PRIVACY POLICY

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This policy explains the terms on which we collect and process your personal data, and how we protect your personal data when you visit our website at www.talkingismedicine.com, you contact us, you comment on our website, you sign up to our newsletter, or you otherwise engage us for. In addition, it explains your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

 

1. About us

We, Talking is Medicine, will only process your personal data in line with data protection laws, namely the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) (2016/679), the Irish Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directives) Regulations 2023 (the “Data Protection Legislation”). If any of these laws are replaced or superseded, we will also comply with those.

 

2. The data we may collect about you

Personal data/information means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It doesn’t include anonymous data. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, family name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
• Contact Data includes email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access our website.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback, and survey responses.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, our products, and our services.
• Location Data includes information about your physical location (explained later in this policy).
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose, isn’t considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity to us. We may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific app or website feature.

We don’t collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). We also don’t collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

 

3. How is your personal data collected?

We may use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity and Contact by filling in forms, by corresponding or engaging with us by post, phone, email, social media or otherwise.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources, such as Google, Companies House, or the electoral register.

 

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when we can rely on a legitimate (lawful) basis, such as:

• Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

 

5. Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below the ways we may use your personal data, and which of the legitimate bases we rely on to do so:

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To enable you to submit an enquiry to us, whether via email, phone, through our website, or via social media, including but not limited to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram	Identity Contact	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to respond to your enquiry)
To enable you to post a comment on our website	Identity Contact	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable you to use this feature of our website)
To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey	Identity Contact Profile Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)
To enable you to register for our mailing list/email marketing	Identity Contact Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to provide you with the newsletter/email marketing and present you with information, goods or services we consider you will be interested in)
To administer and protect our business and our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	Identity Contact Technical	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you	Identity Contact Profile Usage Marketing and Communications Technical	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our website, our products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences	Technical Usage	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you	Identity Contact Technical Usage Profile Marketing and Communications	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

 

6. Marketing

You may receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and you haven’t opted out of receiving that marketing. We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this won’t apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or other transactions.

 

7. Cookies

Our website uses cookies in accordance with the relevant parts of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and Data Protection Legislation 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 website. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website
• Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

 

Please note that third parties may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These named third parties may include, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services. These third-party cookies are likely to be analytical cookies or performance cookies or targeting cookies:

• Google Analytics – this is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. The cookies used by Google Analytics help us to analyse how users use our website and to count the number of people who use it. Google Analytics stores your IP address anonymously. Google does not associate your IP address with any personally identifiable information.

We will always ask for your consent to use non-essential cookies. You are free to withhold consent to this, but it means that we might not be able to provide the full website experience to you, including some elements of video advertising. If at any time you wish to disable our cookies, you can do so through the settings on your browser, or whenever the pop-up appears on the website (each time you access the website).

 

8. Disclosures of your personal data

We may disclose your information in the following cases:

• If we want to sell our business, or our company, we can disclose it to the potential buyer
• We can disclose it to other businesses in our group
• We can disclose it if we have a legal obligation to do so, or in order to protect other people’s property, safety, or rights
• We can exchange information with others to protect against fraud or credit risks.

We may also contract with third parties to supply services to you on our behalf. These include:

• Credit card processing services
• Order fulfilment service providers
• Analytics service providers
• Event/campaign management service providers
• Website management service providers
• Information technology and related infrastructure provision
• Email delivery services
• Our auditors and legal advisors.

Specifically, the third party processors we currently use in our business activities include the following:

• Cloudflare – used to enable you to post comments on our website

It is important to note that these third party processors are bound by data protection obligations in the same way that we, or any company that processes personal data is. If you would like more information about how these third parties process and store your personal data, you can find out more information by clicking the links and visiting their terms and conditions and privacy policies.

 

9. Data security

Data security is of great importance to us, and to protect your personal data we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure data we collect. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

If there is an incident where we become aware that there has been a data breach, we will let you know without undue delay. We will then take all necessary steps, including informing the ICO, to limit the extent of the breach and to prevent a further reoccurrence.

It is important to note that we can only do our best to protect your personal data but the transmission of information over the internet is not entirely secure. Any personal data you share with us over the internet is done at your own risk.

 

10. International transfers

We may transfer your personal data outside of the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) where we engage third parties to provide services on our behalf, such as to receive services or deal with payment. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK or the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.

