PRIVACY POLICY

1. Introduction

Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. (“Sparx Health Advocates,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and security of the individuals and communities we serve. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, store, and safeguard personal information obtained through our programs, services, website, communications, and related activities.

By interacting with Sparx Health Advocates, Inc., using our services, submitting information, or accessing our website, individuals acknowledge and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

2. Organizational Scope and Non-Clinical Status

Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. operates strictly in a non-clinical capacity. We do not provide medical care, diagnosis, treatment, or medical advice. Information provided through our services is intended solely for advocacy, education, navigation support, and assistance identifying available resources.

Because our organization may assist individuals in navigating healthcare systems and patient assistance programs, certain personal or health-related information may be voluntarily shared with us. We take reasonable measures to protect such information in accordance with applicable laws and organizational policies.

3. Information We May Collect

Information You Give Us:

We may collect personal information voluntarily provided by you or a third party working on your behalf, including but not limited to:

  • Data that contains personal information such as your name, mailing address, email address, telephone number(s), age and date of birth (if necessary for assistance programs), insurance type, IP address, credit or debit card number (for donation purposes only), medical conditions, prescription or treatment-related information, financial hardship information, and other general healthcare information used to help you navigate patient assistance programs. 

  • Information that you provided by filling in forms on our website, such as your household size, annual income, health insurance, diagnosis, and other medical information. Some forms collect sensitive information such as health and financial information, which may be necessary for us to provide our services to you. You can always call us to provide this information instead of inputting it online. 

  • Information that you provide by filling in optional forms to share your personal experience with Sparx Health Advocates and your story. Some forms collect personal information, such as health information.

  • Your response to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research, program development, and marketing purposes.

  • Details of donation transactions.

Information We Automatically Collect:

We collect information about you automatically as you navigate through and use some of our websites. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, pixels tags, and other tracking technologies. Specifically, we may automatically collect:

  • Usage details: Details of your visits to our websites, such as traffic data, location, logs, referring/exit pages, time spent on pages, date and time of your visit to or use of our websites, error information, searches performed on the site, initiating and completing a fillable form, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on or in the websites.

  • Device information: Information about your computer, mobile device, and Internet connection, specifically your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

  • Location data: Information about your location collected through geolocation technology, including city, state, and country of the user’s IP address.

Your name, address, contact information, age and birthdate, or any other unique personal information is not collected passively by website visitor analytics tracking.

For more information about cookies, pixel tags, and similar technologies, please see the “Cookies” section below.

4. How Information Is Used

We use the information we collect online for the following purposes:

  • To fulfill your requests for information or other services. This includes responding to your inquiries, activating your transportation grant, or other program-related activities.

  • To understand how our visitors use our websites and improve your online experience. Our goal is to improve the overall website user experience, enhance the usability of specific website features and content, improve website performance, optimize accessibility for all users, diagnose problems with our servers, and enhance system administration.

  • To measure engagement with website content in the delivery of our organizational mission. We track trends in visitors to pages, over time, and in page groupings, as well as clicks on links to our resources and partners, to understand the reach and impact of our content and to make improvements to your experience.

  • To contact you with relevant information about our programs, services, and resources, including for fundraising purposes. We value our relationship with you and are committed to keeping you updated about our programs and services. We use your voluntarily submitted name, email address, phone number and other personal information to communicate with you about events, organization updates, program announcements, and campaigns. As a charitable organization, we may also contact you for fundraising purposes. You can opt out at any time.

  • To serve targeted, relevant advertisements on third party platforms. This helps us better reach you or people similar to you with important information about our programs and services.

How long do we keep your personal information 

We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which we obtained it.

5. No Medical Advice or Provider Relationship

Submission of information to Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. does not establish:

  • A provider-patient relationship

  • A clinical relationship

  • Legal representation

  • A guarantee of assistance or eligibility for any program

Individuals are encouraged to consult licensed healthcare providers regarding medical decisions and treatment.

6. Confidentiality and Information Protection

Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. takes reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, misuse, alteration, or destruction.

Safeguards may include:

  • Secure digital storage systems

  • Password-protected accounts and devices

  • Limited access to sensitive information

  • Secure document disposal procedures

  • Internal confidentiality expectations for staff and volunteers

While we strive to protect information, no electronic transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

7. Sharing and Disclosure of Information

We do not sell personal information.

Information may only be disclosed:

  • With the individual’s consent

  • To third-party assistance programs or organizations at the individual’s request

  • To service providers assisting with organizational operations

  • When required by law, subpoena, court order, or regulatory obligation

  • To protect the safety, rights, or property of the organization or others

Any disclosures are limited to information reasonably necessary for the intended purpose.

8. Third-Party Services and Links

Our website or communications may contain links to third-party websites, applications, assistance programs, or external resources. Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. is not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of third-party services.

Individuals are encouraged to review the privacy policies of any external sites they access.

9. Cookies and Analytics

Cookies: A cookie is a small text file stored on your device (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) that contains information about your browser and online activity. This information often consists of a string of numbers and letters that uniquely identifies your device.

Local storage: Local storage enables our websites to store information locally on your device. Local storage may be used to improve your experience with our websites; for example, by enabling features, remembering your preferences, and speeding up our websites’ functionality.

Tracking pixels and web beacons: A tracking pixel, or web beacon, is a small, nonvisible graphic file used for the purpose of keeping track of user behavior, web traffic, and site conversions. A tracking pixel allows us to collect data relating to the use of our websites. Tracking pixels are also used to help inform advertisements on third-party platforms based on the activity tracked from your browser or device, to identify return traffic from third-party platforms such as social media applications, and for third-party web analytics.

Note: Advertising pixels are not used on sparxhealthadvocates.org

Other similar tracking technologies: We may also use other tracking technologies, such as mobile advertising IDs and tags for similar purposes as described in this privacy policy.

