Our Privacy Policy
Introduction
The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) takes your privacy very seriously. We have adopted this Privacy Policy in recognition of your right to keep your personal information private. The policy describes our privacy practices in relation to your use of our website and our treatment of all personally identifiable information that we collect or hold.
Institute of Health Visiting
The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) was established in 2012, supported by government, to strengthen the quality and consistency of health visiting services for the benefit of all children, families and communities. The core focus of its work is on education, research, quality improvement and developing leadership in health visiting. The iHV is a UK-wide organisation and is registered Charity No. 1149745.
We provide a web-based Centre of Excellence for health visitors (www.ihv.org.uk) who join the Institute as Associates, Friends, Students and International Members.
This policy exists so that you feel confident about the privacy and security of your personal information. In this Privacy Policy, references to “we” and “us” are to the Institute of Health Visiting
The information we collect
The iHV will only collect personal information from you where it has a legitimate reason to do so and/or you give your explicit consent. When you join the organisation as a member or friend or apply for a place on an education or training programme, conference or event, we will collect information about you such as your name, job title and contact details; so that we can contact you about your application. All personal information about members is securely stored in our Salesforce cloud-based customer relations management database. Salesforce has robust security measures in place that meet the highest standards in the industry. Salesforce gives an undertaking that it will not review, share, distribute, or reference any of its customers’ data, unless it is required to do so by law. No financial information about members such as bank or credit card details is retained by the iHV.
How we use your information
The iHV will use the personal information we collect for the purpose disclosed at the time of its collection, or as set out in this policy. We will not use your personal information for any other purpose without first seeking your consent, unless we are required to do so by law. We will only use your personal information as follows:
- to contact you in relation to your membership application
- to provide you with membership services such as access to the members-only website and Facebook groups
- to keep in contact with former members who have not unsubscribed from our mailing lists
- to seek volunteers for involvement in research or publicising health visiting matters
- to answer questions that you have asked about our activities
- to invite you to educational and training events and activities
- to invite you to conference and other networking opportunities
- to consult you or seek your views about matters affecting health visiting
Retention Periods
Your personal information will be held only for as long as it is required or as long as the law requires and, in any case, no longer than the limits set out in the retention periods of personal data appended to this policy.
Confidentiality
Your personal information will be kept strictly confidential. We will not share it with any third-party organisations or individuals without your permission. Your personal information will not be sold, given away or shared with anyone else, unless we’re required to do so by law.
Our Website – what information we collect and how
We respect each site visitor’s right to personal privacy. To that end, we collect and use information throughout our website only as disclosed in this Privacy Policy. This statement applies solely to information collected on this website.
Users are only required to register on this site if they require access to specified information restricted for viewing to Associates, Fellows or other members of the Institute of Health Visiting; the data we ask from you is necessary for us to provide the services you require. We collect information only from you, and not from third parties. The information we collect via this website may include:
- Any personal details you type in and submit, such as name, email address, etc. This is used to improve the content of our site and to ensure relevance of information.
- Your IP address (this is your computer’s individual identification number), and other technical information, which is automatically logged by our server. This is used to note your interest in our web site and to ensure any changes that are made to the site are for your benefit.
- Session information stored in cookies. These do not include any personal information and are used to ensure that the correct data is extracted from the database (such as language preference) and the correct level of access is given when accessing restricted pages.
- Under no circumstances will we hold sensitive payment details, such as your card number, expiry date, unless it is required to register for one of our events. In this case, the data is transferred to an external – secure – database and not associated with your details held online. All credit card information is collected using Secure Socket Layers (SSL).
What we do with your information from visiting the website
Any personal information we collect from the iHV website will be used in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and other applicable laws. The details we collect will be used:
- To comply with legal requirements.
- To ensure accessibility onto our website
- In certain cases we may use your email address to send you information on our products and services. In such a case, you will be offered the option to opt in/out of this service.
We do not pass the information we collect to external companies. We do, however, utilise a third party, Google, to track the usage and volume of users on our site. The information they collect is not in any way associated with the details we hold about you online.
Your rights
You can ask us to update or remove your personal information by emailing [email protected] or writing to us at our address below.
Other websites
This Privacy Policy only covers this website. Any other websites which may be linked to by our website are subject to their own policy, which may differ from ours. These links provide further information and resources. Their inclusion does not signify that the iHV endorses or has any responsibility for the content of the linked websites and we are not responsible for the privacy policies operated by the owners of those sites.
Access to your personal information
You can request access to the personal information that the iHV holds about you by contacting our office as set out below. We will provide you with access to your personal information, unless we are legally advised to refuse your request. We will provide the information as quickly as possible, but it may take up to 15 working days. We reserve the right to charge a small, reasonable fee. If you would like to ask us to change personal information that is out of date or inaccurate, please contact us and we will take reasonable steps to correct the information. If you wish to have your personal information deleted, please let us know and we will delete it wherever practicable.
You have the right to request the erasure of your personal information if you believe that it is being held longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected. In rare circumstance, we may be legally required to refuse your request to access, amend or delete your personal information. If we do refuse your request, we will let you know the reason.
To do this, simply write to us at the following address: Institute of Health Visiting, c/o Royal Society for Public Health, John Snow House, 59 Mansell Street, London E1 8AN. You can send us your comments or lodge a complaint by contacting us at the aforementioned address. An inquiry will be held into each complaint, and the appropriate action will be taken. If the problem raised by your complaint requires a change in our policies and procedures, we will act accordingly.
Withdrawing consent
If you wish to withdraw your consent for the iHV to use your personal information, you can do so at any time using the contact details listed above.
Security
The iHV will take all reasonable steps to ensure that personal information that it holds is secure by storing it in a secure server or secure files. We take security measures to protect your personal information from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. The Internet is not a secure method of transmitting information. Accordingly, the iHV cannot accept responsibility for the security of information you send or receive from us over the Internet and recommends that confidential communications are encrypted, or password protected.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
The iHV may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time and we will publish the amended version on our website www.ihv.org.uk. We recommend that you visit our website regularly to keep up to date with any changes.
Contacting us
If you would like any further information or if you have any queries, problems or complaints relating to the iHV’s Privacy Policy or data handling practices, please contact the Head of Operations who is designated to lead data protection compliance using [email protected]
You can also contact us by telephone on 0207 265 7352.
