Respecting Your Privacy
The MedicAlert engraved medical identification product (“Product”), MedicAlert website(s) (collectively, “Website”), and services provided by MedicAlert, including subscription services (collectively, “Services”) (collectively, the Website and Services are referred to as the “Platform”) are provided by MedicAlert Foundation International, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization (“MedicAlert”, “us”, “we”). We recognize that you, as a user of the Product and/or Platform, a donor, a member of our mailing lists, or other supporter of MedicAlert (“you”) may be concerned about the information you provide to us, online or otherwise, and how we treat that information. This Privacy Policy addresses those concerns.
UNLESS OTHERWISE DEFINED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY, TERMS USED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY HAVE THE SAME MEANINGS AS IN THE MEDICALERT TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
Donors
All information concerning donors or prospective donors, including their names, addresses and telephone numbers, the names of their beneficiaries, and the amounts of their gifts, shall be kept strictly confidential by MedicAlert, its staff and volunteers, unless permission is obtained from donors to release such information. MedicAlert will not sell, rent or trade our donors’ names, postal addresses, email addresses or phone numbers with any other entity.
Overview of MedicAlert Product and Related Services
As further described in the MedicAlert Terms and Conditions, a principal purpose of the MedicAlert Product and related Services is to provide information about users of the Product and Services to first responders, health care personnel, and related others in the event of an emergency. By purchasing the Product or receiving related Services, including paid subscription services, from MedicAlert, and/or any partners or third parties that are authorized by MedicAlert to sell MedicAlert Products and Services, you authorize MedicAlert to release medical and other confidential information about you during emergencies to first responders, health care personnel, and others, which may or may not be designated by you.
The Product includes MedicAlert’s toll-free number where MedicAlert’s emergency response team is available 24/7 to provide information to such first responders, health care personnel, and related others. To help get the aid you need in an emergency situation, you may also call 911 through your phone, or from any phone number you have shared with MedicAlert, and when the phone number that contacted 911 matches any of the phone numbers you have shared with MedicAlert, where available, or when someone provides the MedicAlert identification number to the 911 dispatcher, MedicAlert will share your information with the 911 dispatcher. The information we share with the 911 dispatcher is your name and the gender that you have provided to MedicAlert, as well as a calculated age based on the date of birth you have provided to MedicAlert. When sharing your information with the 911 dispatcher, we will also pass along your information to RapidSOS, which provides a technology platform that enables data sharing from MedicAlert to 911 dispatchers. RapidSOS’s emergency platform will only transmit the MedicAlert data with 911 dispatchers in the United States. In order to protect you, MedicAlert and RapidSOS may retain information about the times when the 911 dispatcher received your information. Any summary of such 911 access information that MedicAlert or RapidSOS keeps will be de-identified so that it does not contain any information that can be linked to you. MedicAlert and RapidSOS will never record or listen to your or any 911 calls or make a transcript of such calls. However, all calls, emails, and other communications between you and MedicAlert may be recorded.
Information Collected by the MedicAlert Platform
MedicAlert principally gathers personally identifiable information, such as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, and email addresses, when voluntarily submitted by you. For example, personally identifiable information may be collected to process membership applications, profile updates, and Product orders; to respond to a stated desire to apply for a position; to volunteer time to MedicAlert; to donate online; or to sign up to be part of a MedicAlert mailing list. This information is available to MedicAlert and other service providers involved in the operation of the Product and Platform. MedicAlert requires that all third-party service providers hold personal information in strict confidence. While we do not own or control these companies, we believe they are upstanding and will treat your personal information responsibly. Additionally, as with most other Internet sites, our Website automatically logs headers your browser sends us and connection information, such as IP address, user-agent string, referring URL, and dates/times of access. We use the information we record to help diagnose problems with our server, and to improve the content of our website.
Opt-out Policy
If you supply us with your postal address, email address or phone number, you may receive periodic communications from us with information on our programs and services. If you do not want to receive postal mail, email or phone calls from us in the future, please let us know by sending your request via email to opt-out@medicalert.org. Choosing to exercise this anonymous marketing opt-out will not affect any of your preferences or the choices provided to you as a registered user of MedicAlert. Please call MedicAlert at 1.800.432.5378 between the hours of 8:00 am and 4:30 pm PDT Monday through Friday to change your preferences or choices regarding its use of your information.
Please note that you cannot unsubscribe from transactional communications. This includes email or direct mail pertaining to product orders, transaction receipts, invoices, payments, or other issues regarding your MedicAlert membership.
Exceptions to Opt-out Policy
MedicAlert may disclose personal information if compelled by law or a regulatory authority. In addition, we may need to disclose personal information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interfering (either intentionally or unintentionally) with MedicAlert’s rights or property, MedicAlert’s members, supporters, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.
Protecting Credit Card Information
Protecting your credit card information is of the utmost importance to MedicAlert. MedicAlert’s site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control. We make every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information, including credit card information, by using encryption technology. This method reflects industry standard security protocol and makes it extremely difficult for anyone to intercept your credit card information.
Credit card numbers are not stored on any MedicAlert servers. In MedicAlert’s software applications, credit card numbers are replaced with reference tokens that are used to process future transactions (e.g., for recurring gift pledges). MedicAlert staff cannot access your credit card information at any time.
How We Use “Cookies”
You should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically collected by MedicAlert’s Platform through the use of “cookies.” Cookies are small text files that a website or online service may use to recognize repeat users, facilitate users’ ongoing access to and use of the site or service, and allow a site or service to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will facilitate content improvements. If a user does not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the user to deny or accept the cookie feature. For more information about how to disable cookies, refer to the “help” or “customer support” section of your specific browser application. MedicAlert uses cookie technology to improve users’ online experience, track, understand, facilitate and personalize their use of the Platform, and for research and marketing purposes.
