Kavi Members offers an extensive, highly configurable set of privacy protections to help support your organization's privacy policy, including email opt-out and controls over the kinds of personal and company information displayed on rosters and directories.

Prospective members often want reassurance that an organization is cogniscent of the need to protect the privacy of personal and company data before they join the organization. The organization's privacy policy is a legally binding statement that describes how an organization uses the member data it collects and manages, and explains what protections the organization offers to safeguard its members' privacy.

The organization's privacy policy is posted on its web site and links to the privacy policy are typically provided in a standard location on all web pages, usually in the footer. Links are also included on forms that collect company and user data, such as online membership application or company representative signup forms. A privacy policy is required if you want to display a TRUSTe "trustmark" or other indicator of the organization's high privacy standards.

Privacy policies are usually crafted by the board of directors in conjunction with legal advisors. The privacy policy reflects the privacy concerns of the organization's membership, its operating proceedures and goals. A good privacy policy is a thorough and up-to-date description of the organization's current practices. It should clearly state how company and personal information is collected and used, whether this information is shared with third-parties or sold, and describe whatever mechanisms are in place to protect privacy, such as the organization's opt-out policies.

Kavi Members can optionally provide email and privacy opt-out fields to users and companies. Each organization can configure how these fields are interpreted by online directories and rosters. For example, when a user selects 'No, do NOT share information' for the Privacy Option question, the organization can choose to hide the user entirely from directories or to have only select portions of the user's most sensitive information protected. Because these options are configurable, Kavi Members provides a template that can be used to explicitly state how the user's preferences will be interpreted by the organization.

Kavi Members privacy options center around two distinct kinds of opt-out. First, users may opt out of receiving certain kinds of organization email. Secondly, a company or user may opt-out of having all their information displayed in rosters and directories. The Configure Privacy Options tool allows Super Admins to configure privacy settings that provide these opt-outs for organization members.

An organization doesn't have to provide either of these options to its members in order to meet its obligation to protect member privacy. Organizations that are geared towards promoting their members or disseminating information might find these options nonsensical or even counter-productive. Other organizations might have an open exchange of member information within the organization because they have a restricted membership and almost no exposure of information outside their membership.

The 'Show Company Roster' option can be set to 'Do NOT show a company roster' if the organization prefers to keep all company rosters private. Privacy is subjective, however. More privileged users, such as those with the 'company_admin' role, are able to view the company roster even though ordinary company representatives are not.

Although policy is primarily the driver of configuration, to some extent, configuration can be fed back into policy definition. Once the basic policy is defined and Kavi Members privacy options have been configured accordingly, configuration details can be woven back into the policy to provide specifics of policy implementation. For example, if Kavi Members is configured to offer a company or individual member an opportunity to opt out of having their information displayed in a roster, what happens? Is the member completely omitted from the roster? Or is the member displayed on the roster, but with most of the usual contact data omitted? If so, the privacy policy can specify what kinds of data will be displayed.

The Configure Privacy Options tool provides fields where the organization can provide specific information about its 'User Policy and Preferences' and 'Company Policy and Preferences' that will be displayed to users alongside the privacy preferences option. Here is an example of a 'User Policy and Preferences' statement for an organization that displays skeletal information for users who opt to protect their privacy, rather than completely omitting them from rosters and directories. This organization also has the 'Show Company Roster' option set to 'Yes, show a company roster', so the roster is available to company representatives.

Privacy preference enforcement operates in a limited scope, primarily applying to rosters and directories available through Kavi Members. Kavi Members privacy preferences settings are used to set Kavi® Groups privacy settings, but Kavi Groups employs different rules about the kind of data that is hidden. Group participants are never omitted from rosters, and certain kinds of data are always presented for participants, regardless of which kinds of data are displayed in Kavi Members rosters and directories. Privacy preferences set in Kavi Members do NOT effect the availability of Kavi® Showcase profiles or data management rules implemented by any other software installed on the site.