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Privacy Policy
We know that your privacy is very important to you. We make it our business for it to be as important to us.
We aim to be as clear as possible about how and why we use information about you on this website. If your questions are not fully answered by the information below, please contact us. We'll be happy to help.
In order to make this information easier to read, we have organised it into a series of headings. Simply use the links on this page to go straight to a section of the policy or scroll through the page for full details.
- Our guiding privacy principles
- Why we collect information about you
- What information we collect
- How long do we keep your information?
- How you can see or change the information we hold about you
- Keeping your information secure
- How you can help keep your information secure
- Use a secure browser
- How we use cookies
Our guiding privacy principles
We have a requirement under the data protection act to preserve strict confidentiality regarding the information of individuals who use our online services. Health Scotland staff and organisations which are required to receive and use this information are not allowed access to this information for any individual until he/she has agreed to its use.
Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 underlies all of our personal information privacy practices. We also have a set of guiding principles which govern how we use the information that we collect through our online services. These principles are:
- We aim to continuously improve our online services for you. We may use information about you to help us to do this
- Where we need to collect personal information, we will only ask you for minimum information to provide you with online services
- We will always request your explicit consent to collect and store your personal information
- Personal information we require to collect will relate only to the service you want to you use unless your consent includes its use for other purposes
- We aim to give you control over the information that we hold about you, who is allowed to see it and how it is used
- We take all reasonable care to safeguard your information through security policies and secure business processes
Why we collect information about you
We collect information about you for the following purposes:
- To provide with online services. Each service has different information requirements. For full details please go to the personal information section of this page
- To keep your information secure by authenticating your access to certain online services
- For monitoring and evaluation purposes to improve our online services and enhance your user experience
What information we collect
Information about your visit to our website
We automatically collect information about your visit to our websites via our web server log files. These log files capture your IP address which is automatically recognised by Health Scotland web servers but do not capture any personal information.
We analyse these log files to create reports to help us:
- Understand the popularity of the content on our websites
- So we can measure the success of our services and
- Make regular improvements to enhance your user experience.
These reports are made available to Health Scotland staff and where appropriate, organisations working with us.All log file information is kept securely and no access to raw log files is given to any third party.
Health Scotland will make no attempt to track or identify individual users, except where there is a reasonable suspicion that unauthorised access to systems is being attempted.
In the case of all users, Health Scotland reserves the right to attempt to identify and track any individual who is reasonably suspected of trying to gain unauthorised access to computer systems or resources operating as part of Health Scotland web services.
As a condition of use of this site, all users must give permission for Health Scotland to use its access logs to attempt to track users who are reasonably suspected of gaining, or attempting to gain, unauthorised access.
All log file information collected by Health Scotland is kept secure and no access to raw log files is given to any third party.
Personal information
We need to collect personal information from you to provide you with some services available on this website. This section provides full details about what personal information we collect and how it is stored and used, for each service.
- The information will be used within NHS Health Scotland and the wider Health Service, in an anonymised form except where specified
- Postcodes may be used for geographical information
- The information will be held by Civic Computing who host this site but the information will not be used by them
- It may be shared with third parties outside NHS Health Scotland
- We will only deal with third parties that we trust to act in your and our best interests and who treat your information with the same stringent controls that we apply ourselves
- If you choose to share your details with other members of the Food & Health Alliance by checking the 'Members' Database' check box when registering or in the Your Profile of the Members Area, your name, Job Title and email address will be published on the Members' Area of the website
If, in the unlikely event that we are required to transfer your information outside the EEA (European Economic Area) we will always obtain your consent first.
How long do we keep your information?
How long we keep your information collected through this website depends on the context in which you provided it. In particular:
- We will keep your information that's necessary for us to provide you with information requested or services available through this website for as long as it takes us to provide that service
- We will keep your contact details for as long as we have your consent
- We will keep records of any transactions you enter into on this website for up to six years. This is so that we can respond to any complaints or disputes that arise in that period
- We will keep other information about you if it is necessary for us to do so to comply with the law
How you can see or change the information we hold about you
We aim to give you control over the information we hold about you. Some of the services available on this website will provide you with options to automatically change or delete your information including the consents you have given us. Alternatively, you can contact us at fha.web@health.scot.nhs.uk
Any requests to delete your information, will only apply to information provided through this website. This will not delete information held about you on any other NHS Health Scotland databases, or on third party databases.
Please note, we can only delete information about you that we don't need to hold for legal reasons (i.e. the type of information described in the last two bullet points under How long do we keep your information?
You can request details of all the information Health Scotland holds about you, including on this website's databases, by writing to us. We will send you an application form which you should complete and return. There is no charge for this service. Please contact:
Data Protection Officer
NHS Health Scotland
Woodburn House
Canaan Lane
EDINBURGH
EH10 4SG
General enquiries:
Tel: 0131 536 5500
Textphone: 0131 536 5503
Fax: 0131 536 5501
You can of course request at any time that we correct any information we hold about you.
Keeping your information secure
We know that your privacy is very important to you and that you take the security of your information seriously.
We will take all reasonable steps to protect your information, but data can never be guaranteed 100% secure. Please note that we will not be liable for any breach of security unless we have been negligent.
How you can help keep your information secure
As you would expect of us, we will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the information you provide through our website is held and managed securely. However, there is a lot that you can do to help keep your information safe not just on our website, but whenever you provide information online.
Here are some simple ways you can improve the security of your information:
Use a strong password
Choose a password that will be difficult for other people to guess but easy for you to remember.
Keep your password private and secure
Your password is a key to your personal information and online identity. Don't tell anyone your password or write it down. If you are concerned that somebody else knows your password, you can change it on our website by going to the Edit your profile page. We recommend that you change your password from time to time.
Use a secure browser
Encryption is the process through which sensitive information is scrambled before it is transmitted so that it remains private even if it is intercepted. 128-bit encryption is the strongest encryption currently available, but not all browser versions support it.
Some popular browsers that support 128-bit encryption are:
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5 and later versions
Netscape Navigator version 6 and later versions
Security upgrades for some older browser versions are available. We recommend that you contact your preferred browser provider for further information.
How we use cookies
A cookie is a small data file that certain websites write to your computer's hard drive when you visit them. Cookies can (but do not always) contain user identification data.
Our websites only use temporary (session) cookies which enable your web browser to remember which pages on this website you've already visited or any services you are logged in to.
Health Scotland will only ever use cookies where absolutely necessary, and always create and use them in a way that would never compromise your security or privacy.
You can use this website with no loss of functionality if cookies are disabled from the web browser. However, you will need to enable cookies to Members' Area.
You can find more information about cookies at:
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