Effective Date: September 21, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how the International Bok Fu Do Association ("IBFDA", "the Association", "we", "us", "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects personal information when you visit ibfda.org (the "Site"), contact us, join, register for an event, or buy from our online store. Please read it with our Website Terms of Use.
The Site is operated by the International Bok Fu Do Association, based in Alamo, California.
The Association is the certifying and governing body for Bok Fu Do. We certify student rank and instructor levels, maintain the official ranking roster, sanction and run tournaments, certification weekends, and rank intensives, and support our member organizations (the schools that teach Bok Fu Do). We are not a school.
Headquarters: 140C Alamo Plaza, Alamo, CA 94507
Phone: (925) 831-0292
Email: info@ibfda.org
Contact form: ibfda.org/pages/contact
Information you give us. We collect what you type into our forms and what you submit when you buy or register through the Site:
Payment information. Payments run through Shopify's checkout and its payment providers. We see order details and the last four digits of a card; full card numbers are handled by the payment provider, not stored by us.
Rank and certification records. As the issuing body for Bok Fu Do rank, we keep a record of each rank and instructor certification we award: the person's name, the rank or level, the year certified, and the school or instructor connected with it. These records come from the certifying instructor and member school as well as from you.
Photographs and video. Our staff, officials, and member schools take photos and video at tournaments, certification weekends, rank intensives, and other Association events.
Information collected automatically. When you use the Site, we and our service providers collect your IP address, general location derived from it, device and browser type, the pages you view, what you click, the page that referred you, and similar usage data, through the cookies and similar technologies described in section 3.
Our Site is built on Shopify. Today the Site loads the following third-party technologies:
We do not run Google Analytics. We may add advertising or conversion measurement pixels, such as Google Ads or Meta (Facebook) tools, embedded YouTube or Vimeo players, or other analytics tools in the future. When we do, we will update this section. Any such tool may collect your IP address, device identifiers, and browsing activity on the Site.
How to control cookies. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and most browsers let you refuse third-party cookies. Blocking cookies may stop the cart, checkout, and account features from working. Where the law requires it, we treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser as a request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for that browser.
We use personal information to:
Publishing certification records is part of the Association's function. Our ranking roster and certified instructor pages list the name of each person we have certified, the rank or instructor level, and the year certified, and may show the person's school or program. We may also publish tournament results, awards such as Competitor of the Year, and event recaps that name participants. Junior ranks appear in the same format, based on the certification submitted by the student's instructor. We do not publish dates of birth, contact details, or home addresses on these pages.
If you are listed and want your entry corrected or removed from the Site, contact us at info@ibfda.org or through the contact form. A parent or guardian may make this request for a minor. We will correct genuine errors and will remove an entry on request. Removal from the Site does not cancel the underlying certification, and once a page has been published, search engines and other services may keep copies that we do not control and cannot delete.
Photos and video taken at Association events may appear on the Site (in our news and gallery pages), on our social media accounts, on member school websites, and in promotional material for the Association. When you register for a tournament through the Site, the participation agreement includes consent to this use of images taken during the event. A parent or guardian gives this consent for a competitor under 18.
If you or your child appear in a photo or video we have published and you want it taken down, contact us and tell us where it appears. We will remove it from the Site and our own accounts and pass the request to any member school we shared it with.
We do not currently run a text message program. If you give us a phone number, we use it to reach you about your membership, registration, or order.
We share personal information only as described here. We do not sell your personal information for money. Some California regulators treat the use of third-party analytics and marketing cookies as a "sale" or "share" even when no money changes hands. Whether or not that applies to us, you may opt out using the methods in section 10, and we honor a Global Privacy Control signal.
The store tools listed in section 3 collect data directly from your browser under their own privacy policies. If we later add advertising tools that count as "sharing" under California law, we will update this policy and provide an opt-out.
Our programs include students and competitors under 18, and some of our published records name minors who have earned rank. The Site itself is directed to adults: parents, guardians, instructors, and adult members. We do not knowingly collect personal information online from a child under 13 without the involvement of a parent or guardian.
Event registration for a competitor under 18 must be completed by a parent or guardian, or by the competitor's instructor with parental consent, and the parent or guardian signs the participation agreement. Membership and rank applications for minors likewise come through the parent, guardian, or member school.
If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information directly through the Site, contact us and we will delete it. A parent or guardian may also review, correct, or ask us to delete their child's information, or ask us to remove a child's roster entry or photo, using the contact details in section 15.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
The California Consumer Privacy Act and similar state laws apply only to organizations above certain size or revenue thresholds, and many nonprofits are exempt. Whether or not those laws apply to us, we honor the requests above for everyone, regardless of where you live.
How to submit a request. Email info@ibfda.org, use the contact form, call (925) 831-0292, or write to the address in section 1. Tell us which right you are exercising and how to reach you. We will confirm receipt within 10 business days and respond within 45 days. If we need more time, we may extend once by another 45 days and will tell you why.
Verifying your identity. We match the details in your request against information we already hold, such as the name and email address on your membership or registration, and may ask for one or two more details. If we cannot verify you, we will tell you.
Authorized agents. Someone may submit a request for you if they show written proof of your permission; we may still verify your identity directly with you. A parent or guardian may act for a minor without separate authorization.
Appeals. If we decline a request, we will explain why, and you may ask us to reconsider by replying to our response.
We keep personal information as long as we need it for the purposes above. Rank and instructor certification records are permanent records of the Association, because they establish a person's standing in Bok Fu Do. Membership records are kept for the life of the membership and a reasonable period afterward. Event registrations and participation agreements are kept as long as needed to run the event and to defend any claim arising from it, which may be several years. Order records are kept as tax and accounting law requires. Analytics data is retained under the settings of the tools in section 3. When we no longer need information, we delete it or make it anonymous.
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal information. The Site is served over HTTPS, and payment details are handled by Shopify and its payment providers. Access to membership, registration, and certification records is limited to Association officers and volunteers who need it. No website or storage method is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as the law requires.
The Site links to member school websites, bokfudo.com, co-sanctioning federations, our social media accounts, and Shopify services such as Shop. Those sites have their own privacy practices, which we do not control. Read their policies before giving them information.
We may update this policy as the Site, our tools, or the law changes. The effective date at the top shows when it was last revised. For a material change, such as adding advertising technologies or changing how we share information, we will post a notice on the Site before it takes effect. Continued use of the Site after that date means you accept the updated policy.
International Bok Fu Do Association
140C Alamo Plaza, Alamo, CA 94507
Phone: (925) 831-0292
Email: info@ibfda.org
Contact form: ibfda.org/pages/contact