Consumer health data privacy policy
How Uroanswers collects, uses and shares consumer health data, and how residents of Washington, Nevada and Connecticut can access, delete or withdraw consent.
Effective: 6 October 2026
This policy is for residents of Washington, Nevada and Connecticut, and anyone whose health data is collected in those states. It explains how Uroanswers ("we") handles consumer health data, as required by the Washington My Health My Data Act, Nevada's consumer health data law (SB 370) and Connecticut's consumer health data provisions. Our general privacy policy covers everything else.
Consumer health data we collect
- What you write about your health in forum posts and emails to us. This can include conditions, symptoms, tests, treatments, medications, surgery and recovery.
- Identifiers linked to it: your pseudonym, email address, and the IP address recorded with each post.
- Pages you request, with your IP address, in server and security logs. These are kept for no more than 90 days and are used only to deliver pages and secure the site.
- Which health topic pages you visit, recorded by Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica, only if you accept measurement cookies.
- Whether a post contains words associated with crisis, detected automatically so that a helpline panel can be shown on that post.
Sources
- From you, when you post or email us.
- From your device, through server and security logs, and through measurement cookies if you have accepted them.
- From our own systems, when the automated crisis check runs on a post.
Why we collect and use it
- To provide the forum you asked to use: publishing your posts.
- To moderate the forum, deal with reports and appeals, prevent spam and abuse, and keep the site secure.
- To show crisis helpline information on posts that need it.
- To reply to you when you contact us.
- With your consent, to measure which pages are used, so we can improve them.
Consumer health data we share, and with whom
- Posts you publish are visible to anyone reading the forum, because you choose to publish them.
- Service providers that run the site for us: website hosting; network and security; email delivery; and Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica, only if you have accepted measurement cookies. Analytics providers' roles depend on their own terms; not every one of them necessarily acts solely as our processor.
- Authorities or courts, if the law requires it.
- Emergency services, if we believe someone's life is at immediate risk.
Affiliates: We do not share consumer health data with any affiliate.
Selling: Uroanswers doesn't sell consumer health data.
Tracking across other websites: Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica are permitted to use consumer health data described above only to provide their service to us. We have observed that Yandex Metrica and Microsoft Clarity's underlying Bing identifiers set some additional cookies associated with those companies' own ad systems when Statistics is accepted; this is part of how those providers operate their own services, not something we configure. See our Cookie Policy for what we have observed.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- Confirm and access. Confirm whether we collect, share or sell your consumer health data, and get a copy of it. This includes a list of every third party and affiliate we have shared it with, and an email address or online contact method for each.
- Withdraw consent. Withdraw your consent to our collection and sharing of your consumer health data. Posting on the forum depends on that consent, so we will close your account and stop collecting it. You can withdraw consent for measurement cookies separately, from the button on our cookie policy page, without affecting your account.
- Delete. Have your consumer health data deleted. We will close your account, delete your account details, and remove your posts if you ask us to. We will also delete your emails to us and your analytics data, and tell our service providers to delete their copies. Copies in backups are overwritten within 35 days, well within the six months the law allows. We keep only what we need to prevent fraud, harassment or security incidents, or to deal with illegal activity, as the law permits.
Using these rights won't affect how we treat you on the site, apart from the account changes described above.
How to make a request
Email contact@uroanswers.org with the subject line "Health data request". Say which right you want to use.
- If you have an account, send the request from the email address linked to it, so we can confirm it is you. You don't need to create an account to make a request.
- We will respond within 45 days. If we need more time, we may extend this once by up to 45 more days, and we will tell you why within the first 45 days.
- Requests are free.
How to appeal
If we decline your request, in whole or in part, you can appeal. To do so, reply to the email that told you our decision and put "Appeal" in the subject line. We will tell you in writing what we did and why within 45 days of receiving your appeal. If we deny your appeal, you can complain to your state attorney general:
- Washington: Office of the Attorney General, file a complaint
- Nevada: Office of the Attorney General, Bureau of Consumer Protection
- Connecticut: Office of the Attorney General, complaint form (choose "Consumer Data Privacy")
Reviewing and correcting your data
You can review and edit your own posts for a short time after posting, and update your account settings at any time. To ask for anything else to be corrected, email contact@uroanswers.org.
Changes to this policy
If we make a material change to this policy, we will update the effective date above and tell registered members by email or a notice on the site at least 14 days before the change takes effect. We will ask for your consent again before using consumer health data in a new way that needs it.