Privacy Policy

Last Updated October 1, 2021

Personal Information We Collect
How We Collect Personal Information
How We Use the Personal Information Collected
How We Share Personal Information
Lawful Bases for Collection
Your Privacy Choices
Security of Personal Information
Retention of Personal Information
Other Important Information
How to Contact Us
Updates to this Privacy Policy

The International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease (“ISSVD”) is US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit that connects gynecologists, pathologists, dermatologists, and related disciplines from around the world to promote clinical investigation, basic research, and dissemination of knowledge in the fight against vulvovaginal diseases.

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) explains how we handle information collected through our website located at www.ISSVD.org (the “Website”), including any content, functionality, and services offered on or through the Website, on any platform and in any format. This Policy applies to all personal information collected when you use this Website.

Please also see our Website Terms of Use (“Terms”) for additional information. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with both policies. Your use of this Website constitutes acceptance of this Policy and our Terms. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of this Policy and our Terms (including updates or amendments), do not use this Website.

Personal Information We Collect

For purposes of this Policy, personal information means any information about an identifiable individual. Not all information we collect is personal information under this definition. For example, information that has been de-identified or aggregated in a way that no longer allows identification of a particular person would not meet this definition. Similarly, information we gather about you from publicly available sources, such as government databases, may not be considered personal information in your jurisdiction. Where permitted we may combine personal information that you have given us with publicly-available information about you to create a profile about you, your interests, and preferences that help us tailor appropriate communications to you.

We may collect, store, and process personal information from the categories shown in the table below. Our listing of these categories does not mean that all categories or the examples listed in each category are collected about everyone who uses the Website. We are providing a full list here in the spirit of transparency.

Categories of Personal Information
Category	Examples
Identifiers	Name, alias, postal address, telephone number, unique personal identifier, online identifier, IP address, email address, username, account password or other similar identifiers
Demographic information	Age, national origin, citizenship, or gender
Internet or other electronic network activity	Browsing history, search history, session information, site navigation, and other information about how you interact with the Website
Audio, visual, or similar information	Photos, videos or other recordings you choose to post to Website or provide us access to while using the Website
Geolocation data	Physical location or movements
Professional or employment-related information	Title, employment affiliation (hospital, clinic, university, etc.), education history, work history, awards, practice specialties, medical licensing information, and other relevant experience including information contained in a resume, CV or professional bio
Purchase data	Your purchase history with us, including memberships, conference attendance and any resources purchased through Website
Inferences drawn from other information	Any profile created about you that reflects likely preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, or aptitude

How We Collect Personal Information

We collect the categories of personal information listed above from various sources. This section lists and describes those sources. Directly from you. You may be asked to provide personal information when you use the Website in certain ways. This information may include:

Account and Membership Information. When you set up an account, you are required to provide information such as your name, address, and email address and setup a password for future access to the password protected portion of the Website. Additionally, when you seek to join our membership you are required to provide additional information such as a copy of your resume or CV and a photo. You may also need to provide payment card information to our third-party payment processor PayPal, as discussed below.
Profile Information. You may choose to set up a profile with your account. If you do so you may provide us with additional profile information, such as your data of birth, educational history, specialty areas or areas of expertise, a personal bio, and links to your profile on other social media sites or company website biographies.
Additional Information. Additional information that you provide to us, including when you complete certain forms, post or comment through Website, upload or submit any content or other material via the Website, request information or contact us with inquiries through the Website or via email, or when you use other aspects of our services, may be collected and stored.

