About NIH
Privacy Policy Part 2: Third-Party Sites and Applications
How NIH.gov uses Third-Party Web sites and Applications
Third-Party Web sites and Applications (TPWA) are Web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by NIH, such as non-.gov hosted applications and those embedded on an NIH Web pages that could cause personally identifiable information (PII) to become available or accessible to NIH, regardless of whether NIH solicits or collects it.
As part of the Open Government Directive, NIH.gov uses a variety of new technologies and social media options to communicate and interact with citizens. These sites and applications include popular social networking and media sites, open source software communities and more. The following list includes the Web sites and applications we use and their purposes. For any sites or applications that collect PII, this list also includes details on information collected and how NIH protects your private information.
Data Safeguarding and Privacy
All uses of Web measurement and customization technologies will
comply with existing policies with respect to privacy and data
safeguarding standards. Information Systems (IT) systems owned
and operated by NIH are assessed using Privacy Impact Assessments
posted for public view on the Department of Health and Human Services
Web site (http://www.hhs.gov/pia/nih.html 
).
Groups of records that contain information about an individual
and are designed to be retrieved by the name or other personal
identifier linked to the individual are covered by the Privacy
Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. Section 552a). For these records,
NIH Systems of Record Notices are published in the Federal Register
and posted on the NIH
Senior Official for Privacy Web site. For more information,
please refer to the NIH Privacy Policy posted on the NIH.gov Web
site. When you visit the NIH Institute/Center sites, please look
for the Privacy Notice posted on the main pages. When Web measurement
and customization technologies are used, the Privacy Policy/Notice
must state:
- Purpose of the web measurement and/or customization technology;
- Usage Tier, session type, and technology used;
- Nature of the information collected;
- Purpose and use of the information;
- Whether and to whom the information will be disclosed;
- Privacy safeguards applied to the information;
- Data retention policy for the information;
- Whether the technology is enabled by default or not and why;
- How to opt-out of the web measurement/customization technology;
- Statement that opting-out still permits users to access comparable information or services; and,
- Identities of all third party vendors involved in the measurement and customization process.
Data Retention and Access Limits NIH will retain data collected
using the following technologies long enough to achieve the specified
objective for which they were collected. The data generated from
these activities falls under the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) General Records Schedule (GRS) 20-item IC
'Electronic Records,' and will be handled per the requirements
of that schedule (http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/grs20.html ).
Third-Party Web Sites and Applications
AddThis: NIH.gov uses the AddThis service to
allow visitors to bookmark and share the News in Health Web site
content on a variety of social media sites. Visitors who use the
AddThis service to share content do not need to register or provide
any personal information. The AddThis service providers collect
non-personal data, including the aggregate and summary statistics
on browsers and usage patterns. AddThis also uses non-personal
data to manage the service efficiently and diagnose server problems.
Although AddThis offers some analytics and usage data to NIH, these
reports do not include any personally identifiable information.
The reports are password protected and only available to NIH.gov
managers, members of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams,
and other designated staff requiring this information to perform
their duties. The AddThis Privacy policy is available at: http://www.addthis.com/privacy
Bit.ly: NIH uses bit.ly to shorten long URLs
for use in email messages, Twitter feeds and on Facebook pages.
Bit.ly collects and provides data on how often email recipients,
Facebook and Twitter-users click on the shortened URLs distributed
by NIH.gov staff. Bit.ly analytics show how many people clicked
on the URLs posted by NIH compared to the total number of clicks
on the shortened URLs. Bit.ly analytics do not provide any personally
identifiable information about the visitors who opened the shortened
links. The Bit.ly Privacy policy is available at: http://bit.ly/pages/privacy
Facebook: NIH.gov has three Facebook pages—National
Institutes of Health (NIH), Research
Matters Weekly , and News
in Health
. (Many other NIH Institutes and Centers (IC) sponsor
their own Facebook
pages. The privacy policies for the other ICs' Facebook pages
are located on the individual IC web sites.)
On each of the NIH.gov Facebook pages, NIH.gov staff posts news
and other items of interest to citizens. If you have a Facebook
account or 'Like' NIH Facebook pages, you can post comments or
click on the 'like' option for individual entries. If you comment
or click on the 'like' button, personally identifying information
will be visible to NIH staff and other Facebook site visitors.
