PRIVACY POLICY

Your privacy is important to Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC (the “Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC,” “we,” or “us”) operating www.drsarubala.com (the “Website”). This Privacy Policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the Website and the ways in which we use, maintain, protect and disclose that information. 

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before you use the Website to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy and you agree to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy, whether or not you have read it.

This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect on and through this Website. It does not apply to information stored on our HIPPA-secured Electronic Medical Record Patient Portal. Information on our separate HIPAA privacy policy is supplied to new patients/clients of Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC upon registration as new patients/clients.

Because the Web is an evolving medium, we may need to and reserve our right to change our Privacy Policy at some point in the future, in which case we’ll post the changes to this Privacy Policy on this Website and update the Effective Date at the bottom of the Privacy Policy to reflect the date of the changes. By continuing to use the Website after we post any such changes, you accept the Privacy Policy as modified, so please check this Privacy Policy from time to time.

Children Under the Age of 13 and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

This Website and any products and services offered herein are not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this Website or on or through any of its features/register on the Website, make any purchases through the Website, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Website or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at [email protected].

Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

When you access the Website, we collect certain information about you. We collect this information:

• Directly from you when you provide it to us.
• Automatically as you navigate through the Website. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses and information collected through cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies.
• From third parties, for example, our business partners.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website that you provide to us may include:

• Information that you provide when you voluntarily sign up for our e-mails, register for a presentation, comment on social media, purchase a service or product, fill out any type of form such as a contact form, access private membership pages or groups (whether hosted on the Website or a third-party website such as Facebook), or otherwise contact Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC via an online form located on our Website. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our Website.
• Records and copies of your correspondence such as e-mail messages together with your e-mail address and our responses.
• Details of purchase transactions you carry out through our Website and of the fulfillment of your purchases. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through our Website.

The information collected may include your name, e-mail, address, phone number, and/or billing information (collectively, “personal information”). You are not required to provide any of this personal information to merely visit this Website. 

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily make your personal information available for viewing by third parties online – for example on public message boards, chat areas or similar functions – that information can be seen, collected and used by others besides us. We cannot be responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of such information

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), this means we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as data controller of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through the Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies such as “cookies” (small files saved on your hard drive by your web browser) or Google Analytics to collect certain nonpersonal information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. Such nonpersonal information may include:

• Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
• Information about your computer hardware and software and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses.
• Information about the areas you visit and search terms you use on this Website and about the links you may select from within this Website to other areas of the Internet.

We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking). This information is collected automatically and is statistical data and does not include personal information, but we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. The goal of such technologies is to improve the Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

• Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
• Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
• Speed up your searches.
• Recognize you when you return to our Website.

If we use cookies, we will ask for your consent to allow us to use cookies. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if we use cookies and you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. 

We also reserve the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. We reserve the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.​

Third-party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies.

Some content or applications on the Website may be served by third parties, including content providers and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Website. 

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

Third-Party Links

Occasionally we may include or offer third-party products, services, or links to other websites. These third-party sites may or may not have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites and/or their privacy policy (or lack thereof).

Email Policies and CAN-SPAM Act

We are committed to keeping your e-mail address confidential. We do not sell, rent, or lease your personal information to third parties, and will not disclose your email address to any third parties except as allowed in the section titled Disclosure of Your Information. 

In compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act, all e-mails sent from Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC will clearly state who the e-mail is from and provide clear information on how to contact the sender. In addition, all e-mail messages provide users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving future communications from us at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of every e-mail they receive from us. After unsubscribing we will discontinue sending the messages as soon as technically feasible. If you ever have trouble unsubscribing, you can send an email to [email protected] requesting to unsubscribe from future emails.

If you are in the European Union and opt to receive any free resources, participate in any free training programs, register for a webinar, register for a live event, register for a seminar, or purchase any products sold on this Website, we will only enroll ​you to receive our free email newsletter if you affirmatively consent to it. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, you can unsubscribe anytime. As noted, we include an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email we send. If you ever have trouble unsubscribing, you can send an email to [email protected]  requesting to unsubscribe from future emails.

How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

• To present our Website and its contents to you.
• To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us.
• To provide you with information about our services.
• To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
• To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
• To respond to comments and questions and to provide support to users of the Website.
• To process payments.
• In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
• To fulfill any purpose for which you provide it.
• To provide us with an overview of how people are accessing and using this Website.
• To understand and analyze usage trends and preferences of our visitors and users so that we can improve our service and develop new products, services, features and functionalities.
• For any other purpose with your consent.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and nonpersonal information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. 

We may disclose personal information that we collect, including that you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:

• To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
• To third parties including, for example: contractors, service providers and ‘data processors’ as described below, that we use to support our business and our Website. All such third parties will always be bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them. 
• To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC about our Website users is among the assets transferred.

We may disclose your personal information for the following reasons:

• To comply with any court order, law or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
• To enforce or apply our Terms & Conditions, and applicable terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
• If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC, our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
• To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. 
• For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
• With your consent.

