First Published: May 2018

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Updated: June 2022

Paul Adkins – International College of Acupuncture – Positive Acupuncture – Room 2, Highgrove House, Truro Business Park, Threemilestone, Truro, Cornwall. TR4 9NH
01726 883187

Purpose of Privacy Policy
The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the GDPR). This legislation will replace current data privacy law, giving more rights to you as an individual and more obligations to organisations holding your personal data.

One of the rights is a right to be informed, which means we have to give you even more information than we do now about the way in which we use, share and store your personal information.

Who are we?
Paul Adkins – International College of Acupuncture – is the data controller – Positive Acupuncture, Room 2, Highgrove House, Truro Business Park, Threemilestone, Truro, Cornwall. TR4 9NH – 01726 883187.

This means we decide how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

Whose information does this privacy notice apply to?
This privacy notice applies to information we collect from:

members;
students and alumni;
people who subscribe to our newsletters;
visitors to our website;

What is personal data?
Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. Examples of personal data we may hold about you include your contact and appointment details.

Special category data is a sub-category of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. Examples of special category data we may hold about you include patient notes or practitioner forms.

How do we process your personal data?
We comply with our obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

MEMBERS
Sections 1-6 apply to our members

Storage: We keep your data only as long as necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations towards you and as required by UK tax laws. Please see the section ‘Website Users’ to see how we keep website data secure.

1. Identity Data: Your first and last name are required to register for our Free, Silver or Gold plans, for the performance of contract with you and/or to manage payments. We will also use this information to notify you about changes to our Privacy Policy and for updates to services.

Free, Silver and Gold plans allow for content upload of your qualifications and a short biography.

Contact Data: Your email address is required to create a listing on our Free, Silver or Gold plans, to contact you regarding your order, to manage payments, notify you about changes to our Privacy Policy and for updates to our services. We only send marketing materials with your explicit consent; please see the section ‘Newsletter Subscribers’. Your email address is used for our web visitors to contact you if you are on a Silver or Gold plan.

Your practice address and telephone number are used to register for our Free, Silver and Gold plans and will be displayed on your website listing.

Your website and social media platforms will also be displayed if entered on the Gold plan.

Transaction Data: Details about the purchases you make are required to manage and deliver your order.

Financial Data: Payments are processed by PayPal – a third party data processor. To review how PayPal processes data, please see here.

Technical Data: Your login data (username and password) is required for creating an account in order to create a listing, purchase securely and for us to fulfil your online listing submission.

2. We may use your Identity and Contact details to send you emails regarding your listing and follow-up information. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

3. We use your Identity and Contact details, only if we have your explicit consent, to send you marketing materials. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

4. Some members and prospective members may provide details of their acupuncture background and training by email or online enquiry forms. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

5. We keep a record of when you became a paid member for tax purposes and to secure potential evidence in the event of a criminal prosecution, civil litigation, insurance claim or complaint. This record is held in a locked filing cabinet in my home office for 7 years after your most recent subscription, as per the requirements of my insurers.

6. We post the practice details you provide us with to the website. This enables prospective patients to contact you for treatment. These listings can be updated or removed at any time by logging in to your account.

INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF ACUPUNCTURE

Sections apply to our students and alumni

Storage: The details of students, outlined in sections 7 – 17 (unless otherwise indicated – see section 13 and 14), are stored in a file in a locked filing cabinet. The office is locked and the building is alarmed outside of working hours. We store alumni files in a locked filing cabinet in my home office for 7 years after graduation, as per the requirements of our relevant professional associations and our insurers.

7. We use your name, address, telephone number and email address to arrange and follow-up your training. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

8. We use your name, address, telephone number and email address, only if we have your explicit consent, to send you marketing materials. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

9. Some students and prospective students may provide details of their background and previous training by email or online enquiry forms. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

10. We keep a permanent attendance register of students attending the college to keep a record of when you undertook training for tax purposes and to secure potential evidence in the event of a criminal prosecution, civil litigation, insurance claim or complaint to the relevant professional associations and our insurers.

11. We keep a record of any medical conditions you have told us about in order for you to receive treatment during your training, and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.

