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Got
a question about our Privacy Statement? Click
here.
Your privacy is important to SOMA Medical
Assessments (“SOMA”). We understand that the work you do is sensitive and
classified information and we want you to feel as comfortable as
possible visiting our website and using its services. This Privacy Statement
will tell you what
information we collect about you and about your use of our website. It
will explain how we protect that information and what choices you have
about how it is used. We urge you to read this Privacy Statement carefully
so that you will understand clearly both our commitment to you and your
privacy, and how we may collect and use information. By using the SOMA
site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Statement.
SOMA
is committed to a set of ethical principles designed to ensure that you
can confidently realize the full benefit of the Internet to improve your
Referral Booking experience. The Ethics Principles are set out in detail
on our website. As a result of our Privacy Program, we will inform you
of the following:
- What
personally identifiable information of yours is collected;
- What
organization is collecting the information;
- How
the information is used;
- What
choices are available regarding collection, use and distribution of
the information;
- What
kind of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse
or alteration of information under our control; and,
- How
you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
AT NO TIME, EVER, DO WE COLLECT
ANY INFORMATION ON YOUR CLIENTS.
The following are links to
the provisions of our Privacy Statement that describe the information we
collect from or about you; ways we disclose, use and protect that
information; choices you have, and how you can update your information
or contact us with questions. We hope that reading our Privacy Statement
gives you a clear idea of how we manage information about you.
INFORMATION COLLECTED
ABOUT YOU
Information
Collected by SOMA
Personally Identifiable Information
(“Personal Information”) is information that can be used to identify
or contact you. When you visit our Website, SOMA collects only the
Personal Information you provide to us. We collect the Personal
Information that you provide to us in two general and distinct ways: (1)
When you become a Registered Client and/or when you update your Client
Profile, and (2) When you choose to use various SOMA Interactive Tools
and Services or participate in surveys or send emails to SOMA. We also
collect non-personal information from you and about your use of our
website, emails, special promotions and newsletters that we send to you
For example, SOMA may use "cookies" or "web beacons"
to collect non-personal information about your use of our site or emails
we send to you. SOMA does not store any Personal Information in any
cookies on your computer. SOMA does not use web beacons to collect any
Personal Information from or about you or to track your activities
across websites generally. All of these are described in more detail
below.
Registration
and Client Profile
You may use our website without
registering or submitting any Personal Information. In that case, the
only information we collect will be non-personal information collected
through the use of cookies or web beacons (see details below). However,
in order to have access to certain services and content available on our
site (e.g., Referral Booking), you are required to complete a
registration form. We use the Personal Information that you provide
through registration to respond to questions from you and/or inform you
of significant changes to this Privacy Statement. We may also use this
information to send you emails with special promotions or newsletters
with content that we think may be of interest to you. You can always
opt-out of receiving such emails or unsubscribe to newsletters at the
time you register or at any time - see below for more detail about
opting-out of receiving emails and newsletters. The information we
collect in the Registration form and Client Profile is set forth below.
Required information is indicated by an asterisk*. Provision of all
other information is optional.
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Registration
Referring Client Nickname*
Password*/Hint
Email Address*
Postal Code*
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Referring Client Profile
Company Name*
Branch/Department (if necessary)*
Street Address*
City*
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Interactive Tools
We also collect other information, some of
which may be Personal Information, in which you may voluntarily provide
to us when you choose to use some of the SOMA Interactive Tools and
Services, such as our polls or our newsletter. We also collect
information you provide voluntarily through responses to surveys,
questionnaires and the like. Some of the free Interactive Tools on our
site ask you for medical-related Personal Information.
Cookies
We also collect anonymous, non-personal
information about your use of our site or your use of emails, special
promotions or newsletters that we send to you. For example, we collect
non-personal information about your use of our site through the use of
"Cookies". Cookies are small computer files that we transfer
to your computer's hard drive that allow us to know how often someone
visits a site and the activities they conduct while on that site. Every
computer is assigned a different cookie by SOMA. The information
collected by cookies helps us dynamically generate statistical
information on web pages or in emails specifically designed for you and
also allows us to monitor how many people are using our site or opening
our emails, and for what purposes.
Your browser 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 of the functions and
conveniences of our site may not work properly but you do not have to
accept our cookie in order to productively use our site. While it may be
possible to link non-personal cookie information to Personal Information
collected in other ways, we want you to know that if you accept our
cookie we will not, without your consent, link the cookie information we
collect to Personal Information you provide to us on our site.
