Privacy

Welcome

Welcome to users of the Alcohol Health Network “Drink Checker” service (“our service”). That includes any versions of our service provided for specific groups of people, such as the residents of a particular region or workers of a particular organisation. Our service is provided by Alcohol Health Network CIC, of 465A Hornsey Rd, Unit A, 1st Floor, Islington, London N19 4DR.

In this policy we describe what information we collect and what uses we put it to.

What Information We Collect and How We Use It

Unless you register on the site, we will not have any access to any of your personal data. To provide you with personalised information based on your drinking levels, we ask for your gender, age (bracket), ethnicity, occupation when you use the site to check your drinking levels; and in some cases the first four characters of your postcode and your pregnancy status. We will use this, together with the information you provide us with in relation to your drinking levels and other health circumstances, to provide you with information about how to manage your drinking to improve your health.

We will analyse these results along with demographic data and average levels of drinking related to users of our service, but this remains confidential and anonymous. This will be used purely for statistical purposes. We also collect information about which parts of the site are used and how many new visitors there are to the site but this too is anonymous.

When you take an alcohol health review we will use this information to provide you with anonymous and confidential feedback on your drinking. This data will never be shared with anyone else.

We may collect information about your computer, including where available, operating system and browser type, for system administration. We may also use this to report aggregate information to our Partners. This is used to build statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.

If you ask us to provide you with a referral to a counsellor or health worker, we will ask you to provide your name and contact details in order that we can provide them. If you agree, we will also send them your alcohol risk score as determined by your responses to the questions you answer about your drinking levels. We delete your referral request once the referral is made.

If you choose to sign up to use the Drink Diary on our Drink Checker site, we ask you to select a username, and password. You can also choose to sign up to alerts via text message or email, in which case you will need to supply and email address and/or mobile phone number. There is no requirement to register in order to use Drink Checker; but registration enables you to sign up for tips and advice by email and phone, and to keep a drink diary on the site. We will use that information, along with the alcohol-related information you provide us and the results of your alcohol health review, to provide you with the tips and advice, and for the purposes of maintaining your drink diary.

If you choose to provide us with your email address, we may also use it to notify you about changes to our site or this privacy policy

We will not disclose your email address or phone number to any person for their own use (unless you ask us to provide you with a referral to a counsellor or health worker, in which case we will provide it to them in order that they can contact you).

If you contact us (including through our corporate website at www.alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk), we may keep a record of that correspondence and use it to respond to your query and improve our service.

Opting out

If you have signed up for the tips and advice by SMS and email, but would prefer not to receive any further communication from us, you can opt out at any time by means of the message in the SMS or email, or by emailing us at info@alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk.

Sharing your personal data

We may disclose your personal data as follows:

  • to our SMS, hosting and website service providers, who are obliged only to use it for the purposes of helping us provide the Drink Checker service;
  • if you request it, we will provide your name and contact details to a counsellor or health worker (if you agree, will also send them your alcohol risk score as determined by your responses to the questions you answer about your drinking levels;
  • If our company is sold or integrated with another organisation your details will be passed on to that organisation;
  • If we are required by law to do so

Sharing Aggregate Data With Partners

If we operate a Drink Checker site for an organisation we partner with such as a local authority or employer (referred to here as a “Partner”), the Partner is provided with aggregate anonymised data charts and analysis for their site – this aggregate anonymised data remains wholly confidential between us and our Partner We will provide our Partner with anonymised aggregate information on the proportion of people who used the site (i.e. “50% of site users were men or women”) and what the average drinking levels were (i.e. “50% of men/women used the site; and average drinking levels were 20 units per week”). This will help our Partner to plan future health promotions effectively. We may use aggregated information about our users for the purposes of our own statistical analysis, which we may also share with other people on an aggregated basis which does not identify you individually.

Children

The Drink Checker service is not intended for use by individuals under 18 years of age. We neither knowingly solicit nor collect personal information from or about children under the age of 18 years.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy

Keeping your data secure

We will use appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, for example:

  • access to your account is controlled by a password and username that are unique to you; and
  • we store your personal data on secure servers of our hosting partners.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred from you or to you via the internet. It remains your responsibility to:

  • Ensure nobody else will use our site while you are logged into your account (we advise our users to take extra care when using public computers/devices and to NOT leave themselves logged in; it is your responsibility to ensure this does not happen);
  • Log out and exit your account on the site when you are not using it, on any private and/or public computer or device; and
  • Keep your password and any account details or access details secret and to yourself.

Your email address and mobile number will be deleted from our system when you ask us to do so; we will in any event do so if you do not log in to the site for a period of 6 months. If you have used a version of our site produced for one of our Partners, we will in any event delete all personal data containing any identifying details, on termination of our arrangement with our Partner.

Links to Other Sites

Our site contains links to other websites, including websites of service providers listed in our site. This privacy policy applies only to our customer site and service provider site, so when you visit other websites please read their privacy policies, as we cannot accept any responsibility for breaches or issues you may have in relation to privacy once you leave our site.

The Legal Basis on which we Process your Information

Because it relates to matters of health, we only process your personal data with your explicit consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at info@alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk.

Your Rights

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at info@alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk.

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the sites of our Partners, or alcohol-related organisations. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Data protection legislation gives you the following rights:

  • to access a copy of information held about you;
  • to require rectification or erasure of your information;
  • to object to our use of your data.

These rights can be exercised in accordance with applicable data protection laws. To exercise your rights, please contact us at info@alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk.

Complaints to the ICO

If you make a complaint to us and think we have not dealt with it to your satisfaction, you may send your complaint to the Information Commissioner for investigation. For more information on the Information Commissioner, and how to make a complaint, please visit their website at www.ico.org.uk.

Our contact details

We welcome your feedback and questions. If you wish to contact us, please send an email to info@alcoholhealthnetwork.org.uk.

Changes to privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. If we change our privacy policy we will notify you (if we have your contact details) and place a notice on the site, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times.