use Exhibitors’ and Sponsors’ personal data to communicate special opportunities and benefits, share Sponsor and Exhibitor videos during our Conventions and on our website, promote our Conventions, and offer advertising opportunities.

Speakers

We use Speakers’ personal data to give Participants details about our Speakers’ experience and areas of expertise.

4. How Is Your Personal Data Shared?

We utilize third-party service providers and business partners to host our Conventions and provide related services. We share or disclose your personal data for the following reasons:

Service Providers and Business Partners: We may share your personal data with our service providers and business partners for the above purposes. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to us, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Participants: We may share your personal data with other Participants in connection with our Conventions, including to:

Create a registry of Participants to allow other Participants to contact you and communicate with you;
Provide attendees with Exhibitor materials;
Provide Exhibitors with information about Event Participants, including which attendees visited their booths;
Provide Sponsors with information about Event Participants;
Provide Presenters with information about which Event Participants were in attendance at the Event, or a particular presentation;
Display your photo (if provided with your contact information) and your likeness (during virtual Conventions and on recorded and livestreamed versions of our Conventions); and
Promote our Exhibitors, Sponsors, and Speakers.

We may also share your personal data without notice to you if required to do so by law, or if reasonably necessary to protect our rights or property or protect the personal safety of you, our members, or the public.

5. How Do We Keep Your Personal Data safe?

We secure your personal data from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. We secure your personal data on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When certain personal data (such as your credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, we protect it through the use of encryption.

6. Do we collect personal data from minors?

We do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under the age of 18. By registering for our Conventions, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age. If we are made aware that personal data from an individual under the age of 18 has been collected, we will deactivate their account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete all associated personal data from our records. If you become aware of any personal data we have collected from an individual under the age of 18, please contact us using our contact information provided below.

7. Our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

We keep track of the websites and pages visited within NCA in order to determine which of our services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within National Coffee Association USA to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

We use cookies (small text files placed on your device) and similar technologies to provide our services and help collect data. Cookies allow us, among other things, to store your preferences and settings; provide interest-based advertising; and analyze how our services are performing. We also use web beacons to help deliver cookies and gather usage and performance data about our products and services. Our services may include web beacons and cookies from third-party service providers. You have a variety of tools to control cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, including browser controls to block and delete cookies and controls from some third-party analytics service providers to opt out of data collection through web beacons. Your browser and other choices may impact your experiences with our services.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to save you time. Cookies tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize NCA pages, or register with NCA sites or services, a cookie helps us recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same NCA site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the NCA services or Web sites you visit.

8. How long do we keep your Personal Data?

We only keep your personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes defined in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by applicable laws and regulations. When we no longer have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data, we will either delete or anonymize it.

9. What are your privacy rights?

All individuals have the right to opt-out of email marketing. You can unsubscribe from our marketing email lists at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails or by contacting us using the details provided below.

Individuals in certain regions such as the European Economic Area have been granted rights to their personal data as a result of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

If you are located in a European Economic Area Member State, you have the following rights to your personal data, which you may exercise by contacting us using the details provided below.

Right to Access. You have the right to request access to the personal data we possess as part of our Conventions. You can also access the personal data we hold by logging into your ncausa.org account and viewing your account information.

Right to Rectification. You have the right to ensure your data is accurate and to either correct any inaccuracies on your own or request that we correct them for you.

Right to Erasure. In certain circumstances, you have the right to request that we delete all the personal data we possess associated with you.

Right to Restrict Processing. You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data for certain purposes. Including sending the NCA-related communications.

Right to Withdrawal Consent. For processing that relies on consent, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

Right to Log a Complaint with a Supervisory Authority. If you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal data, you have the right to log a complaint with your local Supervisory Authority. You can find the contact details here.

10. Updates to this privacy notice.

We will occasionally update this policy to reflect organization and customer feedback. We encourage you to periodically review this policy to understand how we collect, use, share, and protect your information.

11. Contact Information

If you have any questions or comments about this policy, you may contact us at:

National Coffee Association USA
45 Broadway, Suite 2020, New York, NY 10006
(212) 766-4007
info@ncausa.org