IAN COMMUNITY
Privacy Policy
The Interactive Autism Network (IAN) at Kennedy Krieger Institute (“KKI”) operates this website and is committed to protecting the privacy of individual visitors. We maintain safeguards to store and secure information we have about website visitors. The safeguards may be physical, electronic or procedural. The IAN Privacy Policy explains how we collect data from our website and how that information is used.
Information Collection & Use
The Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute is the sole owner of the information collected on www.iancommunity.org. The Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute collects personally identifiable information from our users at several different points on our website.
Registration -- Most of the information on this website (www.ianproject.org) is available without registration/membership. However, to participate in the discussions, subscribe to the IAN Newsletter, or contribute News Items, Events, or Articles, you must first complete the registration form and create an IAN ID and Password. During registration you are required to give contact information (such as name and email address). We use this information to contact you about the services on our website in which you have expressed interest.
As part of the registration process, you may be asked to provide information that does not personally identify you. For example, you may be asked to provide information concerning your information preferences and the like. This information is generally optional but may be included in your account profile and tied to personal information. IAN requests this information to understand you better and to also bring to your attention new services, programs, or offers that may be of interest to you.
Surveys -- From time-to-time we may provide you the opportunity to participate in surveys on our website. If you participate, we may request personally identifiable information from you. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes demographic information such as state, zip code, or country which we may use to monitor site traffic and ensure that it serves the needs of our participants.
We may use a third party service provider to conduct these surveys; that company will be prohibited from using our users’ personally identifiable information for any other purpose.
Tell a Friend -- If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our website, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site. IAN stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.
Your friend may contact us at ian@kennedykrieger.org to request that we remove this information from our database.
Uses of Information
In the course of using this website, you may choose to provide us with information to help us serve your needs. For example, you may send us electronic mail (through a mailer or a web form) to request information, you may sign up for a mailing list, or you may send us your address so we may send you materials. Any personally identifiable information you send us will be used only for the purpose indicated. Requests for information will be directed to the appropriate staff to respond to the request, and may be recorded to help us update our website to better respond to similar requests. We will not sell, exchange or otherwise distribute your personally identifiable information without your consent, except to the extent required by law. We do not retain the information longer than necessary for normal operations. Each web page requesting information discloses the purpose of that information. If you do not wish to have the information used in that manner, you are not required to provide it. Please contact ian@kennedykrieger.org with questions or concerns on the use of personally identifiable information.
General, aggregated, demographic, and non-personal information may be collected by IAN. It will not be linked to any of your personal information, through cookies or other means, without your consent. This type of anonymous, aggregated profiling and session data may include information that you have provided to us through surveys, polls, etc., but will not be tied to any personal information, without your consent. It may also include aggregated anonymous information about site usage and the user base.
Communications from the Site
Newsletters -- If you wish to subscribe to our email newsletter, we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you. Out of respect for your privacy, we provide you a way to unsubscribe. To unsubscribe, please login to the IAN Community, select Manage your Account, and select Do Not Send IAN Newsletter.
Customer Service -- Based upon the personally identifiable information you provide us, we will send you a welcoming email to verify your IAN ID and password. We will also communicate with you in response to your inquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account. We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes.
Profile -- We store information that we collect through cookies and log files. We do not tie your personally identifiable information to information in your member profile. We use the cookies so you do not have to sign into the IAN Community more than once per visit. We use log files to determine how long people stayed in the IAN Community and which content was popular.
We share your profile in aggregate form only. For example, we may create a report that states that there are 4000 people registered for IAN in New York State. Of those people, 1500 report that they are parents of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder and 50 report that they are Occupational Therapists.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
Personally Identifiable Information -- We DO NOT Share Personally Identifiable Information with Third Parties Without Your Consent.
Service Providers -- We use other third parties to provide web programming on our site. The programming service provider may use data on our website to fix or test the data storage mechanisms of this website. These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.
Legal Disclaimer -- We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our website.
Choice/Opt-in/Opt-out
When you complete or update your IAN registration form, you will have the opportunity to select (Opt-in) those activities in which you want to participate. We provide you the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having your personally identifiable information used for certain purposes, when we ask for this information. For example, if you do not wish to receive the IAN Newsletter, you can indicate your preference on your registration form.
Log Files
As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies on this site. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.
We use session ID cookies. We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site and to establish your access privileges to various protected content on the site. Our session ID cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time, but expires in 30 minutes from the time it was created.
You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's "help" file. More information on how to manage cookies in Internet Explorer is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283185.
We set a persistent cookie to store the fact that you are logged into the system and what groups you are part of, so you don't have to login more than once. We do not store the username or password in the cookie - only the fact that you are authenticated and your groups. The groups that you are part of determine what permissions you have to access resources on the site.
If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site, such as discussions, will be limited.
Links to Other Sites
This website contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by the IAN Community. Please be aware that IAN and KKI are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.
We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information.
This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this website.
Discussion Forums
If you use a Discussion Forum on this website, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums. Please read the IAN Community Discussion Forum Rules of Use for more information.
Access to Personally Identifiable Information
If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, or delete it by logging into IAN, selecting Manage your Account, and making the change on your member information page. If you have any questions, please contact us at ian@kennedykrieger.org.
Security
We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If you have any questions about security on our website, you can email us at ian@kennedykrieger.org.
Changes in this Privacy Statement
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here or by means of a notice on our home page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at: ian@kennedykrieger.org.
