Privacy Policy

GHDonline enables open collaboration between global health implementers and organizations in online “communities of practice”, either public or private, in order to create a new breadth of knowledge applicable in the field, and democratize access to critical information to improve the delivery of health care worldwide.

This privacy policy addresses the treatment of personal information gathered and otherwise stored by the Global Health Delivery Project and the GHDonline team (“We”) when Users (“You”) access and sign in/sign up to the GHDonline website. This policy does not apply to the practices of third party organizations that we do not own or control, or to individuals that we do not employ or manage.

GHDonline’s Privacy Policy may change from time to time. However, any revised privacy policy will be consistent with GHDonline’s mission. If we make any substantive changes to our policies, we will post a notice of changes on this page.

Updated on July 30, 2010 ("My Profile " section); Previous version (November 5, 2009 ) is available here.

Consent
By visiting, signing up or signing in to the GHDonline website, you are consenting to personal data collection and its use in accordance with this privacy policy.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically
We reserve the right to gather, store, and use data when you access the GHDonline website for monitoring and evaluation purposes of uptake and usage, to improve GHDonline Content and Services, and to identify system performance or problem areas. For example, but not limited to, we will look at time spent on GHDonline, name of the file or words you searched for, and clickthrough patterns. Information collected is maintained in a secured database. Third party organizations have no access to this information.

We automatically receive from your internet use such information as your IP address, the URLs of sites from which you arrive or leave the GHDonline website, your type of browser and your ISP.

Cookies
Cookies are small files transferred from the website to your computer's hard drive allowing us to improve your online experience. They are destroyed automatically shortly after you close your Internet browser and are not permanently stored on your computer. You can set your browser to disable cookies or prompt you before a cookie is accepted. If you do not want to receive cookies, you will still be able to use GHDonline but will be unable to use cookie-dependent features. In exceptional circumstances, persistent cookies may be employed but they are never used for tracking users' queries or navigation through the site.

Security
We have security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under GHDonline’s control. In addition, the following pages are protected by Secure Sockets Layer security: sign-up, sign-in, password change, and password reset. All other pages are non-encrypted.

Logged-In Sessions
Please note that our logged-in sessions, i.e. when a member signs in GHDonline, do not expire. Once a member has signed in GHDonline, a cookie is sent from the server to the member’s browser computer. So long as the member has not signed out of the site, the signed-in session will be active on that computer’s Internet browser. Due to this behavior, it is the member’s responsibility to sign out, i.e. log out, of GHDonline, especially if accessing GHDonline from a public or shared computer such as in Internet cafés.

My Profile
When signing up to one or several GHDonline communities, you are required to provide the following personal information in your profile “My Profile”: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Country, Role(s)/Profession(s), Organizations (i.e. affiliations).

In the section: “Current Communities & Notification Settings,” you are asked to choose your email notification settings for each community: per post, digest, or none. Please note that by checking the box for a community, you will automatically be subscribed to per post email notifications unless you select digest or none.

Last, you can provide the following optional information: Alternative Email Address(es), Bio, Language, and Image. Providing additional information in your profile beyond what is required is entirely optional and can be altered or removed by you at any time. Please note that you may choose to publish other personal information, such as but not limited to phone number, e-mail and physical addresses, while using GHDonline. We are not responsible for any usage done by third party organizations accessing GHDonline, and by visitors and members of GHDonline, of any personal information publicly and voluntarily published by you.

Updating Profile Information; Inaccuracies and Corrections
We give members the option to change and modify personal information previously provided. To update profile information, please sign in to GHDonline and click the “My Profile” link on the Homepage. Please note that we may contact you with a request for more information or about corrections to your profile in case it is incomplete or inaccurate.

Member Directory and Search
The GHDonline Member Directory is available to all at the following link: Members, and members’ profiles can also be accessed via the search engine. The following personal information in “My Profile” shall be available for viewing by GHDonline website visitors and will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary: First name, Last name, Country, Roles/Professions, Organizations, Bio, Image, and activity on GHDonline: Discussions started, Discussion replies, Resources added.

Confidentiality and Personal Data Uses
As a general policy, we do not sell or otherwise release personal and non-personal data and information to third party organizations, except to organizations and companies with which we have a partnership agreement and only for non-commercial purposes (i.e. for the monitoring of specific services and programs). Members’ email addresses are strictly confidential. GHDonline will only disclose personally identifiable information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) comply with legal process (b) to protect and defend the rights of the Global Health Delivery Project, founding collaborators, or other parties as required.

In addition to the specific uses mentioned elsewhere in this policy, GHDonline uses members’ personal data to provide services to members, to carry out membership administration and surveys to ask for members’ feedback, to let members know about other GHDonline Content and Services in which members may be interested in, and to inform members about changes and improvements to the GHDonline website. Members can opt out of these announcements in their online profile. Please note that the data collected during members’ surveys may be shared with founding collaborators, and funders of the Global Health Delivery Project.

Contacting GHDonline
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please e-mail us with details via the “Contact us” form.

You can also contact us via regular mail at:
GHDonline, Global Health Delivery Project
1639 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02120