SMI CalAdviser Privacy Policy

Please read this entire policy. By continuing to use this APA digital platform, you confirm that you understand and accept the terms of this SMI CalAdviser Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not use this APA digital platform.

Introduction

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is a non-profit membership organization comprised of psychiatrists and medical students from the United States and around the world. APA’s primary mission is to promote the highest quality care for individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders and their families, promote psychiatric education and research, advance and represent the profession of psychiatry, and serve the professional needs of our membership. To achieve these goals, we offer a variety of goods and services to people who may be interested in mental health diagnosis and treatment.

SMI CalAdviser is a statewide project funded by the California Department of State Hospitals (DSH) and administered by APA. This Privacy Policy applies specifically to the SMI CalAdviser website and mobile app, and explains how personal information is collected, used, disclosed, and protected when users interact with the website, mobile app, and related services.

What we collect and how

Web Traffic Information and User Activity

General traffic, site usage and pages accessed, browser information, user activity, length-of-stay information, and location data is collected and stored in log files. This type of information is collected and shared on an anonymous, aggregated basis and is used to improve website functionality, user experience, and website security.

Personal Information

We may collect all or some of the following types of personal information: first and last name, street address, city, state, zip code, telephone number, email address, professional and educational history and interests, organization affiliation, geographic location, demographic information, subject of inquiry, and other information voluntarily submitted by the user. Such information is collected, for example, when you register on our digital platform, sign-up for newsletters, or register to attend a webinar, event or other program. We also collect information volunteered by users, including within forms, surveys or requests such as “Contact APA.” We also may collect email addresses of those who communicate with us via email.

Information from Third Parties

APA uses third parties to help offer, promote, market and distribute our products and services. We may receive from and exchange with these third parties information about you. Examples include the following:

1. Platforms we use for marketing automation and emails;
2. Our customer relationship management platforms;
3. The APA Learning Center, meeting abstract management, and continuing medical education credit claim platforms. When you complete a course, submit an abstract, or claim continuing medical education credit, information about your participation is provided to APA for fulfillment of your order and issuance of any continuing medical education credit;
4. Platforms used for registration and/or hosting of APA events and activities.

What we do with the information we collect

We process your information to provide the products, services, resources and consultations you request from us; to further the mission of APA; and to communicate with our customers and other users about, and to provide access to, education and science via APA’s events and online learning programs, tools for practice management and patient education, including clinical practice guidelines, publications, and other products and services pertinent to APA’s promotion of quality psychiatric care and efforts to enhance APA customer satisfaction.

The APA exists for the benefit of its members and users and through the support of its customers. Processing your information for the purposes described is necessary for us to conduct the business of the APA. When we use your information, we attempt to balance our legitimate business interests and the necessity of processing your information with how such processing may impact you. If you have any questions or concerns about our processing of your information, please contact us by email at support@smicaladviser.org or phone at (202) 559-3900.

The APA works and shares information with authorized vendors, consultants, technology partners and other third parties, including in the following categories, to help fulfill our mission and process your information for the purposes described in this document: website operations and analytics; marketing and advertising platform; website and mobile application host; conference registration manager and event service provider; online event platform; payment processor; bulk email and postal mail communication manager; online learning manager; digital content hosting vendor; syllabi, abstract, and presentation manager; on demand educational provider; online communities manager; volunteer management provider; membership marketing provider; address verification service provider; search engine optimization service provider; distributor; and survey provider.

APA provides contact information for its members and other customers who wish to receive informational newsletter offerings to third-party vendors who transmit APA materials on APA’s behalf. APA also shares limited personal information with other nonprofit organizations and government agencies for the purposes of complying with requirements related to its educational offerings and other accreditation services it offers to APA members and customers, such as continuing medical education, educational grant requirements, and board certification accreditation information. These outside companies are required to use such information to perform the services and actions for which they have been engaged by APA.

You may be asked by third parties, including specific APA vendors, to consent to their processing of your information when such processing will be subject to their privacy policy. We encourage you to review such policies closely and be sure that you agree to them before providing your consent.

Some APA digital platforms may provide links, including any link through an on-line banner advertisement, to other sites on the Internet. These other sites are maintained by third parties over which APA exercises no control. The appearance of any such third-party links is not intended to endorse any particular company or product. If you decide to access any of the third-party sites linked to the APA digital platforms, you do so entirely at your own risk and information you submit to them will be governed by their privacy policy, not this one. APA is not responsible for the services, content, conduct or handling of materials by any third-party advertisers appearing on an APA website.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

As part of offering and providing customizable and personalized services, we use cookies and other online tracking technologies on our digital platforms to store and sometimes track information about you to:

• Enable you to more easily use our digital platforms by remembering and using contact information
• Evaluate, monitor and analyze the use of our digital platform and its traffic patterns to help improve our websites and services
• Assist us with ad reporting functions such as to learn which ads are bringing users to our platforms

The types of technologies we use include the following:

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your device’s hard drive. Cookies enable us to identify your browser as a unique user. Cookies may involve the transmission of information from us to you and from you to us. Cookies may also be used by another party on our behalf to transfer information to us in accordance with their privacy policy.

