Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 1, 2026

Who We Are

Our website address is: https://www.asidehealthcare.org.

This website is operated by the American Society for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Healthcare (ASIDE). ASIDE uses this website to provide information about membership, committees, mentorship, educational activities, research opportunities, journal-related roles, and other professional society activities.

For privacy-related questions, you may contact us at:

Email: [email protected]
Mailing address: 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958, USA

What Personal Information We Collect

When visitors use our website, register for membership, complete forms, contact us, or interact with member-only areas, we may collect the following information:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Username and password
  • Institution or university
  • Country
  • Training level
  • Specialty or field of interest
  • ORCID iD
  • Google Scholar profile
  • LinkedIn profile
  • Short professional biography
  • Committee or volunteer interests
  • Journal role interests
  • Payment or subscription information, if applicable
  • IP address, browser type, device information, and website usage data
  • Any information voluntarily submitted through forms, comments, messages, applications, or profile fields

We collect this information to manage memberships, provide access to member resources, communicate with members, review volunteer or committee interests, support professional society activities, improve the website, maintain security, and comply with legal or administrative obligations.

Membership Registration and Member Profiles

If you register as a member, we store the personal information you provide in your user profile and membership account. Members can generally view and update their profile information from their account page. Website administrators may also view and edit this information when needed for account management, support, security, or administrative purposes.

Member profile information may be used internally to help ASIDE identify appropriate opportunities related to committees, mentorship, research collaboration, peer review, editorial activities, education, outreach, and volunteer engagement.

We do not guarantee that completing a profile field will result in any specific role, appointment, opportunity, recommendation, or professional benefit.

Payments and Subscriptions

If paid memberships, donations, or other payments are offered through the website, payment processing may be handled by third-party payment processors such as Stripe, PayPal, or another payment provider.

We do not store full credit card numbers on our website. Payment processors may collect and process payment details in accordance with their own privacy policies and applicable legal requirements.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address, also called a hash, may be provided to the Gravatar service to determine whether you are using it. After approval of your comment, your profile picture may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data, including EXIF GPS data. Visitors to the website may be able to download and extract location data from publicly posted images.

Cookies

Our website may use cookies to support login sessions, account access, security, website functionality, analytics, and user preferences.

If you visit our login page, the website may set a temporary cookie to determine whether your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, the website may set cookies to save your login information and display choices. Login cookies may expire after a limited period, and selecting “Remember Me” may keep you logged in longer. If you log out, login cookies are removed.

If you leave a comment, you may choose to save your name, email address, and website in cookies for convenience, so you do not need to enter the same information again when leaving another comment.

Analytics

We may use analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to understand how visitors use the website and to improve our content, services, and member experience.

Google states that websites using Google Analytics must disclose its use and how it collects and processes data. Google Analytics may use cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics.

Embedded Content From Other Websites

Pages or articles on this website may include embedded content, such as videos, images, forms, maps, social media posts, or articles from other websites.

Embedded content from other websites behaves as if the visitor had visited the external website directly. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account with that external website and are logged in.

Email Communications and Marketing

If you register as a member, submit a form, or opt in to communications, we may use your email address to send membership notices, account updates, event information, educational announcements, committee updates, volunteer opportunities, journal-related opportunities, newsletters, or other ASIDE-related communications.

You may unsubscribe from marketing or newsletter emails when an unsubscribe option is provided. Some administrative or account-related messages may still be sent when necessary for membership, security, payment, or legal purposes.

Who We Share Your Data With

We may share limited personal information with trusted service providers that help us operate the website and provide services, such as:

  • Website hosting providers
  • WordPress and MemberPress-related services
  • Payment processors
  • Email delivery or newsletter platforms
  • Analytics providers
  • Spam detection and security tools
  • Professional or administrative service providers assisting ASIDE

We do not sell member profile information. We share information only as needed to operate the website, provide services, process payments, communicate with users, maintain security, comply with law, or protect our rights.

If you request a password reset, your IP address may be included in the reset email.

How Long We Retain Your Data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata may be retained indefinitely so we can recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For registered users and members, we retain account and profile information for as long as the account remains active or as needed for membership administration, legal, security, financial, recordkeeping, or operational purposes.

Payment-related records may be retained as required for accounting, tax, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or dispute resolution.

What Rights You Have Over Your Data

If you have an account on this website or have submitted personal information, you may request to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you. You may also request that we correct or delete personal data we hold about you.

This does not include data we are required to keep for administrative, legal, financial, security, or legitimate operational purposes.

To make a request, contact us at: [email protected].

Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures to protect personal information. However, no website, email system, payment system, or online service can guarantee complete security.

Children’s Privacy

This website is intended for professional, academic, educational, and membership-related use. It is not intended to collect personal information from children under 13 years of age. If you believe that a child has provided personal information through this website, please contact us so we can review and delete the information where appropriate.

Where Your Data Is Sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Website activity, analytics, payment, email, and security data may also be processed by third-party service providers used to operate the website.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make changes, we may update the effective date above. We encourage users and members to review this page periodically.