12. We keep the practice details you give us once graduated, where provided, and upload them to our website with your consent. This enables prospective patients to contact you for treatment via The 5 Element Acupuncture Network. These listings can be updated or removed at any time by contacting help@5elementacupuncture.co.uk

13. We keep accident records for any patients, students, visitors or staff who are involved in accidents at our college locations in accordance with UK Health and Safety legislation including the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) to comply with the law and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint. This record is also stored with Dropbox, which means that the data is transferred out of the EU to the US and covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield.

14. In the event of an adverse incident occurring to any of our students we report the matter to the relevant professional associations and our insurance company to enable the insurance company to deal with any potential claims and to help the relevant professional associations to develop their safe practice guidelines, as well as providing research data and information for their insurers and other interested parties. This record is stored with Dropbox, which means that the data is transferred out of the EU to the US and covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield.

15. Where relevant we maintain records of the student’s consent to treatment in order to be able to prove that the student has given informed consent to treatment to secure evidence in the event of a civil claim, criminal prosecution, insurance claim or complaint.

16. We display personal testimonials of satisfied students on our website and in print advertisements. With your consent, we may use your testimonial, your name and location. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at help@5elementacupuncture.co.uk

17. With consent of students, we may upload photographs taken during their training on our website, for as long as they are relevant, and on our social media platforms. Anyone photographed, whether past or current may withdraw consent for a photograph in which they appear to be displayed. The process for this is to email us at help@5elementacupuncture.co.uk specifying the photo in question. We will then remove the photo from any online and printed display. Photographs are securely stored on a password-protected PC in my home office and are also stored with Dropbox, which means that the data is transferred out of the EU to the US and covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield.

ONLINE TRAINING

Sections 18-23 apply to our online students and alumni

Storage: We keep your data only as long as necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations towards you and as required by UK tax laws. Please see the section ‘Website Users’ to see how we keep website data secure.

Our online training portal is hosted by a third party processor aNewSpring.com which means that the Identify, Contact, Transaction and Technical data remains within the EU. To review how aNewSpring processes data, please see here.

18. Identity Data: Your first and last name are required to register on the online training portal, for the performance of contract with you and to manage payments. We will also use this information to notify you about changes to our Privacy Policy and for updates to services.

Contact Data: Your email address is required for fulfilment of your order, to contact you regarding your order, to manage payments, notify you about changes to our Privacy Policy and for updates to our services. We only send marketing materials with your explicit consent; please see the section ‘Newsletter Subscribers’.

Your billing address and shipping address are not required for purchase of digital online courses via PayPal, however, if your course includes a free product we will request this information directly by contacting you inside the training portal. These details are used expressly for the delivery of the product/s and are not stored by us thereafter.

Transaction Data: Details about the purchases you make are required to manage and deliver your order.

Financial Data: Payments are processed by PayPal – a third party data processor. To review how PayPal processes data, please see here.

Technical Data: Your login data (username and password) is required for creating an account in order to purchase securely and for us to fulfil your order.

19. We may use your Identity and Contact details to send you emails outside of the online training portal regarding your studies and follow-up information. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

20. We use your Identity and Contact details, only if we have your explicit consent, to send you marketing materials. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

21. Some students and prospective students may provide details of their acupuncture background and training by email or online enquiry forms. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

22. We keep a permanent attendance register of students enrolled on our online training courses to keep a record of when you undertook a course for tax purposes and to secure potential evidence in the event of a criminal prosecution, civil litigation, insurance claim or complaint. This record is held in a locked filing cabinet in my home office for 7 years after your most recent training course, as per the requirements of our insurers.

23. We display personal testimonials of satisfied students on the International College of Acupuncture, Acupuncture Courses Online website and in print advertisements. With your consent, we may use your testimonial, your name and location. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at help@5elementacupuncture.co.uk

COMPLAINTS
Section 24 applies to those who complain about our services

24. When we receive a complaint from a person we make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide. We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. If a complainant doesn’t want information identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis. We may need to provide personal information collected and processed in relation to complaints to our insurance company. We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for two years from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.

The data outlined in section 18 would be stored in a file in a locked filing cabinet. The office is locked and the building is alarmed outside of working hours. This record is also stored with Dropbox, which means that the data is transferred out of the EU to the US and covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield.

NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
Sections 25 and 26 apply to subscribers to our newsletters

25. We maintain and use records of subscribers to our newsletters, which include occasional offers and updates – only with their consent, for marketing purposes.

