Some programmes ask you for photographs, for example of your scalp or your skin, because a photograph shows your doctor what words cannot. Sending one is your choice.
1. Why we ask
Your doctor uses the photograph to judge how you are doing and whether a change is needed. Photographs taken over time show progress that is hard to describe in writing.
2. It is optional
You may complete a review without a photograph. Your doctor will work from what you have written, and may ask you a question instead.
3. Who sees it
The photograph goes into your own clinical record. Your doctor sees it, and so does anyone on our side who is allowed to see your clinical record for support, safety or a legal obligation, and every one of those looks is logged. Nobody else sees it.
4. What we never do with it
Your photographs are never used for marketing, never shown publicly, never shared with any other company, never used to train artificial intelligence and never used for research. They are used for your care and for the record of your care, nothing else.
5. How it is kept
Photographs are stored in your clinical record, on private storage that is not reachable by a public link, for as long as the law requires us to keep health records.
6. Changing your mind
You may ask us to delete a photograph at any time through the health information request tools in your account. Where a doctor has already relied on it for a clinical decision, we keep a note that a photograph was seen and when, because the record of a clinical decision cannot be rewritten, and the photograph itself is removed.