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Privacy policy overview

Virtual Medical Centre (myVMC) is committed to protecting your privacy. As a visitor or member of myVMC’s website (site), you are interested in knowing more about health issues for you, someone close to you or your practice. We understand that health is a very personal matter and that personal information is provided in confidence. We recognise the importance of privacy and respect your right to control how personal information is collected and used.

myVMC may vary this privacy policy from time to time. The updates will be posted on this page. We recommend you familiarise yourself with this page when using the site.

What personal information does myVMC collect and how does myVMC use your personal information?

If you do nothing during your visit to this site but browse or download information, we automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

  • The Internet Protocol address and domain name used but not the email address. The Internet Protocol address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your Internet service provider or directly to your computer. We use the Internet to deliver information to you;
  • The type of browser and operating system you used and your connection speed;
  • The date and time you visited this site;
  • The web pages or services you accessed at this site; and
  • The previous website you visited prior to coming to this site.

The information we automatically collect or store is used to improve the content of our web services and to help us understand how people are using our services. myVMC analyses our site logs to continually improve the value of the materials available on our site. Our site logs are not personally identifiable, and we make no attempt to link them with the individuals that browse this site.

Currently we use Google Analytics features (including Google Remarketing, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, the DoubleClick Campaign Manager and Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting) on our website. We, and some third parties (including Google), use both first party and third party cookies to record standard internet traffic information to optimise ad selection based on age, gender, interests and past visits to our site; evaluate your interactions with ad services on our site; and serve targeted advertising on sites across the Internet.

We, and some third parties (including Google), also use first and third party cookies to optimise advertising on our websites.

Importantly, we do not combine the anonymous information collected through Google Analytics with personally identifiable information.


To opt out of these features at any time, simply change your Google Ads Settings by clicking here. Alternatively, you can opt out of a third party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page (see http://networkadvertising.org/choices/#completed).

If you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your browser to refuse cookies. However, this will mean that we will not be able to personalise your website each time you visit. See more here.

myVMC will not collect your personal information unless you have consented and given it to us.

Where and what personal information is collected and how it is used:
Sign-up page

General Patient Membership

  • What personal information is collected: If you sign-up as a patient member of the site, the following information is collected: title, name, username, password, gender, year of birth, country, state and your interest in receiving our patient email publications.
  • How this personal information is used: This information is used to identify you, so you can log into the site, for correspondence with you (if you opt to receive myVMC publications) and for myVMC internal statistics purposes.

Health Professional Membership

  • What personal information is collected: If you are signing up as a health professional, the following information is collected: title, name, username, password, gender, year of birth, professional area, professional body provider number, areas of interest and if you are interested in receiving myVMC professional email and print publications.
  • How this personal information is used: For health professionals, professional body numbers are collected to ensure that you are in fact a health professional, in order to view the password-secure professional level of information.

Surveys


Surveys are conducted on both the website and enewsletters. They are optional.

  • What information is collected: Health surveys collect opinions on a health topic- the opinions are recorded but are anonymous.
  • User acceptance surveys collect opinions of the services myVMC provide, an email and username.
  • How this information is used: Health surveys are used for health promotion purposes.
  • User acceptance surveys are used to improve the services myVMC provide.

Continuing Medical Education (CME) (Health Professionals only)

  • What personal information is collected: The CME program collects the following information from health professionals who choose to participate in the education program: title, name, email, username, password, college, college identification number.
  • The health professional also submits educational materials (including edited disease information, research on relevant clinical trials, case study and clinical audit).
  • How this personal information is used: This personal information is collected for identification purposes and accreditation with CME points (if work is of a sufficient standard).
  • The educational materials are collected for marking purposes by the specialist mentoring the GP.


Tools

  • What personal information is collected: Tools collect your responses to the questions in the tool. Some tools are for health promotion purposes, some for symptom management, some for investigation analysis and some for drug dose conversions.
  • Some tools give the option for you to enter your name so you can print the tool and results and take it to the doctor with you. However, we do not save your name.
  • How this personal information is used: We may look at responses to the tools for statistical purposes only.

Protecting your personal information

myVMC will take all reasonable steps to protect any personal information misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

myVMC will also take reasonable steps to destroy personal information if it is no longer needed.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

Every effort is made to ensure that personal information held on members is current, accurate and complete.

You can review any personal information myVMC collects about you. You may recommend changes to personal information you believe is an error by submitting a written request.


If you believe that your personal information is being used for a purpose other than what you intended it for, contact myVMC.

A member’s identity needs to be validated before his⁄her personal information is divulged when requested. In all cases, myVMC will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to personal information or making corrections. If in doubt we do not divulge any information.

*Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues that you raise.

Removing your personal information

Right to remove:

You have the right to request us to “remove” your personal data. We will respond to your request within a timely manner and we will delete your data but will generally assume that you would prefer us to keep a note of your name on a register of individuals who would prefer not to be contacted. That way, we will minimise the chances of you being contacted in the future where your data are collected in unconnected circumstances. If you would prefer us not to do this, you are free to say so.

We would only be entitled to refuse to comply with your request for one of the following reasons:

  • for archival, research or statistical purposes
  • to exercise or defend a legal claim

When complying with a valid request for the removal of data, we will take all reasonably practicable steps to delete the relevant data.

Your personal information and third parties

Contracts with all service providers⁄consultants whose service involves access to personal information comply with the myVMC Privacy Policy.

We do not sell any of your personal data with third parties.

We may share your personal data with third parties for one of two specific purposes:

  1. If you are a competition winner and the third party is posting your prize to you; or
  2. We are employing the use of a mailing house which receive personal information in order to provide a service for myVMC.

In both cases, third parties are required to sign an undertaking that the information will only be used for the purpose for which the information was provided.

Cookies

MyVMC uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on the website. We use them to analyse how many people are coming to the site and what is most interesting to them so it can guide us in our future educational content development. Our advertisers also use cookies (you will see advertisements in the external banners of the site, each clearly marked as ‘ad’ so it can be distinguished from our referenced educational content) to serve ads which are relevant to your interests. If you continue without changing your settings, we will accept your consent to receive these cookies. However, if you wish to, you can change your browser settings to block or remove cookies at any time. Go to https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/ for information on how to do this.

A cookie is a small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier, that is sent to an individual’s browser from a website’s computers and may either be used only during the internet session (a “session” cookie) or may be stored on the individual’s computer hard drive (a “persistent” cookie).

Cookies can contain data about user movement during the visit to a website. If an individual’s browser software is set to allow cookies, a website can send its own cookie to them. A website cannot access cookies sent to the individual by other sites.

myVMC uses cookies to make the individual’s use of the myVMC site and services as enjoyable as possible. Cookies themselves do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user’s browser. Cookies are useful to estimate the number of myVMC site members and determine overall traffic patterns through the website.

An individual can configure their browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify them when a cookie is sent. (Each browser is different, so check the “Help” menu of your browser or go to https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/ to learn how to change your cookie preferences.)

Keeping information secure

We invest significant resources to protect your personal information, from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, no internet-based site can be 100% secure and so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control.

Contact us if you have any questions.