Privacy Statement

Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (“The College”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Statement.

This Privacy Statement (together with any other documents referred to in it) describes how we collect and use your personal data during your use of the College website (www.gcps.edu.gh) (the ‘website’) in accordance with the Data Protection Regulation of Ghana.

Please read this Privacy Statement carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding our treatment of your Personal Information. By accessing or using the Site and/or our social media pages, you are consenting to the application of this Privacy Policy to your Personal Information, including our collection, storage, use, transfer, and disclosure of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Statement.

This Privacy Statement may change from time to time. Your continued use of the website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check this Privacy Statement periodically for updates.

The College recognizes and respects the importance of confidentiality and security of personal information it collects from individuals or entities when they access our website. The College does not intend to sell, swap, rent, or otherwise disclose for commercial purposes, outside the scope of ordinary College functions, your name, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address, or other information you provide.

While you use the website, The College may collect information from you or about you, including:

• Information that you provide by filling out forms on the webs This includes information provided at the time of requesting a User Account, requesting further services/ information, or enrolling in a membership and fellowship program, or a training course. We also may ask you for information if you report a problem with the website;
• Records and copies of your correspondence through the website with us;
• Information about your use of the website, which is collected automatically as you navigate through the webs

We collect several types of information from or about you:

• Personal Information: Information by which you may be personally identified, such as your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, and any other information by which you may be contacted online or offline (“Personal Information”);
• Technical Information: for example, the type of device (and its unique device identifier) you use to access our website, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, mobile network information and platform.
• Information about your visit to our site including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from the website (including date and time), pages you viewed, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

In order for the College to educate its Residents and engage in research, it is essential, necessary, and lawful to collect, process, use, and maintain data of its Residents, Employees, Applicants, Research subjects, and others involved in its educational, research, and community programs. The lawful basis include, without limitation, admission, registration, delivery of lectures, field, and online education, grades, communications, employment, research, development, program analysis for improvements, and records retention.

We process data or information we collect about you, including any Personal Information, for the following purposes:

• The legitimate interests pursued by the College in providing education, employment, research and development;
• To provide, enhance, improve and develop our website and our services, including measuring and improving the website’s content and layout;
• To provide you with information or services that you request from us;
• To provide notices to you about your User Account with The College;
• To notify you about changes to our website or any services that we offer;
• For research and statistical purposes;
• To meet the obligations of public organizations with oversight over the College, such as accreditation organizations;
• To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide such information;
• To prevent or investigate fraud or other unlawful activity, and to protect the security of the College’s property, website, and other systems;
• In any other way we may describe when you provide the information; and
• For any other purpose with your consent.

The College holds personal information related to its alumnae and other supporters (such as donors, prospective donors, volunteers, etc). We collect data about alumnae and other donors or supporters from various sources, including directly from the individual (for example, by filling out a form on our website).

Your personal information is processed for the following purposes:

• For administrative purposes (e.g., processing donations and issuing a tax receipt, managing events, such as reunions);
• Sending you informational publications (e.g., College Journal and newsletters and other information you may have interest in);
• Conducting surveys so that we can learn more about our alumnae, donors or supporters;
• Sending you information about fundraising activities, events, and opportunities that may be of interest to you;
• For research and statistical purposes;
• To publicly acknowledge gifts (with consent of the donor);
• To meet the obligations of public organizations with oversight over the college, such as accreditation organizations.

We may disclose information that we collect from or about you to fulfill the purpose for which you provided such information. We will not share your information with third parties excerpt:

• as necessary to respond to legal requirements, including complying with any court order, law or legal process and responding to any government or regulatory request, or in response to a verified request relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity
•  as necessary to protect the College interests.
• with service providers acting on our behalf who have agreed to protect the confidentiality of the data.
• For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.

Cookies are pieces of data that websites transfer to users’ web browsers to enable the website to deliver personalized services or to provide persistent authentication. The information contained in a cookie typically includes information collected automatically by the web server and/or information provided voluntarily by the user. We collect cookies to help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your device. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to use certain features of our Site.

We may store data collected by the website manually or electronically. The data is stored on our secure servers and/or in our premises within the College or other secured location.

The website will not collect, and does not desire to receive, any credit card information. When necessary to make payments, your credit card information will be collected and processed outside of the website, by a third-party payment processor accredited by Bank of Ghana. This Privacy Statement does not govern the practices of third-party payment processors, and, if you disclose your information to a third-party payment processor, different rules may apply to its use and disclosure of the information you disclose to such third-party payment processor.

You acknowledge that if you provide information to third-party payment processors, that information will be subject to their user agreements, terms and conditions, privacy policies and other applicable policies and agreements, which may differ from this Privacy Statement. We are not responsible for the policies of third-party payment processors.

The College retains personal information about Residents and alumnae indefinitely for the purpose of alumnae relationships, academic record-keeping, and archiving purposes.

The College is committed to ensuring the security of your information. We have put in place reasonable physical, technical and administrative safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized access to or use of the information collected online.

Our site contains links to and from various third party websites. You acknowledge that if you provide information to third parties, that information will be subject to the Privacy Policies and user agreements associated with those Third-Party Services, which may differ from this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third party website policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

You may have the following legal rights under the Data Protection law with respect to the personal information processed by the College:

• Request access to your data
• To withdraw consent at any time from the processing of your personal Information
• Request the rectification or erasure of your Information
• To request that the College restrict the way it uses your Information
• To ask the College to transfer your information to someone else
• To lodge a complaint with Data Protection Commission

Any changes we may make to our Privacy Statement in the future will be posted on the College website. You are responsible for periodically checking this Privacy Policy for any changes.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please email us ict@gcps.edu.gh or post to: Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons. P.O. BOX MB 429, Ministries, Accra.