Privacy Statement

Privacy Policy for Environmental Health (Agent Orange) Registry Examinations

Thank you for coming in for a Registry Examination with Veterans Affairs / Veterans Health Affairs (VA) and reviewing our Privacy Policy. VA/VHA, the Environmental Health Coordinators and VA Clinicians adhere to data stewardship principles in managing our user data. The data stewardship principles guiding our efforts include the following goals:

•protection of Veteran privacy;

•maintaining the confidentiality of data; and

•ensuring appropriate levels of security for Veteran data.

This policy describes how VA applies these principles to the handling of personal information you provide to us in a registry examination.

Personal information may include your name, email, home, and/or business address, phone numbers; Social Security Number or other information that identifies you personally.

Key features of our privacy policy include:

• A registry examination is not mandatory.

• VA collects personal information only from you.

• We will never sell your personal information to outside parties.

• De-identified registry information may be used for research.

• You may be accorded the opportunity to be involved in research as an individual or member of a group. If that occurs the registry may be used to contact you and invite your participation. Any research will be approved by VA and an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

• This Privacy Policy promotes the privacy, confidentiality, security and responsible handling of any information collected by VA.

Information Privacy Protection

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties outside VA without your consent, except to facilitate the registry exam, follow trends, send information about your health or as authorized by law.

Providing the information is voluntary, but if it is not provided, we will be unable to enter you into the registry for updates about care or changes in the law related to healthcare and/or Veteran’s benefits.

VA follows the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a), which requires VA to protect your personal information that VA maintains in Systems of Records. Notices of Systems of Records and Matching Programs must be published in the Federal Register at www.federalregister.gov

A System of Records is a file, database or program from which personal information is retrieved by name or other personal identifier. The Privacy Act provides a number of protections for your personal information. These typically include how information is collected, used, disclosed, stored, and disposed. Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) is an assessment of how information in identifiable form is collected, stored, protected, shared, and managed. The purpose of a PIA is to demonstrate that system owners and developers have incorporated privacy protections throughout the entire life cycle of a system.

A listing of VA PIAs is available at: https://www.oprm.va.gov/privacy/pia.aspx

The VA Privacy Act implementation rules are 38 CFR 1.575 - 38 CFR 1.580, and can be found at

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/CFR-2014-title38-vol1/CFR-2014-title38-vol1-sec1-575

Information Collected and Stored

VA collects information during your registry exam. We limit the data collected to meet specific needs and to protect your privacy. We do not use this information to identify you personally without your express consent and an authorized purpose.

Information Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or otherwise provide your personal information to outside marketers. Information collected via VA Web sites may be shared with employees, contractors, and other service providers as necessary to respond to a request, provide a service or as otherwise authorized by law.

Security

In those instances where we secure your personal information in transit to us over the Internet, and upon our receipt, VA uses industry-standard encryption, including Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

Unauthorized attempts or acts to either (1) access, upload, change, or delete information on this system, (2) modify this system, (3) deny access to this system, or (4) accrue resources for unauthorized use on this system, are strictly prohibited and may be considered violations subject to criminal, civil or administrative penalties.

VA takes the security of all personally identifiable information maintain very seriously. We implement various measures to protect the security and confidentiality of personally identifiable information. Such measures include access controls designed to limit access to personally identifiable information to the extent necessary to accomplish our mission. We also employ various security technologies to protect personally identifiable information stored on our systems. VA tests the security measures periodically to ensure that they remain operational.

Contact VA Post Deployment Health Services

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policy or use of your information. You can contact us online at Post Deployment Health Services [website email address to be created], or you can mail us your question or concern at Department of Veterans Affairs, Post Deployment Health Services (10P4Q), 810 Vermont Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20420.

Your inquiry will be treated confidentially and will not be shared with third parties, except as necessary to respond to your inquiry and for other purposes as authorized by the Privacy Act and other relevant legal authority.

The VA Privacy Service works to minimize the impact on veteran's privacy, particularly veteran's personal information and dignity, while achieving the mission of the Department of Veteran Affairs.