BMJ Clinical Evidence Privacy Policy
Protecting your privacy is important to us. Please take a few moments to review this Policy.
Introduction
BMJ Clinical Evidence is a website of the BMJ Publishing Group Limited ("BMJ Group"), which is a UK based international medical publishing house. We take privacy issues seriously and are committed to protecting your personal information.
This privacy policy explains what information has been collected about you, how personal information is being used, to whom personal information is being disclosed and how this personal information is stored and protected. This privacy policy has been developed in accordance with our legal obligations and may be updated from time to time.
If you have any queries concerning your personal information or any questions on our use of the information, please contact us using the contact us form here.
The information we collect and how we use it:
1. What information is being collected and how is it used?
When you visit this site to access BMJ Clinical Evidence you are either a registered or non registered user depending on where you are located. 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 Non Registered Users
If you are able to access BMJ Clinical Evidence content without registering as you browse the website, we collect information about your use of the site. Essentially which pages you have visited. We will not be able to identify who you are from the information we store- see point 3 below.
1.2 Registered Users
Should you be required to register, all information we collect about you will be as indicated and will be used to ensure that you can obtain access, either for a subscription period or for so long as we deem it appropriate to keep access open (i.e where a subscription is not purchased and access is available) and to also learn about users of our site. If you are purchasing a subscription to any BMJ Clinical Evidence product or service, we then use this information to set up a customer number and username and generally fulfil our obligations to you.
You will also be asked if you wish to receive general marketing information from the BMJ Group and if you do not you can opt out of receiving this. You will also be given an opportunity to opt out of this on each occasion we contact you thereafter. For the BMA and other third parties you will be given an opportunity to opt into receiving such marketing communications.
1.3. 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. We may use this in order to gather information about the website traffic.
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.
1.4 What else do we use personal information for?
Other than for fulfilling our obligations to you (where these exist), and as otherwise set out in this policy, 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 collected to provided to us as daily logged 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.
2. To whom will personal information be disclosed?
Unless you have agreed, we will not disclose your personal data to any third party other than our contractors who must keep this date secure and confidential.
3. 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 and protect our legal interests. This will never be longer than six years from the end of your subscription period from when you last accessed the site.
4. Can you change information we hold about you?
Where you have provided us with an email address or any information which becomes outdated, you should inform us by using the contact form on the website or updating your details using the my account link link at the top of the site. You must be logged in to access the my account page
5. How is personal information stored and protected
Your personal data is stored by us in electronic and paper-based form. Website useage information is stored electronically.
Security
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.
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. As a result, whilst we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot warrant the security of the information you transmit to us online. You therefore do so at your own risk.
Once we receive your transmission, we make our best efforts to ensure its security on our system.
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.
Any email between you and BMJ Group is not encrypted. It will be stored securely within our corporate firewall (see below).
Cookies
Access to our website is dependent upon the use of session cookies. Most browsers allow the users to control the cookies including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. If users disable cookies on their computers some of the more sophisticated features on our website will be unavailable to you.
Session Cookies are stored, in memory, by your browser. Session cookies have a life of 30 minutes from the time you last accessed a page on our site. If you have not used our site for more than 30 minutes the cookie will be destroyed by your browser and you will have to login again to view certain areas.
We may from time to time use cookies to identify nationality of our users which enables us to present users with appropriate corporate branding and to conduct surveys as mentioned above.
More information about cookies, including how to block them and/or delete them, can be found at www.AboutCookies.org.
Contact Us
If you have any concerns or queries about the information we hold about you or wish to provide feedback about this site, please contact us by one of the methods here
Linking to external sites
You will encounter links to other sites that are not those which we control (e.g non English versions of BMJ Clinical Evidence). Please be aware that once you click to one of these sites, you are subject to that sites privacy policy and not to ours. You may wish to review the privacy policy for each site you visit.
Your Consent
By using this website you consent to the use of any data we collect as set out in this policy. You should review this privacy policy regularly, to note any changes relating to how we collect and use your information.
© BMJ Group 2006