 

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK or the EEA.

 

11. Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

 

12. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under the Data Protection Legislation in relation to your personal data:

• Request access to your personal data
• Request correction of your personal data
• Request erasure of your personal data
• Object to processing of your personal data
• Request restriction of processing your personal data
• Request transfer of your personal data
• Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us by emailing hello@talkingismedicine.com

You won’t have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights), but we can charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive, or we can refuse to comply in these circumstances.

We may need you to provide evidence of your identity as a security measure and we may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month, but it could take longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

 

13. Notice for California residents of privacy practices and rights

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding your personal data. The CCPA gives you the following rights:

• Right to know about the personal information we collect and share:
  • The CCPA gives you the right to request that we disclose the specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you;
  • Please see above for information on the data we collect on you, and how we process it; and
  • We do not sell your personal information. However, we do disclose your personal data to limited third parties, as described above.
• Right of deletion:
  • You have the right to request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• If you wish to delete your personal data, please contact us at hello@talkingismedicine.com. Please note that we may require certain information from you in order to verify your identity before proceeding with your request.

 

We collect the categories of personal information from you in connection with your use of our website and our services as described above. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

 

14. Third party links

This policy only relates to our website and to our business activities. We have links on our website to other websites, including but not limited to our social media accounts. These websites aren’t controlled by us and they will have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies. You should check those privacy policies before providing your personal data to those websites.

 

15. Changes to this policy

We can update this policy from time to time as laws change or as our website or our services change. If we make material changes to this policy, and we need your consent to those changes, we will contact you by email to do so.

These terms sets out the rules that apply to you when you use our website. By using our website, you confirm that you accept these terms and our privacy and cookie policy, and that you agree to comply with them. If you don’t agree to these terms or our privacy and cookie policy, you shouldn’t use our website.

We might change these terms from time to time, when our business or our services change, and so you should check back each time you use our website, as the updated terms will apply to you. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation.

 

Intellectual property

Across our website we share our intellectual property with you. In a nutshell, intellectual property means the rights that are automatically granted to those that create anything. There is intellectual property in everything on our website, from our photos, videos, blog posts and brand name, down to the designs in the website, the typographical arrangement, layout, text and graphics, and they are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws across the world. This intellectual property is either owned by us, or we have been granted a right to use it by our licensors, contributors or by you (where you have posted a comment on our website, as explained later).

What this means is that you’re not allowed to copy, reproduce, modify, distribute, display, publish, transmit, or create any derivative works based on the content found on our website. You’re also not allowed to use our trade marks, logos or service marks found anywhere on our website, without our prior written consent.

You can print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any pages from our website for your own personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our website. That being said, you’re not allowed to modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photos, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text. You must not use any part of the content on our website for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

You are welcome to share our content on social media, as long as you give us proper credit by tagging us and linking back to our website. If you would like to use any of our content for commercial purposes, please contact us to request permission.

We take intellectual property rights seriously and will take appropriate legal action to protect our content from unauthorised use.

 

Privacy

We respect your privacy, and so we process your personal data in accordance with data protection legislation. This is all explained in detail within our privacy and cookies policy, which you can find on our website.

 

Acceptable use policy

Commenting on our blogs posts and forum

One of the key features of our website is the ability to post comments on our blog posts and online forum, and so when you do this you are engaging with us, other commenters, and with the world at large.

When you comment on our website, you must always follow our content standards. By using our website, you agree that you will not use our website:

· in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation

· in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect

· to bully, insult, intimidate or humiliate any person

· to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which doesn’t comply with our content standards (see later in these terms)

· to transmit any spam (i.e. any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material)

· in any way that involves the abuse or exploitation of any person.

You promise to us that any comment you make complies with these standards, and you’ll be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that promise, meaning you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of your promise.

Any comment or content you upload to our website isn’t considered confidential or proprietary. This means that you will retain ownership of your content, but you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, licence to use, reproduce, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties or on other media, such as on our social media accounts, for our own commercial purposes.

