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Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is https://healtorture.org. This website is part of The National Capacity Building Project (NCB), which is a project of The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT). NCB is a Technical Assistance partnership of the ORR Services for Survivors of Torture Program, 100% funded by the federal government. The contents of this website are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. No official endorsement by ORR, DHHS, or CVT for the information on this website is intended or should be inferred.

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of visitors to our website. The following discloses our policies concerning the gathering and sharing of information through this website.

In brief, our policies are these:

Normal website usage

You can visit all portions of CVT’s website without telling us who you are and without revealing any personal information. The only information we collect from a normal website visit is the name of your Internet service provider, the browser and type of machine you are using, the Web site that referred you to us, the pages you request, and the date and time of those requests.

This information is collected on an aggregate basis only. For example, CVT tracks which pages are most popular among visitors as a whole, but we do not track information on which pages an individual visitor might look at during a visit to our site. We do not collect any other information, such as the name, mailing address, email address, or phone number of the visitor without the visitor’s knowledge and permission.

All information we collect is used for internal review only and not shared with third parties. We use this information to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of the site to our visitors.

Website Accounts – either Full Member or E-Learning Subscriber

When requesting an account on this website we do collect and save your first and last name, your email, your organization, and if your program is eligible as a Full Member or an E-Learning Subscriber on the website.

This information is used for the creation of certificates of completion, reporting to our funder on the number of certificates completed (only in terms of basic level, which is the number of certificates given to either Full Members or E-Learning Subscribers. NCB may send surveys to current or previous users, via email, for further information regarding their experience and/or suggestions on the lessons taken.

User account information will be deleted for two reasons:

Comments

If visitors leave comments on the website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Use of cookies

Cookies are pieces of information that are stored on your computer and are used for record keeping purposes. We use cookies to make visiting and using our website easier. Cookies can help us see which parts of our website are the most and least popular, and provide us with direction to improve our users’ online experience.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. CVT is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Collection of personally identifiable information

There are instances when CVT requests personally identifiable information, such as name, mailing address, email address, and possibly additional information. For example, if you request an account, or sign up for communications in order to provide you with specific services, correspondence, or emails. This information is available to the website administrator and other service providers involved in the operation of this site. Also, if you request a password reset to your account on the website, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

CVT does not sell, rent, or exchange email addresses. The CVT Website will not post personal contact information for volunteers, including email address, street address, and phone numbers, without the individual’s consent.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site as a Full Member or an eLearning Subscriber, or have left comments on any of the website pages, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Opting Out

Persons who join or donate via the Website and provide an email address may receive emails from HealTorture with information about our programs and services. Each email message includes an option to remove yourself from the email list, and you may also opt out by emailing us at [email protected]. HealTorture does not send mail to your address, we only send emails. If you want to opt out of CVT mailings, please email [email protected].

Children

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13.

Email Addresses

CVT asks for your email address when subscribing to our newsletter or the Heal_Torture_Talk listserv, and if you request an account. This allows us to provide you with email communications. CVT does not sell, rent, or lend the email addresses of our subscribers or visitors to the Website. You may opt out of our email communications at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe or remove” link located at the bottom of all our email communications. You may also opt out by sending an email to [email protected].

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. CVT makes every effort to insure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies.

CVT shall not be responsible for any harm that you or any person may suffer as a result of a breach of confidentiality in respect to your use of this site or any information you transmitted to this site.