Privacy policy
WikiAnesthesia is a not-for-profit organization whose educational mission is to provide the global anesthesia community with a free, open-access, crowd-sourced repository of anesthesia knowledge.
WikiAnesthesia's Privacy Principles
- We are committed to creating a safe and secure environment for you.
- We do not sell your personal information to third parties.
- We do not display advertising on WikiAnesthesia. Our mission is to provide you with a better learning experience, not to sell you products.
WikiAnesthesia Foundation, Inc. (“WikiAnesthesia”, “us”, or “we”) feels strongly about protecting your privacy. We understand how important privacy is to you, and we are committed to creating a safe and secure environment for our community. This Privacy Policy applies to wikianesthesia.org, our mobile interface, and our online service (collectively, our “Service”), which are owned and operated by WikiAnesthesia Foundation, Inc. This Privacy Policy describes how WikiAnesthesia collects and uses the information you provide on our Service, and describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update this information.
As a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, we use the data we collect to provide you with a better experience and fulfill our mission of providing a free educational resource, for anyone, anywhere. We established ourselves as a not-for-profit organization so that a for-profit motive will not interfere with our mission of providing a trusted educational content. Our Privacy Policy describes what information we gather from our members and others who visit and use our Service, how we use that information, and what we do to protect it. By visiting or using our Service, you consent to the information handling practices described in this Privacy Policy.
What information do we collect?
We take the information you provide to us very seriously, and we strive to put you in control of decisions around your information.
You can use many features of the Service without registering for an account or providing any other personal information. If you create an account on WikiAnesthesia, or communicate with WikiAnesthesia, you may provide to WikiAnesthesia what is generally called “Personal Information” or “Personal Data,” such as your full name, birthdate, email address or other information that can be used to identify you. Information which cannot be used to identify you as an individual is “de-identified” or non-personal information.
We collect information, including personal information, in a variety of ways which may vary according to your use of the Service and your account settings. The categories of personal information we collect may include:
- Contact and profile information
- Account and authentication information
- Location information
- Information about your browser or device
- Donation data
- Non-personal information which may be linked to your Personal Information
How do we use the information we collect?
WikiAnesthesia uses this information in the following ways:
1. To provide and enhance our Service.
WikiAnesthesia uses the information you provide or that we collect to operate, maintain, enhance, and provide all of the features of our Service.
2. To personalize your experience.
We use the information to personalize your experience while using the Service, including on various devices you may use to access the Service. For instance, WikiAnesthesia may remember your recent activity, preferences, or institutional affiliations so we can recommend the most appropriate content for you and provide personalized learning experiences.
3. To communicate with you.
We use your information to communicate with you about your account and respond to inquiries. We may also use your Personal Information to provide you with information about WikiAnesthesia's features, services and other offerings that may be of interest to you.
4. To understand, improve, and develop our Service.
WikiAnesthesia uses all of the information that you provide or that we collect from users to understand and analyze the usage trends, learning behaviors, and preferences of our users, to improve the way the Service works and looks, and to create new features and functionality. We may also use information to maintain, develop, support and improve our Service and other educational products and services.
5. To enable your participation in WikiAnesthesia partnership arrangements.
We use your information to enable your participation in programs or features we may offer in partnership with academic institutions, other non-profit organizations, or other third parties, to the extent you wish to participate in such programs.
6. To support research investigations
We use your information to support research investigations. As part of our mission to advance knowledge in the field, we may share information with researchers wishing to perform research related to their respective missions. We require researchers to agree that they will only use and share the data as needed for approved research purposes and that any resulting research output be aggregated and anonymized so that it cannot be linked back to any individual. We may publish or allow others to publish insights learned from such research activities. For example, WikiAnesthesia may study how providers from different clinical or demographic backgrounds approach the anesthetic management of a particular surgical procedure. Information to support research investigations may be obtained from surveys, polls, or other interactions with the Service.
WikiAnesthesia takes great care to protect the information you provide us. We do not rent or sell Personal Information that we collect from users with third parties.
WikiAnesthesia will disclose personal information when you post content which is visible to others on the Service, when you consent or instruct us to share your personal information with third parties, or when we have a legitimate business or legal need to share your information. We may also disclose anonymous or aggregate information that does not reasonably identify you as an individual. To learn more, see additional description below.