We’re respectful of other people’s intellectual property, and so we have the right to disclose your identity to anyone who is claiming that any content you have posted or uploaded to our website is in breach of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

 

Content standards

As explained above, these standards apply to any comment you post on our website. By interacting with our website, you promise that each comment will be accurate (where you are stating fact) and genuinely held (where you are stating an opinion). In addition to this, all comments must not:

· be defamatory of any person, obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory, nor used to bully, insult, intimidate or humiliate anyone

· be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person, or deceive any person

· be threatening, abusive or an invasion of another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety

· promote sexually explicit material or include child sexual abuse material

· promote violence or any illegal content or activity

· promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age

· infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person

· breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence, or be in contempt of court

· impersonate any person or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, including as passing yourself as working for or with us

· contain any advertising or promote any services or web links to other websites.

Although we do moderate the interactions on our website and do our best to remove any comments that breaches our standards, we can’t be held responsible for the opinions, comments, statement or activities of users of our website. If you come across any comment you think is against our standards, we kindly ask that you notify us so we can take action to remove that comment.

On the flipside, if you breach our standards, we reserve the right to delete all comments you have posted without any liability or responsibility to you or any third party.

 

Other things you can’t do on our website

You’re not allowed to conduct, facilitate, authorise, or permit any text or data mining or web scraping in relation to our website or any services provided via, or in relation to, our website. This includes using (or permitting, authorising, or attempting the use of):

· Any "robot", "bot", "spider", "scraper" or other automated device, program, tool, algorithm, code, process, or methodology to access, obtain, copy, monitor or republish any portion of the website or any data, content, information, or services accessed via the same.

· Any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information which includes but isn’t limited to patterns, trends, and correlations.

The provisions in this clause should be treated as an express reservation of our rights in this regard, including for the purposes of Article 4(3) of Digital Copyright Directive ((EU) 2019/790). This clause shall not apply insofar as (but only to the extent that) we are unable to exclude or limit text or data mining or web scraping activity by contract under the laws which are applicable to us.

You’re not allowed to misuse our website by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You’re not allowed to attempt to gain unauthorised access to our website, the server on which our website is stored, or any server, computer or database connected to our website. You are also not allowed to attack our website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you are committing a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities, and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. If you breach this provision, your right to use our website will stop immediately.

Disclaimers and reliance

Our website is made available free of charge and is provided to you on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of our website or the information, content, materials, or products included on our website. You expressly agree that your use of our website is at your sole risk. We don’t warrant that our website, its servers, or any email sent from us are free of viruses or other harmful components. You’re responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our website. You should use your own virus protection software. We won’t be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of our website, including, but not limited to, direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, and consequential damages.

The content on our website is provided for general information only, and is not intended to be any kind of advice that you can rely on. Where we have made any statements on our website, whether in our blog posts or anywhere else, these are our own opinion (unless stated otherwise). You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our website.

Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our website, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our website is accurate, complete, or up to date, or that our website, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our website for business and operational reasons.

Limitation of liability

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

We don’t exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents, or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Our liability to you under these terms is capped at £500.

If you are a business user:

We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations, or other terms that may apply to our website or any content on it. We won’t be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:

· use of, or inability to use, our website; or

· use of or reliance on any content displayed on our website.

In particular, we won’t be liable for:

· loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;

· business interruption;

· loss of anticipated savings;

· loss of business opportunity, goodwill, or reputation; or

· any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

If you are a consumer:

Please note that we only provide our website for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our website for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

 

Third party links

We have links on our website to other websites, including but not limited to our social media accounts. These websites, and any content published on them, aren’t controlled by us and they will have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies that you should read before providing your personal data.

Including those links on our website doesn’t mean that we have approved them, or endorsed the company, or any goods or services they provide.

 

Links to our website

You can if you choose to add a link on your website to our home page only, as long as you do so in a way that is fair and legal and doesn’t damage our reputation or take advantage of it. You’re not allowed to establish a link in a way that suggests that we are associated with you, or that we have approved or endorsed you or your goods or services, when it isn’t true. You’re not allowed to establish a link to our website in any website that isn’t owned and operated by you.

Where you have linked to our website, and we aren’t agreeable to this, we reserve the right to withdraw our permission without notice and you agree to comply with this. If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our website other than that set out above, please contact us by email.

 

Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms, and any non-contractual obligations arising hereunder, are governed by the laws of Ireland. The courts of Ireland have exclusive jurisdiction over any matter and proceedings arising out of these terms.

 

Contacting us

If you need to contact us, you can reach us at hello@talkingismedicine.com or by contacting us on one of our social media accounts.