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Privacy Policy

Welcome to the Easterseals Online Network, the Web site of Easterseals Chicago (“Easterseals”).

Your privacy is important to Easterseals.  We recognize that donors to Easterseals and visitors to our website want to know about the personal information provide to us and how we treat that information.

Easterseals has created this privacy statement to explain its practices on the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, including information from donors.  Please read this privacy statement carefully as it will help you make informed decisions about sharing your personal information with us.  The information in this privacy statement applies to all personal information collected about you, regardless of whether it was collected via your use of our website or through your offline interactions with us.  By using this website, visitors agree to the terms of our privacy statement.

You can contact Easterseals for more information related to the privacy of the information you provide online:

Mail: 1939 W. 13th Street – Suite 300, Chicago, Illinois 60608
Phone: 312-491-4110
Online: Click here to contact Easterseals via email. Your request will be answered within 2-3 business days.

The Information We Collect

Easterseals collects information that enables us to identify and contact you, as well as carry out certain business purposes described below ad to provide our services.  On many pages of the Easterseals Online Network — in particular when donating online, completing an action alert, registering for a special event, purchasing a product, or completing various feedback forms — visitors are asked to list name, address, and other personal contact information. Information collected is specifically and knowingly provided by site visitors and may include name, email address, format preference (HTML vs. text), address, telephone number, interests and other similar information. Demographic and profile data (i.e. age, gender, browser usage) is also collected via the Easterseals Online Network.  Collecting this information helps Easterseals to better provide site visitors with relevant and useful content.

Easterseals has partnered with Convio, Inc. to power the Web content, email and transaction processing capabilities to serve our constituents and fulfill our mission on the Internet. Convio, Inc. is an Internet software and services company that provides online electronic Constituent Relationship Management (eCRM) solutions for nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions. Convio will not disclose your name or other personally identifiable information (such as your e-mail address or phone number) to any party other than Easterseals.

Neither Easterseals nor Convio store sensitive information such as credit card numbers. When an online transaction is completed through the Easterseals Online Network, such as a charitable contribution, credit card information is used solely for the purpose of completing that specific transaction and is not retained in the Easterseals or Convio database.

Easterseals will not sell, share or exchange personal contact information collected from this Web site with other organizations. If a user has a previous relationship with Easterseals through another channel (i.e., mail, phone), Easterseals will occasionally rent or exchange those names and addresses with other organizations as a way of providing extra funds to help support services. If you do not want to participate in this program, please let us know.

Visitors to the Easterseals Online Network are not required to share any personally identifiable information. Users who do not wish to share personal information when visiting the Easterseals Online Network can still access the Network’s Web pages and the valuable information provided.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file a Web site places on a site visitor’s computer hard drive. Its purpose is to let the site know when a user visits and to perform certain functions such as saving passwords and personal preferences.

Cookies help evaluate visitors’ use of a Web site, such as what viewers want to see and what they never read. This information allows Easterseals to better focus online information and to concentrate on information people are using.

Your browser is probably set to accept cookies. If you would like to turn this feature off, you will need to change the settings of your Internet browser.

Security of Your Information

All credit card and personal profile information provided to Easterseals or our Internet software partner, Convio, Inc., is transmitted using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption using Verisign as a payment gateway. SSL is a proven coding system that allows a browser to automatically encrypt, or scramble, data before it is sent.

Easterseals also protects account information by placing it on a secure portion of the Easterseals Online Network that is only accessible by certain qualified employees of Easterseals. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Easterseals strives to protect your information, however cannot ensure or warrant the security of such information.

Tell-A-Friend, Ecards and Personal Fundraising Pages

If you elect to use the referral service to inform a friend about a page on the Easterseals Online Network, send an ecard, or raise funds for Easterseals by soliciting friends and family, you will be asked for the friend’s name and email address. Easterseals will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site. Easterseals stores this information to send this one-time email only. In addition, the contact information will be maintained solely for the future convenience of the individual who provided the information – to send subsequent ecards or fundraising reminders/updates.

When does Easterseals share your personal information with third parties?

Easterseals may share your personal information with third parties under certain circumstances, including:

  • Consent. We may process or disclose your personal information if you have given us consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose.
  • Delivery of our services. We may process or disclose your personal information where we believe it is necessary to provide you with services that you are requesting from us. For example, we use third-party providers to process donations, purchases and any other financial charges which you may elect through our website.
  • Legal obligations. We may process or disclose your personal information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
  • Policy violations and fraud detection. We may process or disclose your personal information to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, and illegal activities.
  • Vendors and service providers. We may disclose your personal information to third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work in connection with providing you the services or delivering information to you that you have requested. We share information with these third parties only where (a) the sharing of your personal information is necessary for them to carry out such support services and (b) those service providers agree to use any personal information they receive in accordance with our instructions.
  • Third-party analytics. As described above, we use or may use selected third parties to collect information about how you interact with the Easterseals website and our services. This information may be used to, among other things, improve the functionality of our website and services.
  • Business transfers. We may share or transfer your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.

Your California Privacy Rights

Easterseals does not share your personal information with any third party for direct marketing purposes.  To review a special notice for California residents only per California Privacy Law (SB27): Exchanging, Renting, Reselling Personal Information, please visit the “Your California Privacy Rights” section.

Information from Children

Easterseals website is not intended for use by minor children and we do not knowingly collect personal information about children through the Easterseals Online Network. If a child submits information through any part of the Network, and Easterseals is aware that the user submitting the information is a child, we will delete that information. Easterseals will comply with all regulations set forward by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). To learn more about COPPA, visit the Federal Trade Commission.

