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We understand that health is a very personal, private subject, and we want you to feel quite comfortable visiting our website and using our services. This Privacy Policy and Agreement ("Privacy Policy") will tell you what information we collect about you and about your use of our website. It will explain how we protect that information and what choices you have about how it is used. DLHA urges you to read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you will understand clearly our commitment to you and your privacy, and how we may collect and use information. By using the Datelinehealth-Africa.net site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. TRUST AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
WHAT THE PRIVACY POLICY DOES NOT DO INFORMATION WE COLLECT SECTION 1: Information We Collect Top Personal Information is information that can be used to identify or contact you. DLHA collects only the personal information you provide to us. We collect the Personal Information that you provide to us in two general and distinct ways: (1) When you register as a Member and/or when you update your Member Profile and (2) When you choose to use various DLHA Interactive Tools and Services or participate in surveys. We also collect non-personal information through the use of "cookies." We do not store any personally identifiable information (PII) in any cookies on your computer. All of these are described in more detail below. Registration and Member Profile You may have limited use of the DLHA website without registering or submitting any Personal Information. In that case, the only information we collect will be non-personal information collected through the use of cookies (see details below). To have a comprehensive access to all content and services on the DLHA website you are best advised to complete a registration form. DLHA uses the Personal Information that you provide through registration to respond to questions from you and/or inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy. We may also use this information to send you emails with special promotions or newsletters with content that we think may be of interest to you. You can always opt-out of receiving such emails or unsubscribe to newsletters at the time you register or at any time - see Section 4 below for more detail about opting-out of receiving emails and newsletters. The information we collect in the Registration form and Member Profile is set forth below. Required information is indicated by an asterisk*. Provision of all other information is optional.
Member Profile We also collect other information, some of which may be Personal Information that you voluntarily provide to us when you choose to use some of the DLHA Interactive Tools and Services, such as "My Health Profile", "My Health Risk Appraisal" or "Ask Experts". In addition, we also collect information you provide voluntarily through responses to surveys, questionnaires and the like. Some of the free Interactive Tools on our site ask you for health-related Personal Information that you are free to respond or not to respond to. "My Health Profile" is a special Interactive Service that allows you to record limited amounts of health-related Personal Information on a voluntary basis on secure servers maintained by DLHA or by a third party on DLHA's behalf. Please see the description of "My Health Profile" below in Section 2. Also read the Security and Confidentiality Statement posted on the "My Health Profile" pages for more information regarding what information is collected when you use this service. While we collect Personal Information about you if you use our service called the "M Health Risk Appraisal" (HRA), we only store this information at your request. Therefore, you can use HRA and if you do not choose to store the information, it is deleted and no longer accessible to DLHA. If you choose to store the information, it is collected by DLHA and subject to this Privacy Policy. HRA is an educational tool that is designed to help you better understand how to maintain your health and the health of your family. HRA interacts with "My Health Profile" to give you a central place to store your and your family's health risk information. Over time, as you and your family members learn more about their health status, the HRA tool can track your progress and their progress in reducing the risk of illness. DLHA collects anonymous, non-personal information about your use of our site through the use of "Cookies". Cookies are small computer files that is transferred to your computer's hard drive that allow DLHA to know how often you visit our site and the activities you conduct while on our site (such as the pages you visited, etc.). Every computer is assigned a different cookie by DLHA. The information collected by cookies helps us dynamically to generate advertising and content on web pages specifically designed for you and also allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our site and for what purpose. DLHA may use cookie information to target certain advertisements to your browser or to determine the popularity of certain content. Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the "Help" section of the toolbar. If you reject DLHA cookie, certain of the functions and conveniences of the DLHA site may not work properly but you do not have to accept DLHA cookie in order to productively use DLHA site. While it may be possible to link non-personal cookie information to Personal Information collected in other ways, we want you to know that if you accept our cookie we will not, without your consent, link the cookie information we collect to Personal Information you provide to us on our site. Sponsors, partners or advertisers on DLHA may also use their own cookies when you click on their advertisement or link to their site or service, or even if the advertisement simply appears on a page that you are viewing. Some advertisers use companies other than DLHA to serve their ads and these companies ("Ad Servers") may also collect non-personal information through the use of cookies on the DLHA website. We do not control third parties' use of Cookies, or how they manage the non-personal information they gather through them. However, we do require sponsors, advertisers and "Ad Servers" who collect cookie information through our website to agree that they will not collect any Personal Information from our site without your consent. They have promised us they will not link any non-personal cookie information collected by them on our site to Personal Information they or others collect in other ways or from other sites. Please review the privacy policy of other
sites you visit or link to from our site to understand how these
other sites use cookies and how they use the information they collect
through the use of cookies on their own sites. In addition, DLHA's
Advertising Policy is posted on our website and will provide additional
detail about our relationship with advertisers and the companies
that serve ads. We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. This website is not designed or intended to attract children under the age of 12. We do not collect Personal Information from any person we actually know is under the age of 12. This Privacy Policy does not protect you when you use DLHA public forums. As a service to our users, DLHA features chat rooms and bulletin boards where users with similar medical conditions can share information and support one another. In addition, we offer online discussions on a variety of topics moderated by medical experts. You should be aware that any information shared in a chat room, bulletin board or online discussion is public information and may be seen or collected by third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. Think carefully before disclosing any personal information in any public forum.
