What changed in our privacy notice
Version 2.0 — effective from 9 May 2026.
We've updated our Privacy Notice to reflect how the new PCRA Portal works. This page is a quick, plain-English summary of what's new. The full notice is at /privacy-policy.
In short
Our portal launched in May 2026 as a new way for GP practices and study sponsors to work with PCRA. The privacy notice needed updating to explain that, including the new things that come with running a portal — accounts, sign-in, AI features, and how we keep patient data out of all of it.
Patient-identifiable data is still excluded by design. That hasn't changed. Sponsors and PCRA staff anonymise data before it ever enters the portal.
What's new
- Three new groups of people are described in the notice: practice staff who sign in to the portal, sponsor users who use it, and people who email us at
info@pcralliance.uk. - AI is now used in the portal, in narrow, supervised ways — for example, helping a practice fill in their profile, or drafting a reply to a sponsor enquiry. A human always reviews AI output before it influences anything. AI runs only inside the EU and never trains on our data.
- Cookies — we use only the cookies that are strictly needed for sign-in and security. No analytics, no trackers.
- The companies that help us run the portal are now named explicitly: Microsoft (email), Vercel (hosting), Neon (database), AWS (AI + secure storage), GitHub (code).
- Patient-data safeguards are described in more detail, including what happens if patient data accidentally arrives by email (it's quarantined and removed).
- Your rights under UK GDPR are unchanged but explained more clearly, with the contact route updated.
What hasn't changed
- We're still PCRA — registered in the UK, regulated by the ICO (registration
ZB864081). - We still don't sell or share your data for marketing.
- The legal bases we rely on are essentially the same — research delivery, the contract with you if you're a member or sponsor, and your consent where it's needed.
- Anyone can ask us for a copy of the data we hold about them, or to correct or delete it. The contact route is
info@pcralliance.ukwith the subject line "FAO Data Protection Officer".
Who signed it off
The full notice was reviewed and countersigned by our Data Protection Officer on 9 May 2026.
If anything in this summary or the full notice doesn't make sense, please email us at info@pcralliance.uk and we'll explain.