Code of conduct

Code of Conduct

1. Purpose

We the participants, employees, volunteers, and other individuals involved with The Web Conference series of events, come together for the open exchange of ideas, the freedom of thought and expression, and for respectful scientific debate which is central to the goals of this Conference. This requires a community and an environment that recognizes and respects the inherent worth of every person.

2. Responsibility

All participants, volunteers, organizers, reviewers, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers (referred to as “Participants” collectively throughout this document) at our Conference, workshops, tutorials, oral and poster presentations, and Conference-sponsored social events—are required to agree with this Code of Conduct both during an event and on official communication channels, including social media.

Sponsors are equally subject to this Code of Conduct. In particular, sponsors should not use images, activities, or other materials that are of a sexual, racial, or otherwise offensive nature. This code applies both to official sponsors as well as any organization that uses the Conference name as branding as part of its activities at or around the Conference.

Organizers will enforce this Code, and it is expected that all Participants will cooperate to help ensure a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.

3. Policy

The conference commits itself to providing an experience for all Participants that is free from the following:

3.1 Harassment, bullying, discrimination which includes but is not limited to:

1. Offensive comments related to age, race, religion, creed, color, gender (including transgender/gender identity), sexual orientation, medical condition, physical or intellectual disability, pregnancy, or medical conditions, national origin or ancestry.
2. Intimidation, personal attacks, harassment, unnecessary disruption of talks or other conference events.

3.2 Inappropriate or unprofessional behavior that interferes with another’s full participation including:

1. Sexual harassment, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, unwelcome attention, public vulgar exchanges, derogatory name-calling, and diminutive characterizations.
2. Use of images, activities, or other materials that are of a sexual, racial, or otherwise offensive nature that may create an inappropriate or toxic environment.
3. Disorderly, boisterous, or disruptive conduct including fighting, coercion, theft, damage to property, or any mistreatment or non-businesslike behavior towards participants.

3.3 Scientific misconduct including fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism of paper submissions or research presentations, including demos, exhibits or posters.

This Code of Conduct applies to the actual meeting sites and Conference venues where The Web Conference business is being conducted, including online venues. IW3C2 and the LOC is not responsible for non-sponsored activity or behavior that may occur at non-sponsored locations such as hotels, restaurants, or locations not otherwise a sanctioned space for The Web Conference sponsored events.

4. Action

If a Participant engages in any inappropriate behavior, the Conference organizers may take action as deemed appropriate, including: a formal or informal warning to the offender, expulsion from the conference with no refund, barring from participation in future conferences or their organization, reporting the incident to the offender’s local institution or funding agencies, or reporting the incident to local authorities or law enforcement. A response of “just joking” is not acceptable. If action is taken, an appeals process will be made available.

Actions against a Participant who has violated the Code will be taken based on the nature and severity of the offense(s) and after a review of all relevant information. Actions may include, but are not restricted to, any combination of the following:

1. Formal or informal warning or counseling to the offender
2. Requirement of conciliatory efforts that may include an apology, informal mediation, or other steps intended to facilitate restoration of relationships
3. Coaching or professional training at the offender’s expense
4. Restitution for damage caused to another Participant, including property and reputation
5. Suspension from participation in future conferences, Neural Information Processing Systems
6. Foundation events, or submission of papers
7. Expulsion from the conference with no refund
8. Reporting the incident to the offender’s local institution or funding agencies
9. Reporting the incident to local authorities or law enforcement
10. Other action(s) as deemed appropriate for the situation being addressed

Any action may be offered as voluntary or imposed as mandatory for a specified or unspecified period of time subject to periodic review and achievement of action items; or permanently. If action is taken, an appeals process will be made available through the LOC once submitted in writing by the individual. Requests for appeal should be emailed to The Web Conference 2022 Contact <contact2022(at)thewebconf.org>.

5. Complaint Reporting

The Conference encourages all Participants to immediately report any incidents of discrimination, harassment, unprofessional conduct, and/or retaliation so that complaints can be quickly and fairly resolved. All complaints will be handled as confidentially as possible and information will be disclosed only as it is necessary to complete the investigation and bring to resolution. Please refer to the complete Code of Conduct Procedures document for further details regarding the reporting of complaints or incidents. There will be no retaliation against any Participant who brings a complaint or submits an incident report in good faith or who honestly assists in investigating such a complaint. All issues brought forth to the onsite Counselor during the course of a Conference will be immediately investigated.

If you have concerns related to your participation/interaction at the Conference or Conference sanctioned events, or observe someone else’s difficulties, or have any other concerns you wish to share, please get in touch with The Web Conference Contact.

Complaints and violations will be researched and investigated as appropriate by The Web Conference designate onsite Counselor. Reports made during the Conference will be responded to within 48 hours; those at other times in less than two weeks. We are prepared and eager to help Participants contact relevant help services, to escort them to a safe location, or to otherwise assist those experiencing harassment of any sort to feel safe for the duration of the Conference. We gratefully accept feedback from The Web Conference community on policy and actions using our contact email.

General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR

Both the local organizers and IW3C2 are committed to protecting the data and information of our participants, and we strongly defend privacy. We have also assigned a Chief of Privacy Officer, CPO to strictly supervise our Privacy and Data management. This page describes how data is collected, what for, and how long it will be kept.

