The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the US and globally. APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases; environmental contaminants; biological, chemical and radiological agents; genetic disorders in newborns; and other diverse health threats.
APHL knows that you care about your privacy, and we take that seriously. This Privacy Notice describes APHL’s policies and practices regarding its collection and use of your personal information and sets forth your privacy rights. In recognition that privacy regulations are ever-changing and APHL’s use of your personal information may change in the future, we will from time to time update this Privacy Notice.
Data Protection Officer
APHL is headquartered in Maryland, in the United States. APHL has appointed an internal data protection professional for you to contact if you have any questions or concerns about APHL’s personal information policies or practices. If you would like to exercise your right to privacy or if you have a question or experienced a privacy incident, please direct your query to APHL’s data protection professional.
APHL’s data protection officer contact information is below:
Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL)
Attn: Lead Data Protection Specialist
Email address: privacy@aphl.org
How We Collect and Use Your Personal Information
APHL collects personal information from its members, employees, public health laboratory fellows, interns and others. How we use this information depends upon the nature for which it is collected, however, we do not sell, rent or lease any personal information to anyone and only share it with third party service providers for legitimate business purposes.
Most of the personal information APHL collects comes to us directly from you—the data subject—however, in some cases, APHL receives personal information from third parties. This may happen, for example, if your employer is a corporate member of APHL.
What Personal Information APHL Collects and How it is Used
Membership
When you become an APHL member, we collect information about you including your name, your position title, your organization/employer’s name, your contact information, your payment information (credit card number) and—where applicable—your student status.
We process your information for membership administration, to deliver benefits to you and to communicate with you.
Fellowships
When you apply for a Public Health Laboratory fellowship, APHL will collect information about you through the application. This includes: your name, address, email address, a copy of your academic transcript, your resume/CV and the names and contact information for your professional references.
We share this information with fellowship program mentors, and we also share aggregated non-individually identifiable information with our federal public health funding partner.
For the applicants we accept into the program as fellows, we additionally collect proof of personal insurance, proof of US citizenship, Social Security Number (SSN) and bank account information and, as part of our ongoing management of the fellowship program, we collect and process the name of the Fellow and mentor along with the host lab name and pictures of the fellow and the mentor.
Once a Fellow has successfully completed the program, APHL maintains their name and email address for the purpose of continual program evaluation and reporting to our federal public health funding partner.
Fellowship Mentors
When you apply to be a mentor to a Public Health Laboratory fellow, APHL will collect information about you through our application. This includes: your name, physical address and email address. We share this information in de-identified format with our federal public health funding partner.
Internships
When you apply for an APHL internship (either a public health lab internship or genomic data internship), APHL will collect information about you through our application. This includes: your name, physical address, phone number and email address.
We share this information with intern mentors. The application also collects demographic information survey administered via a link in the application system that is collected and shared with our federal public health funding partner. Our federal public health funding partner, in turn, shares non-individually identifiable information with APHL for program evaluation.
For accepted interns, we collect information about your host lab and lab director’s contact information. As part of your onboarding, we collect your official transcript, current medical insurance information and proof of US citizenship. For payroll information, our HR service provider collects SSN and bank account information. This information is not shared with anyone outside of APHL and our HR service provider and only shared internally on a need-to-know basis for legitimate processing purposes.
Once your internship is completed, APHL maintains your name and email address for the purpose of program evaluation and reporting to our federal public health funding partner.
Internship Mentors
When you apply to be a mentor to a Public Health Laboratory intern, APHL will collect information about you through our application. This includes: your name, physical address, and email address.
We share this information in de-identified format with our federal public health funding partner.
Emerging Leader Program
When you apply for APHL’s Emerging Leader Program, we collect information about you through our application. This includes, your name, work address, email address, work and personal phone numbers. We use this information to contact applicants if they’re selected for the program and share this information with APHL leadership program participants.
Additionally, we collect banking information for selected participants as part of reimbursement for expenses incurred by the Emerging Leader Program. This information is shared externally with our payment processor and only shared internally on a need-to-know basis for legitimate processing purposes.
Emerging Leader Alumni Network
After you graduate from APHL’s Emerging Leader Program, APHL retains the information provided in your Emerging Leader Program application to contact you with additional post-graduation program-related opportunities. This includes: your name, work address, email address and work phone number. We share this information with APHL leadership program participants.
You may also incur expenses for APHL-funded opportunities that occur after program graduation. When this occurs, we collect your banking information to ensure expense reimbursement. This information is shared externally with our payment processor and is only shared internally on a need-to-know basis for legitimate processing purposes.
Laboratory Leaders of Today
When you are nominated to participate in APHL’s Laboratory Leaders of Today Program we collect information about you so we can contact you about program-related opportunities. This includes: your name, work address, email address and work and personal phone numbers. We share this information with APHL leadership program participants.
You may also incur expenses for APHL-funded opportunities that occur after program graduation. When this occurs, we collect your banking information to ensure expense reimbursement. This information is shared externally with our payment processor and is only shared internally on a need-to-know basis for legitimate processing purposes.
After you graduate from APHL’s Laboratory Leaders of Today program, APHL retains the information provided in your program nomination to contact you with additional post-graduation program-related opportunities. This includes: your name, work address, email address and work phone number. We share this information with APHL leadership program participants.
You may also incur expenses for APHL-funded opportunities that occur after program graduation. When this occurs, we collect your banking information to ensure expense reimbursement. This information is shared externally with our payment processor and is only shared internally on a need-to-know basis for legitimate processing purposes.
Board Certification Examination Boot Camp
When you request to participate in APHL’s Board Certification Examination Boot Camp, we collect information about you. This includes: your name, work address, email address and work phone number. We use this information to contact you regarding program opportunities and share this information with APHL leadership program participants.
APHL Employment
When you apply for employment with APHL, we collect information about you through our application. This includes, your name, physical address, phone number and email address, educational history, previous employment history and contact information for your references. This information is collected to make hiring decisions.
We also collect SSNs from applicants under provisional consideration of employment in order to conduct a background investigation. This information is shared with our background investigation vendor.
For individuals employed with APHL, we also collect tax information (SSN, number of dependents, withholding information, etc.) and bank account information to process the payroll as well as to enroll you in elective benefits such as medical insurance. We are also required to collect information that pertains to your eligibility to work in the country in which you are employed. This may include your passport information, driver’s license, national ID number, birth certificate or another document establishing eligibility for employment.
Security of Your Information
To help protect the privacy of data and personally identifiable information you provide to us, we maintain physical, administrative and technical safeguards. We update and test our security technology on an ongoing basis. We restrict access to your personal data to those employees who need to know the information to provide services to you. In addition, we train our employees on data protection principles and maintaining the privacy and security of your personal information.
Data Storage and Retention
Your personal information is stored by APHL on third-party cloud-based servers in the United States. APHL retains your personal information for at least the length of the business relationship with APHL.
Disclaimer
This Privacy Notice is applicable to APHL’s use of personal information and does not cover the use of protected health information that it collects within its Informatics unit or with its affiliate organization, Datapult.
Please note that this Privacy Notice is subject to change at any time and the most recent version will be posted here.
Revised 6/24/2024