AstraZeneca Privacy Statement
LAST UPDATED: October 01, 2008
- Introduction
- Collection of Information
- Security
- Cookies
- Advertising
- Minors
- Tell A Friend
- Links
- Use of Social Security Numbers
- Contact Us
Introduction
AstraZeneca respects that the privacy of your personal information is important
to you. We have developed this privacy statement to let you know how the Information
(as defined below) that we collect about you will be maintained and used. We may
change this statement from time to time so we ask that you revisit this privacy
statement to be sure that you are familiar with our current policies because the
revised policy will apply to you. In the event we make any changes to this privacy
statement we will post the revised policy on this web site together with the date
on which we made the most recent changes.
If you are a physician or other health care professional, this statement only applies
to Information collected online through this web site, other AstraZeneca web sites,
or where we specifically say that this policy shall apply.
Collection of Information
AstraZeneca may collect personally identifiable information about you, such as name,
address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth, or other similar information
("Information") when you voluntarily submit it to us or when you give permission
to others to share such Information with us. Your Information may be used to fulfill
your request for information, to send you health-related materials, to develop products,
services and programs that you may find useful, to provide access to your account
information, or to contact you. If you do provide Information to us, you agree that
we may contact you through a variety of methods including postal mail, e-mail and
telephone. From time to time we may also request that you provide us with additional
demographic, or other health information through responses to questions or surveys,
or through use of search functions or other forms of feedback that we may use to
serve you better. Except as specifically provided in this privacy statement, AstraZeneca
will not transfer, sell or rent Information to anyone without your consent. We may
share your information with other AstraZeneca companies worldwide or with our co-promotion
partners. We may occasionally transfer or share your Information with third parties
who perform certain services on our behalf. Such third parties have agreed that
they will only use the Information on behalf of AstraZeneca. All Information that
we transfer or share will be used and disclosed in a manner consistent with the
terms of this privacy statement.
You can visit much of our web site without providing us with Information. However,
some areas of the web site may require that you register in order to access specific
content, features, interactive tools, or services or participate in a particular
activity, such as subscribing to a newsletter or joining a program. You may always
choose not to provide the requested Information but you may then not be able to
participate in the particular activity.
Through our web sites, AstraZeneca also collects non-personally identifiable information
relating to such matters as: the total number of visits to our web sites, the number
of visitors to each page of our web sites, the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses
of our visitors, and the time spent on our web sites. We use this information to
understand how our visitors use our web sites so we can improve the customer experience.
We may also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers, and
for purposes of system administration. From time to time we may also share non-personally
identifiable information with others.
We gather aggregate data about visitors to our web sites for purposes of product
development and improvement of our web sites, and also for market analysis. We may
provide information from our web sites in aggregate form without personally identifiable
information to third parties. Any third party that receives aggregated data must
agree not to attempt to re-identify the persons to whom it belongs.
If you contact us to report on your experience, or the experiences of your patient,
with the use of our products, we may contact you for follow up information. We may
also use the information you provide to submit reports of side effects to government
agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or as otherwise required
by law or governmental audit.
AstraZeneca reserves the right to share your Information in order to respond to
authorized information requests of government authorities, the courts, law enforcement
agencies or where required by law, or for corporate audits or to respond to complaints
or security threats. Further, in the event we determine for business reasons to
reorganize, sell or transfer a product or all or a part of our business, we may
share your Information with third parties involved in such transactions, such as
actual or prospective purchasers, and other business partners, in which case we
will obtain written assurances that the Information will be appropriately protected.
Security
AstraZeneca uses reasonable technical and administrative safeguards to protect Information
from unauthorized access, use, loss or destruction. Any Information you provide
to us is held on a secured web server (a computer that stores web documents, allowing
users to access web pages using web client software) operated by AstraZeneca (or
by an agent of AstraZeneca performing services on our behalf). Please be advised
that although we have tried to create a secured and reliable site for you, the confidentiality
of any Information, or communication or material transmitted over the Internet cannot
be guaranteed. We urge you to exercise caution when conveying personally identifiable
information over the Internet. When disclosing any personally identifiable information,
you should remain mindful that such information might be accessible by the public
and, consequently, may be collected and used by others without your consent. You
should also recognize that your use of the Internet and this site is solely at your
own risk.
