American Board of Clinical Chemistry

American Board of Clinical Chemistry - All Rights Reserved

Privacy Policy

ABCC Privacy Policy

Last Updated: November 16, 2021

The American Board of Clinical Chemistry (ABCC) respects the privacy of individuals who visit its website located at abclinchem.org and visitors to other sites operated by ABCC that link to this Privacy Policy (the “Site”). This Privacy Policy applies to the data we collect about you, including the data we collect from our Site, when you use our services related to providing information and resources for specific tests or testing topics. By providing information to us, you expressly agree to this Privacy Policy.

Who are we?

This Site is owned and operated by ABCC. The words “we”, “us”, or “our” are used interchangeably throughout this Privacy Policy to refer to ABCC.

ABCC is a partner of the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM, formerly known as AACC). To learn more about ADLM’s information practices, please visit the ADLM Privacy Policy. ADLM also provides administrative and technical support to ABCC.

What information does ABCC collect?

ABCC collects personal data, defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable person, through the Site.  This includes name, mailing address, email address, telephone number, academic and professional qualifications and experience, references, CV and payment information. We collect this information when you submit online applications for examinations, complete continuing education requirements, apply for or maintain your Diplomate status, or submit a question or comment or otherwise provide feedback, respond to surveys, or search on the Site.

Additionally, for some e-mails sent in HTML format, ABCC will collect specific data regarding what the recipient does with that e-mail. For those e-mails, ABCC will monitor whether a recipient subsequently clicks through to links provided in the message. Other data collected through this tracking feature includes: e-mail address of a user, the date and time of the user’s “click,” a message number, name of the list from which the message was sent, tracking URL number and destination page. ABCC only uses this data to enhance its products and distribution of those products.

We also collect information from you through means other than the Site. This includes emails, text messages, or other electronic communications, that you send to us separate from our Site, or by way of our third-party service providers. While this Privacy Policy does not apply to data that you provide to us through means other than our Site, when data is combined with the data we collect from you through our Site or by other means as described above, the Privacy Policy will apply to the combined information, unless specifically disclosed otherwise.

As you navigate through and interact with our Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Site, including, but not limited to, traffic data, geolocation data, logs and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Site.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, browser type, clickstream patters, the URL of the most recent website you visited before coming to our Site, the amount of time you spent on our Site and the pages you viewed while on our Site.
  • The information we collect automatically is statistical data and may include personal information, but we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Site, including, but not limited to, by enabling us to:
    • Estimate our visitor size and usage patterns.
    • Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize and improve our Site.
    • Speed up your searches.
    • Recognize you when you return to our Site.
    • ABCC uses cookies to assist with these efforts.

How does ABCC use the information that it collects?

We use data voluntarily submitted by site visitors, applicants, and Diplomates in the following ways.

To Provide Our Services: Generally, we use data collected to provide and improve our own web content, including to provide emails, newsletters, and other information; to respond to visitors’ interests, needs and preferences; to develop new products and services; to administer benefits; to fulfill your requests; to contact site visitors, applicants and Diplomates, including regarding changes to our Site, policies, terms or any services we offer or provide; to comply with applicable law(s) (for example, to comply with a search warrant, subpoena or court order); and for other purposes disclosed at the time personal data is collected.

Disclosures to Third Parties: [You may request that ABCC refrain from disclosing your data to third parties by contacting ABCC at any time at ABCCAdministrator@myadlm.org. In some instances, you may be offered the opportunity to provide contact information to ABCC supporters. If desired, individuals may give their consent to have their contact information shared with supporter(s) of a specific program. This consent may be withdrawn at any time. 

How do we disclose your data?

We may disclose your information to third parties for the purpose of providing or improving the Site, who perform services on our behalf, or for marketing purposes. We may disclose your personal data to:

  • ADLM for its own purposes, as well as ADLM partners and programs;
  • To administer examinations and credentialing;
  • Marketing providers who send communications on our behalf regarding our products and services;
  • Service and technology providers who assist in the development and management of our Site and programs, including ADLM;
  • Fulfillment and postal vendors for the fulfillment of our products and services; and
  • Survey and research providers who perform studies on our behalf.

We may disclose your personal data to enforce our policies, to comply with our legal obligations or in the interests of security, public interest, or law enforcement in any country where we operate. For example, we may respond to a request by a law enforcement agency or regulatory or governmental authority. We may also disclose data in connection with actual or proposed litigation, or to protect our property, security, people and other rights or interests.

If ABCC is sold or some of its assets transferred to a third party, your personal data may also be transferred to the acquirer. Our customer database may be sold separately from the rest of the business in whole or in part. Potential purchasers may have limited access to data as part of the sale process. Nonetheless, use of your personal data will remain subject to this Privacy Policy.

We share information that has been de-identified or aggregated without restriction.

What about links to other websites?

The Site contains live links to third party websites. Those external websites contain data created, published, maintained, or otherwise posted by institutions or organizations independent of ABCC. ABCC does not endorse, approve, certify, or control these external websites and does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, or timeliness of data located at those websites. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process or service does not constitute or imply endorsement or recommendation by ABCC.

If you have asked us to share your data with websites owned and operated by third parties, we assume no responsibility for any risks associated with those servers. 

How long do we keep your data?

We will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy to improve our own web content, to respond to visitors’ interests, needs and preferences, and to develop new products and services, in addition to retaining and using your personal data as is necessary to comply with ABCC’s legal obligations, to resolve applicant or Diplomate disputes, and to enforce our agreements.  The criteria used to determine the period of storage of information is established in our Data Retention Policies.  After expiration of that period, the corresponding information is routinely deleted, as long as it is no longer necessary for the fulfillment of a contract or the initiation of a contract.

INTERNATIONAL VISITORS

This section applies to individuals who visit our Site from the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

ABCC processes personal data with your consent (e.g., when ABCC processes personal data to provide goods and services you request, such as to provide personal data to third parties at your direction).  On other occasions, ABCC may process personal data when it needs to do this to fulfill a contract or where required to do this by law.

If necessary, ABCC may also process personal data when it is in ABCC’s legitimate interests to do this and when these interests are not overridden by your data protection rights.

If you are located outside of the United States, please be advised that we process and store personal data in the United States.

You have a right to the following:

  • To request access to the personal data we hold about you;
  • To request that we rectify or erase your personal data;
  • To request that we restrict or block the processing of your personal data;
  • Under certain circumstances, to receive personal data about you that we store and transmit to another without hindrance from us, including requesting that we provide your personal data directly to another, i.e., a right to data portability; and
  • Where we previously obtained your consent, to withdraw consent to processing your personal data.

To exercise these rights, contact us using the “Contact Us” section below.  Please be aware that ABCC may be unable to afford these rights to you under certain circumstances, such as if we are legally prevented from doing so.

Additionally, you have the right to lodge a complaint against us.  To do so, contact the supervisory authority in your country of residence.

ANALYTICS

We may work with third parties that collect data about your use of the Site and other websites or apps over time for non-advertising purposes. Among these third parties, we may use Google to improve the performance of the Site and for analytics and marketing purposes. For more information about how Google Analytics collects and uses data when you use our Site, visit https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/, and to opt out of Google Analytics, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

YOUR CHOICES

We may use your email address to send you other messages or content, such as, but not limited to, newsletters, additions or changes to features of the Service, or special offers. If you do not want to receive such email messages, you may opt out by emailing us your opt-out request. Opting out may prevent you from receiving email messages regarding updates, improvements, special features, announcements, or offers.

HOW TO CONTACT US

Any comments, queries and requests relating to any of your above-mentioned rights or our use of your data are welcomed. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to review, edit your personal data, or request that we correct or delete personal data in our possession, please contact us though any of the following:

Online

For questions pertaining to privacy or data collection, please contact ABCCAdministrator@myadlm.org.

Mail

Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine
900 Seventh Street NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20001 U.S.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy in the future. Any updates to this Privacy Policy will automatically be effective when they are published on our Site. You should therefore return here regularly to view our most up-to-date Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on November 16, 2021.