Privacy Policy

PRIVACY STATEMENT

The Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) respects the privacy of its members and website visitors. The HFSA website collects data only to better serve members and other users of our website.

INFORMATION COLLECTED BY HFSA

Individual information, including contact information and demographics, is gathered from members, customers, education users, conference registrants and others. To gain access to members-only areas and personalized features on the website, users must join HFSA and provide individual information. Information submitted online may be used for other HFSA marketing uses, such as email and mail notifications of upcoming events that match the interests you provide us. Data are submitted voluntarily.

Whenever HFSA requests your personal information, to the extent that HFSA intends to use it in a manner not disclosed in this Privacy Policy, HFSA will try to explain to you its intended use, and to provide you with a choice to decline certain uses.

DISCLOSURES TO THIRD PARTIES

HFSA will not sell or rent information gathered from website access to anyone except when:

• We have your consent to share the information;
• We need to share your information to provide the product or service you requested; or
• We need to send the information to companies working on behalf of HFSA to provide a product or service.
• When required to do so (i) by law, (ii) to comply with legal processes or governmental requests, (iii) to enforce our Terms and Conditions, or (iv) to protect the rights, property, or safety of HFSA, its users or the public.
• On occasion, HFSA may also provide limited data to third parties that offer related products and services. These limited data include names, job titles, companies and business addresses, but do not include business phone numbers or business fax. Users may request HFSA to refrain from disclosing the data it collects to third parties by contacting HFSA at [email protected] or (301) 312-8635 to express their preferences if they determine later that they do not wish to have the information shared.

Companies that receive personal information from HFSA in order to execute the businesses of HFSA may use personal information only for that purpose.

CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT INFORMATION

HFSA does not disclose credit card account information provided by its members and customers. When members and customers choose to pay using their credit cards, HFSA submits only the information needed to obtain payment to the appropriate clearinghouse. Credit card information is not saved nor maintained in any HFSA database and therefore cannot be used for any additional purpose other than the original purchase.

COOKIES

Like most websites, HFSA uses cookies to allow you to move more efficiently through our website. Cookies are small text files that allow HFSA to recognize repeat users and facilitate their access to an d use of the site. Cookies do not collect personally identifying information. HFSA uses this information only for purposes of planning and tracking, as well as assessing the technical function of our site. By understanding how our site is accessed, we can continually improve it to respond to user interests. However, we cannot control the use of cookies by advertisers or third parties hosting data on our behalf. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature.

LINKS TO NON-HFSA SITES

Please note that the HFSA site contains links to other websites. HFSA is not responsible for the privacy practices, privacy statements, or content regarding these other sites.

GDPR POLICY

Scope
The following sections apply to you if you are an individual located within the European Union (EU) and your Personal Data is processed in connection with The Heart Failure Society of America’s (HFSA) marketing of goods or services within the EU.  Personal Data means any information that allows you to be directly or indirectly identified. This Data Protection Statement does not apply to services offered by other companies or individuals. This Data Protection Statement does not cover the information practices of other companies and organizations who advertise HFSA services or other digital assets that may contain a hyperlink.

Data Controller and Contact Information
HFSA is the “data controller” for our processing of your Personal Data.  HFSA can be contacted regarding our processing of your Personal Data by sending an e-mail to [email protected] or by calling 301.312.8635.

Purposes and Legal Basis for Data Processing
We collect your personal information such as your name, address, e-mail address, date of birth (day/month only), phone numbers, organization or company of employment and/or job title, professional discipline, specialty/areas of interest, work setting, other society memberships, preferred method of communication, and career level in heart failure for the purposes of creating a membership profile, providing you with resources, such as the Journal of Cardiac Failure, or for registering for events.  We also collect financial information as necessary to process payments for membership dues, event registration, or the purchase of publications or other products.

You voluntarily provide and we collect your Personal Data as part of your membership agreement with the organization.  Your information allows us to ensure that you receive member benefits to which you are entitled in exchange for paying dues and acting in accordance with our membership policies.  In order to gain the benefits of membership, we may require you to provide us with certain information.  This information is noted as “required” on your membership application form.  If you choose to withhold certain Personal Data requested by us, it may not be possible for you to gain access to certain aspects of membership.

The collection of your Personal Data is necessary to support our legitimate interests as a nonprofit organization.  “Legitimate interests” means our interest in conducting and managing our organization and fulfilling our charitable and educational mission.  For example, we have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Data when you become a member of our organization or register to attend one of our events.  When we process your Personal Data for our legitimate interest, we ensure adequate protection of your Personal Data and consider your rights under data protection laws.

