Privacy

This page says what this concept prototype of the Center for Rural Health Innovation collects and how it is handled. It is not a live BioSTL site. It has public pages and a members-only area. We do not sell personal information.

What we collect and why

• Sign-in. Members sign in with a Google account or a one-time link sent to their email address, through Firebase Authentication. We keep your email address and name. We never see or store a password.
• Joining. The Join form asks for your first and last name, title, company and email address, and records that you accepted the pledge and the terms. We use it to decide on membership requests and to run the community. A notice with these details is emailed to our administrators.
• Community. Posts, replies, reactions, attachments and meeting sign-ups are stored and shown only to members who are allowed to see that channel. You can choose to be listed in the member directory. Your email address and phone number are hidden from other members by default.
• Contact forms. What you type, such as name, email address, topic and message, is stored with a shortened form of your IP address (the last part is dropped) and your member ID if you are signed in. We email it to our administrators and use it to reply.
• Conflict-of-interest disclosures. Members who take part in the community may file one: name, role, affiliation, relationships and funding sources. It is kept with the member’s email address and can be seen by administrators.
• Server logs. Our hosting records each request, including the IP address, to keep the site working and secure.

Who sees it

Our administrators see what members and visitors send us. Other members see only what you post and what your directory listing shows. We use these services to run the site: Google Cloud and Firebase for hosting, sign-in, the database and file storage, with the site hosted in the United States (Iowa); and Resend to send our email. The contact form screens out bots with a simple question and does not use an outside service for it. We do not give personal information to advertisers.

How long we keep it

• Contact form messages: 90 days.
• Stories and efforts you submit: kept until you ask us to remove them.
• Community notifications and queued email: 90 days.
• The text of deleted posts: purged after 30 days.
• Member profiles and posts: while you are a member, and removed within 30 days of your request.
• Conflict-of-interest disclosures: kept as organization records.
• Server logs: about 30 days.

Your choices

To ask what we hold about you, to correct it or to have it removed, use the contact page. The site has no self-service tool for this, so an administrator handles each request. Email we send about the community has an unsubscribe link.

Cookies

The site sets one cookie, only for signing in. __Host-mah_session keeps you signed in to the member pages for up to 14 days. Your browser’s local storage also keeps a few settings for the member area, such as your email address during email-link sign-in and unsent post drafts. The site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views, where visitors come from, countries and devices. It sets no cookies and does not follow you across other sites. When you are signed in, the pages and tools you use are recorded against your member account so we can see which parts of the site help members. There are no advertising cookies or scripts.

Health information

Please do not post your own or another person’s private health information on the site. The terms prohibit sharing another person’s health information.

Children

The site is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

We will post updates on this page with a new date.

Contact

Questions about privacy: use the contact page.