Indirectly from you. We may automatically collect personal information from you when you visit the Website through the use of tracking technologies or by other passive means. This “passively collected” information helps us to improve our offerings and allows us to ensure the Website works as designed and in a way that meets your expectations. Some examples of the sources of this passively collected personal information include:

Viewing History and Preferences. When you browse the website and provided resources, we collect information about your use. For example, if you search our online Resource Library, we may collect information about that action, such as the search terms you utilize, the titles you select, and whether you download the resource or not.
Log Information. We may automatically record information that your browser or mobile device sends whenever you visit the Website, and especially when you login. These logs may include information such as your web request, IP address, browser type, browser language, your computer operating system, email patterns, your mobile device and mobile operating system, the name of your internet service provider or your mobile carrier, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies (discussed below) that may uniquely identify your browser.
Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies. When you visit or access the Website, we may utilize cookies (small text files containing a string of characters sent to your computer) or similar tracking technologies that uniquely identify your browser to track your activity and hold certain information. Cookies can be necessary for site navigation and performance, or used for targeting or advertising. To learn more about how we use Cookies and other similar tracking technologies, please see our Cookies Policy.
Additional website analytics. Among other technologies, our Website uses certain features from the Google Marketing Platform, including Google Analytics to gather information about website usage. This information is anonymized, but is stored by Google on servers in the US and is used by us and them to evaluate our website activity and inform enhancements. Google may transfer this information to third party processors or when required to by law, but will not associate an IP address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you are consenting to the processing of this kind of data by Google. For more details please refer to Google Analytics’ article, “Safeguarding your data.”

From third parties. We may collect personal information about you from third parties, either at your request or for our business purposes. These third-party sources vary depending on your engagement with us, but could include the following:

Technical Service Providers. We work with a variety of third-party service providers to enhance the Website and ensure it functions the way you expect. Our partners provide website hosting, website usage analytics, advertising, and maintenance services. Many of these categories overlap with the passively collected personal information described above. In working with our service providers, we may share personal information with them and receive personal information back from them so that we may provide the services you expect.
Payment and Donation Processor PayPal. We use PayPal, including its Bill Me Later feature, as our payment and donation processor. PayPal provides us with an online solution to process member and event registrations and donations from supporters. When you make a registration payment, your personal information, including payment card numbers and certain identifiers, are collected and stored by PayPal pursuant to their terms and procedures. PayPal stores data in a safe and secure manner with access limited to authorized personnel pursuant to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Your purchase transaction data is stored by PayPal only as long as is necessary to complete your purchase transaction. ISSVD does not see your full payment card number and does not store your payment information. For more information about PayPal’s terms and procedures, you may want to review PayPal’s User Agreement.
Content Storage and Hosting. We use a third-party service provider, Impexium, to host and store content, including your personal information, and to provide database services associated with this Website. To learn more about Impexium’s privacy practices you may review its Information Security Policy.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party providers. By using our Website, you consent to the processing of your personal information by Pay Pal and Impexium in the manner and for the purposes described here and in either of their privacy policies.

How We Use the Personal Information Collected

We use both personal information and non-personal information to provide services to you, to help improve your interaction with the Website, and to support the mission of ISSVD. Some examples of ways in which we use or disclose personal information include:

To register you for membership(s) and courses you request.
To identify you when you sign on to your account.
To create and maintain your online profile.
To respond to your questions or inquiries.
To populate/display the forum and facilitate online communication among registered users.
To process your donation.
To ask you to participate in surveys, or otherwise provide feedback.
To notify you of new resources that might be of interest to you.
To improve, upgrade or enhance the Website and our services.
To create de-identified or aggregated lists of information for any of the uses stated above.
To operate the Website in accordance with our Terms and/or any other agreement you may have with us.
To carry out other purposes that are disclosed to you and/or to which you consent.

How We Share Personal Information

ISSVD will not share your personal information except in the following limited circumstances:

We may collect, report and share personal information on an aggregated basis with third parties that perform services on our behalf, for example, technical service providers. We do not authorize such third parties to use your personal information except as necessary to provide services to us or for purposes authorized by us.
We may also provide third parties with aggregate information regarding users of this Website. For example, we may inform third parties regarding the number of unique users of this Website, the number of times a Website link was selected by users, and aggregate information on the types of the activities users conducted while on this Website.
Information you submit through our online forum may be shared with other ISSVD members via the forum. We may also publish (1) ISSVD event attendee lists and share them with event attendants, and (2) ISSVD membership directories and share them with ISSVD members, each of which may include your name, address, phone number, and email address collected through this Website.
Additionally, we may disclose your personal information (1) to comply with a law, regulation, or other governmental request, for example, to comply with subpoenas, court orders, legal process, or requests by law enforcement or governmental entities; (2) to investigate or defend against third-party claims against us; (3) to detect, prevent, or investigate fraud or other illegal activity or to enforce our Terms. (4) to repair or resolve technical issues in the operation of this Website; (5) to respond to a request by you to disclose the information, including your requests to allow access to your account and personal information by third-parties designated by you, as described in more detail below; (6) with your knowledge and consent; and (7) to address emergencies or acts of god. Your personal information may be an asset of the organization transferred in the event of a merger other organizational combination or transfer involving ISSVD.

