The Lifia Community Privacy Policy
In order to facilitate communities of people sharing health information and life experiences, the Lifia Community uses the Platform as a forum for conversation, messages, blogs, and other tools to collect the personal experiences, opinions, and other information our users are willing to share. The Platform also is used to publish aggregated data, collect ratings and comments, referral business, exchange data, and publish advertising. The Privacy Policy below spells out how we use the information supplied and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.
Our Commitment to Privacy
We understand how important your privacy is. We promise to protect information that personally identifies you, is not publicly associated with your user account, and that you provide when you register or update your user profile (name, email addresses and phone numbers, also known as “Personal Information”). You should realize that we cannot protect Personal Information that you chose to provide to other members of our communities within our Platform because disclosure of information to other members is essentially making that information public.
If users have questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact support@ lifia.me.
This Privacy Policy explains:
Information Collection
The Lifia Community is the sole owner of the information collected on our Platform. We collect information from our users at several different points on the Platform as described below.
Registration
We currently offer registration (i.e., signing up as a member) so that you can access the Platform’s social features (e.g., instant chat, posting on forums, creating or joining groups). This information is stored securely in our user profile database.
Sharing information
When you register to become a member on the Platform, you will be asked to provide a username (public), email address (not public), password (not public), and Time Zone (public). The username can be your true name, or you can choose an alias (a name you make up). If you choose to use your true name and subsequently post on forums, join groups or use instant chat, any personal information you post may be seen by and thus disclosed to others who see the posts or other communication. Any additional information you share on your user profile page is entirely optional and will not in any way limit your ability to use the site or any of its features. This optional personal information (first name, last name, gender, date of birth, bio, image, social media links) will be stored in our user profile database. You are able to change or update this personal information at any time by accessing your account.
By sharing your personal information, you give us the best opportunity to learn about our community of people living with various health conditions and to understand how we might influence the development of educational programs and research initiatives to improve the lives of all people living with HIV/AIDS. We ask that you provide as much (or as little) information as you feel comfortable sharing. Your not public information is secure and encrypted and will never be shared with any third party to identify you personally unless you expressly request The Lifia Community to share this information.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer that is tied to information about the user. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser (e.g., Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox), the cookie disappears. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your Internet browser’s directions.
Every computer is assigned a different cookie by The Lifia Community. The information collected by cookies helps us to monitor usage patterns on our site and selected partners' sites. We may use cookie information to target certain information to your browser or to determine the popularity or geographical interest of certain content. However, cookies are not tied to your personally identifiable information.
Your Internet browser’s 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 our cookie, certain functions and conveniences of our site may not work the way they were intended. However, you do not have to accept our cookie in order to use our site. If you accept our cookie, we will link your user id to site usage patterns.
Messaging and sharing features
When you use the Lifia messaging features, the information in that message and your user name will be disclosed to any designated recipients that message. Use care to not disclose any personal information you do not intend to make public or share with the recipients of your messages. The Lifia Community will use the recipient’s email address only for the purposes of sending the email you requested and for no other purpose. When you post information on the designated public posting locations in the Lifia Platform, that information should be information that you intend to share with the public and should not contain any personal information you do not intend to disclose publicly.
Information Use
We do not share your personal profile information with third parties.
We don’t sell your personal data to advertisers, and we don’t share information that directly identifies you (such as your name, email address or other contact information) with advertisers unless you give us specific permission. Instead, advertisers can tell us things like the kind of audience they want to see their ads, and we show those ads to people who may be interested. We provide advertisers with reports about the performance of their ads that help them understand how people are interacting with their content.
However, collective trends including your profile will be shared in aggregate form, allowing The Lifia Community to analyze data from our user population to generate research and program agendas to better serve our users. By sharing your personal information and experiences, you contribute to the collection of valuable data about people living with various health conditions. It is our fundamental belief that by sharing this aggregate information, we can influence how the millions of dollars invested every year into treatment research, clinical trials, and education are spent.
We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts.
What is aggregate information?
The Lifia Community 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. This is what we describe as “aggregate information.” For example, we may produce reports for third parties, including potential grantors, regarding the number of users of the Platform and the activities they participate in while on the Platform. If data is collected, we might create a report listing demographic information of the Platform’s visitors.
Disclosure of Your Information
The Lifia Community will not disclose any Personal Information it gathers from you on the Platform except as we have set forth in this Privacy Policy or as requested in writing by you. We may release Personal Information to third parties to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order, or 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 The Lifia Community third party contractors
The Lifia Community employs third party contractors who sometimes have limited access to your Personal Information in the course of providing products or services to The Lifia Community. These contractors include technology specialists and analysts who provide us with services and/or analysis related to improving the operation and managing the maintenance of the Platform.
