MABB PRIVACY STATEMENT

The Massachusetts Association of Blood Banks (MABB) is committed to the protection of your personal information. We are also committed to allowing you to choose how MABB discloses and uses your personal information. Please read this policy before visiting the MABB website or before providing any personal information to MABB.

Collecting Personal Identifiable Information

MABB collects personal information in the following situations: (1) when you become a member or committee member of MABB; (2) when you buy an MABB product or service or register for an event; (3) when you attend or speak at an MABB event or write for an MABB publication; (4) when you exhibit at or sponsor an MABB event. While some of the information collected by MABB is required for purposes of processing membership requests or purchases, you may voluntarily provide other information. The type of personal information that MABB may collect could include, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Your name, address, phone, and email contact information;
  • Information regarding your education, credentials, and licenses;
  • Information about your professional experience and your employment and/or affiliation with healthcare entities, including your title, role, and responsibilities;
  • Your purchase history; and
  • Encrypted credit card information.

Please note that when you voluntarily disclose personal information (e.g., through social media, message boards, discussion groups, chat areas), your information can be collected and used by others.

Sensitive Information

Some countries consider certain personal information particularly sensitive. MABB only collects this data when voluntarily given by the individual and will use it for statistical purposes only. MABB does not share this information with third parties for direct marketing purposes. Such information may include the following:

  • Date of birth
  • Ethnicity, nationality, gender and other demographic information

Use of Personal Information

MABB processes your personal information for the legitimate interests of MABB. These legitimate interests are the commercial interests of MABB relating to disseminating information to improve transfusion medicine and cellular therapies, planning educational seminars and meetings, and serving MABB members and customers. More specifically, MABB collects and stores personal information for the following purposes:

  • To register individuals for MABB events (e.g., Spring Seminar, webinars);
  • To forward information concerning upcoming MABB events;
  • To arrange for speakers at MABB events and authors for MABB publications;
  • To provide you with products or services that you have requested or purchased;
  • To process your payment for MABB products, services, and events;
  • To determine membership eligibility and enroll you as a member in MABB;
  • To administer and provide you with the benefits of MABB membership;
  • To develop a membership directory for MABB;
  • To communicate with you and to respond to questions that you have raised with us;
  • To administer the MABB website;
  • To prevent and detect fraud; and
  • To protect and enforce our legal rights.

Disclosures of Personal Information

MABB will not disclose to or share your personal information with any unaffiliated third party except as follows:

  • We may share your personal information with third parties who provide services to MABB. For example, we use third parties to help manage registration for MABB events and to increase engagement with our members and customers. These service providers are prohibited from using your personal information for any purpose other than to provide this assistance to MABB, and they are contractually required to protect personal information disclosed by MABB and to comply with the general privacy principles described in this Privacy Policy.
  • MABB reserves the right to disclose and/or transfer personal information to a third party, if MABB has reason to believe that disclosing personal information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other website users, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities. Additionally, MABB may disclose personal information in response to a subpoena, warrant or other court order, or when we believe in good faith that a law, regulation, subpoena, warrant or other court order requires it – or authorizes us to do so – or respond to an emergency situation.
  • MABB reserves the right to disclose and/or transfer personal information to a third party in the event of a proposed or actual purchase, sale (including a liquidation, realization, foreclosure or repossession), lease, merger, amalgamation or any other type of acquisition, disposal, transfer, conveyance or financing of all or any portion of MABB, or of any of the business of MABB, in order for you to continue to receive the same products and services from the third party.
  • Our related entities or third-party service providers may be based overseas. When we provide your personal information overseas, we do so in connection with providing you with member benefits, requested information or services, or as required or authorized under law. It is possible the overseas entities, with which we share your information, may not be subject to foreign laws that provide the same level of protection of information as your country of residence or employment, or may not be subject to any privacy obligations. Overseas entities may be required or compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party, such as an overseas authority.

Visiting Our Website

In general, you may visit our website (mabbweb.org) without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself. MABB does not require a registration or any information to view the public portions of our website. Only members of MABB may visit the “Members Only” sections and content of the website.

Each time a visitor comes to MABB’s website, we collect some information to improve the overall quality of the online experience. At the MABB website, we collect the visitor’s domain name (e.g., whether the user is logged on from google.com or fda.gov), referral data (e.g., we record the address of the last URL a user visited prior to clicking through to our site), and browser and platform type. Our website contains links to other websites; these are sites that may be maintained by organizations that are not affiliates of MABB. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites, and we encourage you to use caution when visiting these sites and that you view the privacy policy posted on each site to confirm that the site’s policies are acceptable to you.

Cookies

Visitors to our website should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically collected through the use of “cookies.” Cookies are small text files a web site uses to recognize repeat visitors, facilitate the visitor’s ongoing access to and use of the site, and allow a site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements. Cookies are not programs that come onto a visitor’s system and damage files. Generally, cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor that has no meaning outside the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information collected using cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the visitor to deny or accept the cookie feature. MABB uses “cookie” technology primarily to obtain non-personal information from its online visitors to improve visitors’ online experience and facilitate their visit.

Credit Card Information

To ensure the safest possible transactions online, MABB leverages standard third party services (e.g. PayPal, Square, JotForm) who use high-grade encryption and the https security protocol to communicate with browser software. This method is the industry standard security protocol, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to intercept credit card information. Purchase of MABB products may also be made by mailing a check to: Massachusetts Association of Blood Banks, PO Box 3856, South Attleboro, MA 02703    

Your Rights

You have the right to make a written request to be informed whether we hold or process any of your personal information (by emailing: info@mabbweb.org). In your written request, you may:

  • Request that we provide you with details of your personal information that we process, the purpose for which it is processed, the recipients of such information, the existence of any automated decision-making involving your personal information, and what transfer safeguards we have in place;
  • Request that we correct any errors in your personal information;
  • Request that we delete your personal information if our continued processing of such information is not justified;
  • Request that we transfer your personal information to a third party;
  • Object to direct marketing from us; and
  • Object to processing for purposes of scientific, historical research, and statistics.

Where applicable under your local laws, we will not use your personal information for marketing purposes, nor disclose your information to any third parties, unless we have your prior consent, which we will seek before collecting your personal information. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the consent forms we use when collecting your personal information.

Contacting MABB with Questions, Concerns or Complaints

Should you have any questions, concerns or a complaint about this Privacy Policy, please contact MABB at info@mabbweb.org or (617) 302-7236 or , or via mail at Massachusetts Association of Blood Banks, PO Box 3856, South Attleboro, MA 02703.

You are entitled to make an anonymous complaint or inquiry in relation to this Privacy Policy or your privacy rights; however, we may require you to identify yourself if required by law or it is impracticable for us to deal with your matter otherwise.

We will acknowledge receipt of any complaint within ten (10) business days and will endeavor to provide you with a written response within 30 days of receipt of your complaint. There may be instances where this is not possible due to the contents of the complaint. In such circumstances, we will respond to your complaint in a reasonable and practical time.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, MABB will be happy to provide you with contact information for the appropriate authorities in your jurisdiction. Additionally, many jurisdictions allow for private rights of action.

Disclaimers

Any material changes to the privacy policy will be posted on this page.

This policy is effective as of March 3, 2023.