Cookies
The use of cookies is now standard, and you will find them used by most major web
sites. A cookie is a text file stored on a user's computer hard drive containing
information about the user. Cookies are used for a variety of purposes, including
to help you log into parts of our web sites, to enable us to track the interests
of our users to enhance their experience on this site, for market research purposes,
and to deliver content specific to a user's interests. We will place a cookie in
the web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer) file of your computer when you visit our
site; we or an independent advertising company or other contractor whom we engage
may also from time to time deliver a uniquely-numbered cookie to your web browser
through an e-mail if you have opted-in to receive e-mail from AstraZeneca. You may
delete or decline the cookie using the tools in your web browser, and you may still
use our site; however, some parts of our site may not work properly for you.
Advertising
We sometimes use independent advertising companies to provide ads on our behalf
across the Internet ("advertising company"). These advertising companies also help
us analyze our advertising campaigns and the general usage patterns of visitors
to our web sites. This is primarily accomplished through the use of cookies, and
Internet tags (such as action tags, web beacons, pixel tags, clear GIF (Graphics
Interchange Format) images and invisible GIFs). Such companies may place these tags
on our web sites or on other web sites. Used in conjunction with cookies, Internet
tags are programmed by the advertising company to collect certain non-personally
identifiable information about visitors to our web site and other web sites. This
information may be used to provide ads about goods and services of potential interest
to you, or to improve your web site experience. The advertising company does not
know the names, addresses, e-mail addresses or telephone numbers of web site visitors,
and does not link online actions to an identifiable person. The advertising company
reports the non-identifiable data that it collects on our behalf back to us without
identifying specific web site visits (other than to our own Web sites). We use this
information to improve our web sites and our advertising. In order to deliver more
relevant content or advertising, from time to time we may link the information we
receive to our customers' Information. If we do link such data, it is treated under
this policy as Information as described above under Collection of Information. If
you would like more information about this practice, or if you want to prevent an
independent advertising company from sending and reading cookies or action tags
on your computer, you can visit the advertising company's web site and opt out.
Minors
We do not knowingly collect directly any personal information from anyone under
the age of 13, nor do we knowingly market our web sites to anyone under the age
of 13.
Tell-A-Friend
On some AstraZeneca sites, you can choose to use a "tell-a-friend" or referral function
on our website to let someone else know about an AstraZeneca web site or product.
In such a case we will ask for your friend's name and email address, as well as
Information about you. The information that you may provide for a friend will be
used to send an email on your behalf and will not be collected or stored by AstraZeneca
for any additional purpose.
Links
As a convenience to you, AstraZeneca may provide links from this web site to other
web sites maintained by independent third parties. This privacy statement applies
solely to the information collected on this web site. We are not responsible for
the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you
leave this site and to read the privacy policies of any web site that you may visit.
Use of Social Security Numbers
AstraZeneca has policies that govern the use and protection of Social Security Numbers
("SSNs") collected for legitimate business purposes and limit access to SSNs. AstraZeneca
will use reasonable efforts to inform parties of its collection efforts and the
purposes for which their SSN is being collected by AstraZeneca before or at the
time it is collected directly from such party. AstraZeneca implements reasonable
and appropriate technological and organizational security measures to maintain the
confidentiality, integrity, and availability of SSNs, and to help protect against
unauthorized or illegal access, disclosure, or destruction. All employees, agents,
external vendors, consultants and other independent contractors of AstraZeneca are
required to comply with such policies.
Contact Us
We welcome your questions and comments regarding this privacy statement and the
use of your Information. You may also contact us to update or correct the Information
you have provided to us or to opt out of services that you may have previously signed
up for. If you have any questions about this privacy statement or about our use
of Information, or if you would like to request any changes be made to your Information,
please contact the Information Center at AstraZeneca at 800-236-9933.