We are committed to respecting the privacy of our Web site's visitors. This page summarizes the privacy policy and practices of the Department of Family Medicine and its website.

There are two types of information that can be gathered on any web site:

1. Aggregate Information:

   Aggregate Information is anonymous data that Web sites use to diagnose problems, administer the sites, gather broad demographic information and help improve the quality of the Web pages. Examples of aggregate information may be your domain name (i.e. "XYZ.com"), the type of browser or operating system you are using or your IP address.

   None of this information is connected with your Personally Identifiable information.

2. Personally Identifiable Information:

   Personally Identifiable Information is any information that personally identifies you. It can be your first and last name, your email address, your home address, or your telephone number. This information is typically gathered in a feedback form, a request for service form, an order form and so on. This information is used to communicate with you to fulfill your requests for products, programs, services or general information. The Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University, will not use this information for any purpose other than to carry out the services we are performing on your behalf.

   Personal information about you as an individual will not be provided to any third party. The Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University, also does not use this information to send unsolicited email. We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online. We carefully protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration or destruction.

Automatic Non-Personal Data Collection

Our web site may automatically record some general information about your visit, such as:

The Internet domain for your Internet service provider, such as "company.com" or "service.ca" and the IP address of the computer accessing the Web site. The type of browser (such as "Netscape version x" or "Internet Explorer version x") you are using. The type of operating system you are using (such as Macintosh, Unix, or Windows) The date and time you visit our site and the Web pages that you visit on our site. This information is recorded as per the standard configuration of our Web server software.

Use of Automatic Non-Personal Data

We use this information for statistical analysis, to help us make our site more useful to visitors, and to help solve any access problems our visitors may have. We make no effort to link this data with the identity of individuals.

Personal Data Collection

Personal data is collected from you only if you choose to provide that information to us, by completing one of our online forms and submitting it to us. We do not use techniques that collect information from you without your knowledge. If you choose to send us electronic mail, we will keep a record of your email, so we can respond to you, and provide you with other relevant information.

Use of Personal Data

Personal information will only be used for the purpose for which it was collected, or for a use consistent with that purpose. We do not disclose your information to other organizations or individuals without your permission (except as required by law).

Contact information (email and regular addresses, telephone numbers, etc.) may be used in the course of carrying out our fair activities. If we determine that this information is incorrect, we will remove related personal information from our records.

Use of Cookies

We do not use "cookies" to track how our visitors use our site.

Links to Other Sites

The Department of Family Medicine website contains links to other web sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any other web sites.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Statement periodically. Last revised: September 2002.

If you have questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact The Web Communications Group.