Some cookies are “persistent cookies.” They are used by us each time you access our digital platform. Other cookies are “session cookies.” Session cookies are used only during a specific browsing session. We may use a session cookie, for example, to remember that you have already navigated through a particular menu.

We may also use “analytics cookies” that allow web analytics services to recognize your UserID, browser or device and, for example, identify whether you have visited our digital platform before, what you have previously viewed or clicked on, and how you found us. Analytics cookies are usually persistent cookies.

You may disable browser cookies in your internet browser or set your browser to warn you when a cookie is being sent. You may lose some features or functionality when you disable cookies. Remember, also, that disabling cookies is browser specific. If you use both Microsoft Edge and Chrome, you will need to disable cookies in each browser.

Pixel Tags

We may also employ a software technology known as a pixel tag or Web beacon. A pixel tag is a line of code that we place on our digital platforms or in emails, which transmits information back to a web server and allows us to analyze our advertising and the general usage patterns of visitors to our platforms. Pixel tags help us better manage content on our platform by informing us what content or promotions are effective.

Indirect Collection – Social Networking

Our digital platforms may permit you to use a third party social networking platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linked-In and Google+. This includes use of social media plugins such as Facebook “Like”, Tweet, Google “+1” buttons, etc. When you use these social networking platforms and plugins, your username and password for the available service are collected from you on these services and may be shared with us.

We may also use the ShareThis plugin to allow you to easily share information from our platform on various social networking platforms, email or text message. You control when you share information from our platform using the ShareThis plugin. When you use social networking platforms and plugins, you share your information with them and their privacy policy applies to disclosure of that information.

In addition, they may be able to collect information about you, including your activity, or may notify your connections on the social networking platform about your use of the digital platform. Such services may allow your activity to be monitored across multiple websites for purposes of delivering more targeted advertising. Please note that their privacy policies apply, and we encourage you to read them. We may add new social networking plugins and buttons to our digital platforms from time to time.

Indirect Collection – Analytics

Our digital platforms use search engine optimization offerings, such as Moz Pro, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, which are web analysis services, to help APA analyze how users interact with our platforms. You can learn more about these products from Moz’s and Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

APA may also make use of Google AdWords, another offering that uses cookies and remarketing technologies to deliver relevant information and advertisements to users who have previously visited APA platforms. You may opt-out of the use of such web analytic products by downloading the “Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on” browser plugin offered by Google, available here as of May 19, 2026.

We may use Moz Pro, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to analyze the use of our platform. We do not transfer personal information to Moz Pro or Google Analytics. APA typically retains the non-identifying information derived from our use of cookies, web beacons, Google Analytics, and other similar technologies for up to twenty-six (26) months.

Choices you have about your information

SMI CalAdvsier visitors may manage cookie preferences through the cookie consent banner and preference center available on the website. Cookie preferences for SMI CalAdviser are maintained on a per-website basis and do not automatically apply across other APA-operated websites. Users may modify or withdraw cookie consent preferences at any time through the website’s cookie settings interface. Users may request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal information where permitted by applicable law.

Certain analytics or performance cookies may be provided by third-party services such as Google Analytics. Users may additionally be able to manage cookie settings through their browser controls or through available third-party opt-out tools.

How do we protect your information?

We have security measures in place to prevent personal information we hold from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorized way. We limit access to your personal information to those employees, third parties, or vendors who have a genuine business purpose to access it. Those processing your information should do so only in an authorized manner and subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a data security breach when we are legally required to do so.

Our policy on children’s information

The SMI CalAdviser website is intended for adult audiences, including clinicians, providers, individuals, and families seeking information related to serious mental illness. If you are under 18 years of age, you may not purchase products or services from, and you should not provide information to, the APA’s digital platforms without the involvement of a parent or guardian.

We do not knowingly collect online contact information without prior parental consent or parental notification, including an opportunity for the parent to prevent use of the information and participation in the activity. We do not knowingly solicit personal information online from, or market online to, children under the age of 18. If APA learns that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a person below 18 years of age, we will delete such information.

For our Members/Customers in California

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our website visitors who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us at: American Psychiatric Association, 800 Maine Avenue, SW, Suite 900, Washington DC 20024; (202)-559-3900; support@smicaladviser.org. Please make sure to state in the request that you are a California Resident.

How we make changes to this policy

When we change the Privacy Policy, we’ll post any changes on this page. If you continue to use the SMI CalAdviser digital platform after those changes are in effect, you agree to the new policy.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact the APA’s Privacy Officer at: support@smicaladviser.org or (202) 559-3900.

Last Updated: May 19, 2026