Privacy Policy

Updated 8/9/2023

Introduction

The South Carolina State Ports Authority, an instrumentality of the State of South Carolina, also known as the South Carolina Ports Authority, ("SCPA") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your privacy through its compliance with this privacy policy. 

This privacy policy describes the types of information SCPA may collect from you, or that you may provide when you visit SCPA’s websites, including www.scspa.com ("Websites"), or use any of its applications (“Apps”), and SCPA’s practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information that SCPA collects:

On SCPA’s Websites.
In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and SCPA’s Websites.

This privacy policy does not apply to information collected by any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or on SCPA’s Websites or Apps.

Please read this policy carefully to understand SCPA’s policies and practices regarding your information and how SCPA will treat it. If you do not agree with SCPA’s policies and practices, your choice is to refrain from using SCPA’s Websites or Apps. By accessing or using SCPA’s Websites or Apps, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to SCPA Privacy Policy). Your continued use of SCPA’s Websites or Apps after SCPA makes changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Please note that, as an instrumentality of the State of South Carolina, SCPA is subject to the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.

Information SCPA Collects About You and How SCPA Collects It

SCPA collects several types of information from and about users of its Websites or Apps, including information:

By which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline ("personal information");
That is about you but individually does not identify you, such as age, gender, language, hobbies, and interests;
About your location, if you are accessing certain parts or functions on our Websites or Apps that require location services to be enabled, such as such as GO!Port; and/or
About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access SCPA’s Websites or Apps, and usage details.

SCPA collects this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to SCPA.
Automatically as you navigate through SCPA’s Websites or Apps. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.
From third parties, for example, SCPA’s business partners and service providers.

Information You Provide to SCPA 

The information SCPA collects on or through its Websites or Apps may include:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on SCPA’s Websites or Apps. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use certain portions of SCPA’s Websites or Apps (if any), subscribing to any SCPA service, posting material, or requesting further services. SCPA may also ask you for information when you report a problem with its Websites or Apps.
Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact SCPA.
Details of transactions you carry out through SCPA’s Websites or Apps and of the fulfillment of your orders or requests. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through SCPA’s Websites or Apps, such as for parking services.
Your search queries on SCPA’s Websites or Apps.

You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, "posted") on public or limited access areas of SCPA’s Websites or Apps, or transmitted to other users of SCPA’s Website or Apps, or third parties (collectively, "User Contributions"). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although SCPA may limit access to certain pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, SCPA cannot control the actions of other users of its Websites or Apps with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, SCPA cannot and does not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information SCPA Collects Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through and interact with SCPA’s Websites or Apps, SCPA may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

Details of your visits to SCPA’s Websites or Apps, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on SCPA’s Websites or Apps.
Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The information SCPA collects automatically does not include personal information, but SCPA may maintain it or associate it with personal information SCPA collects in other ways or receives from third parties. This helps SCPA to improve its Websites or Apps, as it deems necessary, and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling SCPA to:

Estimate its audience size and usage patterns.
Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize SCPA’s Websites or Apps according to your individual interests.
Speed up your searches.
Recognize you when you return to SCPA’s Websites or Apps.

The technologies SCPA uses for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of SCPA’s Websites or Apps. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, SCPA’s system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to SCPA’s Websites or Apps.
Flash Cookies. Certain features of SCPA’s Websites or Apps may use local stored objects or flash cookies to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on SCPA’s Websites or Apps. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for flash cookies, see Choices About How SCPA Uses and Discloses Your Information.
Web Beacons. Pages of SCPA’s Websites, Apps, and SCPA e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the SCPA, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related SCPA Websites and Apps statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Website content and verifying system and server integrity).

SCPA does not collect personal information automatically, but SCPA may tie this information to personal information about you that SCPA collects from other sources or you provide to SCPA.

Third-Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on SCPA’s Websites or Apps are served by third-parties, including business partners, advertisers, ad networks and servers, service providers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use SCPA’s Websites or Apps. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

SCPA does not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from SCPA, see Choices About How SCPA Uses and Discloses Your Information.

How SCPA Uses Your Information

SCPA uses information that SCPA collects about you or that you provide to SCPA, including any personal information:

To present SCPA’s Websites or Apps and its contents to you.
To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from SCPA.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
To provide you with notices about your account/subscription, including expiration and renewal notices.
To carry out SCPA’s obligations and enforce SCPA’s rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and SCPA, including for billing and collection.
To notify you about changes to SCPA’s Websites or Apps or any products or services SCPA offers or provide though it.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on SCPA’s Websites or Apps.
To provide status updates on the Websites or Apps.
In any other way SCPA may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose with your consent.

Disclosure of Your Information

SCPA may disclose aggregated information about its users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

SCPA may disclose personal information that SCPA collects or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

To other South Carolina government entities or United States government entities.
To contractors, service providers, application providers, business partners, and other third parties SCPA uses to support SCPA’s business.
To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of SCPA's assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by SCPA about its Websites or Apps users is among the assets transferred.
To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
For any other purpose disclosed by SCPA when you provide the information.
With your consent.

SCPA may also disclose your personal information:

To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
To enforce or apply SCPA’s terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
If SCPA believes disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of SCPA, its employees, business partners, service providers, customers, or others.

Choices About How SCPA Uses and Discloses Your Information

SCPA strives to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to SCPA. SCPA has created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your flash cookie settings, visit the flash player settings page on your flash provider’s website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the Websites or Apps may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
Promotional Offers from the SCPA. If you do not wish to have your email address or contact information used by the SCPA to promote our own or third parties' products or services, you can opt-out by checking the relevant box located on the form on which SCPA collects your data (the order form or registration form), or at any other time by logging into SCPA’s Websites or Apps and adjusting your user preferences in your account profile by checking or unchecking the relevant boxes, or by sending us an email stating your request to webrequests@scspa.com. If SCPA has sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions or simply click unsubscribe at the bottom of the promotional email. This opt out does not apply to information provided to the SCPA as a result of service or other transactions with the SCPA or its business partners.

SCPA does not control third parties' collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way.

Data Security

SCPA has implemented commercially reasonable measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where SCPA has given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of SCPA’s Websites, such as GO!Port, or on Apps, then you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. SCPA asks you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although SCPA endeavors to protect your personal information, SCPA cannot and does not guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to SCPA’s Websites or Apps. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. SCPA is not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on SCPA’s Websites, Apps, or systems.  SCPA shall not be liable for any third party’s failure to process, collect, protect, transmit, and store your information in accordance with governing law. 

Changes to SCPA Privacy Policy

It is SCPA’s policy to post any changes SCPA makes to its privacy policy on this page. If SCPA makes material changes to how SCPA treats its users' personal information, SCPA will notify you through a notice on www.scspa.com. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are solely responsible for periodically visiting www.scspa.com and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

For questions about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

South Carolina State Ports Authority
Attention: VP, Information Technology
200 Ports Authority Drive
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29464
Telephone: 843-577-8786
Email: srauch@scspa.com