Links to Other Web Sites

Easterseals’ website and services may contain links to other websites (“Third-Party Websites”), as well as articles, photographs, text, graphics, pictures, designs, music, sound, video, information, applications, software, and other content or items belonging to or originating from third parties (“Third-Party Content”). This may include links to Third-Party Websites for the purpose of completing a transaction.

Such Third-Party Websites and Third-Party Content are not monitored, or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and Easterseals is not responsible for any such websites or content. Inclusion of, linking to, or permitting the use or installation of any Third-Party Websites or any Third-Party Content does not imply approval or endorsement thereof by us. If you decide to leave the Easterseals website or services and access Third-Party Websites or use or install any Third-Party Content, you do so at your own risk. You should review the applicable terms and policies, including privacy and data gathering practices, of any website to which you navigate from our website.

Transmission of Health-Related Data

Nothing is more important than ensuring your privacy.  Easterseals understands the sensitivity of collecting and using health-related data. Personally identifiable health-related data collected on the Easterseals Online Network will not be shared with entities other than Easterseals Chicago. Any transfer of personally identifiable health-related data s will take place in a secure environment with access allowed only to certain qualified employees of Easterseals. Easterseals will comply with all regulations set promulgated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To learn more about HIPAA, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

Easterseals Metropolitan Chicago Privacy Policies

It is the policy of Easterseals that all staff preserve the integrity and the confidentiality of Protected Health Information (PHI) pertaining to our clients. The purpose of this policy is to ensure that our practice have the necessary medical and PHI to provide the highest quality services while protecting the confidentiality of the PHI of our clients to the highest degree possible.  Clients should not be afraid to provide information to our practice and / or staff for purposes of treatment, payment and healthcare operations (TPO). To that end, our staff will:

    • Adhere to the standards set forth in the Notice of Privacy Practices
    • Collect, use and disclose PHI only in conformance with state and federal laws
    • Use and disclose PHI to remind clients of their appointments unless they instruct us not to
    • Recognize that PHI collected about clients must be accurate, timely, complete and available when needed.  Our staff will:
      • Implement reasonable measures to protect the integrity of all PHI maintained about clients
    • Recognize that clients have a right to privacy.  Our staff will respect the client’s individual dignity at all times.  Our staff will respect our client’s privacy to the extent consistent with providing the highest quality services
    • Act as responsible information stewards and treat all PHI as sensitive and confidential. Consequently, our staff will:
      • Treat all PHI data as confidential in accordance with professional ethics, accreditation standards and legal requirements
      • Not disclose PHI data unless the client (or his or her authorized representative) has properly authorized the release or the release is otherwise authorized by law
    • Recognize that, although our agency “owns” the record, the client has a right to inspect and obtain a copy of his / her PHI.  In addition, clients have a right to request an amendment to his / her record if he / she believes his / her information is inaccurate or incomplete.  Our staff will:
      • Permit clients access to their records when their written requests are approved by our agency.  If we deny their request, then we must inform the clients that they may request a review of our denial
      • Provide clients an opportunity to request the correction of inaccurate or incomplete PHI in their medical records in accordance with the law and professional standards
    • All staff will maintain, for a period not exceeding six years from the date on which the client exited the program, a list of certain disclosures of PHI for purposes other than TPO for each client and those made pursuant to an authorization as required by HIPAA rules.  We will provide this list to clients upon request, so long as their requests are in writing
    • All staff will adhere to any restrictions concerning the use or disclosure of PHI that clients have requested and have been approved by our agency
    • All staff must adhere to this policy.  Our agency will not tolerate violations of this policy. Violation of this policy is grounds for disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment and criminal or professional sanctions in accordance with our agency’s personnel rules and regulations
    • Our agency may change this privacy policy in the future.  Any changes will be effective upon the release of a revised privacy policy and will be made available to clients upon request

Privacy Procedures

Our agency recognizes and respects the fact that the client has a right to inspect and obtain a copy of his / her Protected Health Information (PHI).

Privacy Procedures to Accomplish this Privacy Policy

  • The Privacy Official will provide staff with an original form for clients to complete when the client desires to inspect and copy his / her PHI
  • The Privacy Official will photocopy and make available to clients the form to Inspect and Copy PHI
  • The Privacy Official will respond to clients’ requests and questions concerning inspecting and copying their PHI.  In addition, the Privacy Official will distribute the form to the clients upon their request
  • Once the client completes the form, staff should forward the form to the Privacy Official for review
  • Once the client has submitted his / her request in writing (using the agency’s form is optional), the Privacy Official must verify that the client’s signature matches his / her signature on file
  • The Privacy Official must review the client’s request and respond to the client within 30 days from the date of the request.  The Privacy Official can request an additional 30-day extension as long as the request is made to the client in writing with the reason for the delay clearly explained
  • The Privacy Official should agree to all reasonable requests.  If access is denied, the Privacy Official must provide the client with an explanation for the denial as well as a description of the client’s review appeal
  • When the client has requested to inspect their PHI and his / her request has been accepted, the Privacy Official or other authorized representative should accompany the client to a private area to inspect his / her records and remain with the client during inspection.  After the client inspects the record, the Privacy Official will note in the record the date and time of the inspection and whether the client made any requests for amendments or changes to the record
  • When the client’s request to copy his / her PHI has been accepted, the Privacy Official should copy his / her record within ten days at a charge of $.05 cents per page