We want Cancer Chat to be a secure and helpful environment for all of the community. So please remember that by using Cancer Chat you are agreeing to follow our terms and conditions

Your use of this site

• Medical information and advice posted or privately messaged by users of Cancer Chat must never be used in place of the advice of a health professional.
• Please do not use Cancer Chat to advocate or promote alternative therapies or cancer cures.
• To register with Cancer Chat you must provide a unique username. You may only register once. Anyone found to have registered twice will be excluded from using the forum. Do not use your full name but choose something which protects your anonymity.
• You must not impersonate anyone else, including, but not limited to, any Cancer Research UK employee, Cancer Chat staff, or falsely state or suggest that you have an affiliation with a person or association.
• Your username and avatar should be appropriate. Please do not create a username or upload an avatar for the purpose of diagnosis or use your avatar to make political statements or which may be discriminatory or cause offence on the grounds of an individual's sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or working status.. We reserve the right to suspend or change usernames which may cause offence, or are abusive, vulgar or obscene. 
• Cancer Chat is a public forum. Please choose a username which does not identify you or compromise your anonymity. You must not post any personal details on Cancer Chat. You must not post phone numbers or a third party's personal details. You must not use your full name as your username nor post your full name anywhere on the forum. These rules are to help protect you and others from intrusive contact from third parties you may not know.
• We advise caution if you want to meet another Cancer Chat user. If you do choose to meet another user you do so at your own risk and should take common sense precautions.
• You may complain to us about any post or a private message from another Cancer Chat user and this will be investigated (see complaints section below).
• The use of private messaging is intended for members to conduct private conversations with friends they have made on the forum or with others who have shared cancer experiences. It is not intended for unsolicited emails, spam or harassment. Please do not abuse this service.
• If you choose to use the private message function, you do so at your own risk and should take common sense precautions. Only accept a friend request if you are happy to be contacted privately
• Do not post any material that names individual healthcare providers.
• Please check your facts. Inaccurate information is not helpful.
• Posting of confidential information on the forum is prohibited. If you think that your message may include confidential information then do not post it.
• Advertisements, self-promotion, direct selling, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and requests for money are prohibited.
• You are responsible for the content of any messages that you post on the forum or privately message.
• You must be over 14 years of age in order to participate in Cancer Chat. If you are under this age please do not try to access the forum anyone found to be using the forum under this age will have their account terminated. If you are under 14 years of age, you can find organisations that offer information and support for children and young people with cancer on our website.
• You must not upload, post, transmit, or make available, any material that contains viruses or any other computer code, programs or files designed to destroy, interrupt, or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.
• Please check that you have posted in the right place.
• You are responsible for keeping the details of your password and account confidential and are fully responsible for all postings and private messages that come from your password or account
• The information provided by the cancer information nurses is not a substitute for professional care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. If you have, or suspect you may have, a health problem you should consult your doctor. The cancer information nurses provide an information service only and are unable to access emergency care or talk to health professionals on your behalf
• Do not upload, share or post links to images of a graphic, intimate or personal nature, or for the purposes of diagnosis. We cannot diagnose you or give a medical opinion via the forum. 
• Private petitions are not permitted on the forum.

Studies and Research

The use of the Site for gathering information for surveys, articles and research studies, or similar, is not allowed. We do not allow any surveys or information gathering for the purposes of marketing or commercial enterprise. Please note that under our terms and conditions, you are not permitted to solicit members through our forums or by private message. If you are a journalist looking for case studies, please contact our Press Office 

Clinical Research Requests: We do share appropriate opportunities with the community, where they can collaborate or get involved with appropriate research projects where we are satisfied that participation is of value to the members. All researchers wishing to post a request should contact us first. In order to maintain the integrity of the site, we only permit research opportunities from recognised clinical establishments and we check researcher credentials (affiliation, research record, publications) and then respond with approval or rejection. All requests are considered on a case by case basis and must be UK based. Please note that under our terms and conditions, you are not permitted to solicit members through our forums or private message to take part in your study.

Academic Research Requests: We are unable to accept requests to post student projects or to help with academic research. Please note that under our terms and conditions you are not permitted to post requests on the forum nor to solicit members through our forums or private message to take part in your study.

