AHEAD Website PRIVACY POLICY
Last Revised June 15, 2020 (“Effective Date”)
Thank you for your interest in the Keck School of Medicine of USC’s AHEAD program (“AHEAD” and “Program”). AHEAD is designed and conducted by the Keck School of Medicine of USC’s Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute (“ATRI”), and the Program website and other websites, online locations and apps for the Program are used to provide information about AHEAD and studies conducted through ATRI.
The University of Southern California (“USC”), the Keck School of Medicine of USC, AHEAD, and ATRI, and their officers, agents, employees, and representatives (including the website provider identified below) are collectively referred to herein as “we”, “us”, or “our”.
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) is a part of your Agreement that is described in the Terms of Use described and referenced below, and governs your use of the AHEAD Sites (as defined in the Terms of Use Agreement). Any use of the Sites constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Policy, and all other terms and conditions that are part of your Agreement.
Contact Information
If you have any questions, requests, complaints, or comments about the Program website or other websites, online locations and apps for the Program, any information that we might collect from you (described below under the “Collection of Your Personal Identifiable Information and Protected Health Information, Your Rights Regarding Such Information, and Our Responsibilities” heading), the separate, secure server and website used for you to submit or for us to collect any protected health information for the Program, or about the Program itself, you may contact us at:
ATTN: AHEAD Website Team
USC Keck School of Medicine
Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute
9860 Mesa Rim Road
San Diego, CA 92121
Or by Email: ask@actcinfo.org
Keck School of Medicine of USC’s Commitment to You
Protecting your privacy while visiting Program Sites is our top priority. We strive to use the highest privacy standards to allow our visitors to safely use our Sites to gain an overview and greater insight into the Program.
Disclaimer
All health and health-related information contained within the Sites is intended to be general in nature, do not contain medical advice, and should not be used as a substitute for medical consultation or treatment by a health care professional. Your health care provider should be consulted regarding matters concerning the medical condition, treatment and needs of you and your family. We do not monitor for communications from or provided through the Sites for medical diagnostic or emergency health care purposes.
Although we try to ensure that the material within the Sites is accurate and timely, it is provided for the convenience of the website user. You should not assume that information on any topic available on the Sites is accurate, complete, up-to-date, or applicable to any medical problem or condition you may have, and should not be considered official. Content, such as words, pictures, videos and other material found on the Sites, is for informational use only. Users of this website are advised to refer to and rely upon the official version of information when making significant decisions.
This information is provided without warranty for quality or accuracy. Neither we nor any other contributing author is responsible for any errors or omissions in any information provided on the Sites or the results obtained from the use of such information.
In the event of a medical emergency, call your doctor or dial 911 immediately. Do not disregard or delay seeking medical care or advice because of content you may have read on any Site.
Collection of Your Personal Identifiable Information, Your Rights Regarding Such Information, and Our Responsibilities
This SECTION provides a summary of how information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information. Please review it carefully.
Possible Collection of Electronic Submission of Personal Identifiable Information
Part of the purpose of the Program and the Sites is to collect information from potential participants in the Program’s early stage Alzheimer Disease studies and possible clinical trials. You may be asked to electronically submit to ATRI through the Sites your personal identifiable information (such as name and email address), which may fall under federal and state privacy laws or regulations.
Our Uses and Disclosures
We may use and share your personal identifiable information with researchers, physicians, nurses, scientists, other health care providers or professionals, volunteers, administrators, medical and office assistants, and staff members (including University students who are students, volunteers or staff members in the Program, and other universities and organizations that may be collaborating with us in or assisting us with the Program) as we:
Run our organization
We can use and share your information to run the Program and the Sites, and contact you regarding the Program.
To comply with the law, we will share information about you if state or federal laws require it.
To address law enforcement, and other government requests, we can use or share information about you.
We must follow the duties and privacy practices described in this notice.
Your Rights
File a complaint if you believe your privacy rights have been violated
You can complain if you feel we have violated your rights by contacting ATRI (see the “Contact Information” section and heading above).
We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.
We never market or sell personal information, and, in these cases, we never share your information unless you give us written permission:
Marketing purposes
Sale of your information
In the case of fundraising:
We may contact you for fundraising efforts, but you can tell us not to contact you again.
However, you are under no obligation to provide personal information through our Sites. You can contact ATRI for alternative methods of submission (see the “Contact Information” section and heading above).
If you do submit personal information, you have the option of asking that such information be removed from our site once the service has been completed and may end any subscription or request for information by submitting a cancellation request to the Website administrator (see the “Contact Information” section and heading above).
What Information is Automatically Collected Through the Sites?
We may use cookies or other technologies to collect certain information when you visit the Sites or interact with emails. For example, we may automatically collect certain non-personal information from you, such as your internet protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, operating system, device identifier, device model, software version, mobile or ISP carrier information, and origin and site navigation of website visitors, the domain name from which you accessed the Sites, times and dates you access the Sites, the areas or pages of the Sites that you visit, the amount of time you spend using the Sites, the number of times you return to the Sites, and whether you open, forward, or click-through emails.
