At PatientsLikeMe, we are committed to ensuring your privacy and keeping you informed of important updates to our policies. Here, we will review a recent change to our Privacy Policy that affects how we handle information shared in the social spaces on our platform.
What is Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?
Personally Identifiable Information is information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual.
What is changing?
Under the current Privacy Policy, posts made in PLM’s communities are classified as Personally Identifiable Information, regardless of whether they contain identifying information. During our annual review of the Privacy Policy, we realized that this practice was confusing and set the wrong privacy expectations for members. Going forward, posts shared within PLM’s communities, and the content of those posts, will no longer be treated as PII.
Why is PLM changing the Privacy Policy?
We are updating our data classification system, a change that will bring more clarity and accuracy to how members like you use our community. This update will clearly define the information shared within PLM’s public communities versus the health information tracked within your PLM Health Record, ensuring you have a better understanding of your data's visibility.
We believe this update makes our Privacy Policy clearer and more intuitive. It aligns with the nature of PatientsLikeMe as a public site, ensuring that our members are fully aware of how their information is handled and shared. This change reflects our approach that PatientsLikeMe is a public forum where anyone can join the conversation at any time.
What is considered PII on the PLM platform?
The data you track in My Health; Your name; All contact information listed in your account settings or volunteered to PLM for promotions; Geolocation and IP data; Private messages. Please review the Privacy Policy for full details on Identifying data.
What is not considered PII on the PLM platform?
Posts in the social spaces on PLM including the home page, community group discussions and resources.
How can I avoid sharing PII in the community?
There are a few steps you can take to avoid sharing PII in the community and control the information shared from your account.
- Head to your account setting to review your privacy preferences.
- Review past posts on your profile by going to the About Me page, then click “View my Profile.”
- You can avoid sharing PII in the community by keeping any contact information and personal details private. Follow our Posting Tips to safely and successfully make connections in the PLM community.
Who can I direct additional questions to?
If you have questions or need assistance, please reach out to our team here. Thank you for being a valued member of the PatientsLikeMe community. We understand that your privacy is important, and we take the trust you have placed in us to safeguard your data extremely seriously.
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