Website Privacy Notice

 

General Website Privacy Statement

This Website Privacy Notice, which is part of our Terms of Service (TOS), describes how we protect your privacy as a user of our Website Services.  We do not knowingly interact with patients who may be accessing or using these Website Services. Neither do we knowingly interact with minors.

We do not sell or rent personally identifiable information received through your use of these Web Services.  We share such information with third parties who are assisting us in providing these Web Services and then only under written obligations of confidentiality.

The Website Services have security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of personally identifiable information under our control.  Such measures include encryption of data during communication using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and using a secured messaging service when we communicate personally identifiable information between your electronic device and the Website Services.  Even with these measures, the confidentiality of any communication or material transmitted to or from us via the Website Services by Internet or e-mail cannot be guaranteed. At your discretion, you may contact us at the Contact Us link at the top of this webpage.  If you have privacy or data security related questions, please feel free to contact the office identified at the end of this Website Privacy Notice.

 

Types of Consumer Data Collected and Used

Site Visitor data

CommonSpirit routinely gathers data on activity at this Service site, such as how many people visit the site, the pages they visit, where they come from, how long they stay on the site, etc. The data is collected on an aggregate, anonymous basis, which means that no personally identifiable information is associated with the data. This data helps us improve the Service for you, including it site content and overall usage. The information is not shared with other organizations for their independent use.

Collecting and using personal information

Except as described in this Website Privacy Notice and when specifically requested by the Website Services, or you volunteer such information in a text box, we do not collect any identifiable information about visitors to this site.

Web logs

To help us manage the Website Services, we maintain standard web logs that record data about visitors and customers who use this site and we store this information for a while.  These logs may contain the Internet domain from which you access the site (such as aol.com, abc.org, etc.); the IP address which is automatically assigned to your computer when you get on the Internet (a static IP address may be identifiable as being connected to you, while a dynamic address is usually not identifiable); the type of browser and operating system you use; the date and time you visited the site; the pages you viewed on the site; the address of the website you linked from, if any.  If you sign on to Website Services to use our secured features, our web logs will also contain an individual identifier and show the services you have accessed.

All web logs are stored securely and may only be accessed by our personnel supporting our Website Services. We web log information to help us better design for you various aspects of our Website Service, to identify popular features, to resolve user, hardware, and software problems, and to make the Website Services generally more useful to visitors.

 

Use of Email

We may use a third-party vendor to help us manage some of our e-mail communications with you.  While such a vendor may have access to email addresses, the vendor may never use them for any purpose other than to support our communication with you on our behalf.  When you click on a link in an e-mail, you may temporarily be redirected through one of the vendor’s servers (although this process will be invisible to you) which will register that you’ve clicked on that link, and have visited our Website Services or opened our email to you.

Even if you have given us permission to send e-mails to you, you may revoke that permission at any time by following the “unsubscribe” information at the bottom of each such e-mail.   If you have separately opted into or subscribed to different services on our Website Services and you subsequently wish to unsubscribe, you may need to also separately opt-out out of each service.

 

Use of Data related to evaluation of the Website Services

We will periodically ask users to complete surveys asking about their experiences with features of the Web site.  Our surveys ask visitors for demographic information such as age, gender, and education, but will not request in such surveys that users provide specific information about any medical condition. We use survey information for research and quality improvement purposes, including helping us to improve information and services offered through the Website Services.  In addition, users giving feedback may be individually contacted for follow-up due to concerns raised during the course of such evaluation. Demographic information and web log data may be stored for future research and evaluation.

 

Messages and transactions

Comments or questions sent to us using e-mail or secure messaging forms will be shared with our staff to address your concerns.  We will archive your messages once we have made an effort to provide you with a complete and satisfactory response.

 

Credit card transactions

If you provide us with your credit card number for donation, purchase or other payments, we will treat your credit card number in a secure manner.  But your credit card number should never be entered into an unsecured webpage – a webpage is not secure if the URL or domain name does not begin with https://_________/  Not all webpages on the Website Services are intended to be secure, such as those that do not have input forms.  Only provide a credit card number in the input box that we specifically designate.

 

No Children or Minors

We do not knowingly allow or solicit anyone under the age of 18 to access or use the Website Services.

 

Disclosures

 

We may disclose personal information to any person or entity performing audit, legal, operational, or other services for us.  We will use information which does not identify the individual for these activities whenever feasible. Personal information disclosed to vendors or contractors for our operational purposes may not be re-disclosed to others by such a vendor or contractor.

We may disclose personal information when required to do so by a subpoena, court order, or search warrant.  We may disclose personal information as we deem it appropriate to protect the safety of an individual or for an investigation related to public safety or to report an activity that appears to be in violation of law.  We may disclose personal information to protect the security and reliability of the Website Services and to take precautions against liability.

 

Opt-out

If you make a request to receive information in an ongoing manner through the Website Services by providing your e-mail address (for example, requesting a subscription to one of our online publications), you can request to discontinue future mailings.  Similarly, if you receive information about the Website Services through e-mail, you may make a request to discontinue receiving similar messages in the future. All such materials sent to you by e-mail will contain information about how to opt out.

 

CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE

We may change our privacy practices from time to time. Changes will apply to current information about you, as well as new information after the change occurs.

 

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS ABOUT THIS WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE

You may contact the CommonSpirit Privacy Office Hotline as follows:

Telephone: 312-741-7000

Email: [email protected]