In short
This site is for reading. It collects very little about you, and it does not ask for your medical information. We never sell, rent or trade your personal information.
This page explains what the site does collect, why, how long it is kept, and what you can ask us to do about it.
We handle personal information under the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173). We also follow the principles of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Who is responsible
This website is run by Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD of Louie Gayao MD. He is responsible for the personal information collected through it.
Room 1101, Lung Center of the Philippines, Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1101
The site publishes education on neurosurgery and related topics. It does not keep patient medical records, and nothing you do on this site makes you a patient.
No medical details, please
Information about your health is sensitive personal information under the law, and this website is not the right place for it. Please do not send any of these through a form or by email:
- symptoms
- test results
- scans
- photographs
- a family member’s medical history
What to do
If you want your own situation looked at, please book a consultation.
What we collect, and why
- When you write to us. If you send a message through a form on this site or by email, we receive your name, your email address and what you wrote. We use them to reply to you and to keep track of the conversation.
- When you report an error. Readers can tell us about a mistake on the site through the form on the report an error page. The form asks what is wrong and which page it is on, and, if you like, the sentence in question and a source. Your email address is needed so we can tell you what was done. Your name is optional.
- When you ask to use an image. The form asks for your name, email, and how and where you will use the picture. We use them only to answer your request.
- When you read the site. We measure which pages are read so we can tell which articles are useful and which need work. The two services we use for this are listed below.
- Your cookie choices. Where the site asks for your consent to cookies, it remembers your answer so it does not ask again on every page. The cookies and scripts policy explains each cookie and script.
- Embedded videos and maps. If you play a video or open a map shown on a page, the company that provides it receives information about your device and how you use it, under its own privacy policy.
- Keeping the site safe. Like every website, our server records technical details of each visit, such as the IP address, the page asked for and the time. These are used to keep the site working and to detect and stop attacks.
To measure what is read, we use:
- Matomo, running on our own analytics server, which records the pages visited, your browser type and an anonymised IP address.
- Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page visits and how quickly pages load.
How an error report is handled is explained in its own section below.
We never sell, rent or trade your personal information.
Error reports
We want to know when something on this site is wrong. The report form is set up so that your details spend as little time as possible on the website itself.
- When you send a report, it is emailed to Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD straight away, so it is read without waiting.
- Once a day, the report is copied from the website into the practice’s own records.
- After the copy is confirmed, the report is deleted from the website’s server. If a daily copy is missed, the report simply waits on the website until the next one; it is never deleted before it has been copied.
- Your report is looked into, and the page is corrected, clarified, or left as it is with the reason written down.
- We write to tell you the outcome, at the email address you gave.
Why we may use it. You choose to send the report, and the form asks you to confirm that you have read this policy. We use what you send only to check the page, to correct it if it needs correcting, and to email you what we decided.
How long it is kept. On the website, only until the daily copy, as above. In the practice’s records, the report is kept as the lasting record of what was reported and what was done about it, and your name and email address are kept with it.
If you would like your name and email address removed, write to us and we will remove them while keeping the report itself.
Before you write
- Tell us what the page says and why you think it is wrong; that is all we need.
- Please do not put your own or anyone else’s medical details in a report.
Legal basis
Depending on what you do on the site, we rely on one or more of these:
- Your consent, for cookies and analytics where consent is asked for, and for error reports you choose to send.
- Legitimate interest, for keeping the site secure, working and accurate.
- Your own request, when we reply to a message you sent us.
Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time, through the cookie settings on the site or by writing to us. Withdrawing consent does not undo what was lawfully done before you withdrew it.
How long we keep it
- Messages you send us: up to 12 months, then deleted.
- Error reports: on the website, until the daily copy; in the practice’s records, as described above.
- Analytics: 13 months.
- Cookie consent records: 12 months.
Who else handles it
We do not share your personal information with anyone else, except:
- the services the site needs in order to run: our web hosting, Cloudflare (which delivers the site and its images and protects it from attacks), the email service that sends messages from the site, and our analytics;
- when the law or a court order requires it.
If you play an embedded video or open a map, that provider handles your information under its own privacy policy, not ours.
Where it is stored
- The website is hosted on servers in Singapore.
- Some of the services above, including Cloudflare, may handle information in other countries, under their own privacy and security safeguards.
- Error reports, once copied, are kept in the practice’s own records.
How we protect it
The site is served over an encrypted connection, runs on secured hosting and is kept updated. Access to the site’s administration is restricted, and only authorised people can see anything stored.
No website can promise perfect security, but we take reasonable steps to protect what you send.
Your rights
Under the Data Privacy Act, you may:
- ask to see the personal information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct it, or to delete it;
- withdraw your consent;
- complain to the National Privacy Commission of the Philippines or, if you live elsewhere, to the data protection authority where you live.
Children
Many pages here are written for parents and families about a child’s condition. The site itself is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
If you believe a child has sent us their details, please tell us and we will delete them.
Other websites
Articles link to research journals, videos and other outside sites. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and this one does not cover them. Please read theirs.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when the site changes or the law does. The version on this page is the current one.
This policy sits alongside the terms of use, the disclaimer and the cookies and scripts policy.
Contact
For any question about your personal information, or about this policy:
Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD
Louie Gayao MD
Room 1101, Lung Center of the Philippines, Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1101
