Privacy Policy

We respect and are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy lets you know how any personal information is processed and used by the PHO. Our procedures covering the storage and disclosure of your information are designed to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Consent

Your use of this web site signifies your consent to us collecting and using personal information about you as specified below in accordance with this Policy. If you are a registered user, this policy will be applied subject to any particular limitations or choices you express in your User Profile.

All users: You may provide personal information when communicating with us. In addition we will collect information about your preferences both when you tell us what these are and by analysis of customer traffic, including by using cookies (see below). We may use personal information collected about you to let you know about functionality changes to our web site, or changes to our terms and conditions of use; we may also send you information about PHO meetings, events and publications.

Registered users: As part of the registration process we ask for your name, email address and organisation address as required fields; this data is stored in our database of contacts. Once you have been approved for registration and supplied with a username and password, the default disclosure level for the data you have supplied is that it is available to all other registered users (who will be people with a role or relevant interest in public health). If you wish to restrict or increase the disclosure level you can do so by accessing and amending your User Profile, available as a link from the Preferences page when you log on with your username and password. The PHO accepts no liability arising from this disclosure.

About Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of information that is stored by your web browser and cannot do your computer any harm. When you revisit the associated website the server will recognise the cookie, which gives it information about your last visit(s). In other words, a cookie allows it to remember choices and submitted information so that you needn't reset certain user-defined features or re-enter details. Cookies are either permanent (usually with a longterm expiry date) or are only used in the current session and cease to exist when the browser is shut down (so called 'session cookies').

How Cookies are used on this website

We use permanent cookies as well as session cookies to provide features of the site that require authentication. To secure the flawless functioning of the website we would recommend allowing at least the setting of session cookies as they are essential for access to authenticated parts of the site - for example where you can contribute resources. We use permanent cookies as they streamline the authentication process but are not essential to the running of the site. They are entirely optional and the choice is up to you.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

If you choose to have your email address remembered between visits to the site, you opt in to the use of cookies by selecting the checkbox on the login page. This information is then stored in two permanent cookies, one of which holds your email address. No other personal information is held. Logging in to our site is managed by Hyperspheric this is to allow single sign on across multiple PHO websites (this will appear as a cookie from authenticationv3.hyperspheric.com).

Analytics Cookies

We use Google Analytics to gather information about the usage of our websites and inform future developments. Personal information is not collected. Google Analytics cookies are fully explained at the

Embedded Content Cookies

How to manage your Cookies

Cookies are sent to your browser (whether you use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or any other browser) by a website and then stored in the cookies directory of your device.

To check and update your cookies settings, you will need to know what browser you are using and what version of it you have. You can usually find this out by opening the browser (just as though you were going to use the internet) and then clicking on 'Help' and then 'About'. This will give you information about the browser version you are currently using.

To find out how to allow, block, delete and manage the cookies on all standard web browsers, go to www.aboutcookies.org and select the browser and version you are using. You'll also find information about how to delete cookies from your computer.

If you use a mobile phone to browse the website or other sites that use cookies, please refer to your handset manual for guidance.

Site usage data

We collect site usage statistics from our server logs. This data helps us to manage and plan website functions, and will be used as part of the evaluation of the website. Aggregate site usage statistics may be provided to third parties but will not include information that can be used to identify you.

Disclosure

The PHO reserves the right to access and disclose individually identifiable information to comply with applicable laws and lawful government requests, to operate its systems properly or to protect itself or its users.