Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy
Version 05/06/2017 (Effective Date)

Reviewed and revised 5/1/2023

Scroll down for full Statement. Immediately below is a summary of information we collect and ways in we use and/or disclose it. Please read our full policy BELOW THE SUMMARY.

SUMMARY PRIVACY STATEMENT

  • Our website is directed to general audiences over eighteen (18) years of age and who are capable of entering into binding obligations. READ MORE
  • We collect personal information you provide to us. By personal information we mean information that is reasonably identifiable to you or to a particular device that you are using to visit NAWCO. READ MORE
  • We may collect personal information that you provide voluntarily to NAWCO, for example upon registering and paying for a certification exam, recertification, or locating a certified local clinician. READ MORE
  • Personal information might include your name, date of birth, preferred e-mail address, home address, telephone number, etc.
  • Payment processing information is collected by our third party processor. READ MORE
  • When you visit the Site, we may capture certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, Internet protocol address, location-based information, browser type, time and date of access and pages accessed, linking information, click stream, page visits, page views, and website log files. READ MORE
  • We use personal information collected on the Site for a variety of reasons, including: to process applications/registrations and payments, to respond to inquiries; advise of opportunities, distribute information, provide information about the proper use or misuse of the Site, process technical or administrative issues, and/or improve or otherwise adjust our services and the Site. READ MORE
  • We and our third party partners use cookies on the Site, and to the extent any information collected by such cookies is or becomes personal information, NAWCO acts in accordance with the terms of this policy. READ MORE
  • We use third party partners to collect information for analysis of our Site. READ MORE
  • We do not track your activity across websites, although third parties who have a presence in or through our website may. READ MORE
  • We may disclose your information to third parties, such as WCEI, website operators, service providers, affiliates, when under legal compulsion, if NAWCO undergoes a reorganization or sale, or as otherwise allowed by law. READ MORE
  • We attempt to implement reasonable security procedures to protect your information, and we try to contract with vendors who do the same. READ MORE
  • We may link to third party sites and you should review the privacy policies for those sites. READ MORE
  • Certain rights specifically applicable to California residents. READ MORE
  • We keep your personal information for as long as we believe we need it, and for as long as the law allows us to keep it. READ MORE
  • You can request changes to your personal information under certain circumstances. READ MORE
  • How we notify you of changes to the Privacy Statement. READ MORE
  • You may contact us at admin@www.nawccb.org. READ MORE

FULL PRIVACY STATEMENT

This Privacy Policy of the National Alliance of Wound Care and Ostomy, Inc. (“NAWCO,” “we,” “us,” orour”) describes its policy for treatment of personal information (as defined below) located at www.nawccb.org/ (individually and collectively, the “Site”). This Privacy Policy applies only to the Site, and it applies to the Site regardless of the platform on which it is used. For clarity, the Site includes all sites that are located on sub-domains or subdivisions of www.nawccb.org/ and the Privacy Policy currently applies to all such sub-domains or subdivisions. “You” in this Privacy Policy means you personally. Additionally, this Privacy Policy does not apply to NAWCO’s practices for collecting and using personal information offline or from sites, software, or applications other than the Site (even if that information is identical to the information gathered on the Site).


Children: For the avoidance of doubt, the Site is not directed to children younger than thirteen (13) years of age. NAWCO does not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of thirteen (13). NAWCO remains committed to providing certification and re-certification services in wound care, diabetic wound care, lymphedema lower extremity, and ostomy. Nothing on the Site should be construed or interpreted to apply to children or be for the benefit or use of children.

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What is “Personal Information?”

“Personal information,” as used in this Privacy Policy, means information that is reasonably identifiable to you or to a particular device that you are using to visit NAWCO.

What personal information do we collect?

Personal Information We May Collect. Personal information that we collect includes information that you provide voluntarily to NAWCO, including upon registering for a certification exam. The registration process can be accomplished through an online application form or by email. Personal information might include, for example, your name, date of birth, preferred e-mail address, home address, telephone number, license type, license number, state of licensing, place of employment, current employer, supervisor’s name, other certifications, and, if necessary, a special accommodations questionnaire.

NAWCO offers you the opportunity to pay for wound care and ostomy-related certifications, including testing and examination, re-examination, and re-certification through the Site and you may pay for those services with certain credit cards. We use a third party credit card payment processor to process those payments. Our payment processor is, as of the effective date, authorize.net; however, we may elect to replace authorize.net with another payment process at our discretion. When you pay for a service by credit card, you will be providing your credit card number to authorize.net or to such other payment processor.

Navigational Information. When you visit the Site, we may capture certain information automatically (even if you do not voluntarily provide us with personal information, or in addition to personal information that you do provide). This information may include your Internet protocol (“IP”) address, location-based information, browser type, time and date of access and pages accessed, linking information, click stream, page visits, page views, and website log files. Navigational information may include location-based information, which we use to verify your location and provide you with information that is geographically useful to you.  You may have the ability to disable your device’s GPS or other location-based information transmitter.  If you chose to disable your device’s ability to transmit geolocation information, you may not be able to take advantage of all of the Site’s offerings. As discussed below, navigational information is also captured through third party analytics providers and ad services.

