Personal Information Policy – Patients and Caregivers

If you are a healthcare professional, the relevant Personal Information Policy for you can be found here.

Last revised: 3rd January 2024

Here at GKA we take the protection and privacy of your personal information very seriously. We want to be as clear as we can about what personal information we hold and how we use it so that, if you sign-up to participate with us, you know exactly where you stand.

By signing up to our panel you agree that you’ve read and understood our Personal Information Policy as laid out below. We hope it gives you a great understanding of how we work, the transparent standards of integrity we strive towards, and what you can expect from us if you become part of what we’re doing at GKA.

For what purposes will we use your information?

Simple summary:
We process your data so that we can invite you to take part in paid medical market research, respond to your queries, and to improve our services.

GKA will process your personal data for the following purposes:

  • Sending you email invitations to participate in paid medical market research studies
  • Contacting you via telephone to invite you to participate in paid medical market research studies
  • Contacting you via text message to invite you to participate in paid medical market research studies
  • Contacting you to ask for your help in finding other respondents. Any information you provide is handled confidentially, and only with the consent of the individual(s) concerned
  • Providing technical or incentive support when you ask for it
  • Supplying you with your incentive for participating
  • For assessing project feasibility
  • To allow a moderator/interviewer to contact you to conduct an interview you have agreed to participate in. This would only be with your specific consent as part of your agreement to participate
  • Evaluating the use and performance of our website, email campaigns and panel of respondents for statistical purposes. We only use data in an anonymised manner when we are using it for this purpose

What we won’t do

GKA will never sell your personal data under any circumstances, nor will we use it for any purposes other than the ones we’ve stated above.

Exactly what information do we store?

Simple summary:
We store the minimum amount of your personal information that we need to be effective in inviting you to our medical market research studies.

When you sign-up to join our panel of patients and carers we will capture the following personal data:

  • Your IP address
  • Your email address
  • Your name
  • Your date of birth
  • Your preferred contact number
  • Your region
  • Which type of communication you’d prefer to receive (html or plain text email invitations)
  • The date and time on which you joined our panel
  • The date and time on which you confirmed your email address and verified your consent to join our panel
  • The date and time on which you last updated your profile information
  • Your location, time zone and language settings
  • Your preferred email client (the software you use to read the invitations we send you)
  • The sign-up source from which you joined our panel (e.g. via our website registration form)
  • How you heard about GKA

GKA stores your personal data until you tell us otherwise so that we can continue to invite you to participate in paid medical market research studies that we believe may be of interest to you.

Lawful basis and your rights

Simple summary:
We only ever use your data lawfully. We’ll always abide by your wishes so you can contact us at any time about what we’re doing.

We process your data either under consent or as part of our legitimate interests as a business. You have the right to change our processing of your information at any time. Every email communication we send you provides you with an unsubscribe option which will ensure that we cease to contact you. You are also free to withdraw your consent over the phone or in response to a text communication you receive from us; we will be sure to act in accordance with your wishes.

You can also restrict our processing of your information at any time, perhaps specifying your willingness to be contacted in certain ways but not in others. Again, your wishes are our priority.

You may also send us a request to access, amend or delete your personal information. To do this, send an email to privacy@gilliankenny.com, being sure to state clearly in the subject line that your email concerns a privacy issue. To ensure that we are only acting on requests that have been genuinely made by you, please bear in mind that we may request additional information to verify your identity.

We also provide you with a link in every email we send you that allows you to check and update the personal information we hold for you, ensuring it remains accurate at all times.

Lastly, you have the right to object to our use of your personal data. To do so, please email privacy@gilliankenny.com, clearly stating that you wish to exercise your right to object. If you aren’t happy in any way with our use of your information, or believe your rights have been infringed in some way, please don’t hesitate to lodge a complaint with us and we will do our utmost to rectify the situation.

Third-parties

Simple summary:
To do what we do, we sometimes need to work with other services. We always make sure we’ve thoroughly checked out how they work before we work with them.

GKA works with a few third-parties to enable us to effectively carry out our work. Any company we partner with is required to sign our Data Processor Agreement, committing to the same standards of compliance we adhere to ourselves.

Codes of conduct & minors

GKA is a member of the BHBIA and complies with their legal and ethical guidelines. You can read more about that here.

We are also accredited by the Market Research Society (MRS) and abide by their codes of conduct. You can read more about those here. Market research with us is only available to those over the age of sixteen.

What about cookies?

We do use cookies on our site and you can read more about that here: https://www.gilliankenny.com/cookie-policy/

Revisions to this policy

Simple summary:
Sometimes, we’ll make changes to this statement, so check back in now and again. If there’s anything you’re concerned about, we always welcome you contacting us.

GKA will inevitably revise this policy from time to time but only ever to improve the way we work, and to ensure ongoing compliance with all legal requirements for data protection and security. Whenever we make any changes we’ll always post them on this page and the date at the top will show you which revision you’re viewing.

Please check back now and again to see if anything’s changed but you can also rest assured that we’d pro-actively communicate any major changes with you as well.

If there’s anything you’re no longer happy with, you can let us know and exercise your rights as we’ve described above, but by continuing to participate with us and allowing us to hold your information you are accepting any changes made to the Personal Information Policy.

Any questions we haven’t yet answered

We hope that we’ve been really clear and that you now have a much better awareness of what personal information we store and how we use it. But if you’ve still got questions or want to clarify anything of what you’ve read, please get in touch with us at privacy@gilliankenny.com and we’ll be glad to help you with your query.