Privacy Statement
This page explains how Birmingham OwnHealth uses any information you give to us, and the ways in which we protect your privacy.
The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We will only use your information for the purpose we have described and we do not pass on your details to any third party unless you give us permission to do so. We use leading technologies to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
Comments and questions
If you send an email or log a query on the website asking for information, we may need to contact other parties to find that information. If your question is technical, we may need to pass it to our IT team. We do not pass on any of your personal information when dealing with your enquiry, unless you have given us permission to do so.
Email correspondence
We never send unsolicited email newsletters mailshots - these are only sent to users who have chosen to receive them or similar communications from within the NHS family. Every email newsletter contains an ‘unsubscribe’ link. After clicking the link, an email will be sent to the relevant email address asking you to confirm the cancellation. Alternatively, you can cancel your subscription by updating your online profile.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We make limited use of cookies on this site. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies.
We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session ID cookie expires when you close you browser.
A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for up to 1 year. The only uses we make of persistent cookies are (a) when you select the "remember me" option to avoid the need to submit login details repeatedly, and (b) when you increase the size of the text displayed on the site. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file.
You can set your computer not to accept cookies. If you do that, you may still use our site, but there may be some minor limitations on your ability to use some parts of it.
Registration
You are not required to register in order to use the open access material included on the Birmingham OwnHealth website. However, to access resticted content, you will need to register.
During registration, you will be asked to provide basic contact details and a password. We use this information for the following purposes:
- to personalise the information available to you, e.g. providing access for eligible users to restricted content and discussion forums
- to maintain an up-to-date database of contacts for Birmingham OwnHealth
- to allow extra administrative facilities (such as editing page content) to authorised users.
The information in your online profile would never be shared outside the "NHS family" without your express prior approval.
Within Birmingham OwnHealth, your information may be used as described earlier in this statement - for maintenance of our contacts database, for communicating with colleagues, and for administration of events. Occasionally, we may share contact data with other teams in the "NHS family" where this supports our work.
Your contact details will never be released outside the ‘NHS family’ without your explicit prior consent.
Log files
Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. They enable us to make changes to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, and date/time stamp.
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyse trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.
We do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information.
Data storage, access, and IT security
All the information described above is held in an online database. Birmingham OwnHealth takes all reasonable steps to protect this data.
Remote access to the database is controlled by password and is restricted to authorised personnel of Birmingham OwnHealth's contracted website maintainers – Kent House Consulting Ltd.
Controlled access to the information held in the database is available to authorised personnel in order to assist with support to users, production and distribution of email newsletters, operation of the discussion forums, and maintenance of the database of contacts.
Physical access to the computer holding the online database is restricted to authorised 3rd-party engineers for maintenance purposes only. The computer is located in a secure data centre with 24/7 controlled access.
Passwords for users’ accounts are one-way encrypted in the database. They therefore cannot practically be recovered by any user, authorised or otherwise.
Birmingham OwnHealth has a contractual arrangement to ensure that security of the web, email, and database servers is continually maintained up-to-date. All security updates released for web server, email and databases software and operating system are applied promptly.
What happens when I link to another site?
The Birmingham OwnHealth site contains links to other websites, both those of government departments and of other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information.
Changes to this privacy policy
If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.
Contacting us
Here are the contact details if you wish to discuss any aspect of our management of your personal information:
Email: boh.questions@benpct.nhs.uk
Last updated: 03 June 08