MD Consents Privacy Policy

Who we are and what we do

MD Consents Limited (collectively referred to as “MD Consents Limited”, “MDC”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy) operates a platform for healthcare organisations to place their consent to treatment forms, procedures and guidance in an accessible online environment. This is used to assist healthcare organisations in providing a robust informed consent process for those undergoing treatment with those organisations.

Respect for personal data

MD Consents Limited respects the privacy of patients, healthcare organisations using the platform and other visitors to our site. MD Consents Limited is committed to protecting personal data. This privacy policy informs those who visit our site about how we look after personal data.

The policy sets out the basis on which personal data we collect, or that is provided to us, is processed by us.

Terms applicable to visits to our site

Visits to our site are subject to the terms set out in this privacy policy. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding personal data and how we will treat it. This includes personal data gathered from your visits to our site.

How we process personal data

MD Consents Limited is a data controller in respect of our own business operations and data processor for the healthcare organisations we contract with to make available our Informed Consent platform. We have appointed a data protection lead who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our data protection lead on privacy@mdconsents.com.

There is an important distinction between capturing and analysing general web traffic (and associated personal data from visiting our site) and the personal data we store and process on behalf of healthcare organisations.

  • The first category uses cookies to collect data about users’ browsing actions and patterns. This helps us to improve our websites; our content; features; and general infrastructure performance. We hold this data as data controller.
  • The second category – registered users – does involve storing and processing of personal data (including special category personal data relating to health) of those accessing the services of healthcare organisations. We hold this personal data as a data processor only.

Personal data patients supply to us, or are supplied by healthcare organisations to us, as part of the registration and consent process are stored and used by MDC to enable healthcare organisations to deliver a robust ‘Informed Consent Process’. These are stored by us for as short a period as necessary, and thereafter deleted by us.

Information we may collect

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). When you visit our site or correspond with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise you may give us information that would be classed as personal data about you and others you are acting on behalf of.

Information about patients

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you when you are using our site for the purpose of the Informed Consent Process. We have grouped these different classes of information together follows:

  1. Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  2. Contact Data may include a patient’s home address, email address and telephone numbers.
  3. Profile Data includes your username and password and feedback responses.
  4. Health Data includes any information about a patient’s physical health including your medical history and/or current health status including but not limited to data regarding test results, diagnoses and medications.
  5. Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, the patient’s login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices that the patient uses to access this site.
  6. Usage Data includes information about how you use our site.

Information about healthcare organisations

For the healthcare organisations that use our services, we will also hold additional data concerning the provision of our services including:

  1. Identity Data such as first name and last name of individuals within the healthcare organisations.
  2. Contact Data may include addresses, email address and telephone numbers.
  3. Profile Data includes any username and password issued to the healthcare organisations.
  4. Marketing and Communications Data includes a business’ preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
  5. Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from the healthcare organisation and other details of products and services purchased from us.
  6. Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, the healthcare organisation’s login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices used to access this site.

Information about visitors to the site

For other visitors to our site, we may, depending on your interactions with us, collect personal data including:

  1. Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  2. Contact Data may include home addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers.
  3. Profile Data includes username and password and feedback responses.
  4. Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices used to access this site.
  5. Usage Data includes information about how you use our site.

Aggregated data

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

Keeping your data secure

We know that data security is important to you and it is therefore important to us. We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions in accordance with this policy and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Our online consent platform and patient portal services use Microsoft Azure data centres located in the UK.

How we will collect data

We use different methods to collect data from and about users of the site:

  1. Direct interactions. You may give us any of the categories of data identified above by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • register to use our site;
    • make a request to use the Informed Consent Process;
    • give us some feedback.
  2. Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our site, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
  3. Healthcare Organisations. The healthcare organisations who use our services will invite patients to use our Informed Consent Platform as a part of their treatment process. Where the patient consents to this, the healthcare organisation will provide information about the patients to us as required to establish each patient as a user on the site.

Information collection from our site

All personal data entered is captured via securely encrypted web pages. Browsers display these security credentials using a padlock symbol; the exact format varies from browser to browser, but will look similar to:

Sensitive details, such as, passwords, name, address and date of birth are stored in an encrypted form at a secure data centre which is certified to ISO 27001:2005 – the only auditable international standard for information security management systems.

All data transmitted between browsers and our servers are encrypted and protected using a Comodo SSL security certificate using a 256 bit encryption key (https://ssl.comodo.com/).

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security protocol for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a web browser. This encrypted link ensures that all data exchanged between the browser and the server remains secure without the risk of eavesdropping, web forgery, and data tampering.

Why we will use your data

The lawful basis for processing are set out in the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We may process your personal data on more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out below. At least one of these must apply whenever we process personal data as a data controller:

  1. Consent:  you have given clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose.
  2. Contract:  the processing is necessary for a contract we have with your healthcare organisation, or because they have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract.
  3. Legal obligation:  the processing is necessary for us to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).
  4. Vital interests:  the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life.
  5. Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is a good reason to protect your personal data which overrides those legitimate interests

Click here to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing personal data. However, where we do ask for your consent we will do so in order to comply with the principle that any processing must be lawful, fair and transparent.

Where we act as a data processor only, we will act under contractual relations with the relevant data controller, and process personal data only in accordance with their instructions. In these circumstances, you should refer to the privacy policy of the relevant data controller who we are providing services for. In the majority of cases this will be the healthcare organisation that you are receiving treatment from.

Disclosing your personal data

MD Consents Limited does not disclose any personal data relating to patients using the site other than the personal data that you have agreed to share with your healthcare organisations.

We do not transfer personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Cookies

Consider whether you want a digital log of your visit to MD Consents Limited to be recorded in your browser. If you don’t want a record to be kept, you can choose to delete your browser history afterwards or view our pages in incognito mode / private browsing, which won’t store your browser history, cookies, or search history after you’ve closed your browsers. However, you are not invisible. Using incognito mode / private browsing does not hide your browser history from your internet service provider, MD Consents Limited or your employer (if you are using a company device).

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee of £10 if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Marketing

Healthcare Organisations may receive marketing communications from us if they have requested information from us or purchased services from us and, in each case, where they have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share any healthcare organisations’ data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Any individual who is receiving marketing messages from us can ask us to stop sending these at any time by logging into the site and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a service purchase.

We do not send marketing materials to users of the site other than healthcare organisations who contract with us.

How long we will keep your data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available from our data protection lead.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

MDC may change this Privacy Policy at any time. If we change our Privacy Policy in the future, we will set out those changes here, so that you will always know what personal data we gather, the purposes we might use it for and to whom we might disclose it.

If, at any time, you have questions or concerns about our privacy commitment, please feel free to email us at privacy@mdconsents.com.