Privacy policy

Your privacy is of utmost importance to the administrators of the EQUIP Platform. This privacy statement describes EQUIP’s policy concerning the gathering and sharing of visitors’ information through the EQUIP website (the “website”). The EQUIP website may publish supplementary privacy policies with particular requirements to collect additional personal information if the need arises. In these cases, the site-specific policies will be complementary to this general EQUIP privacy policy and will give details about the additional information to be collected and its purpose. The World Health Organization (WHO) reserves the right to update this privacy policy and the website terms of use without notice at any time.

What information does EQUIP collect?

Normal website usage

In general, you can browse the public EQUIP website (the part before you register) without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. The only information we gather during general browsing is from standard server logs. These include your IP (Internet Protocol) address, domain name, browser type, operating system, and information such as the website that referred you to us, the files you download, the pages you visit, and the dates/times of those visits.

Personally identifiable and contact information

If you register with the EQUIP website in order to gain access to closed contents including the EQUIP competency assessment tool and e-learning trainings, you will be asked to provide personal identifying information such as your name, organizational affiliation, e-mail address. This information will be collected only with your knowledge and permission, and will be stored securely in the EQUIP Platform database. Your personal information will not be distributed for any purpose, except as provided below. Information entered into the platform regarding competency assessments may be aggregated with other users and analyzed for reporting and dissemination purposes (additional details below).

After you register for EQUIP you will be asked to create a “Team”. By creating a Team (henceforth called an “EQUIP Team”), your details will be linked to all others who are registered with that team. Anyone you invite to join the team will receive a welcome email with verification link and login instructions after registration by a Team administrator. By inviting others to join the team, you as the owner of this team, take responsibility and provide consent for this information to be added to the site.

Information provided during use of the EQUIP site for registered users

Information that you provide during your use of the EQUIP Platform will be available to designated members of your EQUIP Team and to designated EQUIP administrators. Use of the competency assessment tool and all data generated by it will be viewable only by those on your Team designated with the roles of:

• Team administrator - can see all information within the team,
• Team Trainer - can see information of raters and other trainers,
• Team Rater - can only see own information.
• EQUIP administrators will receive summary information of scores and use.

In no event shall the World Health Organization (WHO) as the EQUIP administrator be responsible for the accuracy of any information posted by you or other users on the EQUIP website or liable for any negative consequences arising from the participation in EQUIP or the use of the website contents.

What does EQUIP do with the information it collects?

Normal website usage

The information gathered during general browsing of the EQUIP website will be used to analyse trends and usage of the EQUIP website and to improve the usefulness of the site. It will not be connected with any personal information.

Personally identifiable information

EQUIP may use the personal information you provide to:

• Verify your affiliation and organizational approval for membership of EQUIP;
• Confirm your registration on the site;
• Contact you – either in response to a query or suggestion, or to email information about EQUIP to you;
• “Remember” your online profile and preferences;
• Help us create site content most relevant to you;
• With your permission, share your contact information with other EQUIP Team members who may wish to contact you.

Other information (e.g. competency assessments and answers to e-learnng quiz questions)

Other information you submit, such as competency assessments and answers to e-learning quizzes are recorded by the system, but no identifying information is shared beyond your EQUIP Team. Aggregated data from assessment submissions may be used on an anonymous basis to understand the use of assessment.

Automatic Information Collection Technologies

The information that we collect about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns includes, but is not limited to, traffic data, location data, logs, the resources that you access, search queries, as well as information about the computer or device you are using and the Internet connection, including your IP address, operating system and browser type.

This automatically collected information typically does not include Personally identifiable information, but we may maintain it or associate it with your personal information collected in other ways. Collection of this type of information helps us to improve this website and to deliver a better and more personalized service by enabling us to, among other things: (1) estimate our audience size and usage patterns; (2) store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize this website according to your individual interests; (3) speed up your searches; and (4) recognize you when you return to this website.

The automatic collection technologies we or our service providers use for this automatic information collection may include Cookies (or browser cookies).

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent from a web server to your browser. It is normally used to assign a unique identification to your computer and securely store information such as user IDs, passwords, preferences, and online profiles.

This website may use two types of cookies (small data files placed on the hard drive of your computer when you visit a website): a "session cookie," which expires immediately when you end your browsing session and a "persistent cookie," which stores information on your hard drive so when you end your browsing session and return to this website later, the cookie information is still available.

You can choose not to have cookies delivered by changing your browser settings. Different websites can send their own cookies to your computer. To protect your privacy, your browser only allows a website to access the cookies it has already sent you, not the cookies sent by other sites.

Links to Third Party Websites and Social Media Widgets

This website and some of our electronic communications to you, may contain links to other websites that are owned and operated by third parties. Links to third parties from this website are not an endorsement by us. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the privacy and security practices of these third parties. We recommend that you review the privacy and security policies of these third parties to determine how they handle information they may collect from or about you.

Protection of Your Information

We use reasonable security measures to protect your information collected through this website. We do not store passwords in plain text format, only secure password hashes. However, no method of transmission or electronic storage is 100% safe, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Therefore, your use of this website is at your own risk and we do not promise or guarantee, and you should not expect, that your information will always and absolutely remain private and secure. We are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on or concerning this website. You are also responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect your personal information against unauthorized disclosure or misuse.

What if I don’t want to provide personal information?

Providing personal information on the EQUIP website is optional. If you choose not to provide personal information, you can still browse and use the public EQUIP website, but you will not be able to log into the site for browsing the closed contents, such as e-learning trainings or EQUIP competency assessment tool.

Opting out and changing your information

At any time, you may cancel your registration or modify your information by returning to the web page where you first provided the information and contacting the EQUIP administrator. Competency evaluation information entered will be retained for aggregated analyses and reporting.

Security

We do not sell or share any personally identifiable information volunteered on the EQUIP website to any third party. Any information provided to the EQUIP Platform by its users is held with the utmost care and security, and will not be used in ways other than as set forth in this privacy policy, or in any site-specific policies, or in ways to which you have explicitly consented. The EQUIP Platform employs a range of technologies and security measures to protect the information maintained on our systems from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction.

All our EQUIP administrators who have access to, and are associated with the processing of personal data, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of official business matters, including personal data.

The EQUIP website contains links to websites external to the EQUIP. EQUIP and WHO are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Notification of changes

Changes to this privacy policy will be posted on the EQUIP website.

Contact

For questions or queries regarding this privacy policy, please contact the EQUIP administrators at [email protected]