We reserve the right to match non-personal information with other information that we have collected from you during the course of your visit to the Site. If that other information renders such navigational information reasonably identifiable to you or a particular device, then by definition it will become personal information under this Privacy Policy. Navigational information that is deemed personal information under this paragraph will be treated as such pursuant to this Privacy Policy.


How does NAWCO use the information it collects?

We generally use personal information collected on the Site for the following purposes: to process applications, registrations and payments; to advise you of opportunities and promotions available on our site or elsewhere; to respond to requests for services; to provide information about the proper use or misuse of the Site; to process technical or administrative issues or to communicate regarding those issues; to conduct research and surveys; and to improve, expand, or otherwise adjust our services.

See below for circumstances under which we may share or transfer personal information.

Does the Site use cookies?

NAWCO and third party partners on our Site may use “cookies.” A cookie is a small text file that a website places on your computer’s hard drive that allows the website’s server to keep track of and facilitate certain activities on the site. Cookies help provide information to us about how users are using the Site. Cookies also allow us to remember you and your preferences. For example, NAWCO uses cookies to facilitate login and registration for testing and examination, re-examination, and re-certification through the Site. We may also use cookies to make your visits to the Site otherwise more efficient. Cookies utilized by NAWCO are “session” cookies, meaning they are dropped on your browser and go away, along with the information stored on the cookies, after a session is complete. Please note that if you elect to block all cookies, you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site.

We may also use web beacons. A web beacon (also called a web bug, pixel tag, or clear GIF) is a graphic on a webpage designed to monitor your activity on the website hosting the web beacon. Web Beacons, which are frequently used in conjunction with cookies, may be used to obtain information relating to website activities, which may, for example, include: your computer IP address, the URL of the page on which the web beacon is located, the URL of the web beacon image, the time when it was viewed, the browser type, and a previously set cookie value. Web beacons may be used to add information to a personal profile about a site visited, account how many people have visited a particular website or gather statistics about browser usage at different Internet locations, among other things.

We use information that we obtain by cookies, to the extent it is or becomes personal information, in accordance with the terms of this policy. You may be able to set your browser to accept all cookies, block certain cookies, require your consent before a cookie is placed, or block all cookies. Please consult the “Help” section of your browser for more information on cookies generally. Please note that if you reject all cookies, you may not be able to take advantage of certain Site offerings.


Analytics and Advertising

Please note that we may collect navigational information using a third-party web analytics tool such as Google Analytics. Google Analytics collects information such as the IP address assigned to a visitor on the day the visitor visits the Site, how often visitors visit the Site, the pages visited, and other sites visited prior to coming to the Site. NAWCO uses Google Analytics principally to understand how the Site is used and to improve it.

Please note that Google Analytics does use cookies. According to Google’s site, Google may use Google Analytics cookies to: (1) determine which domain to measure; (2) distinguish unique users; (3) throttle the request rate; (4) remember the number and time of previous visits; (5) remember traffic source information; (6) determine the start and end of a session; and (7) remember the value of visitor-level custom variables. Since all cookies are browser specific, if you return to a website via another web browser, then Google Analytics will set different cookies. For more information about Google, Inc.’s privacy policy and its use of cookies, as well as other technologies, including, but not limited to, Google Analytics, please visit www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy (Google, Inc. Privacy Policy (last modified 4/17/17)), www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/partners/ (privacy relating to Google partners), and developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cookie-usage (cookie usage); see also generally www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. If you are interested in opting out of Google Analytics’ collection of information regarding your Site activity, please visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

The Site may use Google AdWords now or in the future, including as a remarketing service to advertise across the Internet. Thus Google AdWords will allow us to advertise on third-party sites to previous visitors to the Site and other websites. This is done by placing a cookie on your hard drive that lets websites know what other websites you have visited. This cookie is a persistent cookie; it does not expire when you close your browser and allows for tracking across multiple websites over time. To opt-out of ads, please visit support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en. To set available preferences for how Google advertises to you, please visit the https://support.google.com/ads/?hl=en#topic=7049263.

Google AdWords uses cookies to make advertising more engaging to users by using information to select advertising based on what’s relevant to a user, to improve reporting on performance, and to avoid showing ads the user has already seen. Cookies are also used to remember your most recent searches, your previous interactions with an advertiser’s ads or search results, and your visits to an advertiser’s website. Cookies can track location or context of recent searches to determine relevant ads that you may see. For more information on the types of cookies utilized by Google, please visit www.google.com/policies/technologies/types/

How does NAWCO treat “Do Not Track” requests from a user’s browser?

