48 Hour Film Project Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the 48 Hour Film Project collects and utilizes your personal information through your use of our websites or any of our applications, including any data you may provide when you sign up for our email blasts or you upload any personal information to us when you use any of our on-line features including, but not limited to: registering to participate in a 48 Hour Film Project event, purchasing tickets or passes to screenings/festivals, watching and/or voting on our online content, as applicable.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

What Personal Data Do We Collect?

Some information collection is required to receive 48Hour Film Project email messages and/or newsletters. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  1. Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, and gender.
  2. Contact Data includes email address and delivery address.
  3. Technical Data includes your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  4. Profile Data includes your username and password, book subscriptions, your genre preferences, feedback and survey responses.
  5. Usage Data includes information about how you use our app, our website, products and services.
  6. Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving communications from us.
  7. Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website or app feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

How Do We Collect Personal Data?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  1. Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, and email or otherwise.
  2. Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our websites, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, and other similar technologies. We may also receive this type of information from service providers, in particular those in your country or region. Please see the section on cookies below for further details.
  3. Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties such as those who link from their site(s) or services to us; from our vendors and promotional partners and others.

How May We Use Your Personal Data?

48 Hour Film Project uses your personal information to deliver 48 Hour Film Project email messages and newsletters, which contain content about filmmaking and 48 Hour Film Project events and news. Additionally we will use your personal data in the following circumstances, but not limited to:

  1. Where we need to perform the services or delivery the features offered to you on the Site or other platforms you may use to receive our features and services.
  2. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  3. Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  4. Surveys.
  5. Promotional offers.
  6. Signups for future 48 Hour Film Project information or offerings, and
  7. We may reveal general statistical information about our site, such as number of visitors, pages viewed, etc., but we will never reference visitors’ names or specific addresses.
  8. Keeping records of services and features that are requested by you and/or delivered and/or received by you and our users, 1. to study how customers use our products/services, 2. to develop them and grow our business and inform our marketing and development strategies 3. to operate our business, and deliver information, products and services to our users that they will want or have requested 4. to provide administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganization or restructuring. You always have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us using the contact details below.

Changes to Our Purposes for Collecting Your Information

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

You always have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us using the contact details below.

Third-Party Communication of Your Personal Information

48 Hour Film Project does not sell or rent your personal information to any organization outside of the 48 Hour Film Project community.

The 48 Hour Film Project community includes other 48 Hour Film Project entities such as Filmapalooza, the Yes We Cannes Global Film Challenge, the Four Points Film Project and others, as well as our Sponsors. 48 Hour Film Project entities and Sponsors are bound by strict contractual guarantees to keep your name and email address strictly confidential.

48 Hour Film Project websites contain links to other websites. 48 Hour Film Project is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. Please visit the privacy policies of these third party sites in order to understand their privacy and data collection practices.

Our Practices Regarding Collection and Use of Your Personal Data

  1. Promotional offers from us: We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you and form our Marketing practices. You will receive communications from us if you have requested information from us or subscribed to services from us or if you provided us with your details when you entered a competition or registered for a promotion and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving those communications.
  2. Opting out: you can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any message sent to you or by contacting us at any time. Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of other transactions you make on the website or 48 Hour Film Project platforms.
  3. Cookies are small text files that we place in visitors’ computer browsers to store their preferences. Our cookies themselves do not contain any personal information. Our cookies may reference the personal information you provided during registration. We reference the information you provided via an encrypted identifier. Where we link these unique identifiers with your personal information, we will treat the unique identifiers as personal information as long as they are linked. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.
  4. Registration and Passwords: When you register or otherwise join in programs offered on the 48 Hour Film Project websites or digital platforms, we use the registration information you provided to contact you if you lose your password or contact you about updates and changes.

Disclosures of Your Personal Data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out above. We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the applicable laws and regulation. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

  1. International transfers. Some of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
    1. We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
    2. Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts which may have been approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
    3. Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.
  2. Data security. We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
  3. Data retention. We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
  4. Your legal rights in connection with your personal data: Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.
    1. Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
    2. Request correction of your personal data. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
    3. Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.
    4. Object to processing of your personal data. You may object to the processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which overrides your rights and freedoms.
    5. Request restriction of processing your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
    6. Right to withdraw consent. Where we are relying on consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw that consent. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the contact details above.
    7. What we may need from you. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Contact Details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.

Mark Ruppert 48 Hour Film Project P.O. Box 40008 Washington, DC 20016

Changes to the privacy policy

This version was last updated February 20, 2024.