The International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS) understands how important your privacy and safety are to you and respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how the ISASS collects, uses, and safeguards information on www.isass.org, invoices, registrations, microsites, mobile applications, member profiles, membership directories, and any other digital and print services and properties officially operated or used by the ISASS from time to time.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

As the ISASS, its membership, its programs and services change from time to time, this Privacy Policy is expected to change as well. The ISASS Board of Directors reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy at any time, for any reason. The date of the last revision to the Privacy Policy will be indicated by the “Last updated” date at the bottom of this page.

Sharing Your Email Address

We do not distribute, sell, or rent email addresses to anyone outside of the ISASS. The ISASS neither will offer email addresses to third parties or affiliates nor do we encourage or endorse members sharing the ISASS member directories with other organizations or individuals for any purpose.

Information We Collect

1. Personally Identifiable Information: We may collect information that identifies you (“Personally Identifiable Information”) when you interact and provide such information with ISASS such as, but not limited to, when applying for membership, registering for an ISASS event or program, purchasing ISASS products or services, submitting educational proposals (i.e. abstracts, posters, etc.), requesting information, etc. The types of Personally Identifiable Information collected will vary based on the services offered, but may include, among other things, your name, address, phone number, birth date, gender, billing and delivery information, e-mail address, credit card information, educational background, participation in events and programs.
2. Non-Personal Data: We may also collect information that is not Personally Identifiable Information but may disclose other aspects of your browsing history or certain other information about you through the use of a variety of technologies, including, but not limited to, cookies, tags, beacons, Internet Protocol (IP) address tracking/URL tracking, and other tools. “Cookies” are pieces of code/text that gets placed on your computer when you browse our websites. Cookies may be placed by us or third-party advertisers contracted by us. “Tags” and web beacons refer to code scripts that are primarily used to track visitors’ activities on our websites by web analytics software. The types of non-personal data collected on our websites through the use of these, and other tools as the ISASS may add from time to time, may include: the search terms you used, new or returning user, browser information, computer type, operating system, internet service providers, website usage, referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, number of clicks, ads viewed, etc.

How We Use and Share Personally Identifiable Information

Once collected, we may use your Personally Identifiable Information in a variety of ways, including (but not limited to):

• Providing service communications such as invoices, reminders, order confirmations, program registrations, and customer service messages
• Answering your emails, online requests, or correspondence
• Delivering and processing surveys
• Personalizing and improving the usability of the ISASS Web site
• Fulfilling and/or delivering ISASS products and services
• To serve personal advertising to you. Although we don’t share your email address with advertisers or exhibitors, we do allow advertisers and exhibitors to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and to see names, city and state of attendees or users (US residents only), and we may use any of the non-personally identifiable attributes to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements.
• To assess usage of ISASS products and services.
• To assist in your participation in ISASS activities. ISASS will communicate with you if you’re participating in certain ISASS activities, such as ISASS conferences, authoring or reviewing an ISASS abstract for participation in ISASS Annual Meeting, an article in the International Journal for the Advancement of Spine Surgery or other e-newsletters. ISASS may send you information related to those activities.
• To engage with third parties. ISASS may share your personal data with third parties in connection with services that these entities perform for or with ISASS. These third parties are restricted from using this data in any way other than to provide services for ISASS or for the collaboration in which they and ISASS are contractually engaged (for example, hosting an ISASS database or engaging in data processing on ISASS’s behalf or mailing you information you requested). These third parties are carefully selected by ISASS and obligated to keep your data secure.
• To protect ISASS information assets as well as your own personal data.
• Publishing membership directories and registration lists.

How can you control your information?

You can control the information we have about you and how we use it in several ways.

• If you’re a registered user, you can review, revise and correct the personal data that you have provided ISASS via the ISASS Member Profile. You will need your username and password.
• Use the unsubscribe method provided in our various communications.

Publication of Your Personally Identifiable Information for Membership Directories and Registration Lists

As a professional organization, the Personally Identifiable Information you provide may be published in print or digital form in a variety of ways to allow other physicians and others to find you, including, but not limited to, directories, membership lists, and other types of registration lists for ISASS programs and events (“Registration Lists”). Registration Lists will not include email addresses or sensitive information, such as credit card or financial information, or social security numbers. Users may request their information be suppressed from Registration Lists by contacting us.

Sharing your Personally Identifiable Information to Fulfill Service Requests

When fulfilling service requests initiated by you, we may share your Personally Identifiable Information with certain third parties to fulfill the requests, if required.

Sharing Your Personally Identifiable Information When Legally Necessary or to Protect the ISASS’s interests

The ISASS may disclose your Personally Identifiable Information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process served on the ISASS; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of ISASS; or (c) protect the personal safety of ISASS members of the public in appropriate circumstances.

Sharing Your Personally Identifiable Information for Surveys

The ISASS does not provide ISASS membership contact information for survey distribution purposes.  All survey requests, regardless of the origin, will be reviewed by the ISASS Board of Directors.  Should the Board of Directors feel a survey is of benefit to members, the ISASS, and/or the orthopaedic profession, the ISASS will send the survey to our membership with a notice of the survey’s purpose, the survey’s originator, and survey instructions so that each member can determine his/her participation.  If a member decides to participate in the survey, s/he should follow the instructions and survey link provided.  If a member decides that s/he is not interested in participation, the member should ignore the communication.

Sharing Your Email Address

We do not distribute, sell, or rent email addresses to anyone outside of the ISASS. The ISASS neither will offer email addresses to third parties or affiliates nor do we encourage or endorse members sharing the ISASS member directories with other organizations or individuals for any purpose.

California Privacy Rights and Foreign Residents

In addition to the rights as explained in this Privacy Policy, under California’s “Shine the Light” law, California residents who provide personal information (as defined in the statute) in obtaining products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us once a calendar year information about the personal information we shared, if any, with other businesses for marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of personal information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared such personal information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g. requests made in 2013 will receive information about 2012).

To obtain this information please write to us. Please include your full name, address, and ISASS member number, if applicable.

User ID and password

Certain areas of the ISASS site may require the use of a user ID, email address, or password as an additional security measure that helps protect your information.  To help you protect your privacy, the ISASS site has tools to help you log in and log out.

Linking and Suggested Resources

This Privacy Policy applies solely to the ISASS, its database, and its electronic communications.  You should be aware that www.ISASS.org contains links to other sites, and these sites may contain privacy provisions that differ from this Privacy Policy.  The ISASS is not responsible for the privacy policies of other sites.  We recommend that you review the privacy statements of linked sites, applications, or other digital properties.

How you can access and change information

If you are a registered user of the ISASS site, you may review and update/correct your information directly on the ISASS website—www.ISASS.org —or by contacting us.

Children

We do not knowingly solicit data online from or market online to children.

No Guarantee

The ISASS takes every precaution to protect our information.  We use SSL encryption to protect information online.  We also do everything in our power to protect our database off-line. All information is restricted in our office.  Our management team must use password-protected screens when they enter the database. The server on which we store personally identifiable information is kept in a secure environment. However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Accordingly, and despite our efforts, the ISASS cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information transmitted. If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us.

Contact Us:

For more information, please contact us at 847.384.4216 or at info@isass.org.

Updated 5/22/2019