Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

Privacy and Cookies policy

This privacy and cookies policy only applies to this General Medical Council website at http://www.gmc-uk.org and directly associated microsites. Links within our site to non-GMC websites are not covered by the policy.

This statement outlines how we will use and protect information that you provide us about yourself.

  1. 1. How we use your personal data
  2. 2. Your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998
  3. 3. Our use of cookies
  4. 4. Website security: how we protect your information

1. How we will use your personal data

We may collect personal information about you if you take part in a consultation, if you request to join one of our mailing lists or if you register with us as a doctor.

Registration of doctors

If you provide your details when inquiring about registration or sitting the Professional Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test we will use that information for the following purposes:

  • To process your enquiry or application
  • To compile statistics
  • To send you relevant GMC information and our e-newsletter, GMC News
  • We will supply information to the Department of Health, professional, education and training bodies so they can compile statistics
  • We may retain details of your application on our files and may disclose that information to overseas regulators in the EEA and elsewhere.

If you subsequently obtain registration from the GMC we will use the information you provide to us for these purposes:

  • Update the registers
  • Administer and maintain your registration
  • Process complaints
  • Compile statistics
  • Keep you updated with information about the GMC including guidance and news*.

We may be asked to provide your registered address to the British Medical Association, medical defence organisations and medical Royal Colleges and faculties so that they can keep their records up to date. We will only do so, where we are satisfied you are already a member. If you would prefer us not to share your registered address with these organisations please let us know either by writing to Registration Update Team, General Medical Council, 3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW or by sending an email to registrationhelp@gmc-uk.org.

All registered doctors’ Level 1 information will be published in the List of Registered Medical Practitioners on our website and made available to any enquirer. Level 1 information consists of registered doctors’ reference number, gender, name, any former name, year and place of primary medical qualification, registration status, date of registration and any publicly available fitness to practise history.

We will provide Level 2 information in response to telephone or written enquiries. Level 2 information is a registered doctor’s Level 1 information plus the date on which their annual retention fee is due.

We will provide Level 3 Information to the UK health departments, employers and other regulatory bodies. Level 3 information consists of registered doctors’ Level 1 and 2 information plus, date of birth, photograph, passport details, registered address and whether a doctor is subject to investigation under the fitness to practise procedures.

*We work hard to avoid cluttering up your inbox. We use technology to tailor the material we send you. We use "open tracking" in our email campaigns. If you open one of our emails and download the images contained in the email, or click on a link contained within the email, we will record this information. This helps us to understand your professional interests and develop our communications based on your preferences. If you do not wish to participate in "open tracking", your email application (Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail etc.) can be configured to prevent the downloading of email images and you should not click through the links contained in the email.

Third Party Service Providers

We have contracts with other organisations (or Third Parties) to carry out certain activities or services on our behalf. If we need to pass any of your personal data to them we will make sure that:

  • They are only provided with the information they need to carry out the service
  • They agree not to use the information received from us for any other purpose than those specified by us
  • They have the proper systems in place to protect personal data

Consultation

We invite feedback from you about the site and, from time to time, we use the site to carry out electronic consultation exercises. If you send comments to us via the site we will collect your comments and your contact details for the purposes of the consultation concerned.

2. Your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998

You may obtain confirmation of the basic information that we hold about you at any time. If it is incorrect we will promptly correct it when we have received the appropriate notice or evidence from you in writing.

You are also able to make a request for all information that we hold about you under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998. This request must be made in writing and we make a charge of £10 for each request.

3. Use of Cookies

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally. In some cases we may record your computer’s IP address in a cookie so that we are able to remember your preferences when visiting our website.

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

  • enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task
  • recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every web page requested
  • measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure they are fast
  • analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with the GMC’s services so we can make them better

We use two types of cookies, session cookies and persistent cookies.

Session Cookies are stored only for the duration of your visit to the website and these are deleted from your device when your browsing session ends. Persistent Cookies  are stored on your device for a fixed period.

Persistent cookies are used where we need to know who you are for more than one usage session. For example, if you have asked us to remember preferences like your location or your username.

How to control and delete cookies

If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set.

If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which are set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.

The GMC is subject to the EC Privacy and Electronic Communications directive, otherwise known as the “E-privacy directive”. As part of our approach to being compliant with this directive we are keen to show the cookies currently in use on the GMC websites. This is our current position and we will continue to review this over the coming weeks.  

