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Privacy policy

Contents

Your privacy is important to us. This privacy policy covers what we collect and how we use, share and store your information.

This page tells you:

  • about the information we may collect
  • how we keep your data secure
  • who we share your data with
  • about your rights to see or change information we hold about you

Information we may collect

You can leave feedback on some pages of the website or on a user survey. You can choose to share your email address if you want a reply by emailing the team directly on england.interop.standards@nhs.net. Otherwise, we collect and store feedback anonymously.

How we use cookies

Our website uses cookies. These are small files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. They store information about how you use the website, such as the pages you visit.

The law says that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary to make our website work. We need your permission for all other types of cookies before we can use them on your device.

We like to use analytics cookies that measure how you use our website and help us improve our service for future users but we only use these cookies if you say it's OK.

Read our cookie policy to find out more about the cookies we use and tell us if we can put analytics cookies on your device.

We sometimes use tools on other organisations' websites to collect data or to ask for feedback. These tools set their own cookies.

How we collect and store your data

If you interact with us on social media, we may receive some personally identifiable data about you, which is supplied by the channel you are using (for example, Twitter or Linkedin). This may include:

  • your name
  • social media handles (such as Twitter account name)
  • location history (where you are contacting us from)
  • images (such as your profile picture)

We will process and store your data in accordance with the terms and conditions and privacy policy of the platform in question. You should be aware that your use of these platforms is governed by the terms and conditions agreed between you and the platform, rather than with us.

We will not remove, duplicate or transfer your personal data from or between any of the social platforms that we use, except for when you give us explicit permission to do so or when we believe that we need to in order to respond to an urgent risk to health.

You should be aware that social networks may control some of the data associated with interactions between you (the user) and us (NHS Data Standards Directory) on their platforms. For example, we will be able to delete our own records of a private message conversation if you ask us to do so, but social networks may store a copy of this conversation that we are unable to access.

We recommend using the privacy tools built into the social networks in question to make sure you are able to exercise your rights appropriately.

Understanding how social networks use your data

Social networks use information about your online activity to build a profile of you. This data is then used (anonymously) to send you targeted adverts across various digital platforms.

You should be aware that interacting with accounts such as ours may help build the profile of you that social networks maintain, and that could potentially result in you receiving adverts about related issues.

This process of collecting data for advertising purposes is not controlled by the NHS Data Standards Directory, and we do not have access to the profiling data stored by social networks about you.

Keeping your personal data secure

We convert your data into secure code (encrypt it) and store it on secure servers in England. A partner organisation is providing hosting services but has no say in how the information is used. There are no legal ways for their employees to see the data. Only approved people in the NHS Data Standards Directory team can see it.

If you shared your email with us as part of a survey, we will delete it after 2 years. At that point no one can identify you in the survey data.

Data sharing

NHS England and Improvement may share anonymous information on how the service is used with NHS Digital, the Data Alliance Partnership Board, NHS API Catalogue, and the Professional Records Standards Body.

When you give us personal information, we may pass it on if the law says we must.

If you make a claim against us, we and other third parties such as our solicitors may need to look at this information.

We will not share your personal information with anyone else without your permission for any other reason.

Your rights

You can: