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Privacy Notice

General Information

The NIH Office of Intramural Training & Education (OITE) respects the privacy of users of its Web site. OITE does not disclose, give, sell, or transfer any personal information about visitors unless required to do so by law.

Types of Information Collected

We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) about you during your visit to our Web site unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect some data about your visit to help us better understand how the public uses our site and how to optimize our site design and content. When you browse through our site, we gather and temporarily store technical information about your visit. This information does not identify who you are. The information we collect includes:

  • 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.
  • Address of the Web site that connected you to our site (such as google.com or bing.com).
  • Date, time, and duration of your visit and the pages you visited.

OITE uses WebTrends and Awstats measurement software to collect the above information automatically and continuously. No PII is collected. The OITE staff conducts analyses and reports on the aggregated data from WebTrends and Awstats. The reports are only available to OITE Web administrators and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file automatically placed on your computer. There are two types of cookies: single session (temporary) and multi-session (persistent). Session cookies last only as long as your Web browser is open. Once you close your browser, the cookie disappears. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer for longer periods. This site does not use persistent cookies.

Session Cookies: We use session cookies for technical purposes such as to remember a user's system interactions during a single visit. We do not use session cookies to collect PII, and we do not share data collected from session cookies. Our use of session cookies is defined as "Tier 1" usage in accordance with the OMB Memorandum (M)-10-22 Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies. The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of single session web measurement and customization technologies."

How to Opt Out or Disable Cookies

If you do not wish to have session cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. You can find instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies 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 OITE's Web site.

Disabling session cookies might affect your access to the some of the content and tools on our Web site. If disabling cookies results in the malfunction of our site, you can access comparable services and information by contacting us directly at 301.496.2427 or at Trainingwww@mail.nih.gov.

E-mail Messages

When visitors send e-mail messages containing personal information to the general OITE e-mail box, Trainingwww@mail.nih.gov, OITE staff responds to the letters and files them. Only designated staff members requiring access to the e-mails to respond may view or answer them.

Links to Other Web Sites

Our Web site links to other NIH sites, federal agency sites, and to private organizations. Once you leave our site, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting. OITE cannot guarantee the privacy or security of information users provide to linked external Web sites.

How Personal Information Is Protected

If you choose to provide us with personal information—for example by submitting an application to an NIH training program, completing a "Contact Us" form, or completing a survey—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.

We maintain and dispose of electronically submitted information in accordance with the Federal Records Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 31) and records schedules of the National Archives and Records Administration. Information may be subject to disclosure in certain cases (for example, if authorized by a Privacy Act System of Records Notice).

If we operate a record system designed to retrieve PII about you by personal identifier (name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number, etc.), 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). We prominently display a Privacy Act Notification Statement on any form which asks you to provide personally identifiable information.

For further information about 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.