Web
Beacons
In limited circumstances we also may use
"Web Beacons" to collect anonymous, non-personal information
about your use of our web site, emails, or newsletters we send to you.
Web beacons are tiny graphic image files imbedded in a web page or email
that provide a presence on the web page or email and send back to its
home server information from the Users' browser. The information
collected by web beacons allows us to statistically monitor how many
people are using our site or opening our emails, and for what purposes.
SOMA web beacons are not used to track your activity across websites
generally. While it may be possible to link non-personal web beacon
information to Personal Information collected in other ways, we want you
to know that we will not, without your consent, link the web beacon
information we collect to Personal Information you provide to us on our
site.
Emails to SOMA
This Privacy Statement does not protect you when you
send business information, ideas, concepts or inventions to SOMA by
email to the various SOMA departments listed on the "Contact
Us" link on our website. If you want to keep business information,
ideas, concepts or inventions private or proprietary, do not send them
in an email to SOMA. We try to answer every email in a timely manner,
but are not always able to do so.
DISCLOSURE
OF YOUR INFORMATION
Except as set forth in this section
or as specifically agreed to by you, SOMA will not disclose any Personal
Information it gathers from you on our website. We may release Personal
Information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal
requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or
court order; or (2) 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.
How
SOMA Handles Privacy and Security Internally
SOMA wants your Personal Information to
remain as secure as possible. That is why we have a two-tier
security system at SOMA that combines leading technical safeguards and a
code of conduct for those employees who are permitted to access our
customers' Personal Information. On the technical side, SOMA uses Secure
Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology in transmitting your Personal
Information to our servers to help ensure the integrity and privacy of
the Personal Information you provide to us via the Internet. Encryption
involves systematically scrambling numbers and letters, so that even if
someone managed to intercept the information, they would not be able to
make sense of it. In order to take advantage of this encryption
technology, you need to have an Internet browser that will support
128-bit encryption, such as Netscape or Microsoft Explorer. As an
additional security measure, your Personal Information is also kept
physically separate on a separate server where your password is
encrypted and stored on a database. On the employee side, only the
President and the Webmaster of SOMA are authorized to access your
Personal Information. All SOMA employees must abide by our Privacy Statement
and those who violate our Privacy Statement are subject to
disciplinary action, up to and including termination. Although we will
make every reasonable effort to protect your Personal Information from
loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties, you should be aware that
there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the
Internet. There is also some risk that thieves could find a way to
thwart our security systems.
Your
Privacy Choices
If you wish to subscribe
to our newsletter via email, we ask for contact information, such as
name and email address. You can unsubscribe from the newsletters by
simply clicking on the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any
email newsletter. An email to our automated unsubscribe service will be
created on your machine. Click the "send" button. You will
then be unsubscribed from that newsletter within one to two business
days. If you are experiencing difficulties with our automated
unsubscribe service, you can email us at SOMA
Customer Service. SOMA Customer Service will unsubscribe you from
that newsletter in one to two business days.
This privacy statement applies only to
the SOMA Website. The SOMA site does contain links to other sites.
Updating
Your Personal Information and Contacting SOMA
You can always contact us
in order to delete your Personal Information from our systems or to
update the Personal Information that you have provided to us by emailing
us at our SOMA
Privacy Office. Such changes will not have any effect on
other information that SOMA maintains. If you have a complaint or
problem you may email us at SOMA
Customer Service and the customer service
department will forward your complaint to the appropriate internal SOMA
department 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 write to
SOMA's Privacy Help Desk at:
SOMA
Medical Assessments
7368 Yonge Street
Suite 206
Thornhill, ON L4J 8H9
Attn: Privacy Office
Or call 877.664.SOMA / 905.881.8855
You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove
each and every record of the information you have provided to SOMA 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.
Privacy as it applies to the Internet is
a dynamic, rapidly developing area. In the future, we may make
significant changes to our Privacy Statement affecting the use of the
Personal Information we collect. We will notify you by email of any
significant changes concerning our use of your Personal Information and
obtain your "opt-in" consent to any significant new uses of
your Personal Information if it was collected from you prior to a
significant change in this policy. We may also make non-significant
changes to our Privacy Statement that generally will not affect our use of
your Personal Information and we generally will not notify you of these
non-significant changes. You should check this posted Privacy Statement for
any non-significant changes. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Statement
or any revised policy, please exit the site immediately.
Revised: March, 2003 |
