About NITRC

Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) is a free one-stop-shop collaboratory for science researchers that need resources such as neuroimaging analysis software, publicly available data sets, or computing power. NITRC provides free access to data and enables pay-per-use cloud-based access to unlimited computing power, enabling worldwide scientific collaboration with minimal startup and cost. NITRC scientific focus includes: PET/SPECT, CT, EEG/MEG, optical imaging, clinical neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience, and imaging genomics software tools, data, and computational resources. NITRC does not generate revenue by selling your data. Instead, NITRC is primarily funded by grants from: NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institute of Drug Addiction, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Privacy Policy Information

Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) takes personal privacy very seriously. As a general rule NITRC does not collect your personal information unless you chose to provide that information to us. When you choose to provide us with your personal information, you are giving NITRC your permission to use that information for the stated purposes listed in this privacy policy. If you choose not to provide us with information, it may limit the features and services that you can use on this website.

A description of our intended use of the type of information collected, how that information is collected, security measures NITRC takes to protect that information, and how to grant or revoke consent for collection and use of that information will be fully described in this privacy policy.

Personal Information We Collect

Device Information

When you visit www.nitrc.org, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the website, we collect information about the individual web pages you view, what websites or search terms referred you to www.nitrc.org, and information about how you interact with our website. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information.”

We collect Device Information using the following technologies:

• “Log files” track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.
• “Web beacons,” “tags,” and “pixels” are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the NITRC website.
• “Cookies” which are small files that a website transfers to your computer's hard disk allowing our server to "remember" specific information about the session while you are connected.

Not all website pages on NITRC employ cookies, but you may occasionally encounter a page on www.nitrc.org that does employs cookies. Requests to send cookies from NITRC website pages are not designed to collect information about you, but only about your browser "session." The cookie makes it easier for you to use the dynamic features of these website pages. The cookie and the information about your session will be destroyed when your browser cookies are cleared, either by timing out or by manually removing cookies using the history/cache deletion features of your browser—it is not permanently stored on your computer.

Unless a NITRC website page specifically notifies you otherwise, we will not collect and maintain personal information about you. Our tool/resource surveys employ persistent cookies. Participation in this data collection effort is completely voluntary, and failure to respond will in no way affect the visitor's ability to access information. This information will be used by the tool/resource administrators solely for the purpose of improving their information.

To protect your privacy, be sure to close your browser completely after you have finished conducting business with a website that uses cookies. If you are concerned about the potential use of information gathered from your computer by cookies, you can set your browser to prompt you before it accepts a cookie. Most Internet browsers have settings that let you identify and/or reject cookies. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

User Information

We also collect user information of varying types for unregistered and registered NITRC users. For unregistered users of the NITRC website (website visitors that have not created a NITRC Account), we store only the following: the domain name from which you access the Internet, the type of browser you are using, the date and time you access our site, the pages you view, and the Internet address of the Web site from which you direct-linked to our site.

Users who have created a NITRC Account, known as “registered users,” must provide additional personal information. This is not connected to the information already mentioned. While not all information is required from registered users, it may include information such as name, address, organizational affiliation, email address, and phone/fax number. Some of this information may be displayed to public users of the NITRC web site. All registered users have the ability to limit or completely hide your personal information from the public from the Account Maintenance page (https://www.nitrc.org/account/).

NITRC also retains user created content. This content is linked to a registered users account and, depending on privacy options, a user’s name may be displayed as the author. Some examples of user created content would be forum postings, tool or resource reviews, and news postings.

NITRC only collects information that is voluntarilly submitted. We collect this information because a main goal of our web site is to facilitate sharing of information among the neuroscience research community. Personal data and user provided content is kept in our system indefinitely. You may update or request deletion of your personal data at any time.

How We Use Personal Information

We use the Device Information that we collect to help us screen for potential risk and inappropriate use of our system (in particular, your IP address), and more generally to improve and optimize our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Site).

Additionally, NITRC may use your information to:

• Compile statistics average usage of various NITRC features.
• Measure the overall growth of the NITRC services.
• Send e-mail notifications that you may request, such as forum digests or tracker alerts
• Associate your name with other content you may provide such as tool or resource reviews.
• Display your profile to other users.
• Periodic e-mail newsletters or announcements

Some uses of your information can be restricted by modifying preference and privacy options on the Account Maintenance page (https://www.nitrc.org/account/).

Sharing of Information

We do not sell or rent personal information to third parties. Personal information is not shared with third parties for marketing purposes. NITRC does work with the following organizations who may have access to select pieces of your information as described below:

• University of California, San DIego (UCSD) provides hosting servers for NITRC. Our physical servers and data stores are located on-site at UCSD. UCSD system administrators may be required to view NITRC data in the normal course of their work.
• MailChimp provides e-mail services for the NITRC newsletters and site announcements. Their complete privacy policy can be found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.
• Web site usage statistics are compiled by Google Analytics. No personal information is shared with Google. Information shared with Google is limited to your IP address, browser information, and what web pages you visit on the NITRC site. You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.

Data Security

One important security decision we have made is to not collect any sensitive personal information such as social security numbers or credit card information. NITRC provides appropriate electronic and procedural security appropriate for the data we collect. It should be noted that e-mail messages are inherently insecure and personal information you provide to NITRC may be sent unencrypted via e-mail should you choose to receive them. Users should not include sensitive information on public posts such as forums on the site. NITRC cannot be held liable for information shared directly by the user in this way.

Your Rights

If you are a registered user and would like to change the personal information we have on file for you, you may do so at any time from your Account Maintenance page. You can also adjust your account settings on that page to hide/show your personal information to other site users and to subscribed/unsubscribe to mailing lists.

If you would like to have your personal information removed from the NITRC site entirely, please contact us at nitrcinfo@nitrc.org.

Minors: 16 or Under

NITRC site visitors aged 16 or under require parent/guardian's permission before registering for an account.

Changes

We may update this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons.

Contact Us

For more information about our privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at nitrcinfo@nitrc.org.