Personal Information (Including Social Security Number) Privacy Protection Policy

 

 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia maintains policies that protect the confidentiality of personal information, including Social Security numbers, obtained from its members and associates in the course of its regular business functions. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia is committed to protecting information about its customers and associates, especially the confidential nature of their personal information (PI).

 

Personal Information is information that is capable of being associated with an individual through one or more identifiers including but not limited to, a Social Security number, a driver's license number, a state identification card number, an account number, a credit or debit card number, a passport number, an alien registration number or a health insurance identification number, and does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state or local government records or widely distributed media.

 

 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Associates must only access Social Security numbers or personal information as required by their job duties. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia has in place a minimum necessary policy which states that associates may only access, use or disclose Social Security numbers or personal information to complete a specific task and as allowed by law.

 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia safeguards Social Security numbers and other personal information by having physical, technical, and administrative safeguards in place.

 

Contacting the Privacy Office
WellPoint's Privacy Office is available to answer privacy questions or for reporting privacy issues. You may contact the Privacy Office by calling the customer service number on the back of your ID card or write to us at the following address:

 

Privacy Officer
4361 Irwin Simpson Road
OH0101-C300
Mason, OH 45040

 

BCBSGA Web Site Statement Regarding Collection and Use of Information 

Welcome to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia's Web Site. We appreciate your interest in us. This site is owned and operated by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia and its affiliates. Any activity on this site is subject to monitoring by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia at any time. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia routinely gathers quantitative information on web site activity, including the number of users to the site and the pages visited. No personally identifiable information is collected in this routine activity, and subsequently, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia reserves the right to use and share or disclose this information with others.

 

When you log on to our Web Site and communicate with us via our site, we do not collect personal information about you unless you provide it to us voluntarily. Personal information is any information or data that is unique to an individual such as a name, social security number, address, birth date, etc. Portions of our Web Site may allow you to provide us with personal information in order to deliver requested materials, products or services to you, respond to your questions, or enable to you to update information or sign up for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia programs. Any personal information that you provide via our Web site is used exclusively for the purpose stated and contained on the Web Site page. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia does not sell, license, transmit or disclose personal information that you provide to us outside of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia and its affiliated companies except with the following exceptions:

 

 

Any such disclosure of any personal information is performed within the parameters of applicable laws and regulations, and the personal information is used only for the purpose it was provided.

 

Our Web Site requires users to provide unique identifiers, such as subscriber identification numbers, in order to log into some of the Web site pages. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia utilizes these unique identifiers to verify the user's identify and eligibility, in order to protect our members from the release of personally identifiable information to unauthorized users.

 

An Internet Protocol address is a number that automatically identifies the computer or machine that you are using to access the Internet. The address enables our server to send you the Web pages that you want to visit. It may disclose the server owned by your Internet Service Provider. We utilize your Internet Protocol address to help diagnose problems with our server and to support our site administration.

 

Cookies are pieces of information that a web site transfers to a user's computer for purposes of storing information regarding user's preferences. Just as many major Web sites use cookies as a standard practice to provide useful information to a user, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia uses cookies to deliver Web site content specific to your identified interests. By themselves, cookies do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user's computer. A user can opt not to take advantage of the cookie benefits by setting his or her browser to refuse cookies.

 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia may change this Web Site Statement at any time without prior notice.