Privacy policy

The RCN (and its associated organisations) is committed to meeting its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.

All RCN employees and representatives, whether permanent or temporary, must be aware of the requirements of the Data Protection Act when they collect or handle data about an individual.

They must not disclose data except where there is written subject consent or a statutory requirement, and never over the telephone. Data sent to outside agencies must always be protected by a written contract.

The RCN will only collect personal data that is relevant to the carrying out of the legitimate purposes and function of the RCN.

Members have the opportunity of opting out of both marketing material from the RCN and from other organisations with whom the RCN has negotiated favourable member rates. This may be done by using the provided tick box option. These third party operated services may generate income, and other benefits, for the RCN in pursuit of our aims to improve the quality and delivery of services to Members.

Neither email addresses nor mobile telephone numbers are ever passed onto third parties for marketing purposes.

Some of the RCN web pages use cookies and the site uses them to validate your access to privileged parts of the site. These cookies remain temporary and will only stay in the cookie file of your browser until you leave the site. If you logoff from the website the login data is removed from the cookie. A cookie is a text-only string of information that a website transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer's hard disk so that the website can remember who you are.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. However, you will not be able to login to the website if cookies are disabled. You can also manually remove cookies from your system. For more information you should search for or lookup Cookies in your Operating System Documentation. (or see the page on Cookies stored by your browser)

We will strive to ensure that data collected is as accurate as possible. Individuals about whom data is held have the right to the amendment or deletion of incorrect entries within a reasonable time.

Sensitive data as defined in the 1998 Act, will be protected as required with appropriate security.

Information will be held in an environment as secure as possible. RCN employees and representatives will be responsible for ensuring that all regular data care procedures are fully and conscientiously followed. All ordered manual files and databases will be kept up to date and will have an agreed archiving policy. Data no longer required for the legitimate purposes of the RCN will be regularly purged. A clear rationale will be supplied for personal data to be kept beyond six years.

Where data is passed to a third party for processing, the RCN will ensure that a written contract is in place that states that the agent will work within the RCN’s data protection policy. Control of the data will not be allowed to move to the third party.

Any request for data based on a legal requirement, eg, from the police or other body, must be put in writing and checked against the advice of the RCN’s Data Protection Officer, before data is disclosed.

All employees and representatives have a duty to protect individual’s data from accidental disclosure:

  • do not give our passwords to other people, who will then have access to the data you are entitled to view
  • do not recycle reports that contain personal data
  • take due care to ensure that data is not left about on laptops or in files either in or out of the office, where they can be accessed by unauthorised personnel.

The RCN will provide data subjects access to their personal information on request, accompanied by a maximum fee of £10. The data will be provided within 40 days of receipt of written request.

Requests about the RCN’s data protection and privacy policy should be sent to:

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