Clinect is operated by: Clinect Ltd
For the personal information described in this policy, Clinect is normally the data controller. This means that we decide why and how personal information is used.
In some pilots, an NHS organisation or educational institution may have separate data-protection responsibilities. Where this applies, you may also receive privacy information from that organisation.
For privacy questions or requests, contact: Email: info@clinect.uk.
2. Information we collect
We only collect information that is reasonably necessary to operate, secure and evaluate the Clinect platform. Depending on how you use Clinect, we may collect account and profile information including your name, email address, username where used, account authentication identifier, whether you are a student, doctor or administrator, hospital, placement site or clinical team, year of study where relevant, and account and notification preferences.
Passwords are managed securely by our authentication provider. Clinect does not have access to your plain-text password.
Teaching activity may include teaching opportunities posted or accepted, teaching location and timing, learning objectives, team membership and matching, attendance, completion records, teaching activity or CPD records, and feedback about teaching opportunities and the platform.
Communications and future involvement may include your email address when you ask us for help, contact us about the pilot, request a password reset, or choose to receive information about future pilots, research or opportunities. Providing an email address for future involvement is optional. Where consent is required, we will ask for it separately and you can withdraw it at any time.
Notification information may include notification preferences, push-notification subscription identifiers, basic device or browser information needed to deliver notifications, and whether a notification was successfully delivered or interacted with. You can disable notifications through your device, browser or account settings.
Technical and security information may include IP address, browser and device type, operating system, login and authentication events, error and security logs, dates and times of platform activity, and information needed to detect misuse, technical faults or unauthorised access. We aim to minimise the personal information included in technical logs.
3. Patient information
Clinect is not intended to collect or store patient-identifiable information. You must not enter patient names, NHS numbers, hospital numbers, dates of birth, patient contact details, photographs of patients, or clinical information that could reasonably identify an individual patient.
Teaching opportunities and learning objectives should be described without identifying a patient.
If patient-identifiable information is entered accidentally, we may remove it, restrict access to it and take other appropriate steps. Where necessary, we may notify the relevant participating organisation or information-governance contact.
4. How we use your information
We may use personal information to create and manage your account; authenticate users and support password recovery; confirm whether you are participating as a student or doctor; match users with the correct hospital, site or teaching team; display relevant teaching opportunities; allow students to accept opportunities and submit learning objectives; allow doctors to manage teaching opportunities and attendance; send essential account, security and service notifications; provide requested push notifications; respond to questions and support requests; prevent impersonation, misuse and unauthorised access; monitor and improve platform reliability and security; evaluate the Clinect pilot; understand whether Clinect improves access to placement teaching; produce aggregated or anonymised pilot findings; contact you about future involvement where you have agreed to this; and meet legal, regulatory and information-governance obligations.
We do not sell your personal information.
5. Our lawful bases
UK data-protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for using personal information. Depending on the purpose, we may rely on contract, legitimate interests, consent or legal obligation.
Contract: we may process information where it is necessary to provide the Clinect service you have requested, including creating your account, authenticating you and enabling you to use the platform.
Legitimate interests: we may rely on our legitimate interests to operate and evaluate the limited pilot, improve access to clinical teaching, maintain platform security, prevent misuse and impersonation, resolve technical problems, understand how the service is being used and improve the platform. When relying on legitimate interests, we consider whether the processing is necessary and whether your rights and expectations outweigh our interests.
Consent: we may rely on consent where you choose to receive communications about future pilots, research or opportunities, enable certain optional notifications, participate in optional research or provide information beyond what is necessary to use the platform. You can withdraw consent at any time by contacting info@clinect.uk. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.
Legal obligation: we may process information where this is necessary to comply with legal, regulatory, safeguarding or information-security obligations.
6. Essential and optional communications
We may send essential service messages without treating them as marketing. These may include email verification, password-reset messages, security alerts, important changes affecting your account, information about a teaching opportunity you posted or accepted, and important information about the pilot.
We will only send optional promotional or future-involvement communications where we have an appropriate lawful basis, including consent where required. You can withdraw from optional communications at any time.
7. Who can see your information
Access depends on your role and the function being performed.
Students may be able to see their own profile, their team or placement information, teaching opportunities available to them, opportunities they have accepted, their own learning objectives and completion information, and limited information about the doctor providing an opportunity.
Doctors may be able to see their own profile, teaching opportunities they have created, students who have accepted their opportunities, learning objectives submitted for those opportunities, and attendance or completion information relevant to their teaching.