Tracking Options and California Do Not Track Disclosures. You may adjust your browser or operating system settings to limit this tracking or to decline cookies; however, if you do so, you may be unable to access certain areas of the Sites. Check the “help” menu of your browser or operating system to learn how to change your tracking settings or cookie preferences. On your mobile device, you may be able to adjust your privacy and advertising settings to limit your tracking for advertising or control whether you receive more relevant advertising. Note that our systems may not recognize Do Not Track headers or requests from some or all browsers.
If a visitor submits identifying information, only authorized USC staff will view the information and provide the appropriate response. We do not give, share, or sell any personal information to a third party unless required by law.
Cookie Policy
By using or accessing our Sites, you are consenting to our using and sending one or more “cookies” to your computer or other device. “Cookies” are text-only pieces of information that a website transfers to an individual’s hard drive or other website-browsing equipment for record-keeping purposes. Session cookies are temporary cookies that remain in the cookie file of your browser until you leave the Sites. Persistent cookies remain in the cookie file of your browser for a longer period that depends on the “lifetime” of the cookie.
Cookies are used to notify the Site when you return, what site referred the visitor to our Sites, and to allow our Sites to remember important information that will make your use of the site more convenient. We use cookies to continuously improve our site. By knowing how often you visit our site and what information is most interesting to you, we are able to create content that better serves our visitor’s needs. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies.
We use session cookies to track the total number of visitors to our Sites on an anonymous aggregate basis, without any personal data. When we use cookies to remember your computer when it is used to return to the Sites, to help customize your use of our Sites or to make your use of our Sites more convenient, we may associate personal information with a cookie file. You may use the options in your web browser if you do not wish to receive a cookie or if you wish to set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. You can delete any cookies that have been installed in the cookie folder of your browser. The help menu on your browser may provide information on how to change cookie settings on the browser.
Cookies typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the “lifetime” of the cookie, and randomly generated unique number or other value used for tracking purposes. Certain cookies will be used on the Site regardless of whether you are logged in to your account or not. Like many websites, we use cookies to:
Analyze user activity to improve our Sites, such as looking at the quantities and types of searches that users perform on our Sites, which allows us to gain insights about how to improve the functionality and user experience of the Sites.
Store user preferences on our Sites, including the quantities and types of searches that users perform on our Sites, and storing recent searches users have performed, which allow users to repeat those searches when returning to our Sites.
Our Use of Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to help us better examine ways to improve the functionality and user experience of our Sites. Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that helps website owners understand how visitors engage with their website. Google Analytics customers can view a variety of reports about how visitors interact with their website so that they can improve it.
Like many services, Google Analytics uses first-party cookies to track visitor interactions as in our case, where they are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We then use the information to compile reports and to help us improve our site.
Google Analytics collects information anonymously. It reports website trends without identifying individual visitors. You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our site. For more information on opting out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites you use, visit the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on page at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
To learn more about how Google uses data when websites use its Google Analytics tool, visit the “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” page at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.
Information Security
To ensure the highest level of security, access to your data on our site is password-protected, and sensitive data is protected by encryption when it is exchanged between your web browser and our Site. We regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and have security measures in place to help prevent unauthorized access to and misuse of personal information. We have contracted with a HIPAA compliant hosting provider with Amazon Web Services to receive and store any PHI you electronically transmit.
Email Security
The Sites offer opportunities to communicate with some staff members by email. Because normal email is not encrypted, the possibility exists that unauthorized individuals may intercept email messages with us. We are not responsible for privacy of email messages except those stored in our system. Please note that we would never ask for personal information such as bank account information through email. Should you ever receive such a request, contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
Links to Other Sites
To provide other sources of information for our visitors, some pages within our Sites may be linked to third-party websites that we do not manage or control. Please note that we do not review, control or take responsibility for the content of those sites. In addition, these links do not imply endorsement or credibility of service, information or products.
Terms of Use
You must agree to the Terms of Use, which is available at /terms-of-use/ together with this Privacy Policy and any other policy or guidelines incorporated into your Agreement for your access to and use of the Sites, before you access, browse or use the Sites. If you do not agree to the Terms of Use or Privacy Policy set forth in the Agreement, you may not use or access the Sites or any content. By using or accessing the Sites, or clicking that you accept or agree to these terms if presented with the option to do so, you acknowledge that you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy, the Terms of Use, and any other policy or guidelines incorporated into the Agreement by reference.
Modifications or Changes to This Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to modify or change the terms of this Privacy Policy notice, and the changes will apply to all information we have about you. The new notice will be available upon request, in our office, and on our web site. Any such modifications are effective immediately when posted. Each use of the Sites by you constitutes your unconditional acceptance of the then-current versions of the Privacy Policy at the time of your use. You are encouraged to periodically review this Privacy Policy, to stay informed of any updates or changes.