Access to your Personal Information by these contractors is limited to the information the contractor will require to perform this limited function for The Lifia Community. The Lifia Community requires that all third-party contractors who have access to any Personal Information sign a contract agreeing to protect the privacy of your Personal Information under the guidelines of this Privacy Policy, and not disclose your Personal Information or use your Personal Information for any purpose other than providing us with the services for which we have contracted them.
Disclosure to linked sites
For your convenience we provide links to websites operated by companies other than The Lifia Community ("Third Party Websites"). These links may be referenced within content or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. The Lifia Community does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third-Party Websites without first obtaining your consent. The Lifia Community 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 the linked site to understand how that Third Party Website collects and uses your Personal Information and to decide whether or not you will agree to the terms of use of the Third-Party Website.
When The Lifia Community Will Contact You
When you register or join The Lifia Community, you are indicating your consent to permit The Lifia Community to store your username, email address, password, and any other additional information you provide in our database.
We will contact you in response to any inquiry you make to our support or service staff with regard to any question, suggestion, or comment you may have about this policy or about the Platform in general. Please use one of the e-mail addresses listed in our “Contact Us” section to submit any questions, suggestions, or concerns you may have.
Occasionally, we will contact you with surveys or questionnaires to request feedback that can be used to enhance the Platform to better serve your needs.
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service-related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we might send users an e-mail. Generally, a user may not opt out of these communications, though they can de-activate their account in order to stop these communications. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
The Lifia Community will regularly review the Privacy Policy to ensure that it provides an appropriate level of protection for your Personal Information. From time to time, we may make changes to the Privacy Policy to keep it current with industry standards and to ensure it complies with the practices we use on the Platform. We will post the date of the most recent revisions on this Privacy Policy page. We will also post a notice on our Homepage of any substantial or significant changes to this policy that would materially affect your rights as described in this Privacy Policy. Please check this page from time to time to make sure that you are current and up-to-date on our Privacy Policy. Please keep in mind that your use of the Platform means that you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms and understand that they may be amended at any time.
Policy Relating to Children, Public Forums, and E-mail Communication
We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. This Platform is not designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly or purposefully collect Personal Information from any person under the age of 13.
E-mails to The Lifia Community
This Privacy Policy does not protect you if you send business information, ideas, concepts, or inventions to The Lifia Community. If you want to keep business information, ideas, concepts, or inventions private or proprietary, do not send them to The Lifia Community. We try to answer every email in a timely manner but are not always able to do so.
How The Lifia Community Handles Privacy and Security Internally
We take every reasonable precaution to protect your Personal Information. When you provide us with Personal Information, it is protected both online and off-line.
Username and password
The first line of protection is your encrypted password, selected by you, which, along with your username, forms the basis for registration to the Platform. Your username is unique to you and is only effective for protected site access in combination with your password. No one can access any of the secure areas of the Platform without a proper username and password combination.
Since Personal Information will only be displayed or entered in a secure area, the combination of the unique username and password provides considerable protection.
Encryption
In addition to the password protection, any Personal Information you provide is encrypted.
Firewalls
To protect against hackers entering our server environment, we have put in place appropriate firewalls. Data contained on our servers is visible only to proprietary middleware applications. Log-in passwords are required by internal staff and are changed on a periodic basis. All internal activity is logged.
Off-line protection
We also work very hard to protect Personal Information off-line. Any information we receive, whether defined as Personal Information or not, is restricted in our offices. Only employees (and certain contractors, as detailed above) who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our database administrators) are granted access to your Personal Information. ALL of our employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices.
Government subpoenas, warrants or orders
We reserve the right to disclose your Personal Information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Platform. You will be notified if this occurs.
Physical security
We also protect and secure the physical environment in which data is stored. We store Personal Information on servers kept within locked, environmentally controlled server rooms.
Statement regarding HIPAA compliance
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA") controls the collection, use, and distribution of individually identifiable health information by certain health care providers, called "covered entities" under the statute. The Lifia Community is not a “covered entity” as that term is defined under HIPAA. As a result, and because you (instead of a third party) have willingly and knowingly provided the information we collect, HIPAA does not apply to our Platform or services.
Updating Your Personal Information and Contacting The Lifia Community
You can always contact us in order to delete your Personal Information from our systems, update the Personal Information that you have provided to us, and change your preferences by emailing us at support@lifia.org. These changes will not have any effect on other information that The Lifia Community maintains. If you have a complaint or problem, you may email us at support@lifia.org and the customer service department will forward your complaint to the appropriate internal department at The Lifia Community for a response or resolution. We try to answer every email in a timely manner but are not always able to do so. If you do not receive adequate resolution of a privacy related problem, you may send written correspondence to The Lifia Community at:
Lifia Corporation
4660 South Hagadorn Road,
Suite 290 East Lansing, MI, 48823
or email support@lifia.org
You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to The Lifia Community 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, except as otherwise required by law.
© 2021 Lifia Corporation. All rights reserved.
