Web Site Privacy Policy
Thank you for visiting the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health (CRGGH) website, crggh.nih.gov. Protecting your privacy is very important to us. Our website links to other NIH sites, federal agency sites, university/research institution sites and occasionally to private organizations. Once you leave crggh.nih.gov, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting. We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) about you during your visit unless you choose to provide it to us.
We do, however, collect some data about your visit to our website to help us better understand how the public uses the site and how to make it more helpful. We collect information from visitors who read, browse and/or download information from our website. CRGGH never collects information for commercial marketing or any purpose unrelated to the CRGGH mission and goals.
Types of Information Collected
When you browse through any website, certain information about your visit can be collected. We automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:
- The domain from which you access the Internet.
- The IP Address (a number that is automatically assigned to a computer when surfing the Web).
- The date and time of your visit.
- The pages you visited.
- The address of the website you came from when you arrived at our site (such as google.com or bing.com)
We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and to help make our site more useful to visitors.
Methods of Collecting Information
We both the Webtrends Analytics and Google Analytics measurement software to collect information from the above list automatically and continuously. We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections and to distinguish between new and returning visitors to help make our site more useful to visitors. However, no personally identifiable information (PII) is collected.
We conduct analyses and reports on the aggregated data from Webtrends and Google Analytics. The reports are only available to CRGGH website managers, members of their Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.
We the data from Webtrends and Google Analytics only as long as required by law or needed to support the mission of the CRGGH website.
Use of Cookies
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memo M-10-22, Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies [whitehouse.gov] allows Federal agencies to use session and persistent cookies.
When you visit any website, its server may generate a piece of text known as a "cookie" to place on your computer. The cookie allows the server to "remember" specific information about your visit while you are connected.
The cookie makes it easier for you to use the dynamic features of Web pages. Cookies from CRGGH Web pages only collect information about your browser's visit to the site. They do not collect personal information about you.
There are two types of cookies: single session (temporary) and multi-session (persistent). Session cookies last only as long as your Web browser is open. Once you close your browser, the cookie disappears. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer for longer periods.
- Temporary (Session) Cookies: We use session cookies for technical purposes such as improving navigation through our site. These cookies let our server know that you are continuing a visit to our site. The "session" cookie is not permanently stored on your computer. The cookie and the information about your visit are automatically destroyed shortly after you close your browser to end the session. The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of session cookies as "Usage Tier 1—Single Session." The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of single session Web measurement and customization technologies."
- Persistent Cookies: We use persistent cookies to enable Google Analytics to differentiate between new and returning CRGGH site visitors. The OMB Memo M-10-22 Guidance allows Federal agencies to use persistent cookies, which remain on your computer between visits to a website until they expire. The Guidance defines our use of persistent cookies as "Usage Tier 2—Multi-session without Personally Identifiable Information (PII)." The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of multi-session Web measurement and customization technologies when no PII is collected."
Opting Out/Disabling Cookies
If you do not wish to have session or persistent cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. If you opt out of cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources on crggh.nih.gov.
Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Please note that by following the instructions to opt out of cookies, you will disable cookies from all sources, not just those from crggh.nih.gov.
Protecting Personal Information
You do not have to give us personal information to visit the CRGGH website. If you choose to provide additional information about yourself through an e-mail message, form, conference or software registration form, etc., we will maintain the information only to respond to your question or to fulfill the stated purpose of the communication.
For further information about NIH privacy policy, please contact the NIH Senior Official for Privacy at privacy@mail.nih.gov, call (301) 451-3426, or visit http://oma.od.nih.gov/ms/privacy/privacyact.html.
Disclosure
CRGGH does not disclose, give, sell or transfer any personal information about our visitors, unless required for law enforcement or by statute.
P3P Compliance
CRGGH's public website complies with P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences Project) protocols. Our machine-readable P3P policy can be viewed at http://crggh.nih.gov/p3p.xml. Questions about CRGGH privacy policies should be sent to the CRGGH webmaster at info@crggh.nih.gov.
Site Security
The CRGGH website is maintained by the U.S. Government. They are protected by various provisions of Title 18, U.S. Code. Violations of Title 18 are subject to criminal prosecution in Federal court.
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, we employ software programs to monitor traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. In the event of authorized law enforcement investigations, and pursuant to any required legal process, information from these sources may be used to help identify an individual.
Data Safeguarding and Privacy
All uses of Web measurement and customization technologies will comply with existing policies with respect to privacy and data safeguarding standards. Information Systems (IT) systems owned and operated by NIH are assessed using Privacy Impact Assessments posted for public view on the Department of Health and Human Services website. Groups of records that contain information about an individual and are designed to be retrieved by the name or other personal identifier linked to the individual are covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. Section 552a). For these records, NIH Systems of Record Notices are published in the Federal Register and posted on the NIH Senior Official for Privacy website.
Data Retention and Access Limits
CRGGH will retain data collected using the following technologies long enough to achieve the specified objective for which they were collected. The data generated from these activities falls under the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) General Records Schedule (GRS) 20-item IC "Electronic Records," and will be handled per the requirements of that schedule (http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/grs20.html).
3rd Party Websites and Applications
Third-party websites and applications (TPWA) are Web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by NHGRI, such as non-.gov hosted applications and those embedded on an NHGRI Web pages that could cause personally identifiable information (PII) to become available or accessible to CRGGH, regardless of whether CRGGH solicits or collects it.
As part of the Open Government Directive, the CRGGH Blog uses the following third-party application to increase government transparency, enhance information sharing, promote public participation, and encourage collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institutes of Health, and NHGRI:
AddThis
AddThis allows visitors to bookmark and share site content on a variety of social media sites. Visitors who use the AddThis service to share content do not need to register or provide any personal information. The AddThis service providers collect non-personal data, including the aggregate and summary statistics on browsers and usage patterns. AddThis also uses non-personal data to manage the service efficiently and diagnose server problems. Although AddThis offers some analytics and usage data to CRGGH, these reports do not include any personally identifiable information. The reports are password protected and only available to crggh.nih.gov site managers, members of the Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff requiring this information to perform their duties. The AddThis Privacy policy is available at: http://www.addthis.com/privacy.