HON - Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy will be effective from February 29, 2012, and will replace the previous, now obsolete, version of the privacy policy.

The Health On the Net Foundation (HON) is committed to honoring and respecting the privacy and anonymity of the individuals using its website(s) and/or services. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform the individuals about the collection, processing and protection of information done by HON; what information we collect, why we collect this information and how we use this information. This Privacy Policy applies to all the websites and services owned and/or managed by HON (listed below).
This Privacy Policy will be reviewed regularly to reflect the up-to-date practices of HON.

HON collects personal information only when it is voluntarily provided for a particular service of HON. The information collected concerns primarily communication details, such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses. For the HONcode Certification process, the webmaster might provide a login/password in order to access any restricted areas. This information is used mainly during the HONcode Certification process, but also when submitting a complaint or giving feedback, subscribing to our newsletters, participating in a survey and/or applying for another service we provide.
Any personal information voluntarily provided to HON by users and visitors of HON’s websites is kept in the strictest confidence. This information is stored in the HON database. Only HON staff members, and only for the duration of their contracts, have access to the information stored in HON database. Personal information provided voluntarily by you is used only for the purposes it was provided for. HON will ask individuals to explicitly consent to their personal information being used for any other reason than the one provided for.

You have the right to ask if HON holds any personal information about you, to ensure that it is accurate and to have access to it, as provided by law. To protect your privacy, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access to, or making corrections to, your personal information.Any time, you may opt out altogether of having us to collect, use, or disclose your personal information, subject to reasonable notice and applicable laws.
* If you want to withdraw from any of our services, please contact us via http://services.hon.ch/Contact/contact.pl

The information collected by HON will be removed from HON database upon your request and in case the reason for which the personal data had been collected is terminated.
However, a copy of the personal information collected during the HONcode certification will be stored and will be permanently deleted within two years after the removal of the HONcode file from the HONcode database.

HON does not share, rent, sell or trade any personal information with any third party and the personal information will be kept confidential, except if otherwise explicitly agreed or if it is otherwise provided by law. No third parties have access to the HON database.

HON collects impersonal data for different services and purposes. Impersonal information can be used for technical, statistical and research purposes. HON ensures that all shared information is made anonymous. The impersonal information is subject to scientific publications.
Impersonal information (including URL addresses and abstracts copied from certified websites and similar information) is collected for all theHONcode certified websites and/or for websites that are included in a search engine managed by HON. The impersonal information collected will be used also for research purposes.
By participating in a survey, you consent to HON collecting your personal information (if any is asked). When we publish information, we do not disclose any personal information. If the publication includes any identifying details such as your name and address, we will ask for your explicit permission.
Impersonal information is always collected when someone visits one of HON’s websites to analyze how users use the website and improve our websites and services. For further information, see below under ‘Cookies / Google Analytics’.

HON uses cookies to improve the use of its websites and tools (HON, SantéRomande, Provisu, SCAHT, KAAHE; among others readability, speech-enabled services and personalization).

The HON website uses Google Analytics to help analyze how users use the site. This tool uses cookies, which are text files placed on a computer, to collect standard Internet log information as well as visitor behavior information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookie about the use of the website (including the IP address) is transmitted to Google. After this the information is used to evaluate visitors' use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity for the HON website.
We will never (and will not allow any third party to) use this statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of the visitors of the HON site. Google won't associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. Neither we nor Google will link, or seek to link, an IP address with the identity of the computer user. We will not associate any data gathered from this site with any Personally Identifiable Information from any other source, unless you explicitly provide this information to us.
You can set your browser not to accept HON cookies. Disabling the cookies does not affect navigation on the HON website.
Learn more about Google Analytics Privacy:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html

Links to Third Parties

This privacy policy applies to HON websites and services only. We do not exercise control over the sites listed in our search engines or sites that include HON applications, products or services, or links within our various services (e.g. HONcode certified sites). The other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. We encourage you to always read the confidentiality statement of any website you may visit.

Liability of HON

HON does its utmost to provide trustworthy and reliable information. If you find any mistakes, please notify us as soon as possible and we will try to correct them in the shortest delay possible.
You agree that your use of the HON websites is at your own risk. The website, including all content, software, functions, services, materials, and/or information made available or accessed through the website, is provided "AS IS," without warranty of any kind. In no event shall HON be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising out of or in any way connected with the use of the website or with the delay or inability to use same, or with hypertext or graphic links to third parties, or for any information and services obtained through the website.

Applicable Laws

HON adheres to Swiss privacy principles and commits to respect the Swiss laws on protection of personal data.

Language of the Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy has been formed in English. If any translation has been provided for your convenience, you agree that the English version of the Privacy Policy will govern the relationship between you and HON. If there would be any contradiction between the English language version and a translated version, then the English version shall take precedence.

Modifications of the Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy can be modified from time to time. We recommend checking this information on a regular basis.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns relating to this Privacy Policy, please contact us via http://services.hon.ch/Contact/contact.pl

Websites Owned or Managed by HON

http://www.healthonnet.org/
http://www.hon.ch/
http://www.santeromande.ch/
http://www.provisu.ch/
http://www.honafrica.org/
http://www.healthonnet.org/HONAfriqueFR/
http://www.honcodehunt.org/
http://www.wrapin.org/
http://www.healthonnet.org/QA/

* Please note that the communication details cannot be completely erased for the duration of HONcode Certification. They can only be replaced and updated.

Obsolete Version

HON pledges always to respect the privacy and anonymity of its users, including survey participants.
We only use cookies to improve navigation on our site. All services and tools offered on the site are available free of charge without the need for registration.
Any personal information voluntarily provided to us by our readers (names, email addresses or any other contact information, personal or medical data) will be kept in the strictest confidence. No information is shared with any third party.
HON is committed to working with the internet community to maintain and reinforce the need for confidentiality amongst their readers.
Only non-personal information about a reader is gathered through the logs of our Web server.

We encourage you to always read the confidentiality statement of any website you may visit.

The HONcode seal

Over the past 12 years, HON has grown immensely and currently, there are more than 7.300 HONcode certified websites. To maintain the quality standards of these and the growing list of HONcode websites, HON developed a new dynamic and active HONcode seal which allows the real-time status change according to the compliance of a website. This seal shows the last date of reevaluation of the site and is automatically updated after every re-evaluation or biennial audit. Information collected from this seal is non-personal such as your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language etc which cannot be used to personally identify you. We do not sell, transmit, share or divulge this information to any third party and it is safely stored on the HON web servers used only by the HON collaborators and system manager to improve our services.

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last modified: Dec 13 2012