In this privacy notice, ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ mean Oracle Dental Group.  Our principal address is 13A Bromley Rd, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3JE. Our Data Protection Officer is contactable by e-mail at colchester@oracledentalgroup.co.uk

Scope of the privacy notice

This privacy notice applies to anyone who interacts with us about our products and services in any way (for example, by e-mail, through our website, by phone).

What information do we collect?

We may collect the following kinds of information about you:

Personal details

• your name
• date of birth
• gender
• national insurance number
• NHS number
• Address
• telephone number
• email address
• occupation

Information about

• your dental and general health
• clinical records
• X-rays
• clinical photographs
• digital scans of your mouth and teeth
• treatment plans and consent
• notes of conversations with you about your care
• correspondence from other health professionals or institutions involved in your care
• details of the fees we have charged, payments exemptions (NHS), the amounts you have paid, and some payment details
• Online profile and social media information and activity, based on your interaction with us
• Statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns on our website.
• Any other personal information you provide to us

We record CCTV images of people when entering and leaving our premises as well as at strategic locations throughout the buildings. This is for the purposes of security and safety monitoring and the investigation of alleged criminal offences. We may share our CCTV images with law enforcement and courts if required.

How we obtain information

You may give us information about you through the following:

• by filling in forms at our practices, through social media, or on our websites.
• corresponding with us by phone, e-mail, or otherwise.
• through the technology you use to access our services
• by entering competitions, through social media, our website, or face-to-face.
• sources that are available to the public, such as social media

Information we receive from third parties – This includes information you provide when you visit our websites, for the purpose of booking an appointment with a dentist at Oracle Dental Group dental clinics, participating in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site and when you report a problem with our site.

Cookies

Please read our Cookie Policy for details

How we use your information – the purpose

We may use this information to:

• to perform our relationship with you, including handling any queries or complaints
• to manage our social media or online relationship with you, in some cases we may rely on your consent for example should you provide us with a video, photograph, or content to use.
• to provide you with the dental care and treatment that you need, we require up-to-date and accurate information about you.

We may contact you to conduct patient surveys or to find out if you are happy with the treatment you received for quality control purposes.

We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care. Our usual methods are SMS, telephone, email, or letter.

If we wish to use your information for dental research or dental education, we will discuss this with you and seek your consent. Depending on the purpose and if possible, we will anonymise your information. If this is not possible, we will inform you and discuss your options.

We may use your contact details to inform you of products and services available at our practices.

By visiting our website, the User expressly consents to the collection, use, storage, processing, and disclosure of its information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We do not knowingly collect personal information relating to anyone under the age of 13 years.

However, we may in some cases collect limited personal information related to children 13 years or younger, if they are the child of a responsible adult who is sharing information. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under the relevant age without parental consent, we take steps to delete that information.

Sharing your information

Your information is used only by those working at the practice but there may be instances where we need to share it – for example, with:

• your doctor
• the hospital or community dental services or other health professionals caring for you
• dental laboratories
• NHS payment authorities
• the department for work and pensions and its agencies, where you are claiming exemption or remission from NHS charges
• private dental schemes of which you are a member
• debt collection companies

We may also share your information with third parties so that we can deliver the following services to you:

• managing new enquiries from our website, or social media
• contacting you to check if you wish to remain a client of ours
• sending reminders for your dental appointments
• processing online booking appointments
• collecting feedback from our patients
• managing email communications to our patients
• providing troubleshooting and support services for our various IT systems

We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary. We also have third party agreements in place to protect your information.

In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information to a third party not connected with your health care, including HMRC or other law enforcement or government agencies.

How we will keep your information safe

We employ administrative, electronic, and physical security measures to ensure that we protect the information that we collect about you from access by unauthorised persons and protected against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, and damage.

This includes:

• password protection
• locked cabinets/rooms
• practice security systems (including CCTV)
• virus protection
• secure servers
• back-up facilities
• secure cloud-based storage

In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality to us.

How long will we keep your information?

We keep your dental records for 10 years after the date of your last visit.

There are several other documents that we may collect that have a variety of retention dates, for example, the NHS PR form – used to declare payment exemptions – which the retention period is two years.

We will only keep the information, such as records through chat functions, for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it.

We have a retention schedule listing all documents and the timeframes for disposal. Retention periods may change from time to time based on business or legal and regulatory requirements.

Your rights

• You have a right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy. You can make a request by contacting your practice or by emailing colchester@oracledentalgroup.co.uk
• You have a right to correct any information that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact your practice to request a change in information.
• You have a right to request that we delete your personal information, although you should be aware that, for legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment). Please contact your practice to make this request.
• You have the right to request us to restrict the processing of your personal information, for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our service. Please contact your practice to make this request.
• You have a right to data portability; this could include supplying your information to another dentist. Please contact your practice to make this request.

Your Data Matters: How can you learn more about protecting your information?

If you want detailed information on your rights, protecting your information, what the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) does, and how it can help you protect your information, please visit https://ico.org.uk/yourdatamatters. The ICO is the UK’s independent body that upholds information rights.

Concerns

If you have any concerns about how we use your information and you do not feel able to discuss it with your dentist or anyone at the practice, you can contact our Data Protection Officer via our contact page.