Web Site Privacy Statement for
San Antonio Community Hospital

Our Commitment to Privacy

San Antonio Community Hospital is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy as a visitor to our web site at http://www.sach.org. We take the issue of privacy seriously and value the trust you place in us each time you use our services and access this web site. This privacy statement describes the practices and policies we have adopted to safeguard your personal information that may be gathered and used as you visit our web site.

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

The policy may change from time to time so please check back periodically. If you have any questions about our privacy policies, we encourage you to contact us using any of the methods outlined at the end of our privacy statement.

Who Is Collecting the Information?

San Antonio Community Hospital is collecting information on this web site as outlined in this privacy statement. We are also using the assistance of a third-party, California Computer Schools, Inc., to help us collect various types of information.

What Information Do We Collect?

Automatic Collection of Information:
If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the web site or download information, our system will automatically gather and store certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally and is used in an aggregate way to help us improve our web site and tell us the number of visitors to our site each day.

Permission-based Collection of Information:
At different places on our site depending upon the feature you use, you may be asked to volunteer personal information such as your name, e-mail address, mailing address, and telephone number.

The following information is collected with your permission at this web site:

• The e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail
• The contact information of those making an on-line donation. You will have a chance to opt out of further communication when you receive your gift acknowledgement in the mail.

How Do We Use the Information We Collect?

The information we gather automatically and with your permission during your visit to our web site is used to:

• Respond to your requests
• Acknowledge an on-line gift made to our Foundation
• Monitor and improve our customer service efforts
• Monitor, review, measure, and analyze web site utilization
• Modify and enhance the web site
• Improve the content and design of our web site
• Determine the need for new programs and services
• Study general usage habits for our own marketing research purposes
  

With Whom Will the Information Be Shared?

The personally identifiable information gathered during your visit to this web site is not shared with any organization for any purpose. We do not rent, sell, exchange or in any way provide personally identifiable information to any third-party organization.

Access and Correction of Personal Information

Review of Personal Information

Site visitors may not access information we have collected and maintain about them.

Additional Use of Personal Information

Requesting No Postal Mailings

You may receive periodic mailings from us with information on new products and services or upcoming events. If you do not wish to receive such mailings, please let us know by sending us an e-mail to that effect at: web-editor@sach.org

Our Use of Cookies

Many web sites now use "cookies" to provide useful features to their visitors by providing customizable and personalized services.

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. For example, a web site may use cookies to store and sometimes track information about you, your preferences, or the pages you last visited.

Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies, or to ask you if you would like to accept or decline a cookie from a particular site before it is sent. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the Help section of the toolbar. You should know, however, that if you reject a cookie, certain functions and conveniences of a site may not work properly.

We use cookies on our web site for the following purposes:

We use 20 minute session cookies that are deleted when the browser is closed. These are used to remember users' selections.

Registration for Access

Visitors can use this entire web site anonymously, without registration.

Security of Communications

We recognize that many people are concerned about the privacy and protection of information as it is transmitted over the Internet. You should keep in mind that the possibility exists for unauthorized individuals to intercept any e-mail message you send over the Internet. In some cases, information can be encrypted (scrambled or encoded) to make it very difficult to read if it is intercepted during communication. Certain technology and practices allow web sites to provide an increased level of security for your personal and health-related information when appropriate.

We use the following practices on our web site to enhance the level of security for communication and the transmission of personal information:

• We always use industry-standard encryption technologies when transferring and receiving consumer data exchanged with our site.
  
• We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of personally identifiable information that you may provide.
  
• We are not responsible for the privacy of e-mail messages except those stored in our system.
  
• We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site.
  

E-Commerce, On-line Donations, and Online Shopping

Making donations over the Internet usually requires you to provide your personal identifying information and credit card information on a web site. Many people have become accustomed to on-line commerce as a time-saving and useful convenience. There are a number of practices that can make providing your sensitive credit card information more secure and therefore make you feel more comfortable about doing so.

We do process credit card payments for donations on our web site.

We have the following e-commerce practices:

• When processing your credit card payment, we will ask for the card type, number, expiration date, and your card's billing address.
  
• We will transmit credit card numbers in an encrypted format using industry-standard, SSL (secure socket layer) encryption.
  
• We do not store your credit card number on our Internet server.
  
• We will keep this information in the strictest confidence and will make every effort to maintain the privacy and security of the information at all times.
  

Links to Other Sites

Web sites often provide a number of links that offer direct access to other useful or interesting web sites holding potential value to site visitors. Inclusion of the other sites by links does not imply any endorsement of the material or information on the other sites. Users are encouraged to review the privacy policy of each linked site before sharing personal and health-related information.

This site includes links to non-affiliated external web sites. We have the following practices:

We encourage users to review the privacy policy of each linked site, as we cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of other sites.

Changes in Our Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future, we have the following practices:

We will post the policy changes to our web site to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our web site periodically.

Web Site Contact Information

If you have questions about our privacy policy, or feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us at web-editor@sach.org.

Modification Date

This privacy statement was last modified on October 7, 2002.