Privacy Statement

Protecting your privacy is very important to us. Our website links to other NIH sites, other federal agency sites, and occasionally to private organizations. Once you leave the primary NIAAA.NIH.gov site, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting.

We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) about you during your visit to NIH websites unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect some data about your visit to our website to help us better understand how the public uses the site and how to make it more helpful. We collect information from visitors who read, browse, and/or download information from our website. NIAAA never collects information for commercial marketing or any purpose unrelated to the NIAAA mission and goals.

Types of Information Collected

When people visit the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) website (niaaa.nih.gov), the following information is stored:

  • Domain from which visitors access the Internet
  • IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to a computer when surfing the Web)
  • Operating system and browser type
  • Date and time of visits
  • Pages visited
  • Address of the website that connects visitors to the NIAAA.NIH.gov website (such as google.com or bing.com)

We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections and to help make our site more useful to visitors. Unless it is specifically stated otherwise, no additional information will be collected about visitors.

When inquiries are E-mailed to us, we store the question and the E-mail address information so that we can respond electronically. Unless otherwise required by statute, we do not identify publicly who sends questions or comments to our website. We will not obtain information that will allow us to personally identify you when you visit our site, unless you chose to provide such information to us.

Cookies

When you visit some websites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as cookies. The use of cookies on the NIAAA website fall into two categories, based on the length of time they remain active:

Session cookies are used for technical purposes, such as enabling better navigation through the site, facilitating the use of user accounts, and generating aggregated statistics about how the website is used. There are two types of session cookies:

  1. Single-session cookies last only as long as a web browser is open.  Once the browser is closed, the data files on your computer are deleted. Information collected from per-session cookies will not be disclosed to third parties.  For these technical purposes, per-session cookies are enabled by default.  Under the framework of OMB M-10-22, this qualifies as a Tier 1 use.

  2. Multi-session cookies last beyond a single session of browsing a website; this allows a website to recognize a computer or user for defined amount of time.

Persistent cookies. We use persistent cookies to enable Google Analytics to differentiate between new and returning niaaa.nih.gov visitors by analyzing the data collected through the session and persistent metrics cookies.  The third-party analytics provider does not receive personally identifiable information through these cookies and does not combine, match, or cross-reference niaaa.nih.gov information with any other information.  Please review the third-party analytics provider’s privacy policy for additional information.

The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of persistent cookies as "Usage Tier 2—Multi-session without Personally Identifiable Information (PII).”  The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of multi-session Web measurement and customization technologies when no PII is collected."

NIAAA generally does not access or store the raw information collected through these cookies.  We do view aggregate statistical analyses prepared by our third-party analytics provider, but these analyses do not include any personally identifiable information. We do not sell, rent, exchange, or otherwise disclose this information to persons or organizations outside the NIH.

How to Opt Out or Disable Cookies: If you do not wish to have session or persistent cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. If you opt out of cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources at niaaa.nih.gov. Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at https://www.usa.gov/optout-instructions. Please note that by following the instructions to opt-out of cookies, you may be disabling cookies from all sources, not just those from https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/. You can also delete cookies stored in your browser at any time.

Survey Disclaimer

OMB#: 0925-0648 Exp. Date: 05/31/2021

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average five minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: NIH, Project Clearance Branch, 6705 Rockledge Drive, MSC 7974, Bethesda, MD 20892-7974, ATTN: PRA (0925-0648). Do not return the completed form to this address.