Privacy Policy

Our mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all. To do that, we support the unique needs of all members; personalize member communications and the member experience; educate members in a manner that allows them to provide high-quality care in an ever-evolving health care environment; advocate for members and their patients; provide a wide range of resources that support members throughout their careers; and promote neurology and neuroscience research and training globally.

To assist us in achieving our mission, we collect and process certain information you provide us. We work hard to be good stewards of your information. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information. When this policy uses the word “including” to refer to specific examples, the word should be understood to mean “including but not limited to.”

Anonymous and Aggregated Web Traffic Information
General traffic, site usage, browser information, length-of-stay information, and location data is collected and stored in log files. This type of information is collected and shared on an anonymous, aggregated basis, meaning that we do not connect this information to your name or other personal information.

Personal Information (non-financial) 
Personal information is information that, either alone or in combination with other information, identifies a person. The types of personal information the AAN collects may include:

• General information (e.g., names, e-mail addresses, postal addresses, Internet protocol addresses, mobile/landline business/personal telephone numbers, and country of residence);

• Professional information (e.g., educational and training background, medical licensure date and state(s), work setting, profession, principal subspecialty fields and certifications);

• Demographic information for diversity or accessibility purposes (e.g., racial or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, and disability data), if voluntarily provided; and

• AAN mobile apps may use geographic data to enhance user experience by providing direction and messaging for key events.

The product or service that you seek will determine the specific personal information collected. We need to collect and process this information to successfully meet your needs and expectations, such as through delivery the products/services you purchased or requested, and other purposes listed in this policy.

Financial Information
When you place an order online with us, donate, register for a conference, or pay your dues electronically, standard credit card information (card number, card type, expiration date, etc.) is collected through a third-party payment processing vendor that is compliant with Payment Card Industry data security standards. The third-party processor provides us with, and we store, the last four digits of your credit card number, which is retained for purposes of issuing applicable refunds.

Protected Health Information
The AAN does not collect via the website "protected health information" as defined by the regulations issued under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. The Axon Registry^®, via the AAN Institute's registry vendor (Verana Health), collects relevant patient data and performs statistical analysis to improve the quality of neurologic care and patient outcomes. The AAN Institute and Verana Health comply with the laws and regulations applicable to the Axon Registry and have adopted HIPAA Privacy Policies and Procedures. To further describe the collection, use, disclosure, and stewardship of Axon Registry data, the AAN adopted the Axon Registry Data Governance Policy.

Media Contacts
The AAN obtains contact details and other personal information regarding media contacts and influencers from a variety of sources including Cision. If you wish to know more about how such information is collected and used, please refer to Cision’s privacy notice at www.cision.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/.

We process your information for the legitimate interest of communicating with members, meeting attendees, and other users about, and to provide access to, top-quality education and science via the AAN's conferences and online learning programs (including abstract and syllabi submission and dissemination), tools for practice management and patient education (including clinical practice guidelines), publications, and other products and services pertinent to the AAN's promotion of the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care and efforts to enhance AAN member career satisfaction. The AAN exists for the benefit of its members and through the support of its members to accomplish collectively what would be nearly—if not completely—impossible to do individually. Processing your information for the purposes described is necessary for us to do what we do and it's in both of our interests. When we use your information based on our legitimate interests, we conduct a balancing test based on the legitimate interest, necessity of processing your information, and how such processing impacts you. If you have any questions or concerns with us processing your information for this legitimate interest, please email Member Services at MemberServices@aan.com. We'll ask for your consent before using your information for a purpose that extends beyond what you may reasonably expect from a medical specialty society and that has a more significant privacy impact.

We process your personal information as needed to legitimately provide our products, services, websites, apps and their functionality to you, including the following purposes:

• AAN Member Customized Website: To use our member-only resources and personalization features on the website, we ask AAN members to provide a unique user ID and password. The AAN's web server tracks domain names and IP addresses (not the individual email addresses) of members entering the member-only area, but only for purposes of measuring the general number of visits, pages visited, average time spent on the site, etc. We may collect and track your contact information (address and phone number) and AAN Member ID number. As an AAN member, when you personalize the website, we retain the preferences you select so that you will not have to reenter the information each time you access our website. You can access your profile by entering your username and password each time you use the website. When you're logged in, we can see your member ID and your location.

• Registration: If you register to participate in an AAN conference or program we collect and store personal information, including general contact information, professional information (including AAN membership profile data), and certain demographic information.

