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The British Dental Assoaciation (BDA) wishes to inform members of a potential cybercrime before they go granting remote access to a potentially untrustworthy company.

If you are contacted by any company requesting access to your computer software, refuse!

The BDA is aware of a computer forensics company asking to access patient records remotely on behalf of the General Dental Council (GDC). GDC advice is that this would not normally be the correct process and that any request to access data in this way should always be run by them first. This type of request could mean unauthorised people access and abuse patients' sensitive information. This would also result in a serious data protection breach if access is granted by practices who wrongly believe they are acting in accordance with regulatory bodies.

Where such a request is found not to be legitimate, you should contact the police.

BDA advice on protecting personal information can be accessed on the BDA website with a member log-in.