Privacy policy

What we collect

When you request a case review we collect your name, email address, phone number if you give one, your country of residence, the area of care you are asking about, your timeline, and whatever you tell us about your condition or diagnosis. If you upload medical records, we collect those too.

Our hosting provider also keeps standard server logs of requests to the site, including IP address and browser. We do not use these to build an advertising profile of you, and we run no third-party analytics.

Health information

The diagnosis you describe and any records you upload are sensitive personal information, and we treat them accordingly. They are encrypted in transit and at rest, retained only as long as needed to assess and coordinate your case, and never sold, rented or used for advertising.

China Medical Care is not a HIPAA covered entity. We are a care facilitator, not a healthcare provider, health plan or clearinghouse, so HIPAA does not govern us. We say this plainly because some companies in this industry imply otherwise. We handle your records to that standard as a matter of practice, but you should know which protections you actually have.

Who we share it with

We share what you send us with:

• Our case management team in China, who read and assess your case.
• The partner hospital being asked to treat you, so its clinicians can assess feasibility and quote accurately. We identify the hospital before sending anything.
• Service providers who operate our infrastructure — hosting and email delivery — under contracts limiting them to that purpose.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

Sending information to China

We are based in British Columbia, and coordinating treatment in China necessarily means your information is transferred to and processed in China, where data protection law differs from that in Canada and the United States, and where authorities may have powers of access that differ from those in your own country.

We ask for your explicit consent before any of this happens, and we record the date and time that consent was given. If you would rather not have your information sent to China, we cannot coordinate your treatment, and you should not submit a case review.

How long we keep it

Case review submissions are retained for up to 24 months so we can pick up a conversation you return to. If you proceed to treatment, records are kept as long as needed to support your care and to meet our legal and contractual obligations. You can ask us to delete them sooner.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, and withdraw your consent to further processing.

• California (CCPA/CPRA): you have rights to know, delete, correct, and to limit use of sensitive personal information, and not to be discriminated against for exercising them. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined.
• British Columbia (PIPA): we are a British Columbia organisation, so the province’s Personal Information Protection Act governs how we handle your information. You may ask for access to it, ask us to correct it, and complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia if you are not satisfied with our response.
• Canada (PIPEDA): for information moving across borders in the course of commercial activity, you may access and correct your personal information and challenge our handling of it.
• Quebec (Law 25): you additionally have rights to data portability and to be informed when a decision is made about you by automated means. We do not make automated decisions about cases.

To exercise any of these, email us at [email protected]. We respond within 30 days.

Cookies and analytics

This site sets no advertising or tracking cookies, and runs no third-party analytics. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs — the pages requested, the time, the IP address the request came from — which are used to keep the site running and secure, not to profile you.

If we add analytics later, we will update this page first, and where consent is required before non-essential cookies are set — Quebec in particular — we will ask before setting them.

Security

Information is encrypted in transit and at rest, and access is limited to staff who need it to work on your case. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. If a breach affects your information, we will tell you and the relevant regulators as the law requires.

Children

This site is not directed at children. Where we coordinate treatment for a minor, we deal with a parent or legal guardian, who provides consent on the child’s behalf.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date above. Material changes affecting how we use information you have already given us will be notified to you directly.

Who we are

China Medical Care is a British Columbia, Canada organisation, and is responsible for the information described here. Our case management team operates in China, which is why the transfer described above happens. If you need our registered details for a regulatory request, ask and we will provide them.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about what we hold on you, can go to [email protected]. See also our terms of service.