The privacy of your personal information is important to National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM). To better protect your privacy, we provide you with our Privacy Policy so that you will understand our commitment to you and to your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes what information we may collect about you; how we use your information; how we protect it; and what choices you have on how that information is used. At NCSM, we understand that health is a very personal, private subject, and we want you to feel as comfortable as possible visiting our various Web sites and using their respective services.

As our privacy policy changes in significant ways, we will make every effort to notify you of the changes. Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect our use of individually identifiable or personal health information. When the privacy policy changes in a way that significantly affects the way we handle personal information, we will not use the information we have previously gathered without providing notice or obtain your consent when appropriate. We will post privacy policy changes on our Web sites in a timely manner.

The following articles make up our Privacy Policy. We hope that reading them gives you a clear idea of how we manage information regarding you.

When we refer to ourselves as "we" or "NCSM," we mean our entire organisation, including any company or organization that we partner with (for example, a company which we contract to help us provide services). We may share information among companies or organisation that we partner with and other third parties such as our co-promotion partners, and companies working with NCSM but no personally identifiable information will be disclosed in this process.

What we collect?

• Information we collect from visitors

Visitors to each of our Web sites can access the Web site's home page, and browse some areas of the site, without disclosing any personally identifiable information. We do track information provided to us by your browser, including the Web site you came from (known as the referring URL), the type of browser you use, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. On some of our sites, you must register to access portions of the site.

In addition, we gather information about you that is automatically collected by our Web server, such as your IP address and domain name. NCSM may use Web server and browser information to individually customize its offerings and presentations if you submit your personal information.

• Information from outside sources

We may also collect information about physicians or other healthcare professionals who register on our Web sites from other sources in order to verify their licensure status and identity. In some cases, we ask customers for information after they register, such as credit card information. Where necessary (for example, to process an order for a purchase), our Web sites may contact financial or credit organizations to confirm customer credit card information.

From time to time we may augment our existing user databases with legally obtained information from third parties. Some of this information may be personally identifiable, such as national change of address information. We do this to better target our information offerings and promotional campaigns and to provide pertinent offers in which we think you would be interested.

• Other information

We also collect information that you voluntarily provide to us through responses to surveys, search functions, questionnaires, feedback forms and the like.

On some of our Web sites, we offer health assessment tools that ask you to provide self-assessment information.

We may also ask you to provide additional information such as your e-mail address if you want to obtain additional services or information or to resolve complaints or concerns.

How do we use Cookies?

Cookies, log files, and pixel-tags (Web beacons) are technologies used by the NCSM Web sites to identify a user as the user moves through our Web sites. Your browser allows us to place some information (session based IDs and/or persistent cookies) on your computer's hard drive that identifies the computer you are using. We may use cookies to personalize our Web sites and to track your usage across other NCSM Web sites.

Your Web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, Web sites that are cookie-enabled will not recognize you when you return to the Web site, and some Web site functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies.

On occasion, we contract with third parties to place cookies on your computer's hard drive. These third parties have entered into an agreement with us that require them to observe our Privacy Policy.

Although cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information, if you have provided us information about you, we may associate your registration information with cookies or other tracking utilities our Web site places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. Without cookies, this functionality would not be possible.

Some of our partners may use cookies on our site (for example, links to business partners). We do not want our partners to use cookies to track our visitor's activities once they leave our sites. However, we may not have total control over how our partners may use cookies on our Web site. If you become aware that a NCSM partner is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact our privacy officer to assist us in resolving this problem.

In addition, we may use other tracking systems like Pixel-tags. Pixel tags, sometimes called Web beacons, are similar in function to a cookie. But because of its insignificant size, it is not visible; though, it is used to pass certain information to our servers to personalize our Web sites and to track your usage across other NCSM Web sites. In addition, we may also use Pixel tags in our HTML based emails.

 What we do with the information we gather

• Aggregate data

We gather aggregate data about visitors to our Web sites for healthcare service development and improvement activities. We also use it for healthcare industry analysis. We may provide information from our Web sites in aggregate form, with identifying information removed, to third parties. When aggregate health information is provided, we pool it from many individual records and strip it of any data that could be used to identify an individual before it is used. Any third party that receives aggregated healthcare data must agree not to attempt to re-identify the people it belongs to.

• Healthcare Messages

We may target our healthcare messaging depending on information we have about you. For example, a user we know is a woman may receive information targeted at women that a male will not see, or someone who we know is a healthcare professional who treats cancer may receive information for new cancer therapies. We may send information to you that we may believe will benefit you, including information about any NCSM services and activities.

We may also personalize our Web site based on your interests. For example, you may see different articles in different places on our Web site based on information you have shared with us, or information we have gained by reviewing your previous visits, or information we may have gained from your interactions with a third party that shares information with us.

When we share information with third parties working on behalf of NCSM, we use our best efforts to assure that they agree in writing to abide by NCSM privacy policies.

If we discover that a third party working on behalf of NCSM inappropriately disclosed personal information about any of our visitors, we will take immediate action to prevent further occurrences.