26. We use a third-party provider, Mailchimp, to deliver our e-newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. Subscribers can unsubscribe at any time via a link in the email footer. For information, please see Mailchimp’s privacy notice.

WEBSITE USERS
Sections 27 – 32 apply to our website users

27. When someone visits our website we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it. Please see our cookie policy for full details.

28. We use website cookies to improve the user experience of our website by enabling our website to ‘remember’ users, either for the duration of their visit – using a ‘session cookie’ – or for repeat visits – using a ‘persistent cookie’. Please see our cookie policy for full details.

29. We use a third-party service Limit Login Attempts Reloaded to help maintain the security and performance of our website. To deliver this service it processes the IP addresses of visitors to our website; all logged IPs get obfuscated (md5-hashed).

30. We use a third-party service, WordPress.org, to host our website including publishing our blog. This site is hosted at Siteground.co.uk, which is run by Siteground Hosting Ltd. We use Google Analytics (see section 21) to collect anonymous information about users’ activity on the site, for example, the number of users viewing pages on the site, to monitor and report on the effectiveness of the site and help us improve it.

31. WordPress.org requires visitors that want to post a comment to enter a name and email address. Comments will be saved to the website’s database, along with an IP address and the date and time of the comment. This information is used for identification purposes only and is not passed onto third parties. Only your name will be shown alongside your comment unless you’ve subscribed to Gravatar whereby your Gravatar image will be displayed. Personal identifying information should not be entered by visitors on this website.

Should you wish to have a comment removed, please contact us with the email address you used to upload it at help@5elementacupuncture.co.uk

32. Contact forms or email links do not store details on our website, instead, the data is transferred via Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.

For more information about how Siteground.co.uk processes data, please see here.

For more information about how WordPress.org processes data, please see here.

For more information about how Gravatar handles data, please see here.

Sharing your personal data
Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential, and will be shared:

with named third parties with your explicit consent;

with the relevant authority such as the police or a court, if necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject e.g. a court order;

with your doctor or the police if necessary to protect yours or another person’s life;

with my insurance company in the event of a complaint or insurance claim being brought against me; or my solicitor in the event of any investigation or legal proceedings being brought against me.

For further details about the situations when information about you might be shared please see the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/personal-information/sharing-my-info/

How long do we keep your personal data?
We keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary.

We keep student forms and training disclaimers for a period of 7 years in accordance with our insurer’s requirements.

For student fees paid by credit card in person, we keep the data for 18 months in line with Square’s (our payment processing company) terms for legal claims.

We keep your account active on our aNewSpring online training portal whilst you undertake your studies and for 1 year after you’ve successfully completed your course. Five Element Acupuncture Theory students have 1 year in which to complete their studies, we keep the account active, as it is possible to extend access to the previously purchased training course for an administrative fee of £30 per annum.

We keep a permanent attendance and payment records for 6 years in line with HMRC’s regulations.

By law, we have to keep basic information about our paid membership (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for 6 years after they cease being customers for tax purposes. Unpaid Members account details are held for a maximum of 6 months after their subscription ends and then deleted. Please note: You may still receive marketing emails if you opt-in separately to receive our newsletters – see sections 19 and 20.

Google Analytics is automatically deleted after 26 months and then every month thereafter.

At any time you may request that changes are made to your contact details.

Your rights and your personal data
Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have certain rights with respect to your personal data as set out below.

The right to request a copy of your personal data which we hold about you.

The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date.

The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for us to retain such data.

The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time. This right does not apply where we are processing information using a lawful purpose other than consent.

The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability), (where applicable) [This right only applies where the processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of a contract with you and in either case we are processing the data by automated means].

The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing.

The right to object to the processing of personal data, (where applicable) [This right only applies where processing is based on legitimate interests (or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority); direct marketing and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics].

The right to be informed if your data is lost. We shall also inform the Information Commissioner’s Office in accordance with the time limits in the GDPR.

The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

For further details about these rights please see the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/is-my-information-being-handled-correctly/

Further processing
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Policy, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact Details
To exercise all relevant rights, queries of complaints please in the first instance contact us at:
Paul Adkins – International College of Acupuncture, Positive Acupuncture, Room 2, Highgrove House, Truro Business Park, Threemilestone, Truro, Cornwall. TR4 9NH
01726 883187

Changes to our Privacy Policy
Any changes made to this Privacy Policy will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Policy.