Privacy
Anonymity is guaranteed
During the development of the study and the website, a lot of attention was paid to the confidential nature; the processed personal data are as anonymous as possible.
In concrete terms, this means that we do not store personal data of people who send or receive messages. We do not keep names, phone numbers nor e-mail addresses.
We register 'age', 'gender' and 'gender of the sexual partners' of people diagnosed with STI. No names are saved anywhere in the study.
We do not store any information in our database from partners who receive a message. Data that partners can identify (telephone numbers, e-mail addresses) are not tracked. Imported e-mail addresses are immediately deleted by sending the message. Phone numbers are immediately encrypted by the provider and thus become unreadable.
There will be no link between people who send a message, and partners who receive a message.
You can alert your sex partner(s) through the Partneralert website completely anonymously. The sender of each notification is a general study e-mail address (noreply@partneralert.be) or randomly generated telephone number.
The website itself is secured by means of the Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL) and awarded with a valid security certificate. This certificate confirms the identity of and encrypts the communication between the PartnerAlert web server and the computer, tablet or smartphone you are working with.
THE LOGIN CODE
The login code you received is strictly personal and is only to be used by yourself.
As a user, you are responsible for the choice and use of the information. This applies in particular to the personal login code. You must handle this code with care and under no circumstances share it with third parties.
ABUSE
The use of the website Partneralert.be for purposes other than STI notification is strictly prohibited and will be seen as abuse of the site. Sharing the code with third parties, publishing or multiplying the login code will be considered as abuse. Abuse will immediately be reported to the police.
YOUR RIGHTS
At any time, you have the right to ask the researcher which personal data are collected in the context of the study and what its purpose is. You also have the right to inspect your personal information or to have your data deleted. The protection of personal data is legally determined by the law of 8 December 1992 on the protection of privacy and the European general data protection regulation of 14 April 2016.
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Tropical Medicine and the Medical Ethics Committee of the University Hospital Antwerp.