• Membership Application: If you apply to become an AAN member we collect and store personal information, including general contact information, professional information, and certain demographic information.

• Requests: We collect information volunteered by users, including from surveys or requests via "Contact AAN." We also may collect contact information of those who communicate with us via email.

• Find a Neurologist: We disclose contact information to the public that you provide if you elect to participate in the Find a Neurologist directory. This directory includes US neurologists only. We disclose the contact information AAN members provide in the AAN Member Directory. The directory is a reference tool for AAN members only. Users of the directory may not provide the contact information (name, email address, phone number) contained in the directory to others or use it for promotional or survey purposes without the written permission of the AAN. Excessive use or abuse of the directory may result in loss of access for the user. The AAN will not disclose your contact information to the AAN Member Directory unless you consent.

• Online Products/Programs: If you purchase an AAN online program or product we collect and store personal information, including general contact information, professional information (including AAN membership profile data), and certain demographic information.

We share your personal information with third parties who provide certain services to the AAN to assist us in meeting business operation needs. These third parties are authorized to process your personal information, on our behalf and pursuant to our instructions, only as necessary to provide these services to us.

Where applicable, we share information with:

• Our subsidiary, the American Academy of Neurology Institute;

• development efforts to promote and invest in research across the whole spectrum of brain disease;

• Trusted vendors, including those in the following categories to help fulfill our mission and process your information for the purposes described: publisher of AAN publications, meeting service providers (including registration and housing manager, virtual platform provider, and conference mobile app provider), payment processor, bulk email and postal mail communication managers, advocacy-related communications managers, online learning manager, syllabi, abstract, and presentation managers, online communities manager, volunteer management provider, and survey provider;

• Law enforcement agencies, government bodies, regulatory organizations, courts or other public authorities if we must, or are authorized to by law; and

• A third party or body where such disclosure is required to satisfy any applicable law, or other legal or regulatory requirement.

You may be asked by AAN vendors to consent to their processing and retention of your information, and that processing and retention will be subject to their privacy policy.

We only provide our trusted vendors with access to personal information if required to deliver the requested services. These companies are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose. In certain situations, the AAN uses single sign-on to allow some of our vendors to access certain personal information you’ve provided to the AAN, including your name, email address, membership information, etc., to support more seamless conference registration (by pre-populating fields and improving data quality) or other use cases, in compliance with this policy.

As part of offering and providing customizable and personalized services, we use cookies and other online tracking technologies to store and sometimes track information about you to:

• Provide you with personalized content based on your use of our website

• Enable you to more easily use our website by remembering and using contact information, purchasing information, and registration information

• Evaluate, monitor, and analyze the use of our site and its traffic patterns to help improve our website and services

• Assist us with ad reporting functions such as to learn which ads are bringing users to our website

The types of technologies we use include:

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies enable us to identify your browser as a unique user. Cookies may involve the transmission of information from us to you and from you to us. Cookies may also be used by another party on our behalf to transfer information to us in accordance with their privacy policy. Some cookies are "persistent cookies." They are used by us each time you access our website. Other cookies are called "session cookies." Session cookies are used only during a specific browsing session. We may use a session cookie, for example, to remember that you have already navigated through a particular menu, or that you have entered in age information for a portion of a site that is restricted by age. We may also use "analytics cookies" that allow web analytics services to recognize your browser or device and, for example, identify whether you have visited our website before, what you have previously viewed or clicked on, and how you found us. This information is provided anonymously for statistical analysis only. Analytics cookies are usually persistent cookies.

You may disable browser cookies in your browser or set your browser to warn you when a cookie is being sent. You may lose some features or functionality when you disable cookies. Remember, also, that disabling cookies is browser specific. If you log on using Microsoft Edge, you must also disable cookies in Safari if you use that browser at a different time.

Pixel Tags

We also employ a software technology known as a pixel tag or web beacon. A pixel tag is a line of code that we place on our websites or in emails that allows us to analyze our advertising and the general usage patterns of visitors to our websites. These help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content or promotions are effective.

