DATA HANDLING AND CONFIDENTIALITY

We assume that your project information and data are proprietary. We will not disclose information about you, your project or your data to anyone outside the Alpha Biostats organization without your written permission.

Project information and data that you send to us will not be used for any purposes other than those specified in the consulting services letter of agreement.

Your research data remain your property. Typically, your consultant will retain a back-up copy of your data for 12 months following completion of your project, to allow project follow-up and/or replacement of lost data. However, at your request, Alpha Biostats will permanently delete any copies of your data that we hold, using electronic shredding methods. (Please note that Alpha Biostats always retains copies of reports that we produce on your behalf. Requests to permanently delete your consultant's written reports cannot be honored, but all reports will be kept confidential.)

Human subjects data sent to Alpha Biostats for analysis must not contain any information that identifies individuals.

Please remove all personal identifiers from human subjects data prior to sending the data to your Alpha Biostats consultant. This includes names, medical record numbers, social security numbers and any other information that would allow individuals to be identified. If you need to maintain a coded identity link for follow-up research, your Alpha Biostats consultant can advise you how to do so without compromising your human subjects' right to privacy.