Copyright
and Trademark Notices
All contents
of the service are Copyright © 2007 by Lutheran Social
Services of the South, Inc., hereinafter referred to as
LSS or Lutheran Social Services and/or its affiliates,
P.O. Box 140767, Austin, TX 78714, U.S.A. All rights reserved.
Copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties
protect any content provided as part of the service. We
or our affiliates own the title, copyright, and other
intellectual property rights in the content. LSS, LSS
Disaster Response, affiliated ministries and all accompanying
logos and/or other LSS products and services referenced
herein may also be either trademarks or registered trademarks
of LSS in the United States and/or other countries. The
names of actual affiliates, services and products mentioned
herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.
All rights reserved.
Privacy
Policy
At Lutheran Social Services of the South we recognize
that privacy is important. This Policy applies to all
of the products, services and web sites offered by Lutheran
Social Services of the South Inc., its subsidiaries, and
affiliated companies.
LSSS adheres
to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA), other applicable laws relating to our offered
services, and good practices of discreet human dignity.
If you have
any questions about this Policy, please feel free to contact
us through:
Katherine Kerr
Vice President for Public Relations
Lutheran Social Services of the South, Inc.
P.O. Box 140767
Austin, TX 78714
or email kkerr@LSSS.org
LSSS's commitment to online security
Physical, electronic
and managerial procedures have been employed to safeguard
the security and integrity of personal information collected
and stored online. All LSSS employees and contractors
with access to personal information obtained on the LSSS
web sites are bound to adhere to this policy as part of
their contract with LSSS.
Information
we collect and how we use it
Where our services
do not require personal information be collected, we do
not collect personal or protected data. Lutheran Social
Services of the South and its affiliated ministries provide
mental and physical health care services for minor children
and adults, financial assistance for people in crisis,
foster care and adoption placement, disaster relief, refugee
relocation, education, adult day care, and a variety of
other social services. To provide these services, LSSS
is often required to collect personal, private, and protected
health information.
Unless you
otherwise consent, LSSS will only use your personal information
collected online for the purpose for which it is submitted,
such as to process a donation, reply to emails, and handle
inquiries about particular services or to investigate
complaints. Where personal information is collected on
the LSSS web sites, there may be a box to indicate if
you would like to be on a mailing list to receive information
about LSSS services and about ways to support LSSS. At
any time, you can add or remove your name from the LSSS
list by contacting us at webdev@LSSS.org.
LSSS will
never sell or rent your personal information.
Information
you provide - When you use LSSS's services that require
personal information, we ask only for the personal information
required by law and best practice of the relevant industry.
For certain activities, such as making donations or seeking
financial assistance, we may request credit card or other
financial (as appropriate) on protected servers. For health
care services we may require health history or similar
protected information to best support your care. For services
for and relating to minor children we collect information
about the minor client. We may combine the information
you submit with information from other LSSS services or
third parties to improve the quality of our services.
Automatic
Log information - When you use the LSSS web site,
our servers automatically record information that your
browser sends whenever you visit a web site. These server
logs may include information such as your web request,
Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language,
the date and time of your request.
Cookies - The LSSS web site logs are enhanced by
tracking "cookies." A cookie is a small amount
of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server
and stored on your computer's hard drive. LSSS uses cookies
to provide more accurate log information, site navigation,
and access to forms. These cookies do not include personally
identifying, protected health, nor other confidential
data. We do not, through cookies, read personal data from
your machine nor anything that could be used to identify
you as a person.
Manual
Log information - Certain services require our staff
to keep logs of communications and interactions. These
logs may include information such as your request, language,
location, demographics, the date and time of your request,
and other information required by law, regulation, or
specific program or grant.
User communications
- When you send email or other communication to LSSS,
we may retain those communications in order to process
your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our
services, and other purposes as required by law.
Affiliated
sites - Some of our services and information collection
occurs through other sites. Personal information that
you provide to those sites may be sent to LSSS in order
to deliver the service. We process such information in
accordance with this Policy. The affiliated sites may
have different privacy practices and we encourage you
to read their privacy policies.
Links
- LSSS may present links in a format that enables us to
keep track of whether these links have been followed.
Other agencies
- This Privacy Policy applies to web sites, computer systems,
and services that are owned and operated by LSSS. We do
not exercise control over the agencies used by or in association
with our various services. These other agencies may collect
data or solicit personal information from you.
LSSS only processes
personal information for the purposes of delivering its
specific services and reporting as required by applicable
law. In addition to the above, such purposes include (but
are not limited to):
LSSS processes
personal information on our servers in the United States
of America in the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
In some cases, we process personal information on a server
outside your state. We may process personal information
to provide our own services. In some cases, we may process
personal information on behalf of and according to the
instructions of a third party, such as a grant provider
or appropriate government agency.
Choices
for personal information
When you are
helped by a particular service that requires it, we ask
you to provide personal information. If we use this information
in a manner different than the purpose for which it was
collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to
such use.
If we propose
to use personal information for any purposes other than
those described in this Policy and/or in the specific
service notices, we will offer you an effective way to
opt out of the use of personal information for those other
purposes. We will not collect or use sensitive information
for purposes other than those described in this Policy
and/or in the specific service notices, unless we have
obtained your prior consent or are compelled by law or
appropriate government regulation.
You can decline
to submit personal information to any of our services,
in which case LSSS may not be able to provide those services
to you.
Information
sharing
LSSS does not sell or
rent personal information.
LSSS only shares
personal information with other companies or individuals
outside of LSSS in the following limited circumstances:
If LSSS becomes
involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale
of some or all of its assets, we will provide notice before
personal information is transferred and becomes subject
to a different privacy policy.
We may share
with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal
information, such as the number of disaster victims who
receive services, the number of adoptions from foster
care or the number of residents in a particular program.
Such information does not identify any person individually.
Please contact
us at the address below for any additional questions about
the management or use of personal data.
Katherine
Kerr
Vice President for Public Relations
Lutheran Social Services of the South, Inc.
P.O. Box 140767
Austin, TX 78714
or email kkerr@LSSS.org
Information security
We take appropriate
security measures to protect against unauthorized access
to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction
of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection,
storage and processing practices and security measures,
as well as physical security measures to guard against
unauthorized access to systems where we store personal
data, and alterations to these practices to improve our
protection of personal and confidential information.
We restrict
access to personal information to LSSS employees, contractors
and agents who need to know that information in order
to operate, develop or improve our services. These individuals
are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject
to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution,
if they fail to meet these obligations.
Data integrity
LSSS processes
personal information only for the purposes for which it
was collected and in accordance with this Policy or any
applicable service-specific need, law, or regulation.
We review our data collection, storage and processing
practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process
the personal information needed to provide or improve
our services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that
the personal information we process is accurate, complete,
and current.
Enforcement
LSSS regularly
reviews its compliance with this Policy. When we receive
formal written complaints at this address, it is LSSS's
policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or
her concerns. We cooperate with the appropriate regulatory
authorities, including local data protection authorities,
to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal
data that cannot be resolved between LSSS and an individual.
Changes
to this policy
Please note
that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time.
We will not reduce your rights under this Policy without
your explicit consent, and we expect most such changes
will be minor.
If you have
any additional questions or concerns about this Policy,
please feel free to contact us at:
Katherine
Kerr
Vice President for Public Relations
Lutheran Social Services of the South, Inc.
P.O. Box 140767
Austin, TX 78714
or email kkerr@LSSS.org
For a downloadable version
of our HIPPA privacy policies,
please click on the links below.
These are .pdf files and require Adobe Acrobat
Reader software to open them. If you do not have the required
software, click on the Adobe logo below to download the
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