When information you provide is visible to others on WikiAnesthesia by default
Certain features and functions of the Service shares or makes your information accessible to others. As with most online services, once you make your Personal Information available to others online, it may be collected and used by the recipients or any other website visitor without restriction. You may wish to use a nickname or alias in your profile if you do not want your personal information shared with others in this way. For example, your personal information may be visible to others when you add or edit articles, post comments, or update your public user profile page.
When you give consent or according to your instructions
You may provide consent or authorization to share your personal information with third party institutions, applications, or services in several ways. Please note that these third parties are not governed by WikiAnesthesia or the terms of this Privacy Policy. We recommend you review the privacy policy of any third parties before authorizing access to your WikiAnesthesia account information.
When we anonymize or aggregate data
We may use data which has been de-identified and/or aggregated for product development, research, analytics and other purposes, including for the purpose of analyzing, improving, or marketing WikiAnesthesia Services. In certain occasions, WikiAnesthesia may share this data with partners to improve our services or offerings. If we disclose information to authorized partners to conduct research on online education or assist in understanding the usage, viewing, and demographic patterns for certain programs, content, services, promotions, and/or functionality on our Service, such data will be aggregated and/or anonymized to reasonably avoid identification of a specific individual.
Marketing and sponsored content
We may, from time to time, send you email regarding our products and services, or other third party products and services we think you may enjoy. For example, if we partner with an academic institution you may be affiliated with we may send you an email notifying you of the partnership. We will not share your information with the third party unless you opt-in to participate in the partnership, and if so, the information we would share would be limited to that needed to facilitate your participation. You can unsubscribe from these mailings at any time.
WikiAnesthesia does not display any third party advertisements on the Service. From time to time, we permit third parties to sponsor content displayed on our Service. For example, for-profit organizations may wish to sponsor all content related to a particular educational topic or category. Sponsored content will always be labeled (e.g., “Sponsored by ___”). WikiAnesthesia does not share any of our users' Personal Information with these sponsors without explicit consent, and these sponsors do not have the ability to track or collect information about our site visitors or users. As a non-profit organization, WikiAnesthesia relies on our sponsors, donors, and other contributors to provide funding necessary to provide the free Service to our users.
European Union Data Protection
Residents in the European Union are entitled to certain rights with respect to personal information that we hold about them:
- Right of access and portability. The right to obtain access to your personal information, along with certain related information, and to receive that information in a commonly used format and to have it transferred to another data controller;
- Right to rectification. The right to obtain rectification of your personal information without undue delay where that personal information is inaccurate or incomplete;
- Right to erasure. The right to obtain the erasure of your personal information without undue delay in certain circumstances, such as where the personal information is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or processed;
- Right to restriction. The right to obtain the restriction of the processing undertaken by us on your personal information in certain circumstances, such as where the accuracy of the personal information is contested by you, for a period enabling us to verify the accuracy of that personal information; and
- Right to object. The right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to the processing of your personal information, and to object to processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes, to the extent it is related to such direct marketing.
Our approach to data security
Data security is important to you, and to us.
To protect your privacy and security, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you account access or making corrections to your information. For example, we may ask you to provide certain Personal Information to confirm your identity, and we may require that you create and use a password to access certain parts of our Service. You should create and maintain a strong password to help ensure the security of your account.
We try to ensure that our Service and information sent to us are safe, but no security measures are perfect.
WikiAnesthesia uses certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards designed to preserve the integrity and security of your Personal Information and other information we maintain in connection with our Service. We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any or all of the information you transmit to WikiAnesthesia, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission of information, WikiAnesthesia makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems. When you enter sensitive information, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL) or similar technologies. However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security, we will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and will notify you of the security incident in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
Changes and updates to Privacy Policy
WikiAnesthesia may modify or revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. WikiAnesthesia will notify users of any changes to our Privacy Policy by posting the revised Privacy Policy with an updated date of revision on our Service. If we change this Policy in a material manner, we will do our best to notify you of the changes by posting a notice on our website. Your continued use of the Services following the effective date of such update constitutes your acceptance of the revised Policy.
Contacting WikiAnesthesia
Please contact WikiAnesthesia with any questions or comments: privacy@wikianesthesia.org