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Privacy Policy

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 the BMJ Publishing Group Limited (“BMJ Group”) will process any personal data we collect from you, except in the case of Evidence Based Nursing, and in which case you will be subject to the Royal College of Nursing's Privacy Policy http://www.rcn.org.uk/privacy. Other than for Evidence Based Nursing, the BMJ Group shall be the data controller.


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 Registered Users
Many of our websites require subscriptions and/or registration to access certain functions, services or content. You will know what information is being collected via these processes when you complete required details prior to submission (including which information is mandatory). On some of our websites, where you submit a response for publication your name and other personal details may be published. You should check the policy on the relevant submission page on the specific BMJ Group website. We will collect data relating to any transactions you carry out through our website(s) and of the fulfilment of your orders. We collate data about registered users and which publications and services they have subscribed to so to understand our customers and try and easily fulfil their subscription requirements. For conferences we will use your personal data also to inform the venue and caterers of all delegates, create a delegate list of attendees and sponsors. Once you start using our sites, we may track and keep a record of the pages you visit. We collect this data from groups of users to get a sense of how people are using our sites and which content and areas are most popular. This helps us improve what we offer on our sites. We will also use your data to monitor for any unauthorised use of our websites, content or subscriptions to our publications (for example individuals subscribing individually for institutions). We may also disclose your identity and contact details to any third party claiming material posted by you is defamatory or violates their intellectual property rights or right to privacy. You will be given an opportunity to opt in or out (as applicable) from receiving marketing emails from the BMJ Group and third parties. For users who have opted to receive marketing emails from BMJ Group ( and others where indicated and there is a jointly supplied product or service) , and visit our websites through links provided in these emails, we may send back information about your website usage to our third party email direct marketing provider.  This is for the purpose of understanding the effectiveness of our email marketing campaigns and for targeting future email campaigns.


1.2 BMJ Learning Users
In addition to other uses of your personal data which are set out herein, the information that you add to your plan, including the areas of improvement you identify, the classes you have taken, and other such information, is considered private. Our technicians have access to it in order to fix problems and maintain the site. However, we do not read this information unless necessary, and subject to clause 4 we will not release it to other people or organisations, without your prior consent. However we reserve the right to release anonymised group data to third parties related to the use of specific modules. You are able to give feedback about a learning module after completing it, and in the learning resources section of the site. This information is visible to other users of the site, including guest users. We will also use it to improve our site.


1.3 Foundation Programme Users
The forms you complete online and the learning modules you complete (including obtaining certificates of completion) are considered private. Our technicians have access to them in order to fix problems and maintain the site. However, we do not read this information unless necessary, and will not release it to other people or organisations, without your prior consent.


1.4 Portfolio Users
The data you enter into the BMJ Portfolio website, and any files you upload to it, is considered private. Our technicians have access to this data in order to fix problems and maintain the site. We may statistically analyse the information, in aggregate form, to learn more about the interests of our user base. These statistics may be used to provide functionality that recommends useful resources to other users of BMJ Portfolio. In no case will it be possible to identify an individual through such functionality, or through the underlying aggregate data.


1.5 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 1.5 below).


1.6 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 enforce our legal rights and protect against unauthorised access, use, activity and/or copying, either personally or via third party contractors and advisors. This may involve using your name and subscription details on a database with other publishers’ data for detection purposes.


1.7 What else do we use personal information for?
Other than for fulfilling our obligations to you (where these exist), on some occasions we use the information provided to produce aggregate statistics in relation to pages being accessed. 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. This information is provided to us as daily log files. 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. We also may send you non marketing emails for the purpose of inviting you to partake in surveys or market research which we conduct or which third parties are conducting. In addition to responding to complaints or claims received or discovered referred to above or any breaches of our Website Terms and Conditions, we may use all information supplied or collected on this Website to enforce our legal rights and protect against unauthorised access, use, activity and/or copying, either personally or via third party contractors and advisors and/or protect the rights, property, or personal safety other users of the websites and the public.This may involve using any details supplied by you including your name and contact details.


2. How long do we keep the information we collect?
We keep (including via our contractors) your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil our obligations to you and to protect our legal interests or as otherwise stated to you when such data is collected.


3. Use of cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer and contains text information. Cookies are used to support a number of functions that are available on BMJ Websites as follows.  


Usage tracking: We store a number that identifies your institution (if  your institution is the subscriber rather than you personally ) so we can report usage levels back to our customers. We also store the country that we think you are accessing from, for similar purposes. The 3rd party Google Analytics service is used by us, and it also stores cookies for usage tracking.


Personalisation: We store your personal preferences for various aspects of our websites.


Persistent login: If you request it, by ticking the ‘remember me’ box, we will store a cookie that allows you to be automatically logged in on our web sites. This should not be used on a shared computer, as anyone using the computer would be able to log in as you.


Advertising: 3rd party advertising companies that we use will use cookies to keep track of the number of times adverts have been viewed, and to improve the relevance of ads that are displayed.


Marketing: When we send marketing emails to users who have chosen to receive them, we place a cookie that lets us track the success of campaigns. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our websites, or your user experience will be affected. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our websites. More information about Cookies, including how to block them and/or delete them, can be found at http://www.aboutcookies.org. Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our sites.


4. To whom will information be disclosed?
Other than as expressly agreed by you or stated when data is collected or within this policy we will not disclose your personal data to any third parties other than:


(i) our co-owners (where applicable), Licensors, contractors and advisors who must keep this data confidential. For the International Forum on Quality and Safety this will include transferring your data outside of the EEA to the USA. This may also be the case for other co-owners or licensors;


(ii) as required for conferences such as to venue organisers who may be outside of the EEA;


(iii) as required to enforce our legal rights (including property, safety, our customers or others);


(iv) fraud protection and credit risk reduction;


(v) where our company or its assets (to which your data relates) are to be acquired by a new company location data may be shared;


(vi) in the case of BMJ Learning and BMJ Portfolio only  to the BMA in relation to the fact that you have signed up for access to BMJ Learning; and


(vii) in the case of registered GP’s in New Zealand who are official members of the Royal New Zealand College of GP’s, whilst we have an agreement with them, details of modules you have passed; and


(viii) in the case of registered GPs in Malaysia, who are official members of the Malaysian Medical Association, whilst we have an agreement with them, details of modules you have passed; and


(ix) in the case of registered GPs in Denmark, who are official members of the Danish Medical Association, whilst we have an agreement with them, details of modules you have passed; and


(x) in the case of users whose access is provided by Harmoni, details of modules you have passed; and(xi) in the case that you are registered with the BMJ Learning Iraq channel then we may provide your personal data, including details of your usage of the site, to the Iraq Ministry of Health.


5. How personal information 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
Any email between you and the BMJ Group is not encrypted. It will be stored securely within our corporate firewall (see below).


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 the BMJ Group. 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.
 
View Policy as a PDF http://group.bmj.com/downloads/privacy-policy-august-2011.pdf


Last updated  July  2011