Indirect Collection – Social Networking

The website permits you to use a third-party social networking platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linked In and Google+. This includes use of social media plugins such as Facebook “Like”, Tweet, Google “+1” buttons, etc. When you use these social networking platforms and plugins, your username and password for the available service or collected from you on these services may be shared with us. We also use the ShareThis plugin to allow you to easily share information from our website on various social networking platforms, email, or text message. You control when you share information from our website using the ShareThis plugin. When you use social networking platforms and plugins, you share your information with them and their privacy policy applies to disclosure of such information. In addition, they may be able to collect information about you, including your activity, or may notify your connections on the social networking platform about your use of the website. Such services may allow your activity to be monitored across multiple websites for purposes of delivering more targeted advertising. Please note that their own privacy polices apply and we encourage you to read them. We may add new social networking plugins and buttons to our website from time to time.

Indirect Collection – Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google, Inc. (“Google”). Learn more from their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Opt-out: Download the browser plugin “Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on” here.

We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. We do not transfer personal information to Google Analytics.

We monitor the performance of our website software using New Relic. Learn about New Relic's GDPR practices. We do not transfer personal information to New Relic.

We also collect analytics information using Inspectlet. Learn more from their terms at https://www.inspectlet.com/.

If you are a registered user of the AAN’s website, an AAN member, or attendee, you can review, correct, and change your personal information and your communication preferences by logging into the website and visiting your account profile page.

You may also send us an email at MemberServices@aan.com to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. Please note, we may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

AAN vendors, as described in this policy, who you engage with directly will provide information on reviewing, correcting, or changing your personal information or communication preferences.

You may have heard about “Do Not Track” (DNT), which is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. Our website does not support DNT codes. However, except in the case of cookies used for analytics, remarketing and other features of Google Display Advertising described above, our website limits tracking to the internal uses described above and does not track your use across multiple websites. Although we cannot speak for other third-party websites you may link to from our website. Please review their privacy policies to understand how you may be tracked.

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorized way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorized manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

We keep your information only so long as we need it to provide the service you’ve requested of us (including membership, meeting attendance, publication subscription, etc.) and fulfill the purposes described in this policy. When we no longer need to use your information for the purpose we collected it and there is no need for us to keep it to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, we’ll either remove it from our systems or depersonalize it so that we can't identify you. AAN vendors, as described in this policy, may have different retention periods for your information, which you should discuss directly with the applicable vendor.

If you are under 18 years of age, you may not purchase products or services from, and you should not provide information to, the website without the involvement of a parent or guardian. We do not collect online contact information without prior parental consent or parental notification, including an opportunity for the parent to prevent use of the information and participation in the activity. We do not knowingly solicit personal information online from, or market online to, children under the age of 13.

This Privacy Policy includes information applicable to European Union (“EU”) residents or users accessing the website in the EU. If you are an EU resident, this Privacy Policy provides you with information regarding your rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

Transfer of Personal Data

The AAN and our websites are based in the United States and, regardless of where you access the website, the information collected as part of that use will be transferred to and maintained on servers located in the United States. The European Commission has determined that the US lacks an adequate level of protection for personal information of EU data subjects. The AAN is not currently certified under the Privacy Shield. By clicking on the “I consent” button on this page, you are consenting to the transfer of your personal data to the US.

Although there is risk in transmitting your information to a country that does not have adequate protection, the AAN does take steps to secure your personal data.

Your Choices

The GDPR provides you with certain privacy rights. If you wish to access or update your personal information, contact us at the address or number below. You may also request to have your information deleted, although we may retain information for backups, prevention of fraud and abuse, satisfaction of legal obligations, or other ongoing legitimate interests. You may decline to share certain personal data, in which case we may not be able to provide you with some features and benefits.

Right to Object

If you are an EU resident, you have the right to object to our processing that is based on legitimate interests by contacting us at the address or number below.

Right to Lodge a Complaint

If you are an EU resident and you believe that the AAN has infringed your rights under the GDPR, please contact us by sending an email to MemberServices@aan.com or calling Member Services at (612) 928-6000 (international).

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in your applicable Member State.

The AAN is a non-profit organization. California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our website visitors who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to MemberServices@aan.com. Please make sure to state that you are a California Resident.

We may change this policy from time to time and if we do, we’ll post any changes on this page. If you continue to use our website after those changes are in effect, you agree to the new policy. If the changes are significant, we may provide a more prominent notice or get your consent, as required by law.

If you have any questions about this policy or need to contact the AAN to exercise your rights as a data subject under the GDPR, please contact the AAN’s Privacy Officer at: MemberServices@aan.com or call Member Services at (612) 928-6000.