Updated May 24, 2018

Introduction and Our Commitment to Privacy

The American Thyroid Association® (ATA) is devoted to thyroid biology and to the prevention and treatment of thyroid disease through excellence in research, clinical care, education, and public health. We are committed to protecting your online privacy and security of personal information. This privacy policy describes our policies and practices regarding collection and use of your personal data.

Type of Information Collected

When you request information, apply for membership, order a product or service, register using one of our forms, donate, respond to a survey or, contact us offline, we may need your specific information in order to process your registration/request and to allow us to confirm your request or order.

Data collected may include but is not limited to:

  1. Contact information such as your first name, last name, job title, employer name, work and home mailing addresses, email addresses and phone numbers.
  2. Interest information such as your areas of interest, society interest, or professional interests.
  3. Demographic information as related to membership and professional activities includes collection of professional certifications, education credentials, professional focus, institutional information and contacts (as needed for program activities such as grant programs), areas of interest, specialties, age, and gender

Purpose of Collecting Information

We ask you to provide information so that we can help you find the resources and information you seek regarding the American Thyroid Association® and its programs and services.  We may use the data you provide to improve, develop, and distribute content that matches the interests and educational pursuits of our constituents. In general, we use collected data to support members and patients in their pursuit of information, orders, or requests.

Membership

The information you provide in your membership application will be used to create a personal profile, which allows us to provide you customized information. This includes your member home page, personal email newsletters, and some interactive tools, which require you to log on. If you choose to be included in the directory of ATA members, your personal information such as your business address, phone number, fax number, email address and professional specialties and interests will be made available to other ATA members.

We process your personal information for membership administration, to deliver member benefits, and to inform you of our events, content, and other benefits or opportunities associated with your membership. We may also use this information to help us understand our members’ needs and interests to better tailor our products and services to meet your needs.

If you voluntarily choose to be listed in the Find-a-Thyroid Specialist feature of our website your Name, Institution, Business Address, Business phone number and (self-declared) Professional Specialties and Interests will be available to the public.

Events

The ATA hosts events throughout the year, including our annual conference.  If you are a member and register for one of our events, we will access the information in your member profile to provide you with information and services associated with the event. If you are not a member and you register for one of our events, we will collect your name and contact information, which we will store in our database and use to provide you with information and services associated with the event. If you are faculty at one of our events, we will collect information about you including your name, employer and contact information, and photograph, and we may collect information provided by event attendees who evaluated your performance as a presenter. As an attendee, speaker, or sponsor/exhibitor, we will keep a record of your participation to provide you with post-event information including details on upcoming events that may interest you.

We reserve the right to use any photograph/video taken at our events, without the expressed written permission of those included within the photograph/video. We may use the photograph/video in publications or other media material produced, used or contracted including but not limited to: brochures, invitations, books, newspapers, magazines, television, websites, etc. To ensure the privacy of individuals, images will not be identified using full names or personal identifying information without written approval from the photographed subject.

Where Your Information Is Stored

All electronic form, application, and survey data collected is stored in securely hosted and monitored systems and databases.  When you place orders or access your account information, we use a secure server. This secure server software, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us.  When inquiries are sent to the American Thyroid Association® (ATA) by mail or email, the question(s) and the address of the sender are stored to allow time for a response to be researched, written, and sent. Unless otherwise required by law, the American Thyroid Association® (ATA) will not identify anyone who sends questions or comments to its web site.

Payment Information

We may collect and store information related to purchases if you choose to purchase goods and services from us. You may provide certain information to complete payments, including your credit or debit card number, card expiration date, CVV code, and billing address (collectively, “Payment Information”), along with your name and billing, and shipping address, to complete payment transactions. Per PCI Compliance, we do not accept credit card information via email. Credit card information received via fax, phone, or mail is entered into a secure system and then deleted and destroyed.

Sharing Information

We may share information that we collect online with companies within the American Thyroid Association® family, and with trusted third parties. Third party service providers with whom we share identifiable information are contractually obligated to keep the information confidential and to use the information only to provide the services we have asked them to perform.

The American Thyroid Association® does not send unsolicited commercial email to individuals with whom they do not have consent/permission or a pre-existing or current business relationship. The ATA provides all email recipients with a clear, easy and effective method to unsubscribe to any and all online communications.

Our website uses interfaces with social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. If you choose to “like” or share information from our website through these services, you should review the privacy policy of that service. If you are a member of a social media site, the interfaces may allow the social media site to connect your site visit to your personal data.

Website Usage

As is true of most other websites, our website collects certain information automatically and stores it in log files. The information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, the region or general location where your computer or device is accessing the internet, browser type, operating system and other usage information about the use of our website, including a history of the pages you view. We use this information to help us design our site to better suit our users’ needs. We may also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website, analyze trends, track visitor movements, and gather broad demographic information to assist us in identifying visitor preferences. Our website also uses cookies and web beacons. Cookies are small text files that a website’s server places on your computer. The cookies provide a means for websites that you visit to track browsing activities conducted with your computer. This includes information such as pages and content viewed, the time and duration of visits, and search queries entered into search engines. Cookies make the personalization of your Web experiences possible and can also be used to retain data related to a particular browser such as items in online shopping carts.

If you choose, you can set your browser to inform you when cookies are sent or you may choose not to accept cookies. Your decision not to accept cookies could limit access to some of the services and offers that are available on our website.

A Web beacon is a small string of software code that represents a graphic image on a website or email. Web beacons can be used for many purposes – including site traffic reporting, unique visitor counts, advertising auditing and reporting, and personalization of a website.

The ATA uses Google Analytics to analyze traffic on its website. Click here for more information about the Google Analytics privacy policy.

Links to Other Sites

The American Thyroid Association® provides links to various sites that we believe provide valuable information to you. This means you may find yourself on our website or reading an email where we will offer you a link to another organization’s website for additional relevant content. At these times, you will be leaving our website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or actions of such web sites or personal information they may happen to gather from you. If you have any concerns, you are urged to review the terms of those sites for more information about the policies applicable to those sites.

Protecting Children’s Online Privacy

The American Thyroid Association® encourages protection of children’s information on the internet. We will not intentionally collect personal information from children under 16 on our website without first obtaining consent from their parents or legal guardians. For more information about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) please refer to the FTC’s website at http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens.html

Donor Commitment for Privacy by the American Thyroid Association® (ATA)

The American Thyroid Association®  (ATA) will not sell, share or trade ATA® donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to ATA® donors on behalf of other organizations. This policy applies to all information received by the American Thyroid Association®, both online and offline, on any Platform (“Platform”, includes the American Thyroid Association® website and mobile applications), as well as any electronic, written, or oral communications.

To Correct or Update Your Information

Send us an email at thyroid@thyroid.org or send a letter to:
American Thyroid Association
6066 Leesburg Pike, Suite 550
Falls Church, Virginia 22041
phone: 703 998-8890
fax: 703 998-8893

To Unsubscribe from ATA Email and/or Mail Communications

Click on the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of every email message.  Alternatively, you can send us an email at thyroid@thyroid.org with the word “unsubscribe” in the Subject line.

Changes to our Privacy policy

By using this site, you agree to the terms and conditions contained in this privacy policy and consent to the collection and use of your information as described above. We reserve the right to amend the privacy policy at any time, for any reason, without notice to you, other than the posting of the amended privacy policy on our website.