The amount of visible personal information will depend on your
own Facebook privacy settings. You can completely avoid displaying
any personally identifiable information by not creating an account,
not posting comments and not clicking on the 'like' options in
Facebook. NIH staff does not collect, use or disclose any information
about visitors who comment or 'like' the NIH Facebook sites. Facebook
collects and reports on non-personally identifiable information
about activities on Facebook pages. This information is password
protected and only available to NIH.gov managers, members of the
NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff
who require this information to perform their duties. The Facebook
privacy policy is available at: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php
GovDelivery Subscription Management: NIH uses
GovDelivery to send e-newsletters, alerts and other messages to
visitors who subscribe to them. To subscribe to an NIH product,
you must provide an email address and indicate your subscription
preferences, including the items you want to receive. The email
subscriber lists are password protected by GovDelivery. Only the
NIH managers who send newsletters, alerts or memos via GovDelivery
and staff members who monitor the results of email initiatives
have access to the subscriber lists. GovDelivery never allows access
to the subscriber lists to anyone outside of NIH or for any purpose.
GovDelivery collects and provides non-identifying information about
the number of messages sent, clicks and open rates. This information
is password protected and only available to NIH.gov managers, members
of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated
staff who require this information to perform their duties. The
GovDelivery privacy policy is available at: http://www.govdelivery.com/privacy
Twitter: NIH uses Twitter to send short messages
(up to 140 characters) or 'Tweets' to share information about NIH
with visitors and respond to comments and inquiries sent via Twitter
to NIH. While visitors may read the NIH Twitter feeds without subscribing
to them, visitors who want to subscribe to (or follow) NIH Twitter
feeds must create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com. To create
an account, you must provide some personal information, such as
name, user name, password and email address. Visitors have the
option to provide additional personal information including a short
biography, location or a picture. Most information you provide
for a Twitter account is available to the public, but you can modify
how much of your information is visible by changing your privacy
settings at the Twitter.com Web site. NIH staff members monitor
the number of subscribers and respond to comments and queries via
Twitter, but the staff never takes possession of the personal information
belonging to Twitter followers. NIH does not collect, maintain,
disclose or share any information about people who follow NIH on
Twitter. The Twitter privacy policy is available at: http://twitter.com/privacy
Widgets: NIH.gov offers a variety of widgets
that deliver small versions of selected NIH site content to other
online locations outside of the site where the content originated.
Widgets are portable pieces of code. Visitors can install the widgets
on any PC or Mac Web page without requiring additional coding or
configuration. NIH.gov widgets deliver information and links to
any site or application where the widgets are installed. NIH widgets
do not collect any type of personally identifying information from
visitors who install NIH.gov widgets. The WidgetBox.com privacy
policy is available at: http://www.widgetbox.com/info/legal/privacy-policy Note:
This is the privacy policy for the Web site www.widgetbox.com (widget
creator program), not the widgets themselves.
WordPress: NIH.gov uses the WordPress blog platform to support Feedback NIH. Feedback NIH enables visitors to respond to information posted by National Institutes of Health (NIH) leaders by posting comments. Site visitors can only access Feedback NIH from the NIH.gov home page. Visitors who post comments do not need to register, provide their names or supply any other personal information. The Feedback NIH comments are not collected, processed or reported in any way. When visitors provide their names or other identifying information, that information will appear along with their comments.
Although WordPress offers some analytics and usage data to NIH,
these reports do not include any personally identifiable information.
The reports are password protected and only available to NIH.gov
managers, members of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams and
other designated staff requiring this information to perform their
duties. The WordPress privacy policy is available at: http://wordpress.org/about/privacy/ .
YouTube: NIH.gov posts videos on YouTube to make
them available to all NIH.gov visitors. You do not need to register
with either YouTube or Google (YouTube owner) to watch NIH.gov
videos. When visitors watch videos, YouTube may record non-personally
identifiable information about its site usage, such as channels
used, videos watched, and data transfer details to improve its
services. If you log on to the YouTube site before watching NIH
videos, YouTube may associate information about your site use with
your YouTube account. If you log on to YouTube and comment on an
NIH video, any personal information you included when registering
for your account will be visible to visitors who click on the comment.
If you do not log in before watching NIH videos posted on YouTube,
your site use will not be associated with you or a YouTube account.
The YouTube privacy policy is available at: http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy
Related Links
NIH Web Privacy Notice— http://www.nih.gov/about/privacy.htm
Social Media Links