We are the ‘data controller” of any personal information collected through the Website, and determine the purposes for which hand the manner in which any personal information is used and processed. However, we pay for the services of third party ‘data processors’ who hold and/or process personal information of users of the Website on our behalf. We may have multiple data processors at any given time, including, but not limited to:

• our email marketing and email management software service provider 
• our website hosting service provider 
• our website platform service provider 
• various payment merchants 

Note that, while the above entities act as data processors on our behalf, some or all of them may also act as data controllers in their own rights. For example, our payment merchants decide which information they need from our customers in order to process their payments correctly. The payment merchants or other data processing entities may also exercise control over the other purposes that a customer's data is used for, for example direct marketing of their products and services, which is not within our control. The payment merchants or other data processing entities also have legal requirements of their own to meet, such as regulations relating to the use and retention of payment card data or other personal data. And, finally, each data processor has its own terms and conditions and privacy policies that apply directly to our website users.

How Long Your Personal Information Will Be Kept

We will retain any information personal information you choose to provide to us until you let us know you would like for us to delete it, which you are free to do at any time. 

This does not apply to information from patients of Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC. We will hold patient personal information in our files as required by applicable law and until at least one (1) year after any relevant statute of limitation on professional liability has run.

Data Security and Information Storage

We employ commercially reasonable methods to ensure the security of the information you provide to us and the information we collect automatically. This includes using standard security protocols and working only with reputable third-party vendors.

Whenever Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC collects sensitive personal information (such as credit card data), that information is encrypted and transmitted to Dr. Saru Bala, LLC in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a closed lock icon at the bottom of their web browser, or looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the web page.

While Dr. Saru Bala, PLLC uses encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, customer service) are granted access to personal information. The computers and servers in which we store personal Information are kept in a secure environment.

However, unfortunately, please note that no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website.  You acknowledge that (a) there are security and privacy limitations of the Internet which are beyond our control; (b) the security, integrity, and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and us through this Website cannot be guaranteed; and (c) any such information and data may be viewed or tampered within transit by a third party. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Accessing, Correcting and Deleting Your Information

You may send us an e-mail to [email protected] in order request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. 

Please note that we may retain some or all of the information you submit for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so.

You may also decline to share certain personal information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide you with some of the features and functionality of our services. 

When you place an order through the site, we will maintain your order information for our records unless and until you ask us to delete this information. We are required to keep some basic information about our customers including transaction data for tax and legal purposes and therefore there is some information that cannot be deleted.

Google Analytics

We may use Google Analytics to monitor and analyze the use of our Website. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Website. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. You can opt-out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity. For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Facebook

We may advertise on Facebook and through our Facebook page. Through such advertising we (not Facebook) may collect content or information from a Facebook user and such information may be used in the same manner specified in this Privacy Policy. You consent to our collection of such information.

We abide by Facebook’s Data Use Restrictions.

• Any ad data collected, received or derived from our Facebook ad (“Facebook advertising data”) is only shared with someone acting on our behalf, such as our service provider. We are responsible for ensuring that our service providers protect any Facebook advertising data or any other information obtained from us, limit our use of all of that information, and keep it confidential and secure.
• We do not use Facebook advertising data for any purpose (including retargeting, commingling data across multiple advertisers’ campaigns, or allowing piggybacking or redirecting with tags), except on an aggregate and anonymous basis (unless authorized by Facebook) and only to assess the performance and effectiveness of our Facebook advertising campaigns.
• We do not use Facebook advertising data, including the targeting criteria for a Facebook ad, to build, append to, edit, influence, or augment user profiles, including profiles associated with any mobile device identifier or other unique identifier that identifies any particular user, browser, computer or device.
• We do not transfer any Facebook advertising data (including anonymous, aggregate, or derived data) to any ad network, ad exchange, data broker or other advertising or monetization related service.

Visitors’ GDPR Rights

If you are located within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. Those rights include:

• You have the right to request access to your data that we store and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
• You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
• You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
• To the extent that you provided consent to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
• You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation, available at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

• Email us at [email protected]
• Provide us enough information to identify you (e.g., name, e-mail address, mailing address, billing details, as applicable) and verify proof of your identity
• Provide us with the information to which your request relates

California Online Privacy Protection Act

CalOPPA is the first state law in the nation to require commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy. The law’s reach stretches well beyond California to require a person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting personally identifiable information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals with whom it is being shared, and to comply with this policy. – See more at: http://consumercal.org/california-online-privacy-protection-act-caloppa/#sthash.0FdRbT51.dpuf

According to CalOPPA we agree to the following:

Users can visit our Website anonymously.

There is a link to our Privacy Policy on our home page or at a minimum on the first significant page after entering our Website.

Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’ and can be easily be found on the page specified above.

Users will be notified of any changes to our Privacy Policy:

• On our Privacy Policy Page

Users are able to change their personal information:

• By emailing us
• By logging into their account on our Website if they have one

The Website does not support “Do Not Track” settings and/or signals and as such there will be no difference in how we collect or use data, even if you set your web browser to send a “Do Not Track” signal when you visit this Website.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by e-mail to the e-mail address specified in your account and/or through a notice on the Website home page. The date this Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the bottom of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable e-mail address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].

Effective as of May 2024.