Users may have the option of enabling “Do Not Track” in their browsers, which sends a signal to websites that the user does not want to be tracked across multiple websites. NAWCO does not track users across multiple websites, regardless of whether users have enabled “Do Not Track.”

Does NAWCO use personal information for advertising purposes?

NAWCO may use personal information, such as your email address, to provide you with information regarding NAWCO services. NAWCO does not share personal information with third-party advertising companies except we do share personal information with Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp), who handles NAWCO’s marketing correspondence, and we may share personal information as otherwise disclosed in our Privacy Policy. At any time, you may unsubscribe from information provided by NAWCO. Merely visiting the Site does not provide NAWCO or Constant Contact with personal information. A user must take affirmative steps by registering for a certification exam before personal information may be used.

Under what circumstances does NAWCO disclose or transfer personal information to others?

There are circumstances where we will transfer and/or disclose your personal information to third parties. Those circumstances, subject to the limits of applicable law, are as follows:

1. User Opt-In: If a user opts-in to disclosing his or her personal information to a list of certified providers on the Site, he or she agrees to allow that user’s personal information, including name, city, and state certification type, and certification dates to be visible in the “Credential Verification” and “Locate a Certified Clinician” sections located on the Site. Each opted-in user can be contacted through a hidden email link in the “Locate a Certified Clinician” section of the Site.

2. Education Providers: Some contact and personal information may be shared by and between NAWCO and Education Providers. Applicants have the option to sign up for a certification training course with other providers and his or her application may include the NAWCO application for certification. If so, NAWCO and the Education Provider exchange certain personally identifiable information, which may include (but not be limited to) the applicant’s full name, date of birth, e-mail address, full address, phone number, license type and number, employer, and course information from the provider.

4. Site Consultants and Service Providers: NAWCO transfers, or your visit to the Site will result in such transfer of, personal information to third-party service providers that may be hosting or housing data on behalf of NAWCO or otherwise acting on its behalf as a data center (such as providers of hosting, cloud, technology outsourcing, and support services). Additionally, NAWCO may disclose personal information to the extent that our service providers require access to our databases, or the information contained in our databases, to service NAWCO and the Site. Without limiting the foregoing and NAWCO’s use of any hosting or other service providers now or in the future, we note that as of the Effective Date NAWCO uses Infront Webworks as a hosting provider.

5. Legal Compulsion and NAWCO’s Protection: NAWCO reserves the right to release personal information in accordance with applicable law in response to a subpoena or otherwise when we believe that the law requires us to do so, or when we reasonably believe it is necessary to protect and/or enforce the rights, property interests, or safety of NAWCO, our users or others.

6. Reorganization or Sale of NAWCO: In the event that NAWCO is reorganized or is merged with, or acquired, or becomes part of another organization, or in the event that NAWCO is sold or it sells all or substantially all of its assets, or a brand or line of its business, the information you provide may be one of the transferred assets for use by the acquiring, surviving or reorganized entity.

7. As Otherwise Allowed by Law: We may transfer personal information to third parties where we are expressly authorized by applicable law to do so.


How do you keep my personal information secure?

Although we cannot guarantee that our or our third-party service providers’ servers are impenetrable, we have attempted to establish and implement reasonable safeguards to secure the information we collect online. Where we use third-party service providers to collect, store, or process data, we attempt to use third-party service providers who likewise also establish and implement reasonable procedures.


Does the Site link to third-party sites?

The Site may link to third-party sites. When using third-party sites you should review the privacy policies of such parties’ sites to understand how they collect and use personal information.

Third party sites that may be linked include, but are not limited to, WCEI, the American Association of Long Term Nursing, National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Council,  American Board of Nursing Specialties, and Lands End Business Outfitters, all of which may collect data based upon your visit to the Site. While the Site may link to third party sites that track your actions on the Site, no personal information is provided by the Site to these third party sites.


California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine The Light” law, permits our customers who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, information about the personal information (if any) we disclosed to third-parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. If applicable, this information would include a list of the categories of personal information that was shared and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to the contact address below.


How long do you keep my information?

NAWCO keeps your personal information for as long as we deem it useful to use and for as long as applicable law allows us to maintain it.

How can I access and make changes to my personal information?
Site users have the right to request that their information be modified or deleted from our files. We will also attempt to honor these requests, subject to applicable law and our judgment that the information is not important for us to maintain for our internal record-keeping purposes. Requests to modify or delete information should be directed to 877-922-6292.


How will I be notified of changes and updates to the Privacy Policy?

Changes and updates to this Privacy Policy will be posted on the Site. Updated Privacy Policies are effective upon posting to the Site.


Who do I contact about my rights under this Privacy Policy?

If you have any comments, questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or NAWCO’s privacy practices at the Site, please contact us by letter

National Alliance of Wound Care and Ostomy
11817 Crestview Blvd
Kokomo, IN 46901

Telephone (877-922-6292) or by email (admin@www.nawccb.org).