Last updated: 5/14/2026
This is the privacy policy for the Pitt CTRL Research Lab website. Our website address is: https://pittctrl.org.
If you have any questions about this policy or your data, you can contact us at info@pittctrl.org.
Our website includes the following forms: Contact form, Share Your Story form, Suggest Research form. When you submit one of these forms, we collect the information you choose to provide — which may include your name, email address, and any other details you enter.
We use this information only for the purpose for which it was submitted — for example, responding to your inquiry, contacting you about a study, or sending you updates you requested. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with third parties.
Research use (opt-in only): In some cases, we may ask whether you consent to having the information you provide included in our research. This is always optional and is presented as a clear, separate choice. If you do not provide that consent, your data will never be used for research — it will only be used for the purpose described above. If you do consent, your data may be included in research activities conducted by the lab, consistent with our approved research protocols.
When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, along with the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture is visible to the public alongside your comment.
If you upload images to the website, avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract location data from images on the site.
If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These exist for your convenience so you do not have to re-enter your details on another comment. These cookies last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we set a temporary cookie to determine whether your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we set several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me,” your login persists for two weeks. If you log out, the login cookies are removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie is saved in your browser. It includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after one day.
Articles on this site may include embedded content (videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if you had visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content — including tracking your interaction if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors find and use our website. Google Analytics collects information such as the pages you visit, how long you stay, your approximate location, and details about your device and browser. This is done using cookies. IP addresses are anonymized by default in our configuration.
We use this information only in aggregate to improve the website. For more on how Google handles data, see https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
We use Google reCAPTCHA to protect our forms from spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA collects hardware and software information, such as device and application data, and sends it to Google for analysis. This use is governed by Google’s Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) and Terms of Use (https://policies.google.com/terms).
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with third parties — except for the service providers described above (Google Analytics, Google reCAPTCHA, and Gravatar) that make the website function, and except where you have given explicit consent for your form data to be used in research.
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so that we can recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users who register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
For form submissions, we retain your data only as long as needed for the purpose it was collected, or — where you have consented to research use — for as long as required by the relevant research protocol.
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
If you have submitted a form and want your data corrected or deleted, contact us at info@pittctrl.org.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Access to personal data collected through this website is limited to lab members who need it for the purposes described above. Data submitted through forms is stored securely and is not sold or shared except as described in this policy.