Lawful Bases for Collection and Use

Certain laws require us to have one or more lawful grounds to collect and use the personal information that we have outlined above. We consider the grounds listed below to be relevant:

Legal obligation. Where the processing of your personal information is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.
Contractual relationship. Where it is necessary for us to use your personal information in order to perform a contract to which you are a party (or to take steps at your request prior to entering a contract). An example would be collecting and using your contact information in order to process an event registration you have purchased from us.
Legitimate interests. We rely on this basis where applicable law allows us to collect and use personal information for our legitimate interests and the use of your personal information is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact your rights. For instance, it is in our legitimate interest to use personal information to protect our website from any attacks and to ensure appropriate security. When we process your personal information to achieve such legitimate interests, we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. We will not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you, for example where use would be excessively intrusive (unless, for instance, we are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
Consent. We may obtain your consent to use your personal information in certain circumstances. We will ensure that when we obtain your consent you are free both to give it and to decline to give it. Additionally, you may always withdraw your consent at any time without any further detriment to you.

Before collecting and/or using any special categories of data (as that term is defined in the UK GDPR, or as an equivalent term is defined by other privacy laws) we will establish a lawful exemption which will allow us to use that information. This exemption will typically be your explicit consent or the establishment, exercise, or defense by us or third parties of legal claims.

Your Privacy Choices

There are various ways you can choose to access, update, or limit the personal information you provide to us and that we collect and process.

Exercise Your Privacy Rights. Depending on where you live you may have certain privacy rights created by law. While laws vary between jurisdictions, we do our best to provide the same basic level of privacy rights to everyone regardless of where you live. Thus, the rights described here may be used by anyone with whom we interact or about whom we collect personal information.

Information Access and Portability. You can ask us what personal information we have about you. Subject to verification of identity, you also have a right to request and be provided with a copy of that information in a commonly used, machine readable format, but only where the processing of that information is based on (1) consent; or (2) the performance of a contract to which you are a party.
Correction/Rectification. While you have the ability to edit most of your profile information as described below, you also have the right to request that we correct any mistakes or inaccuracies in your personal information provided we are able to verify your identity.
Deletion/Erasure. You are entitled to request that we delete your personal information from our systems to the fullest extent possible. There may be certain circumstances, however, where we cannot delete all of your personal information. For example, if you have given a presentation that appears in our resource library or presented at one of our conferences we will not remove your association with those activities with which you previously agreed to take part.
Objection. You have the right to object to our use of your personal information where our processing is based on legitimate interests (as described above) or is for direct marketing purposes.
Restriction. In certain circumstances, you have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information.
Withdraw Consent. While we try not to rely on consent as a basis for processing your personal information, where we do rely on that basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

To exercise your rights you may contact us by email at [email protected] or as described below. Subject to legal and other permissible considerations, we will make every reasonable effort to honor your request promptly or inform you if we require further information in order to fulfil your request. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

If you are European resident, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. We encourage you to contact us first so that we have an opportunity address your concern. You may reach us using the contact information below.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of the rights listed in this section. Specifically, we will not (1) deny you services, (2) provide you a different level or quality of services from other users of the Website, (3) charge or suggest that we will charge you different prices or rates membership or event registration, except to the extent that not having your personal information limits our ability to provide you with desired services.

Profile Preferences. If you are a member or other account holder with a profile you can update and make various changes that will limit the personal information that is shared or disclosed to others, including:

Changing your profile privacy settings to limit what any of this information can be made available to others on the online directory or other areas of the Website.
Log-in to your profile to edit or delete information you have provided to us so that other users do not see it when they view your profile(s).

