Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Effective November 5th, 2009

ThyConnect can only function with the trust of our customers and patients like you. We understand we have to work hard to maintain our integrity, your trust and faith in the privacy of our website, www.thyconnect.com (the "Site"). The following policy delineates the information the Site collects from our customers, members and patients and how it is shared, if at all, to other parties. We reserve the right to change, modify, alter or correct this policy at any time, without prior notice, by posting amended terms on this website. We encourage periodic review of this policy for any updates. We want to ensure that we take care to protect the privacy of our members.

WHAT KIND OF DATA WE COLLECT AND WHY

ThyConnect allows patients to connect with other patients with similar medical histories and backgrounds. As such, the Site collects information about respective medical histories so that the relevant scientific community can be empowered by the collective knowledge of hundreds of thousands of patients. This Site also collects information, including, but not limited to, pictures, locations and other non-medical personal information, if the customer so chooses to release such information.

The type of data members may add to their profiles ("Profile Data") may include the following but is not limited to it:

Condition/disease information, including diagnosis date, first symptom information, and family history

Treatment regimens, including treatment start dates, stop dates, and dosages

Symptoms experienced, including severity and duration

Biographical information, including photo, bio, gender, age, location (city, state & country), and general notes

Members may voluntarily enter information that identifies them ("Personal Profile") into their Profile Data or elsewhere on the Site. You may enter as much or as little of such information as you like. In the course of registering to use the Site, ThyConnect may also ask you to provide certain information about yourself not in your Profile Data, such as your name, address, email, and birth date.

We may also periodically ask you to complete short surveys. You are free to respond or not. Your participation in these surveys is not required, and your refusal to do so will not impact your experience on the site. To create the best possible tools, research, and functionality for patients, we may also review your Personal Thyroid Profile internally as needed.

Cookies are required to use ThyConnect's site. A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier, that is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive.

Each web site can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites

ThyConnect reserves the right to utilize cookies for itâ€Ã¢â€žÂ¢s advertisers and for the continued function of the Site.

HOW YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE DATA IS USED

So others can learn from your experience, your Profile Data will be aggregated and made available to other members. For example, we may report the number of patients trying a particular treatment or the number of patients experiencing a particular symptom. Additionally, other members will be able to view your Profile Data.

In addition to serving the individual needs of our members, ThyConnect sponsors on-going research studies. By filling out your Profile Data you are adding your health information to our database which may be used in research. For example, we may look at scientific questions such as, "Do certain treatments work better for some types of people versus others?" At ThyConnect and in conjunction with external researchers, we're interested in better understanding the experience of living with chronic conditions and improving treatment options and health outcomes for everyone.

In the future, we may provide an opt-in service to allow our partners (including but not limited to pharmaceutical companies, medical devices companies, non-profits, and research institutions) to directly and anonymously communicate with you through our system. Furthermore, we may provide our partners with anonymized data (which may or may not be aggregated) for research and commercial purposes.

PRIVACY SETTINGS

ThyConnect offers varying levels of Privacy. 

1) "I want my profile to be visible only to other ThyConnect community members."

2) "I want my profile to be publicly visible on the Internet."

Check your privacy settings to change your level of visibility on our Site. 

We attempt our best to ensure that we take care to protect the privacy of our members, and provide the above listed privacy settings, but we are not responsible for users' privacy. Any kind of profiles may be indexed by Internet search engines (e.g. Google).. A patient MUST consider his data to be in the public domain once he shares it on ThyConnect.

OTHER SECURITY ISSUES

ThyConnect cannot guarantee the identity of any other members with whom you may interact in the course of using the Site or who may have access (based on the privacy level you have selected) to information you have posted in the Member Area. Additionally, we cannot guarantee the authenticity of any data that members may provide about themselves.

RISKS AND BENEFITS

While our goal is to help patients improve health outcomes, there are no certain benefits to using this website. However, keeping track of personal well-being, treatments and symptoms has been shown to be helpful in improving overall health.

There are also no known risks to using this website, but there is a possibility that users may feel uncomfortable sharing information online. You are free to stop using this service at any time. You are also free to skip any questions or data fields that make you feel uncomfortable. If a data field that you do not want to share is mandatory by the software, then you may feel free to contact the undersigned for assistance.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PRIVACY POLICY

If you have questions or comments about our privacy policy, please let us know by contacting us at thyroid@thyconnect.com