How We Use Information
We use information we collect for a variety of business purposes, including: to provide and improve MedicAlert’s products and services; for administrative purposes such as the maintenance and operation of the Product and/or Platform or to respond to requests that you make; to provide you with a personalized experience on and off the Platform, including advertising and promotions; and create and utilize metrics, analytics and data related to MedicAlert. We also use information to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud (including by preventing access to promotions if you have violated our Terms and Conditions), and enforce agreements and the terms of our Services, including our Terms and Conditions.
We may combine data we collect from different sources, including information obtained from third parties, across the Platform and devices. We may use information collected to provide you with a personalized experience on the Platform, such as providing you with coupons or other offers based on your interests and using information from your past usage of the Platform in order to present or send you notifications of new offers and/or services that may be relevant to you.
Your IP address may be used to identify or customize promotions for you by geographic location. In addition, we may also use information to help our clients, partners and vendors improve their services, communicate with you about promotions that may be of interest to you, prevent fraud and for other promotional and business purposes in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
As we continue to develop our business, we may buy, sell, or share assets in connection with, for example, a merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, or bankruptcy. In such transactions, information about users of our Platform is likely to be a transferred business asset. In the event that MedicAlert itself or substantially all of MedicAlert’s assets are acquired, information about users of the Product and Platform may be one of the transferred assets.
Personal Information
The General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) is a European Union regulation concerning the use and processing of personal information. GDPR is effective as of May 25, 2018.
The MedicAlert Platform is made available from the United States, provides services only to residents of the United States, and is subject to laws of the United States. If you reside in a country of the European Union, please seek information and services from our U.K. affiliate at www.medicalert.org.uk. If you are in a country outside the United States or Europe and voluntarily submit personal information to us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this Privacy Policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, MedicAlert disclaims all liability under all circumstances for damages resulting from use of information collected from users of the Platform. We note that you are under no obligation to disclose any personal information to MedicAlert if you do not want to.
If you choose to provide personal information to MedicAlert, we will hold your information and use it as described in this Privacy Policy. We consider that MedicAlert has a legitimate interest in collecting and processing your information. MedicAlert’s mission is to save and protect lives by sharing information during our members’ moments of need. This provides our lawful basis to use your personal information, within the limitations set forth herein.
Links to Third-party Sites
To provide certain services and materials, the Platform may provide links to allow you to “click” over to other websites and online services. This Privacy Policy only applies to the MedicAlert Product and Platform. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any third-party sites or services. MedicAlert is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such other websites and services, even if our name and logo appear on the screen. We recommend that you review the privacy policies on third-party sites and services before you use them.
Information Collected by Third Parties
Information, including personal information, may be collected by our vendors on our behalf in the operation of the Product and Platform. This information may include the location, business name, date, and/or time the promotion was redeemed, in addition to other online and offline transaction details. We also allow third-party companies to use cookies, pixels, or other similar technologies on our Platform to collect and use non-personally identifiable information, including cookie identifiers, hashed information, and browser and clickstream data. These third parties include service providers with whom we partner. These third parties may use technologies to provide you with promotions, track offline transactions and to assist us in providing and improving the Product and Platform. These third parties may combine the data they collect from these technologies with other data they collect.
We may use proprietary and third-party tracking analytics and tools to better understand how the Product and Platform are being used and by whom. One service provider, Google Analytics, places persistent cookies on your computer to analyze your behavior on your visit to the Website as well as on other websites, enabling us to improve your experience on the Platform. To opt out of the Google Analytics collection of information, use this link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
California Privacy Disclosure
MedicAlert may collect information about users over time and across different websites when you use the Platform. There may also be third parties that collect information this way. The Platform does not currently respond to “Do Not Track” browser signals or mechanisms. However, other settings within your browser may permit you to block cookies or use other technologies that enable websites to collect information that can be used to tailor advertisements to your interest.
If you are a California resident, under California’s “Shine the Light” law you may have the right to request and receive certain information about our disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their own marketing use, and your choices with respect to such disclosures once per year. If applicable, this information would include the types of customer information and the businesses with which we shared your customer information for the prior calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to request a copy of this information, please submit a request to us at the address provided in the Contact Us section below. In your request, please specify that you want a “Your California Privacy Rights Notice.” Please allow 30 days for a response.
Children’s Privacy
MedicAlert believes every measure of precaution should be taken to protect children online and does not knowingly ask children ages 13 and under for any information. Users of the Platform who are 13 and under should ask their parent or legal guardian for assistance when using the Platform and should not submit any personally identifiable information to MedicAlert.
Changes to Privacy Policy
MedicAlert may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time without advance notice. Accordingly, we recommend that you check for updates to this Privacy Policy on an ongoing basis. Changes were last made to this Privacy Policy on April 14, 2021.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact:
MedicAlert Foundation
101 Lander Ave.
Turlock, CA 95380
Attn: Privacy Officer
Email: privacy@medicalert.org
By using MedicAlert’s Product and Platform, you signify your agreement to this Privacy Policy. Further, your continued use of our website following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean you accept those changes.
However, you are under no obligation to disclose any personal information to MedicAlert if you do not want to. If you are not comfortable with MedicAlert’s uses of your personal information, you may always choose to opt out or decide not to use those features of the Platform that require your personal information.