Unsubscribe from Emails. You may opt-out of receiving Emails from us by following the “unsubscribe” instructions included in certain emails we send you or by sending an email to [email protected].

Limit Public Forum Posting. Any information that is disclosed in a public forum made available through the Website is necessarily available to other users. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information in our forum. ISSVD is not responsible for the disclosure of any information to any authorized user of the forum and may not be able to remove such information once posted.

Google Analytics. As noted above, we use the Google Analytics service to gather and provide us with statistical data about how our Website is used. This Google service uses a cookie that can be recognized by Google when you visit other websites. You can opt out of Google Analytics’ collection and use of data generated by your use of the Website by going to http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Security of Personal Information

We take the security of personal information seriously. Our Website has reasonable technical, physical and administrative security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, unauthorized access, alteration and destruction of the personal information collected through this Website. Reasonable efforts are made to secure our web servers, networks, host operating systems and databases against unauthorized access. Please remember that the security measures taken above are not foolproof; no website can guarantee that personal information will be protected in all situations. We cannot and do not guarantee that your personal information will never be accessed by an unauthorized party or otherwise breached. If we learn of a breach, we will comply with applicable law; however, unless a statute provides you a right that cannot be waived, you specifically waive and covenant not to sue us for any data loss or breach of our system resulting in loss of personal information. See our Terms for more information.

Retention of Personal Information

We will retain your personal information for as long as we deem reasonably necessary or desirable, unless a different retention period is required by any applicable law, rule, or regulation. We reserve the right to delete or destroy any information collected, including personal information, at any time.

Other Important Information

No Minors. This Website is designed for members of ISSVD who are licensed physicians or others who have attained or completed a college degree or an advanced clinical degree from an accredited institution. As such, this Website is not directed at or intended for use by minors under the age of 18. This Website does not knowingly collect personal information from persons under 18.

If you are under the age of 16 you should not be visiting the Website without parental consent. If you are under the age of 16 and are visiting or otherwise using the Website without your parent’s knowledge and consent please discontinue such use immediately and do not disclose or provide any personal information to us. If you are a parent who learns that your child under 16 has provided us with personal information without your consent, please contact us using the information below with sufficient detail to enable us to delete that information from our records. We will act promptly on your request to delete such information.

Cross-Border Information Transfers. Please be advised that we may transfer the personal information we collect about you to the United States and other jurisdictions that may not be deemed to provide the same level of data protection as your home country for the purposes set out in this Policy. Your consent to this Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer, to the fullest extent allowed under the law. In all such instances where your personal information is transferred to the United States, we will take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that appropriate safeguards designed to protect your personal information are implemented (e.g. entering into approved standard contractual clauses to protect personal information).

Third-Party Websites. Our Website may contain links to other websites and other websites may reference or link to our Website. We cannot control nor are we responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites. It is always a good idea to read the privacy policy on any third party website that you visit. We encourage you to be aware when you are leaving our Website. This Policy applies only to personal information collected from this Website (http://www.issvd.org/).

Do Not Track Signals. Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. Please note that we do not respond to or honor DNT signals or similar mechanisms transmitted by web browsers.

How to Contact Us

If you have questions about this Policy, or if you wish to correct, update, amend or delete/remove personal information that you have provided to us, you may contact us by email at [email protected].

You may also write to us at:

PO BOX 586

Waxhaw, NC 28173

If you reside in the European Economic Area, our appointed EU Representative and contact point is Dr. Pedro V. Baptista. You may contact them directly at [email protected] with questions or to report concerns you may have with our privacy measures. While we hope this will not be necessary, if we are unable to resolve your concerns satisfactorily you can contact your local data protection authority.

Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may update or change our privacy practices and this Policy from time to time. The date at the top of this Policy reflects the date of the most recent update. We will post a notice on the Website to advise you of any significant changes to this Policy. Your continued use of the Website signifies your continued assent to the terms of this Policy, as updated or amended at that time.