Disclosure of Your Information Except as set forth in this Section or as specifically agreed to by you, DLHA will not disclose any Personal Information it gathers from you on our website. We may release Personal Information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personal Information to a third party, we will notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order. Disclosure to DLHA subsidiaries DLHA may disclose Personal Information
to its corporate subsidiaries. Any Personal Information provided
to subsidiaries of DLHA will be treated by those subsidiaries in
accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. Disclosure to DLHA Operations and Maintenance Contractors DLHA operations and maintenance contractors sometimes have limited access to your Personal Information in the course of providing products or services to DLHA. These contractors include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services, and/or content related to better operation and maintenance of our website. Unless you have opted out of receiving emails and newsletters from DLHA, these contractors also may have access to your email address to send newsletters to you on our behalf or to send emails to you for purposes such as conducting market research on our behalf. Access to your Personal Information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary in order for the contractor to perform its limited function for DLHA. We also contractually require that our operations and maintenance contractors 1) protect the privacy of your Personal Information consistent with this Privacy Policy, and 2) not use or disclose your Personal Information for any purpose other than providing us with products and services. Disclosure to Website Service and Content Contractors Some content and services offered to you through our website may be served on websites hosted and operated by a company other than DLHA ("Third Party Contractor Websites"). Similarly, if you purchase an item through one of DLHA's co-branded or affiliated stores, you will be purchasing it from the Third Party Contractor Website and not from DLHA. DLHA does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Contractor Websites without your consent, but you should be aware that any information you disclose once you access these other sites is not subject to this Privacy Policy. DLHA does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Contractor Websites. You should review the privacy policy posted on such sites to understand how that Third Party Contractor Websites collect and use your Personal Information. DLHA makes an effort to make it obvious to you when you leave our website and enter a Third Party Contractor Website, either by requiring you to click on a link or by notifying you on the site. In addition, if you see a phrase such as "Powered by" or "in association with" followed by the name of a company other than DLHA, then you are on a website hosted by a company other than DLHA. Disclosure to or by Co-branded Channel Partners DLHA may serve as a contractor and may therefore provide co-branded content and services to websites hosted and operated by companies other than DLHA ("Channel Partner Websites"). You can only access these co-branded content and services through the Channel Partner Website, and usually from the health section of these other websites. The co-branded DLHA pages that you may access through a Channel Partner Website will have different registration processes and opportunities for information collection, and Personal Information that you provide on these pages may be shared with the Channel Partners. Each of these co-branded DLHA sites would have its own privacy policy posted on that site, which explains what information is disclosed by DLHA to the Channel Partner and vice versa. If you visit one of these co-branded DLHA sites, please read the privacy policy that is posted on that site, as well as the individual privacy policy of the Channel Partner Website. In addition to the Third Party Contractor Websites that you may access as described above, for your convenience there are links to websites operated by companies other than DLHA ("Third Party Websites") that are not contractors who provide content or services through our website. These links may be found in advertisements, referenced within content, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. DLHA does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Websites and DLHA does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you choose to link to one of these Third party Websites, you should review the privacy policy posted on this other site to understand how that Third Party Website collects and uses your Personal Information. Disclosure of Aggregate Information DLHA may provide to third parties non-personal information about you that does not allow you to be identified or contacted and that is combined with the non-personal information of other users ("Aggregate Information"). For example, DLHA might inform third parties regarding the number of users of thw DLHA site and the activities they conduct while on the site. DLHA might also inform a pharmaceutical company (that may or may not be an advertiser on the site) that "30% of DLHA users live eat green pepper" or that "25% of DLHA users have tried natural medicine." Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this Aggregate Information. We also may not limit the third parties' use of the Aggregate Information, except that we do require third parties to whom we disclose Aggregate Information to agree that they will not attempt to make this information personally identifiable by combining it with other databases or otherwise. All information that is received, used, or disclosed in connection with "My Health Profile" is encrypted. DLHA collects the information you voluntarily provide in "My Health Profile". The information "My Health Profile" currently is designed to store includes the following categories: (1) Personal Information; (2) Medical Information; (3) Medications; (4) Allergy; (5) Procedure/Surgical History; (6) Clinic and Hospital; (7) Immunization History (8) Health Risk Assessment Information; and (9) Any other information you voluntarily store. For more information on what types of information are collected in each category, please review the "My Health Profile" Security and Confidentiality Statement. DLHA does not use the information stored in "My Health Profile" for any purpose except to provide members with a readily accessible, easy-to-update means of collecting and storing family health/medical history. The only entities that will have access to "My Health Profile" information are DLHA itself and any third parties hired by DLHA to assist in operating, maintaining, and improving the site. These third parties are required by DLHA to hold your information in the strictest of confidence and may not use or disclose it except to fulfill the service they're hired to perform. DLHA will not share any of the personally identifiable information that is stored in "My Health Record" -- even in an aggregated form -- with any other third parties without your express permission. SECTION 3 DLHA internal privacy control measures DLHA works to make your Personal Information to remain as secure as possible. That is why we have put a security system in place at DLHA that combines leading technical safeguards and a code of conduct for those employees that are permitted to access our customers' Personal Information. On the technical side, DLHA uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology in transmitting your personal information to our servers to help ensure the integrity and privacy of the Personal Information you provide to us via the Internet. Encryption involves systematically scrambling numbers and letters, so that even if someone managed to intercept the information, they would not be able to make sense of it. In order to take advantage of this encryption technology, you need to have an Internet browser that will support 128-bit encryption, such as Netscape or Microsoft Explorer. As an additional security measure, your Personal Information is also kept physically separate on a separate server where your password is encrypted and stored on a database. On the employee side, only a limited number of DLHA employees are authorized to access your Personal Information. All DLHA employees must abide by our Privacy Policy and those who violate our Privacy Policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination. Although DLHA will make every reasonable effort to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties, you should be aware that there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the Internet. There is also some risk that thieves could sometimes find a way to beat our security systems. SECTION 4 When you complete Registration or update your Member Profile, you will be given the option of receiving recurring informational/promotional emails from DLHA and/or third parties. You may opt out of receiving emails from or on behalf of DLHA at Registration by removing the automatic check mark from the statement that expresses a preference for receiving these emails and newsletters. You may also opt out of receiving these emails and newsletters at any time by changing your preferences within your Member Profile. We ask for contact information (such as name and email address) if you wish to subscribe to various newsletters. You can unsubscribe from such newsletters very easily. When you have received a newsletter you wish to stop, click on the "reply" button in your mail program, then type in the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the "Subject" field and send. DLHA Customer Service will unsubscribe you from that newsletter in two to three business days. At Registration and at various times as you use the site, you may have the option of receiving emails or newsletters from third parties, participating in research or marketing surveys and participating in other activities. You may exercise these options by placing a check mark beside a statement that expresses a preference for receiving these communications or participating in these activities. You may change your decision at any time by changing your preferences within your Member Profile or by following other directions provided in association with the individual communication or activity. This privacy statement applies only to the DLHA website. The DLHA site does contain automatic links to other sites. Once you enter another website (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that DLHA is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy statements of each and every web site that you visit through a link or advertisement on DLHA's site or any site that collects Personal Information from you. SECTION 5 Updating Your Personal Information and Contacting DLHA You can always contact us in order to You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to DLHA from our servers. The need to back-up our systems to protect information from inadvertent loss means that a copy of your personal information may exist in a non-erasable form that will be difficult or impossible for us to locate. Nevertheless, we promise that upon receiving your request, all personal information stored in the databases we actively use for research and daily business activities, and other readily searchable media, will be deleted. Privacy as it applies to the Internet is a dynamic, rapidly developing area. In the future, we may make significant changes to our privacy policy affecting the use of the Personal Information we collect. We will notify you by email of any significant changes and obtain your "opt-in" consent to any significant new uses of your Personal Information, if it was collected from you prior to a significant change in this policy. We may also make non-significant changes to our Privacy Policy that generally will not affect our use of your Personal Information. Be sure to regularly check this posted Privacy Policy for any future changes. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy or any revised policy, please exit the site immediately. October, 2001. Revised
October, 2003 |
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