NINR Web Privacy Notice

Thank you for visiting the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) website. This site does not collect personal information about users, other than information automatically collected and stored when someone visits our website, or as you choose to provide that information to us. NINR follows NIH policies for web privacy, which are further detailed below.

Protecting your privacy is very important to us. Our Web site links to other NIH sites, federal agency sites and occasionally to private organizations. Once you leave the primary www.ninr.nih.gov site, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting.

We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) about you during your visit to the NINR Web site unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect some data about your visit to our Web site to help us better understand how the public uses the site and how to make it more helpful. We collect information from visitors who read, browse, and/or download information from our Web site. NINR never collects information for commercial marketing or any purpose unrelated to the NINR and NIH mission and goals.

When visitors send email messages containing personal information to the general NIH.gov email box info@ninr.nih.gov, NINR staff responds to the letters and files them. Only designated staff members requiring access to the emails to respond may view or answer them.

Types of Information Collected

When you browse through any Web site, certain information about your visit can be collected. We automatically collect and temporarily store the following type of information about your visit:

• Domain from which you access the Internet
• IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to a computer when surfing the Web)
• Operating system and information about the browser used when visiting the site
• Date and time of your visit
• Pages you visited
• Address of the Web site that connected you to an NIH Web site (such as google.com or bing.com)

We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections and to help make our site more useful to visitors.

How NIH Collects Information

NIH Web sites use a variety of different Web measurement software tools and specific information regarding information collection can be found on their respective Web sites.

www.ninr.nih.gov uses Webtrends and Google Analytics measurement software to collect the information in the bulleted list in the Types of Information Collected section above. Webtrends and Google Analytics collect information automatically and continuously. No personally identifiable information is collected. The NINR staff conducts basic analyses and reports on the aggregated data from Webtrends and Google Analytics. The reports are only available to www.ninr.nih.gov managers, members of the www.ninr.nih.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.

NINR retains the data from Webtrends and Google Analytics as long as needed to support the mission of the www.ninr.nih.gov Web site.

How the NIH Uses Cookies

The Office of Management and Budget Memo M-10-22, Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies  allows Federal agencies to use session and persistent cookies.

When you visit any Web site, its server may generate a piece of text known as a "cookie" to place on your computer. The cookie allows the server to "remember" specific information about your visit while you are connected.

Session Cookies: We use session cookies for technical purposes such as to enable better navigation through our site. These cookies let our server know that you are continuing a visit to our site. The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of session cookies as "Usage Tier 1—Single Session." The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of single session web measurement and customization technologies."

Persistent Cookies: We use persistent cookies to enable Webtrends and Google Analytics to differentiate between new and returning www.ninr.nih.gov visitors and to register students for our online training course "Developing Nurse Scientists."

Persistent cookies remain on your computer between visits to www.ninr.nih.gov until they expire.

For more details on the online course's privacy policies, visit:
https://nursescientist.ninr.nih.gov/Privacy.htm.

The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of persistent cookies as "Usage Tier 2—Multi-session without Personally Identifiable Information (PII)." The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of multi-session Web measurement and customization technologies when no PII is collected."

How to Opt Out or Disable Cookies

If you do not wish to have session or persistent cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. If you opt out of cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources at www.ninr.nih.gov. Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Please note that by following the instructions to opt-out of cookies, you will disable cookies from all sources, not just those from www.ninr.nih.gov.

How Personal Information Is Protected

You do not have to give us personal information to visit the NINR or other NIH Web sites. However, if you choose to receive alerts or e-newsletters, we collect your email address to complete the subscription process.

If you choose to provide us with personally identifiable information, that is, information that is personal in nature and which may be used to identify you, through an e-mail message, request for information, paper or electronic form, questionnaire, customer satisfaction survey, epidemiology research study, etc., we will maintain the information you provide only as long as needed to respond to your question or to fulfill the stated purpose of the communication. If we store your personal information in a record system designed to retrieve information about you by personal identifier (name, personal email address, home mailing address, personal or mobile phone number, etc.), so that we may contact you, we will safeguard the information you provide to us in accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. Section 552a).

If NINR or other NIH sites operate a record system designed to retrieve information about you in order to accomplish its mission, a Privacy Act Notification Statement should be prominently and conspicuously displayed on the public-facing website or form which asks you to provide personally identifiable information. The notice must address the following 5 criteria:

1. NINR or NIH legal authorization to collect information about you
2. Purpose of the information collection
3. Routine uses for disclosure of information outside of NIH
4. Whether the request made of you is voluntary or mandatory under law
5. Effects of non-disclosure if you choose to not provide the requested information

For further information about the NIH privacy policy, please contact the NIH Senior Official for Privacy at privacy@mail.nih.gov, call 301-451-3426 or visit http://oma.od.nih.gov/ms/privacy/privacyact.html.

YouTube 

NINR posts videos on YouTube (youtube.com/ninrnews) to make them available to all of our visitors. You do not need to register with either YouTube or Google (YouTube owner) to watch our videos. When visitors watch videos, YouTube may record non-personally identifiable information about its site usage, such as channels used, videos watched, and data transfer details, to improve its services. If you log on to the YouTube site before watching our videos, YouTube may associate information about your site use with your YouTube account. Commenting on a video while you are logged in would allow others to see information about you associated with your comment; however, the NINR videos do not allow viewers to comment at this time. The YouTube privacy policy is available at: http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy.

Disclosure

NINR does not disclose, give, sell or transfer any personal information about our visitors, unless required for law enforcement or by statute.

P3P Compliance

NINR's public Web sites comply with P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences Project) protocols.

Privacy Questions?

Questions about NINR privacy policies should be sent to the NINR webmaster at: info@ninr.nih.gov.