Privacy policy

Your privacy

Protecting your privacy is one of our top priorities. Please take a few minutes to review this policy.

Introduction

Our privacy commitment

This document sets out the basis on which BMJ Publishing Group Limited will process any personal data we collect from you.

We will make every effort to protect your privacy by adopting a consistently high level of site security and adhering to strict company policies on how we store and use personal information. This privacy policy has been developed in accordance with our legal obligations and may be updated from time to time.

If we make any changes to our privacy policy, we will post the revisions on our site.

1. What information is being collected and how is it used?

There are various sections of the website, for which we collect different information. What we collect and how this is used is as follows:

1.1 Patients Completing GPAQ

If you are a patient of a General Practitioners Surgery and are completing the GPAQ Survey online, or if you are a General Practitioners Surgery who are inputting the responses to questionnaires competed by your patients, then you should be aware that the information you submit will be provided to the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre and may be provided to other third parties.

1.2 Registered Users

Access to content and services on our website requires either surgery admin logon alone or access via unique patient codes. You will know what information is being collected when you complete required details prior to submission (including which information is mandatory). Where you submit a response on the survey, the details you insert will be anonymous. Once sufficient patient surveys have been completed, a final report is prepared for the surgery containing statistical information and general feedback, the report however will not include any information that can be used to identify any individual. We will use data collected to allow access to our website and fulfil any obligations to you (where these exist).

We will also use your data to monitor for any unauthorised use of our website, content or subscriptions to our content. We may also disclose your indentity and contact details to any third party claiming material posted by you is defamatory or violates their intellectual property rights or right to privacy.

1.3 All users

As you browse the website, we collect information about your use of the site including but not limited to traffic data and location data. Essentially this will normally be which pages you have visited, how long you stay online and where you are located. We will not be able to identify who you are from the information we store, but we will be able to identify where you are located - (see point 1.4 below).

1.4 What else do we collect when you use our website?

Each time you use the internet, an IP address is assigned to your computer via the internet service provider. This number may either be the same or different each time. Each time your computer requests information from our website, we log your IP address on our server and may log operating systems and browser types for system administration and to report aggregate information. We may use this in order to gather information about the website traffic and usage.

Whether you are a registered user or not, our web server collects certain information such as (a) IP address; (b) host names (c) domain name (d) time and date information as requested (e) the browser version and platform when it is requested, (f) a record of which pages have been requested.

If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence and use it to contact you in response and/or to update our records.
We may use all information to adhere to any legal requirements to disclose to third parties, enforce our legal rights, and protect against unauthorised access, use, activity and/or copying, either personally or via third party contractors and advisors.

1.5 What else do we use personal information for?

Other than for fulfilling any obligations to you (where these exist), on some occasions we use the information provided to produce anonymised aggregate statistics in relation to pages being accessed and the demographics of our users. We may also use it to monitor usage patterns on the website in order to improve navigation and design features to help you get information more easily. In order to help us develop the website and our services, we may provide such aggregate information to third parties. The statistics however will not include any information that can be used to identify any individual. We may contact you to notify you about changes to our service.

2. How long do we keep the information we collect?

We keep your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil our obligations to you, protect our legal interests and undertake analysis of our website to assist you and future users.

3. Use of cookies

BMJ Publishing Group Limited uses "cookies" to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that most major websites write to your hard drive for record keeping purposes when you visit them. Cookies allow BMJ Publishing Group Limited to improve your user experience, for example by remembering viewing preferences or displaying your recent viewed items.
BMJ Publishing Group Limited does not use cookies to retrieve information from your computer that was not originally sent in a cookie. BMJ Publishing Group Limited does not use information transferred through cookies for any promotional or marketing purposes, nor is that information shared with any third parties whatsoever.

More information about Cookies, including how to block them and/or delete them, can be found at http://www.aboutcookies.org

4. To whom will information be disclosed?

Other than as expressly agreed by you or otherwise stated when data is collected or within this policy, we will not disclose your personal data to any third parties other than:

1. our owners (where applicable), Licensors, contractors and advisors who must keep this data confidential;
2. as required to enforce our legal rights (including property, safety, our customers or others);
3. fraud protection and credit risk reduction; and
4. where our company or its assets (to which your data relates) are to be acquired by a new company, location data may be shared.

5. How personal information is stored and protected

Your personal data is stored in our databases or those of our contractors which is only available to the web administrators of us and our contractors and selected authorised people on a password protected basis (except where referred to in the final paragraph of Clause 1.3 herein). The data that we collect from you may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by staff operating outside of the EEA who work for us or are of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in among other things, hosting the fulfilment of your order, processing of your payment details and the provision of support services by submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or process. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely by us and our contractors and in accordance with this privacy policy. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.

Please do not share your password(s) with anyone.

5.1 Security

We understand that the security of your information is important to you. We also understand that our continued success as a publisher on the web relies on our ability to communicate with you in a secure manner. We adhere to the highest standards of decency, fairness, and integrity in our operations. We use several measures to authenticate your identity when you visit our site. We also take steps to protect your information as it travels the internet, and to make sure all information is as secure as possible against unauthorised access and use (for example, by hackers). We review our security measures regularly.

Despite our best efforts, and the best efforts of other firms, "perfect security" does not exist on the internet, or anywhere else. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

5.2 Authentication

You should not share your user name and password with other people. If you think you might lose or forget these identifiers, write them down and keep each in a separate place.

5.3 Email

5.4 Data within our walls

The information we collect about people visiting the site is stored in secure environments that are not available to any other individual or party. We have mechanisms in place to protect data. One such mechanism is called a "firewall." A firewall is a barrier that allows only authorised traffic through. It safeguards our computer systems and your information. We also use system and application logs to track all access. We review these logs periodically and investigate any anomalies or discrepancies.

6. Contact us

Please contact us if any of the data we hold about you becomes inaccurate and if you have any queries or concerns about the data we are holding about you. Also we welcome your feedback about what you like or don't like about our sites. Your feedback is stored on a secure internal system that allows the appropriate person to respond to you. Please contact us through our Contact us section.

7. Linking to external sites

Occasionally, you will encounter links to other sites that are not related to BMJ Publishing Group Limited. Please be aware that once you click to one of these sites, you are subject to that site's privacy policy and not to ours. You may wish to review the privacy policy for each site you visit.

8. Your consent

By submitting your information, you consent to the use of that information as set out in this policy. You should review this policy regularly, to note any changes as to how we collect and use personal information.

Thank you for reviewing this information.

If you have any questions, please send us an e-mail through our Contact us section.

Last updated September 2008.
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