Terms and conditions

BMA Talking Health terms and conditions

Please take a few minutes to review our terms and conditions in which you will find information regarding the use of our website. By using this website you are agreeing to these terms and conditions.

Authors
As an author, you are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of what you say in your comments.

You may use the Message boards only to post comments, messages and material that are original and proper and appropriate to the Message boards and you shall not do any of the following:

• defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten, impersonate any person or entity or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy - especially data protection rights of patients - or intellectual property rights where applicable) of others anywhere in the world that those rights may exist;
• publish, post, distribute or disseminate any material which is obscene, indecent or unlawful;
• advertise or offer to sell any goods or services, or conduct or forward surveys, contests or chain letters;
• falsify the origin or source of any content or other material
• download any file posted by another user of any particular Message board that you know, or reasonably should know, cannot be legally distributed in such manner.

If you discover any content on any Message board which you consider breaches any of these terms, or is otherwise unacceptable, you should notify the BMA immediately by clicking on the ‘Report this comment as offensive' link. The system will provide your name and contact details and details of the relevant content (including a description of its location). You shall not, however, have the right to edit or remove a posting, once it is made, whether or not you have made it.

The BMA
The BMA shall be entitled at any time at its absolute and exclusive discretion to delete, remove or suspend the whole or any part of any Message board, or of any comment,posted without notice and without incurring any liability.

In addition, the BMA shall be entitled at any time at its absolute and exclusive discretion to restrict or suspend or cancel the access of any author or authors to any Message board, without notice and without incurring any liability.

The BMA does not enter into correspondence about (a) why it has taken down a comment on a Message board, or any information, or (b) why it has restricted, suspended or cancelled the access of any author or authors to any Message board.Any correspondence the BMA does enter into is at its absolute and exclusive discretion.

The BMA does not vet and is not responsible for any of the information which is posted on the Message boards. The BMA is not the author or publisher of any such information, and does not actively monitor the content of the Message boards. The opinions are the opinions of the users of the Message boards, and do not represent any advice or opinions of the BMA. Any recommendation or other information within the Message boards is followed by you at your own risk and the BMA does not warrant the accuracy of the information posted in any respect.

General
You acknowledge, consent and agree that the BMA may access, preserve, and disclose your account information and any content posted by you in order to: (a) comply with any legal process; (b) enforce these terms and conditions of use; (c) respond to claims that any content posted on any Message board violates the rights of third parties; (d) respond to your requests for customer service; or (e) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the BMA, other users of this website and the public.

Neither the BMA nor any of its directors, employees or other representatives will be liable for loss or damage arising out of or in connection with the use of this website. This is a comprehensive limitation of liability that applies to all damages of any kind, including (without limitation) compensatory, direct, indirect or consequential damages, loss of data, income or profit, loss of or damage to property and claims of third parties.

The BMA is providing this website on an ‘as is’ basis and makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to this website or its contents and disclaims all such representations and warranties. In addition, the BMA makes no representations or warranties about the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the information and related graphics published in this website.
The information contained in this website may contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. All liability of the BMA howsoever arising from any such inaccuracies or errors is expressly excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Nothing within these conditions operates so as to exclude, limit or restrict the liability of the BMA for death or personal injury.

The BMA reserves the right to change these terms and conditions of use at any time. We will post any revisions clearly on the website and any such change will be effective once reflected in the text of these terms and conditions of use and if you use the website you are agreeing to accept these changes.

Copyright
The content, layout, design, data and graphics on this website are protected by UK and international copyright laws. You agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any of the material contained in the website or to use any of the material for any purpose other than for your personal non-commercial use.

Trademarks
The BMA trademark and logo are the registered trademarks of the British Medical Association. Any use of the BMA trademarks is strictly prohibited.

Governing law
These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England.

Privacy policy statement

We take privacy issues seriously and we are committed to protecting your personal information. This privacy policy explains what information is being collected about you, how personal information is being used, to whom personal information is being disclosed and how this personal information is stored and protected. This privacy policy has been developed in accordance with our legal obligations.
Please note that the type of information we collect and hold about you will depend on whether or not you are a registered user.
If you register with the site, you will be asked to submit personal information. This may include your name, surname, your BMA membership or GMC registration number, post code, medical school if a student, and email address. We gather this information to allow us to process your registration.

Whether you are a registered user or not, our webserver collects certain information such as:
(a) IP addresses;
(b) host names;
(c) domain name;
(d) the time and date information is requested;
(e) the browser version and platform when information is requested;
(f) a record of which pages have been requested.

What information is being collected?
We use this information to produce aggregate visitor statistics in relation to which pages are being accessed. We may also use it to monitor usage patterns on this website in order to improve navigation and design features to help you get information more easily. This information is collated and provided to us as daily log files. In order to help us develop the website and our services we may provide such aggregate information to third parties. These statistics will not include information that can be used to identify any individual.

How is personal information being used?
If you are a registered user, we may use your personal information to communicate with you generally so that you can get the most out of the services that the BMA provides.
 
To whom will personal information be disclosed?
We may disclose your personally identifiable information to our agents, who will be bound by duties of confidentiality, for the purposes of fulfilling our membership obligations to you.

Where is your data stored?
Any personal data we hold about you is held securely and in confidence by us in our computerised records. You have a right to inspect the personal data we hold about you. If you wish to do so at any time, you should write to our Data Protection Officer whose details are set out below.

The use of cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by a web server on your computer when you visit a website. The information stored by a web server is in the form of a small data file written to your hard drive. These small data files contain information which enables our web server to personalise your future use of our site.
Access to the secure areas of the website is dependent upon the use of cookies. Most browsers allow the user to control the cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. If users disable cookies on their computer, this and other features of our website will be unavailable to them.

IP addresses
Each time you use the internet, an IP address is assigned to your computer via your Internet Service Provider. This number may either be the same or different each time. Each time your computer requests information from our website, we log your IP address on our server. We may use this information in order to gather information about website traffic.

Updating your details
Please note that the information you provide to this website is not connected to the main BMA website and should you wish to update or change any of the details that we hold about you centrally, you should  do so via the BMA website at www.bma.org.uk/mydetails or by contacting us or by sending us an email at info.web@bma.org.uk.

Your consent
By submitting your information you consent to the use of that information as set out in this policy. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times.

Contact details 
Send an email to info.web@bma.org.uk, or write to: BMA web team, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JP.