Other than as described above, NCSM will not release personally identifiable information to a third party without your consent.

How do we protect your information

• Our commitment to security

We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online.

• General policies

We have implemented technology and security policies, rules, and other measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from unauthorized access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction, and accidental loss. We also protect your information by requiring that all our employees and others who have access to or are associated with the processing of your data to be bonded by the terms of contract and respect your confidentiality.

NCSM uses security methods to determine the identity of its registered users, so that appropriate rights and restrictions can be enforced for that user. Reliable verification of user identity is called authentication. NCSM uses both passwords and usernames to authenticate users. Users are responsible for maintaining their own passwords.

• Storage of health information

Personally identifiable health information you share with us is stored on our database servers at NCSM data centers or hosted by third parties who have entered into agreements with us that require them to observe our Privacy Policy. We have a firewall and other technology to prevent individuals from accessing information without authorization. Data centers are designed to be physically secure and protected from unauthorized access by unauthorized persons.

Information in our data centers is backed up routinely, in order to aid in the recovery of information in the event of accidental damage of information or due to a natural disaster. The backup media is stored in a physically secure storage facility.

• Links to Other Websites

In addition to aggregate information (discussed previously), we may share some kinds of information with third parties as described below.

Companies and people who work for us: Because we are a large organisation, we contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services. For example, we may host some of our Web sites on another company's computers, hire technical consultants to maintain our Web-based health sites, or work with companies to remove repetitive information from data lists, analyze data, provide marketing assistance, and provide customer service. In addition, if you are a healthcare professional, we may validate your licensure status and other information against available databases that list licensed healthcare professionals. In order to perform their jobs, these other companies may have limited access to some of the personal information we maintain about our users. Other companies may collect information on our behalf through their sites. This occasionally incorporates the use of frames on the site that will not show the URL you are visiting in the browser address window. We require such companies to comply with the terms of our privacy policies, to limit their access to any personal information to the minimum necessary to perform their obligations, and not to use the information they may access for purposes other than fulfilling their responsibilities to us. We use our best efforts to limit other companies use of personally identifiable or healthcare information.

Promotional and informational offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of the public. To accomplish this we may use third parties working on behalf of NCSM. We provide a variety of mechanisms for you to tell us you do not want to receive such promotional - informational offers. For example, we may provide an opt-in box for customers to receive information that is sent by a third-party fulfillment house, and we make clear that, by opting in, you are submitting your data to a third-party. You can elect not to receive promotional or informational material from us by following the instructions to opt-out as mentioned or included in each of our programs we send to you.

Business transfers: If we transfer a business unit (such as a subsidiary) or an asset (such as a Web site) to another company, we will require it to honor the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Legal requirements: We may release account and other personal information when we believe release is required to comply with law. We may release personal health information if, in our judgment after review by an attorney, the release is compelled by law or regulation, or if the release may be necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of an individual.

• Sharing personally identifiable information with third parties

NCSM will not sell or rent personally identifiable information to any third party for any purpose. Sometimes selected third parties are however used to provide NCSM with support services in connection with the site and such parties may, from time to time, have access to your information to enable them to provide those services to NCSM. Please rest assured that all companies providing such support services are required by NCSM to meet the same standards of data protection as NCSM and are prohibited from using the information for their own marketing purposes.

In certain special cases, we may disclose your personally identifiable information in the following circumstances:

1. When we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to you, or otherwise injuring or interfering with NCSM’s rights, property or operations, other users of this site, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities; or

2. When we believe the law requires it, or in response to any demand by law enforcement authorities in connection with a criminal investigation, or civil or administrative authorities in connection with a pending civil case or administrative investigation.

Personal information collected on the Site may be stored and processed in your country of residence or any other country in which NCSM or its affiliates, subcontractors or agents maintain facilities, and by using the Site, you consent to any transfer of information outside of your country of residence. NCSM will ensure that if information is transferred outside your country of residence, it will still be treated in accordance with this privacy statement.

Controlling your personal information

You can always contact us in order to (i) remove the personal information that you have provided to us from our systems, (ii) update the personal information that you have provided to us, and (iii) change your preferences with respect to marketing contacts by e-mailing us at contact@cancer.org.my or if available also logging into your account to update your information.

• Children's policy

We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we actually know is a child under the age of 13. See also our Terms of Use for more information.

The information provided in this site is intended only for residents of the Malaysia. The information discussed herein may be different in other countries.

The National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) is dedicated to preventing cancer, saving lives from cancer and improving the quality of life of those living with cancer through patient care and education. It is involved in Public Awareness and Education Programmes. They give talks and organize seminars and lectures. They are also involved in Medical Education; providing education to graduates and undergraduates and inviting eminent specialists from overseas to update medical specialists here in Malaysia on the latest trends in the management of cancer patients.

National Cancer Society of Malaysia
66, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz,
50300 Kuala Lumpur.

Copyright © 2009 National Cancer Society of Malaysia. All rights reserved.