We use cookies to store and track information about you.  A cookie is a small amount of data sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. When you access our website, service providers may collect data of a technical nature in a variety of ways. We use cookies for the following purposes:

• To enable certain functions of the website,
• To provide analytics,
• To store your preferences and personalize the content,
• To improve the user experience,
• To share on social networks

We use both session and persistent cookies on the website and we use different types of cookies to run the website:

• Essential Cookies – We may use essential cookies to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use of user accounts
• Third-party Cookies – in addition to our own cookies, we may also use various third-parties cookies to report usage statistics of the website, deliver advertisements on and through the website, and so on.

You may withdraw your consent to our use of cookies at any time by deleting cookies or instructing your web browser to delete or refuse cookies.  Please visit the help pages of your web browser:

• For Internet Explorer™ : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies
• For Safari™ : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201265For Chrome™ : https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
• For Firefox™ : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-cookies-remove-info-websites-stored
• For Opera™ : http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.20/en/cookies.html

Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, some features of the HFSA website may not work properly, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to decline the use of cookies. You can learn more about cookies at the following third-party websites:

• AllAboutCookies: http://www.allaboutcookies.org
• Network Advertising Initiative: http://networkadvertising.org

If we collect your Personal Data for reasons beyond the performance of our obligations to our members or the pursuit of our legitimate interests, we will ask for your consent to collect such data.

If we intend to use your information in a way that is different from the reasons for which it was collected, we will notify you before doing so and, if necessary, ask your permission before collecting any additional data or using it in any way.

Access to Your Personal Data
Only authorized third party companies (i.e. Service providers) staff or our HFSA authorized staff (who have contractually agreed to keep all information secure) have access to your personal data.

Our members can access a limited amount of contact information about other members via our membership directory. This data includes name and credentials, Email Address (members only) hospital/institution, City and State. In addition, those who have opted-in will be displayed in a provider directory listing name and credentials, hospital/institution name, city and state.

HFSA shares mailing lists with Elsevier, the publisher of The Journal of Cardiac Failure, for the purpose of mailing printed copies of the journal monthly and authorizing online access. With the exception of the Annual Scientific Meeting, third party requests for mailing list information are sent by HFSA, on the party’s behalf, once the content has been reviewed and approved as heart failure related. For the Annual Scientific Meeting HFSA exchanges mailing list information for those registered to attend the meeting, who have not opted-out of 3^rd party notifications, for the purpose of promoting a product or service for a company with a presence at the meeting.

If we intend to transfer your Personal Data to an organization outside of the European Union, we will notify you before doing so.

Data Processing and Storage of Personal Data
We use a cloud-based central database to securely store and process your Personal Data.

Any data that is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected will be deleted.

• Membership Data – Membership data will be maintained for active members for as long a period as they remain active. Once membership has been cancelled or has expired without being renewed it will be maintained for a period of 7 years.
• Event Registration Data – Event Registration Data will be kept for a period of 7 years.
• Purchasing Data – Data collected for purchases made with HFSA will be kept for 7 years.

Your Duties:

 You should ensure that the data you provide us with are:

• Correct;
• Accurate;
• Current;
• Truthful; and
• Compliant with any applicable laws.

Rights:
Subject to applicable law, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Right of access: You can request an electronic copy of your personal data contained within our system. Requests should be made by e-mail to [email protected]. In order to comply with your request, we may ask you to verify your identity.
• Right to rectification: If your Personal Data is inaccurate or incomplete, you are entitled to have it rectified or completed. Updates to your Personal Data can be made by e-mail to [email protected].
• Right to erasure: You may ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data. Requests should be made by e-mail to [email protected]. In some situations, deletion of certain Personal Data may mean that it is no longer possible for you to gain access to certain parts of our site or retain access to membership activities.
• Right to restrict or object to processing: You may ask us to restrict or block the processing of your Personal Data in certain circumstances or request no contact from us. Requests should be made by e-mail to [email protected].
• Right to data portability: You have the right to obtain your Personal Data from us that is contained in our system. Requests for your data should be made by e-mail to [email protected].
• Right to withdraw consent: If we rely on your consent to process your Personal Data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your prior consent. Requests should be made by e-mail to [email protected].

Right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority: If you have a concern about our privacy practices, including the way we have handled your Personal Data, you can report it to the data protection authority that is authorized to hear those concerns.  The relevant authority is the data protection authority in your country of residence, the country where you work, or the country in which the alleged unlawful use of your Personal Data occurred.