Respect for others

• Postings and private messages must not contain any material that is abusive, vulgar, obscene, hateful, fraudulent, unlawful, threatening or defamatory towards any person or organisation whether a user on Cancer Chat or not.
• Do not post or private message any material which may be discriminatory or cause offence on the grounds of an individual's sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or working status. This also applies to images and avatars.
• You may not use Cancer Chat to post or private message any material or links to any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, harassing, obscene, profane, threatening or otherwise in violation of the law.
• You must not post or private message any link or any material that contains any information about any person under the age of 18.
• Please do not attack someone for having an opinion that differs from your own; if you disagree with someone, please express yourself respectfully.
• Remember that Cancer Chat is a public forum and your comments may stay on-line for a long time. Try to make sure you cannot be misunderstood.

Copyright and third party rights

• You agree that you will not use Cancer Chat to post or private message any copyright material or intellectual property that is not your own without the express permission of the copyright or intellectual property holder.
• You may add links to internal or external sites within your post or private message but you agree to remain responsible for any links you add. We reserve the right to remove any links on the public forum that we consider inappropriate.
• If you upload or post any links to photos you must ensure you have the permission of person who owns the photos and the people who are in the photos.

Restricting access

• Provided you stick to these common sense rules you may continue to access Cancer Chat.
• We reserve the right to restrict access to Cancer Chat for any user.
• We reserve the right to remove any post without prior contact with the author.
• If you are responsible for any breach of these terms and conditions it will not be an excuse to say that you did not read the terms and conditions.
• As a last resort we may issue a ban (either temporary or permanent) if it becomes evident that you unwilling to keep to these terms and conditions. This will only occur if we feel it is necessary to protect others or the integrity of the forum.

Your promise to us

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Cancer Research UK from and against:

i) Any claim, liability, cost, damage or loss we may incur (including, without limitation legal costs) as a result of any material you post on our forum or privately message to another Cancer Chat user.

ii) Any violation by you of your obligations under these terms and conditions.

Complaints

• If you wish to make a complaint regarding a post or private message (i.e. that you think it is objectionable or in breach these terms and conditions) then please contact us using the 'report this post' button which is on every forum post or the ‘report’ button in which appears above every private message. You can also contact us by emailing cancerchat@cancer.org.uk 
• If a complaint is made against you as a result of any material you post or private message, we reserve the right to suspend your account and only reinstate it if the complaint is resolved.
• We reserve the right to view in its entirety any private conversation which has been reported to a moderator for a breach of the terms and conditions via the report button

Privacy Policy

When you register we collect your username, email address, password (encrypted) and IP address. Your Geo-IP address is logged by us so that we can prevent any spam, fraud or abuse of our Site. Cancer Chat asks you to provide your email address so that we may contact you about administrative issues and changes to the forum.  With your consent, we may also use your email address to send you information about our work.

You can choose to opt-out of receiving notifications from Cancer Chat at any time by logging in to your account and going to your 'Account Settings' where you can manage your notification preferences. You can opt in or out of receiving our newsletter by going to your profile and clicking 'edit'

 Posts to the forum are anonymous but are likely to contain sensitive information.  We advise users to be careful not to post information which would allow them to be identified. Remember that Cancer Chat is a public forum.

Cancer Research UK will only share your details in exceptional circumstances to comply with the nurses’ code of professional conduct or where legally required, for example where a child reports abuse, or someone reports serious self-harm or a serious intention of harming someone else.

For more information on how we are protecting your data, you can read Cancer Research UK's privacy policy in full

General

We reserve the right to change these Terms and Conditions at any time. If you are uncertain about anything in these Terms and Conditions, please contact us by going to our Forum Guides, or contact us at cancerchat@cancer.org.uk . This website is intended for people based within the United Kingdom. We cannot guarantee that the site or the contents of the site complies with the requirements of, or is appropriate for use in, other countries. We will try to ensure Cancer Chat's availability, but shall not be liable if for any reason Cancer Chat is unavailable for any period..

Disclaimer

Opinions posted or private messaged on Cancer Chat are those of the individual and in no way represent the view of Cancer Research UK. We reserve the right to delete any message for any reason whatsoever at our sole discretion.