Types of cookies

Sparx Health Advocates collects website visit data through the usage of cookies, pixels , and other similar technology from the site itself and from third parties when you visit our websites. Please see a description of each type of cookie and options you may have.

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies, we will not know when you have visited our site.

Functional cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Targeted advertising cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by third-party advertisers. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Opting out of cookies and pixel tracking

You may opt to remove or block cookies by changing your browser settings or by adjusting them for sparxhealthadvocates.org. Upon loading in your browser, you may opt to not enable cookies, pixels, and other similar technology from us by selecting your preferences in the configuration on your browser directly as discussed below. Please note that if you disable or opt out of all or any of these technologies, our ability to provide you with services and information about our programs may be affected. In addition, please note that the opt-out preferences that you set using these tools may be nullified if you delete your cookies after setting them. In this instance, you will have to opt out again. In addition to managing your cookie preferences on sparkshealthadvocates.org, you can alter the configuration of your browser directly to reject certain types of tracking, including cookies. Please note, however, that if you reject certain cookies, you may not be able to access and use all of the features on our websites. For more information about how to directly manage cookies, please visit aboutcookies.org. You may also control your online behavioral advertising preferences and opt out from having your data processed by certain advertising and marketing companies by visiting their websites.

10. Email communications, newsletter, text messaging, and related services

Our websites provide you with the opportunity to receive communications from us. We use your voluntarily submitted name, email address, and other personal information to communicate with you about events, organizational updates, program announcements, new and helpful resources, and campaigns. As a charitable organization, we also may ask you for a donation. Donations are always optional.You may use the unsubscribe link in our marketing emails if you wish to stop receiving marketing emails from us. 

Email communications that you send to us via Contact Us on our websites or via any other channel may be shared with a representative, employee, or agent that is most able to address your inquiry. We make every effort to respond in a timely fashion once communications are received. Note that email communications that you send us via email and through our online forms are not automatically encrypted, and it is possible that unencrypted email communications with us may be accessed or viewed by another internet user while in transit to us.

Text messaging

Our websites also provide you with the opportunity to receive communications from us through text messaging, or SMS. You can unsubscribe from text messages from us at any time. You may reply to a text message with “STOP” and you will automatically be unsubscribed.

Surveys

We occasionally survey visitors to our site and our email and SMS subscribers. The information from these surveys is used to help us understand the needs of our visitors so that we can improve our services. We generally do not ask for information in surveys that would personally identify you; if we do request contact information for follow-up, you may decline to provide it. If survey respondents provide personal information (such as an email address) in a survey, it is shared only with those people who need to see it, which may include third parties who perform data management services for our site. Those third parties have agreed to keep all data from surveys confidential.

Donations on our website

Donations submitted through sparxhealthadvocates.org are processed securely on our website using a third-party platform, hosted by Square Space. We may use this information to send you receipts and records, donation solicitations, and organizational updates and announcements. Sparx Health Advocates may collect contact information provided through our donation forms, prior to donations being completed. Passive data collected about donations made on our website include visitor and campaign sources, number of donations initiated and completed, and pages visited.

11. Security

How we protect your information

We use technical and administrative safeguards to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, loss, or destruction. For example, we employ internet security protocols that provide privacy protection and authentication. We restrict access to your personal information to people who need to know your information to perform their job duties.

Still, using the internet requires caution: although we have created secure and reliable websites to protect your privacy, we urge you to always exercise caution when providing your personal information. Your efforts to sign off when finished using a shared computer and logging out of websites when using personal information are examples of protective measures you can apply.

Donation security

We use security measures to safeguard your online donations to the Sparx Health Advocates. We connect through our web browser host, SquareSpace to Square as an online donation platform. All donation data collected is subject to the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), and other applicable privacy laws. Non-personal information that is collected remains anonymous or non-personally identifiable. All personally Identifiable Information (PII) is encrypted.

Financial information, such as banking information or credit card number, name, CVV code, or expiration date, is collected and stored by a third-party payment processor. 

12. Data Retention

Personal information shall be retained only for as long as reasonably necessary to:

  • Fulfill organizational purposes

  • Comply with legal or regulatory obligations

  • Maintain appropriate records

Records shall be securely destroyed in accordance with the organization’s Document Retention and Destruction Policy.

13. Individual Rights

Subject to applicable law, individuals may request to:

  • Access personal information maintained by the organization

  • Correct inaccurate information

  • Request deletion of information when appropriate

  • Withdraw consent for future communications

Requests may be submitted using the contact information listed below.

14. Minors

Children’s online safety and privacy are paramount to us. We follow the guidelines set forth by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 and its accompanying Federal Trade Commission regulation that protects the privacy of children online. We do not intentionally collect information from or market our sites to anyone under 13. However, when a request for navigation support or services is submitted for a minor, Sparx Health Advocates may collect personal information with proper authorization.

15. Volunteer, Staff, and Board Confidentiality

All employees, volunteers, contractors, and board members with access to personal or sensitive information are expected to:

  • Maintain confidentiality

  • Use information only for authorized organizational purposes

  • Comply with applicable organizational policies and procedures

Unauthorized disclosure or misuse of information may result in disciplinary action or termination of affiliation with the organization.

16. Policy Updates

Sparx Health Advocates, Inc. reserves the right to modify or update this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in organizational practices, legal requirements, or operational needs.

Updated versions shall become effective upon posting or adoption.

Last policy update was effective: 05/09/2026

17. Contact Information

Questions regarding this Privacy Policy or requests related to personal information may be directed to:

Sparx Health Advocates, Inc.info@sparxhealthadvocates.orgwww.sparxhealthadvocates.org