Authorised Clinect administrators may access information where necessary to manage the pilot, support users, correct matching or account problems, investigate security issues, review feedback and evaluate the service. Administrative access is restricted and should only be used where necessary.
8. Suppliers and service providers
We use specialist technology providers to operate the Clinect website and platform. Current providers may include Lovable and Lovable Cloud for application development, hosting and supporting platform infrastructure; Supabase for authentication, database and backend services; OneSignal for push notifications where enabled; Cloudflare for domain, security and website-delivery services; and email-delivery infrastructure used to send account verification, security and password-reset messages.
These organisations process information on our behalf or provide infrastructure necessary to deliver the service. They are not permitted to use Clinect information for their own unrelated purposes where they act as our processors.
We may also share limited information with participating NHS or educational organisations where necessary and lawful, with professional advisers, where required by law, or to investigate fraud, misuse, security incidents or risks to individuals. Pilot reports will normally use aggregated or anonymised information. We will not share identifiable pilot information unnecessarily.
9. International processing
Some technology suppliers may store or process information outside the United Kingdom. Where personal information is transferred internationally, we assess the transfer and use appropriate protections where required. These may include UK adequacy regulations, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to approved contractual clauses, and additional contractual and technical safeguards.
You can contact us for further information about the safeguards applying to your information.
10. How long we keep information
We do not intend to keep personal information indefinitely.
Account and profile information is kept while your account is active and for up to 12 months after the pilot or your last relevant platform activity, unless a longer period is necessary to resolve a dispute, investigate a security incident or comply with the law.
Teaching, matching and completion records are kept for the duration of the pilot and for up to 12 months afterwards so that we can evaluate the pilot, support users and verify pilot outcomes. Records may then be deleted or anonymised.
Identifiable feedback may be kept for up to 12 months after the pilot. We may retain anonymised feedback and aggregated findings for longer because they no longer identify an individual.
Future-contact information is kept until you withdraw consent or until we determine that the information is no longer needed. We will periodically review whether it remains appropriate to retain it.
Security and technical logs are normally kept for a limited period appropriate to security and troubleshooting. Information may be retained for longer where it relates to an ongoing security incident, complaint or investigation.
Information may remain temporarily in secure backups after deletion from the live system. Backups are protected and removed or overwritten according to the relevant backup schedule.
We may retain information for longer where required by law or where necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
11. How we protect your information
We use proportionate technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information, which may include secure authentication, role-based access controls, database access policies, encryption during transmission, restricted administrative access, protection of private credentials and service keys, security logging and monitoring, software and database security reviews, data minimisation, and backup and recovery controls.
No online service can guarantee complete security. Please use a strong, unique password and tell us promptly if you believe your account or information has been compromised.
12. Cookies, browser storage and similar technologies
Clinect may use essential cookies or browser storage to keep you signed in, maintain your session, remember essential preferences, protect the platform against misuse and deliver requested functionality.
Existing pilot accounts that have not yet been secured with an email and password may depend on the browser session stored on that device. Signing out or clearing browser information may remove access to an unsecured account.
Where we use non-essential cookies or similar technologies that require consent, we will provide appropriate information and choices.
13. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances and lawful basis, you may have the right to ask for a copy of your personal information, ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information, ask us to delete your information, ask us to restrict how your information is used, object to processing based on legitimate interests, receive certain information in a portable format, withdraw consent at any time, and complain about how your information has been handled.
Some rights are subject to legal conditions and exemptions. To exercise your rights, contact info@clinect.uk. We may need to verify your identity before responding to a request.
14. Automated decision-making
Clinect does not use personal information to make solely automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
The platform may use role, team, hospital or placement information to determine which teaching opportunities are displayed, but these functions are intended to support coordination rather than make clinical, academic or employment decisions.
15. Complaints
Please contact us first if you have concerns about how your information has been handled: info@clinect.uk.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK regulator responsible for data protection.
16. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as Clinect develops or where our legal, technical or operational arrangements change.
The latest version will be published on the Clinect website with its updated date. Where changes materially affect how we use personal information, we will take reasonable steps to inform affected users.
17. Contact us
For questions, requests or concerns about this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact Clinect.
Email: info@clinect.uk
Address:
Clinect LTD
Unit A
82 James Carter Road
Mildenhall
IP28 7DE
Contact Clinect at info@clinect.uk for privacy questions, requests or concerns.
Address:
Clinect LTD
Unit A
82 James Carter Road
Mildenhall
IP28 7DE