CARES is committed to protecting the privacy of any information you choose to provide to us.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

You do not need to provide any information that identifies you (“personal information”) to obtain information from CARES website. In general, you can visit the site without revealing your identity or any personal information. Your decision to provide personal information, including your name, e-mail address, or personal health information is completely voluntary.

You may choose to provide CARES with personal information for the following purposes:

Information Updates

You may opt to give us your e-mail address and join the list of visitors to whom CARES distributes updates about new features, information and services (such as new clinical research studies, new contact information for coordinating personnel of the research studies, conference presentations relating to clinical research studies). These updates will be distributed by e-mail. We do not furnish these e-mail addresses to third parties, such as other services or organizations, unless you explicitly agree. To make our communications personally relevant (unless we state otherwise at the time you furnish the e-mail address), we may associate your e-mail address with other information provided to us by you, previously, concurrently or subsequently. You may unsubscribe from this feature at any time.

Comments

You may write to us with comments about the site. You need not identify yourself to send a comment or question; you may remain anonymous. If you choose to provide personal information in your comment or question, we may keep it in our correspondences files and we may send you a response. CARES does not furnish any e-mail addresses received in this manner to third parties, such as other services or organizations.

Internet Protocol Addresses

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. This number does not identify your name, e-mail address or other personal information. If you request pages from CARES, CARES’s servers enter your IP address into a log. To maintain user anonymity, CARES does not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. CARES stores IP addresses for a period of time to help us identify anyone who refuses to comply with CARES’s in-house rules or terms of service, and to identify visitors who threaten our service, site or others. CARES also uses its log of IP addresses to compile aggregate information on how our visitors are using CARES website and to measure site traffic for internal purposes for us and our sponsors. This aggregate data helps us to understand how people are using CARES website and helps us to improve your experience with CARES.

Disclosure of Personal Information

CARES takes very seriously its responsibility to keep your personal information private. Accordingly, unless you have explicitly agreed otherwise, we do not make any part of your personal information available to third parties. We may hire third-party technology providers to host our equipment or enable certain functions at our Web site and store your information, but we ensure that these technology providers are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality of personal information.

We may be required to disclose personal information by law or legal process, to protect and defend the rights or property of CARES, or to protect the personal safety of users of our Web site. We must reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities when activities that are illegal or violate our policies are taking place on our Web site.

Except under the limited circumstances described above, we do not disclose your personal information to unaffiliated third parties.

How We Protect Personal Information

Our goal is to take measures to protect the privacy of any information you choose to provide, that are reasonable in the context of the information provided. Accordingly, CARES uses physical, electronic, managerial, and contractual procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online, and we use encryption and heightened security procedures when storing or transferring data provided to us by visitors seeking to participate in research opportunities. We only keep information for certain periods of time; we delete personal information received and general information when such information is no longer needed or has become outdated in our judgment.

We also safeguard personal information from unauthorized access. Only authorized personnel and agents required by contract to observe our privacy practices are permitted to access personal information, and they may only do so for permitted business functions. Any personnel who would violate our privacy access policies would be subject to disciplinary action.

External Sites

CARES provides links to various Web sites other than our own, and we do not control them. Even if an affiliation exists between CARES Web site and such a third-party Web site, CARES exercises no control over linked sites. When you click on one of these links, you will be transferred out of CARES and connected to the Web site of the organization or company that you selected. Each of these linked sites maintains its own independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. If you visit a Web site that is linked to CARES site, you should consult that site’s privacy policy before providing any personal information.

Safeguarding Children’s Privacy

It is CARES’ policy not to collect personal information or any other identifying data from children under 13 years of age. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 send personal information to us, it is our policy not to use that information except to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that it is our policy not to accept the submission.