The African Literature Association (ALA) has adopted the following policy about the gathering, storing, and dissemination of personal information about members by the Association.
- The ALA is committed to protecting the privacy of its members.
- The ALA, to function efficiently, collects a variety of membership information such as physical school and home addresses, email addresses, and office and home telephone numbers. The ALA also photographs and audio- or video-records some of its activities. All the information ALA gathers is stored securely at the headquarters; the Headquarters Director manages access to the information.
- As and when appropriate, some of the information gathered may be reproduced in bulletins, conference programs, websites, and other formats and circulated to members.
- As appropriate, some of the information gathered by the ALA may be shared with a third party such as the annual conference organizers (local organizing committee often includes non-ALA members) for conference planning purposes. In addition, the ALA has adapted the following language on list rentals from the policy of the Modern Language Association (MLA): The ALA selectively rents mailing lists of members to appropriate third parties, such as book publishers. Before renting a mailing list to a third party, the ALA reviews all the materials that will be mailed to ensure that they will be of professional interest to ALA members. Users have the right to request that their personal information not be shared with such third parties. Please contact the ALA Headquarters at any time to request that personal information not be shared with third parties.
- The information about members that ALA gathers in the normal process of its activities remains the property of the Association.