American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists

Information and Background for the Changes in Directory Listings

Due to changes in the law regarding data privacy and electronic information sharing, AAPH has had to make a change in the way we list our member's data on the Internet. We now keep all member information private (that is, non-public and non-published) unless the member explicitly flags their information to be publicly listed.

In our case, this means the member must set a flag called "Publish Listing in Directory" to "Yes" before any of their information is listed in the public referral directory. It is a simple process to set your flag.

We have also separated our membership purchasing system (online shopping cart) from our online referral directory information. In other words, we never use the (possibly private) credit card billing address as the address we list in the referral directory. Members now require two accounts: one for for the AAPH online store with the credit card billing address, and one for the AAPH web site with the address for the public referral directory. Unfortunately, this requires two logins and (at the member's discretion) two passwords for the two separate accounts.

Background

These changes were made necessary and the new laws were brought to our attention when a member's private home address was published in our referral directory without the member's explicit consent. It was the address listed on the member's application, but the application did not specify that the address was going to be listed publicly, and it was determined that the member's reasonable expectation of privacy was violated.

Our changes in policy and procedure will make sure this unfortunate circumstance doesn't happen again. We appreciate your understanding.

--AAPH Staff