The information below details the cookies used on the GMC websites.

First party cookies

The following cookies are set by the GMC.  

The GMC website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org]

N.B. Certain pages on the GMC website have ‘Share’ functionality with Facebook and Twitter that result in an advertising cookie ‘AddThis.com’ being added to your device. Personal information is not collected by this cookie, but you can easily stop AddThis from collecting any information about you for online behavioural advertising by opting out.

 Name    Purpose  Cookie type 
WT_FPC This is our analytics provider Webtrends’ cookie used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent
ASP.NET_SessionId This cookie is necessary for site functionality. Session
MobileNoDetect This cookie is set to allow a mobile device to use a link to visit the main website. Session
_atuvc This cookie is an Addthis.com cookie set when using the Share functionality for Facebook and Twitter. Persistent
 The GMC Mobile website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org/mobile]
 Name Purpose Cookie type
WT_FPC This is our analytics provider Webtrends’ cookie used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent
The GMC Learning Disabilities website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org/learningdisabilities]

N.B. The pages on the GMC Learning Disabilities website have ‘Share’ functionality with Facebook and Twitter that result in an advertising cookie ‘AddThis.com’ being added to your device. Personal information is not collected by this cookie, but you can easily stop AddThis from collecting any information about you for online behavioural advertising by opting out.

Name Purpose Cookie type
WT_FPC This is our analytics provider Webtrends’ cookie used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent
ASP.NET_SessionId This cookie is necessary for site functionality. Session
_atuvc This cookie is an Addthis.com cookie set when using the Share functionality for Facebook and Twitter. Persistent
The GMC Consultation website: [https://gmc.e-consultation.net/econsult/]
Name Purpose Cookie type
ASP.NET_SessionId This cookie is necessary for site functionality. Session
_utma, _utmb, utmc, _utmz These are Google Analytics cookies used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent

user_name

This is used for the “Remember Me” function upon a successful login.

Persistent
The GMC Recruitment website: [https://jobs.gmc-uk.org]
Name Purpose Cookie type
sessionid2965 Allows user to select job alerts by email. Session
lastaccesstime2965 Captures date and time of visit. Session
Ccp_user2965                      Captures candidate userid - only set if user registers to use the site and allows user to apply for jobs. Session
Ccp_name2965   Captures candidate name - only set if user registers to use the site and allows user to apply for jobs. Session
Wedeputy_reg_username_3552 Captures candidate username - only set if user registers to use the site and allows user to apply for jobs. Session
Wedeputy_reg_email_3552 Captures candidate email address - only set if user registers to use the site and allows user to apply for jobs. Session
GMC Connect: [https://webcache.gmc-uk.org/filescanner/upload]
Name Purpose Cookie type
jsessionid This cookie is necessary to upload a file to GMC Connect. Session

Third Party Cookies

The following cookies are set by third parties who provide a service to the GMC:

The GMC website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org]
The GMC Mobile website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org/mobile]
The GMC Learning Disabilities website: [http://www.gmc-uk.org/learningdisabilities]
Name Purpose Cookie type
WEBTRENDS_ID This is our analytics provider Webtrends’ cookie used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent
ACOOKIE This is our analytics provider Webtrends’ cookie used to collect information about which pages are popular and number of visitors to our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Persistent

4. Website security: how we protect your information

We are careful to guard the security of your personal data and the details of any transactions you make with us over the Internet.

This we do by putting in place and carefully administering a secure IT infrastructure in accordance with industry standards and good practice. We also arrange for audit of our systems by independent experts.

When you use our website to make payments, for example for a PLAB test, we use a secure server. Any data you enter is encrypted using a 'Secure Socket Layer' (SSL) session. SSL is an industry standard security device and a way to ensure Internet messages are not intercepted. However, older browsers cannot use SSL. To be sure, you will need Netscape version 4.05 or Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers, version 4 or above.

There are a number of things you can do to help protect yourself from Internet fraud:

  • When you have finished your session log off the GMC website to prevent your details being seen by anyone else.
  • Clear any 'cache' so there is no record of any transactions left on screen - both Netscape and Internet Explorer let you do this.
  • Close your browser so that any history of the session is cleared.
  • As an extra precaution your session on many areas of our website will terminate if you have not used the site for 15 minutes.

If you have any comments on how we can improve the website, please let us know