Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes the types of personal information collected by Mental Health America of Greenville County. (“MHAGC” or “we” or “us” or “our”). how we use such information, and to whom and under what circumstances we may disclose it.  This Privacy Policy applies to MHAGC’s website, https://988sc.org (the “Site” or the “Website”) and any personal information obtained when you call, text, chat, email, or otherwise communicate with MHAGC. By accessing the Site or otherwise interacting with us, you agree to this Privacy Policy. We can modify this Privacy Policy at any time, and will post the current version on the Site. We encourage you to periodically review our Privacy Policy to stay informed about how we are using the information we collect.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, MHAGC collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. MHAGC’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how MHAGC’s visitors use its website. From time to time, MHAGC may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

• MHAGC also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and Internet Service Providers for users of our chat service, and telephone numbers of those contacting us via text and/or voice. MHAGC only discloses this potentially personally-identifying information under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described below.

Information We Collect When You Visit the Site

With respect to SMS (text) and chat: If a user elects to use our text messaging service to receive resource or other information, we will ask for their phone number. Any incoming text message from a user will include the user’s phone number. Both chat and text Services are facilitated by the National 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (the “National Lifeline”) and are subject to their Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and/or other policies as well. The confidentiality and security of chats are ensured through the National Lifeline chat and text software provider. All of your communications are securely encrypted from your computer to ours. Use of our text, chat or telephone services (collectively and individually our “Crisis Services”) is also subject to our 988 SC Crisis Services Policy, and the Site Terms of Use, both incorporated here by this reference.

For each visitor to our Site, we may collect information such as the domain name of the website the visitor came from, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail, aggregate information on what pages visitors access or visit, information volunteered by a visitor, such as survey information, e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us through our Contact page, and/or any visitor-volunteered information on the Contact page such as name, phone number or reason for contacting us. MHAGC does not sell or rent your information for commercial purposes.

We may collect this information and use it for marketing and communications purposes, internal review, research, and to improve the content of our Web page, but personally identifiable information is generally not shared with other organizations for commercial purposes.

Aggregated Statistics.

For our internal purposes, we gather date, time, browser type, navigation history and IP address of all visitors to our site. We use this information for our internal security audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad demographic information about our user base for aggregate use.  We collect more information with our Screening Tools, as discussed below. 

MHAGC may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its website. However, MHAGC does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information 

MHAGC discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on MHAGC’s behalf or to provide services available at MHAGC’s website, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. MHAGC will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations, as described above, MHAGC discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena that we reasonably believe is valid, court order, or other governmental requests, or when MHAGC believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of MHAGC, third parties or the public at large. If we believe that you are at imminent risk of harm, we may notify emergency services or law enforcement. MHAGC takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

To help make our Site more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we invoke a standard feature found in browser software, called a “cookie”, to assign each visitor a unique, random number, a sort of anonymous user ID that resides on your computer. A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. The cookie identifies the computer that a visitor uses to access the Site but cannot access or read information from your computer’s hard drive. MHAGC uses cookies to help gather data on visitors’ usage of MHAGC’s website, and their website access preferences. MHAGC’s visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using MHAGC’s website, with the drawback that certain features of MHAGC’s website may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, MHAGC may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in MHAGC’s sole discretion. MHAGC encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Screening Tools

If you use our screening tools on the Site, you provide us with personal information regarding your mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety.  We also collect voluntary demographic information, including age range, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, state, and zip code.  We endeavor to store screening data in a way that cannot be used to identify you. We may provide deidentified or aggregated data to universities, health providers or others for research purposes, in all cases taking reasonable steps to ensure that such data cannot be associated with any particular individual. The screening tools are hosted by the national office of Mental Health America. You should read and agree with their Terms of Use and Privacy Policy before using the screening tools.

Other Ways We May Disclose Your Information

We may also disclose information collected from and about you as follows: (1) to our related companies and service providers, to perform a business, professional or technical support function for us; (2) to our marketing partners, or other third parties, who may contact you regarding the mission and opportunities with MHAGC; (3) as necessary if we believe that there has been a violation of the Site Terms of Use or of our rights or the rights of any third party; (4) to respond to legal process (such as a search warrant, subpoena that we reasonably believe is valid, or court order) and provide information to law enforcement agencies or in connection with an investigation on matters related to public safety, as permitted by law, or otherwise as required by law; and (5) in the event that MHAGC or substantially all of its assets are acquired, your personal information may be one of the transferred assets. We may also disclose your personal information with your express consent.

Please note that if you voluntarily submit any personal information for posting on the Site, such as a comment, review or a blog post, the information becomes publicly available and can be collected and used by others, so you should use care before posting information about yourself online.

Links To Other Web Sites

When MHAGC’s Site includes links to other sites, MHAGC does not assume any responsibility or liability for any communications or materials available at the sites to which it links, including responsibility or liability for their accuracy. No link on MHAGC ‘s Site is a referral or endorsement of either the linked-to entity or any product or service. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

Security Information

With respect to security: We endeavor to make sure that our Site and services provided by MHAGC protect personal information that we receive are secure. When we transfer and receive certain types of sensitive information such as financial information, we redirect visitors to a secure server. However, no Site or online transaction is completely and perfectly secure, and you should exercise care and judgment in ensuring that you follow good security practices, including accessing our Site through a secure device and internet connection.

All sensitive information provided by individuals to MHAGC is considered confidential, unless otherwise noted. Information is never sold or traded. If MHAGC wishes to use any confidential information provided, the provider will be contacted, and a release form outlining its use will be provided. Individuals retain the right to request Mental Health America remove their information from all mailings, both online and on paper at any time, and Mental Health America will endeavor to remove the information in a reasonable manner, but delays between any such request and the discontinuation of related mailings can occur.

If you have comments or questions about this Crisis Services Policy, or MHAGC’s general privacy policy, please contact the Development Coordinator at: 864-467-3344.

Interpretation of Privacy Policy 

The terms “or” and “including” and similar terms will be interpreted non-exclusively to mean “and/or” or “including, but not limited to” or the equivalent, respectively.

Privacy Policy Last updated July 26, 2022