Section 1 Registration

You may be asked for personal information under the clear reason and purpose when you register for the Web Conference 2022. (Personal information is required in order to register to take part in the Conference.)

1.1 What Do We Collect

Personal information refers to information that would identify the individual (including information that specifies the individual by cross-referring information from other sources) in the information you provide about yourself, including Name, Email, Gender, Date of Birth, Institution, Affiliation, Contact Number, Password and Nationality to The Web Conference 2022.

Data Exchange and Newsletter

During the registration process, you will be asked the following questions:

• Would you like to join the newsletter? (Select Yes /No)

  If you select “Yes”, your email will be transmitted to IW3C2 and stored in Hong Kong.

  *We encourage you not to opt-out, as much useful information will be sent to attendees through our newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time either directly via https://www.iw3c2.org/mailman/listinfo/newsletter or by sending an email to “contact(at)iw3c2.org” (with the email address which wants to be (un)subscribed).

• Would you agree to have your information transmitted to the next Web Conference? (Select Yes /No)

  If you select “Yes”, your name, email, type of registration, and the organization will be transmitted to the conference organizer in Austin (Texas) and follow the GDPR rule.

• Would you agree to have your information transferred to our sponsors? (Select Yes /No)

  If you select “Yes”, your name, email, and organization will be transmitted to all of our sponsors. Any inquiry regarding your personal data management by the sponsors should be directly addressed to them as they have different privacy policies.

1.2 How Long will We Store Your Data

The Web Conference 2022 organizers will keep your personal data for seven months– after the completion of The Web Conference 2022, that is, no later than December 2022.

Section 2 Payment

You may be asked to provide your credit card information (i.e., the credit card number, card validation code, or expire date) to complete the registration process. The payment information you provide and the transaction amount will be transmitted though selected payment gateway provider to our PCO (not yet defined). We will not store your credit card information in the system.

Any inquiries about how our PCO deals with payment information, please refer to them directly via email at (not yet defined).

Section 3 – Cookies Policy

3.1 How Do We Use Cookies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.

3.2 What Are Cookies

Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include a unique anonymous identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information to improve our quality of services.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. If you do not accept cookies, you will still have access to all public sections of our Service. You can learn more on cookies on Wikipedia and on how to manage cookies in the Browser Cookies Guide.

We collect information on how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g., IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

Technically speaking, the logs are stored for one year and contain the following data:

• The IP address (the address of your computer/device on the internet)
• Log name (for members only to access nonpublic pages)
• User (for members only to access nonpublic pages)
• Event Time (date and time of your action)
• Request (the page requested by your browser and send to the server and the version of HTML used)
• HTTP Status Code (the code return by the server to your browser usually 200 for a page found, 404 pages not found…)
• Referrer (the page from which you are coming)
• User Agent (the name and version browser you are using combined with your device operating system)

Section 4 Additional information

4.1 Disclosure of Data, Legal Requirements

The Local organizing committee (LOC) aims to comply with the applicable Data Protection legislation from time to time in place. However, the LOC may disclose your personal data in good faith if it believes that such action is necessary to:

• Comply with a legal obligation
• Protect and defend the rights or property of IW3C2 or the LOC
• Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the service
• Protect the personal safety of users of the service, or the public
• Protect against legal liability

4.2 Security of Data

The security of your data is important to The Web Conference 2022, but remember that no methods of transmission over the Internet, or methods of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. All our subcontractors are responsible for their security issues. We require from them the same level of reactivity as we guarantee you.

Additionally, you are solely responsible and liable for any activity occurring on your account, and you must keep your account password secret. You must inform us immediately of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account by emailing us. We will investigate any security breaches and we have the right to suspend or terminate the account immediately. We will not be liable for any losses caused by the unauthorized use of your account, but you may be liable for our or other Users’ losses caused by such unauthorized use.

4.4 Data Breach

Should a data breach occur, we will let you know via prominent notice on our Service without undue delay and if feasible within less than 72 hours after the breach is discovered.

4.5 Service Providers

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service (“Service Providers”), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.

These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose. For instance, IW3C2 services are hosted by the Hong Kong University of science and technology (https://www.ust.hk) you can find it’s privacy policy at https://www.ust.hk/privacy-policy/

4.6 Links to Other Sites

Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services. This is especially true for The Web Conference (former www) future or past conference websites.

4.7 Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let you know via a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

4.8 GDPR and CalOPPA compliancy

European and Californian citizens are invited to take note that their data will be stored in a foreign country. Yet both the LOC and the IW3C2 respect and strongly promote privacy. Please take into consideration that:

• as no sensitive personal data are stored by the LOC or by IW3C2,
• as no other or hidden use of your data but those described are done,
• as you have access to the modification or deletion of your data,
• as you will be informed in case of security breach,

We might be considered as both GDPR and CalOPPA compliant.

Section 5 Contact Information

5.1 Contact Us

Our GDPR Policy strictly follows IW3C2 Policy, if you have any further inquiries about our GDPR, Privacy and Security Policy, please email the CPO of The Web Conference 2022 <cpo2022(at)thewebconf.org>.

If you encounter any unsolved issues, please contact Mr. Laurent Flory, the CPO of IW3C2 <cpo(at)iw3c2.org>.