Personal Information Collected

Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center’s collects personal information, which is information that identifies an individual, such as when you interact with the Sites, submit webforms through the Sites, create an online account, share your story, apply for a job, or direct vendors to disclose your personal information to us through their integrated features on the Sites.

Depending on your interactions with us, we collect:

· Name and contact data. We collect your first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other similar contact data.

· Credentials. We collect passwords, password hints, and similar security information used for authentication and account access.

· Blood Drive and Donation information. If you donate, we collect health-related information, blood test results, and appointment times. We collect geographic information such as approximate geolocation to help you find a local physical donor center where you can donate blood. We also collect information about your group if you organize a blood drive. We create a donor ID for donors.

· Demographic data. We collect data about you, such as your age, ethnicity, and gender.

· Purchase data. If you make purchases, such as from the Commit for Life Store or Donor Rewards store, we collect purchase history.

· Payment data. We collect data necessary to process your payment if you make a payment or financial donation, such as your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number).

· Job/Volunteer Application data. If you apply for a job or a volunteer position, we collect employment and education history, certifications, and other information included in your job or volunteer application.

· Feedback. You may submit feedback to use, including staff reviews, which may contain personal information about you.

· Sites interaction data. When you interact with the Sites, we collect data about your interactions, such as your IP address, operating system, web browser used, pages visited, clicks, scrolls, mouse movements, referral URL, and duration of visit.

Depending on your device’s App permission settings, the App may have access to the following information from your device: Location (may include precise or approximate location). By changing your App permission settings, you may affect your ability to access or use certain features on the App.

Note that we may run certain programs, such as high school scholarships or blood donation programs, that may allow children under 18 to submit personal information to the Sites. If you are a parent, refer to the parental consent form related to the relevant program, if applicable, for more information.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

We, and our vendors, use cookies, beacons, APIs, and other similar technologies on the Sites, which collect Sites interaction data, for various purposes. For example, these technologies support Sites functionality such as customer service chat features, keep you logged into your account so your visit is not disrupted, provide analytics and statistics about Sites visitors, and help us perform marketing efforts, such as targeted advertising.

For example, we may use Google Analytics, including, to implement Google advertising features. You may visit here for more information on how Google Analytics uses the data it collects. You may opt-out of Google Analytics and adjust your Google advertising settings. Additionally, the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance offer means to opt-out of certain advertising cookies through browsers.

Your web browser may have settings that allow you to change your preferences related to cookies and similar technologies.

For any choices you make regarding cookies, you will have to exercise these choices per website, application, browser, or device. We are not responsible for the opt out or settings tools provided by third parties, including their functionality.

Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

We may use and disclose (to our vendors, affiliates, partners, hospitals, and other third parties) your personal information for various purposes, including at your direction, such as to:

· Support and maintain the Sites, including improving its features.

· Facilitate donations and fundraising, including sending you appointment reminders, schedule your next donation, and recruit donors and match blood donors with recipients.

· Communicate with you, such as to request you to donate blood, send transactional communications, or send promotional messages.

· Process purchases and monetary donations.

· Determine eligibility of job and volunteer applicants.

· Notify a volunteer donor chairperson (if you participate in a company campaign) for purposes of scheduling donations (i.e. name, blood type, phone number), or for contacting you if there is an urgent need for your blood type.

· Provide information to a disaster relief agency if you are involved in a disaster relief effort.

· Prevent a serious threat to health or safety and safeguarding the blood supply.

· Share information with health care providers involved in your treatment. For example, we may share information about your test results with your physician, if you are an autologous donor (you are giving blood for your own use), you are giving blood for therapeutic treatment, or you are undergoing a therapeutic apheresis procedure.

· Conduct internal operations, including, but not limited to, quality control, quality improvement, training, employee evaluations, attorneys and insurers for professional liability or risk management purposes, or licensing or accreditation.

· Conduct business operations, for example, install a new computer system requiring technicians to have access to records.

· Take action in the event of a medical emergency, such as notifying a family member or other responsible person of the medical emergency and providing information necessary to make treatment decisions. For example, if you have an adverse reaction to a blood donation, we may need to explain what happened and give instructions regarding your care to a person driving you home or to receive medical care.

· Support research efforts, such as sending samples to researchers. The Blood Center may not know the purposes for the researcher’s use of the samples. It will follow regulatory standards before releasing samples or information. The Blood Center may contact you again to ask for more samples or information for research purposes or to ask you if you would like to participate further in a research study. You will be asked to sign an additional consent form if you decide to participate.

· Participate in health oversight activities by governmental or accrediting agencies, for example, audits, inspections, investigations and licensure.

· Comply with law and regulations or protect use, our donors, or other parties. Including, responding to and communicate with law enforcement, responding to a court order or other legal process, participating in judicial process related to lawsuits and disputes, providing information to military command authorities if you are a member of the armed forces or a member of a foreign military authority, providing information when required for national security and intelligence activities, and providing information for the protection of the President, other authorized persons, or foreign heads of state, or to conduct special investigations.

We may also use or disclose personal information:

· As permitted or required by law. For example, for the safety of the blood supply and for public health activities, including, but not limited to, sending personal information to other blood banks, state agencies for donor safety, disease prevention, injury or disability, reporting deaths, reporting reactions, product problems, notification of recalls, and infectious disease control.

· In the event of a business transaction such as to potential buyers or other successors in the event of a merger, joint venture, assignment, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of assets including bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding.

We store your personal information for no longer than is necessary for the performance of our obligations or to achieve the purposes for which the information was collected, or as may be permitted under applicable law.

Options Regarding Your Personal Information

If you have a registered account, you may update certain personal information in your profile or settings.

If you no longer wish to provide us information through our App, you may uninstall our App from your device. Note that this action will not delete your user account or any information we previously collected via the App nor does it affect our information collection on the Sites.

Marketing Communications Preferences

You can choose whether you wish to unsubscribe from promotional communications from Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center such as promotional emails or texts. If you receive a promotional email or text from us and would like to opt out, you can do so by following the directions in that message. If you have a Digital Donor account, you may also change your promotional communication preferences by signing in and adjusting your settings. You may also contact Customer Service. If you opt out of promotional communications, this does not affect whether we send transactional messages, such as electronic receipts or confirmation messages.

Other Online Services

The Sites may contain links to, or features facilitated by, other online services provided by third parties. Your use of these interactive features is voluntary, and we may retain the information that you submit through these features. For example, we may offer an interactive chat feature to assist you in the careers portal. When you participate in the interactive chat, the contents of the chat may be captured and kept as a transcript. Certain interactive features may allow you to share content to your social media profile.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control. We provide external links and interactive features for your convenience. When visiting a third party’s online service or submitting information through an interactive feature provided by a vendor, you are subject to that third party’s privacy practices.

Data Security

We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. However, the transmission of your personal information over the Internet is not completely secure. While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted through the Internet. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center may change this Privacy Policy, as reflected by the ‘Last Updated’ date at the top of this Privacy Policy. At your request, we will provide you with a printed copy of this Privacy Policy.

Contact

You may contact us at privacy@giveblood.org or by mail at:

Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center,

1400 La Concha Lane,

Houston, Texas 77054