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10 June 2013
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Q. I know I can't put patient identifiable information into Dropbox. What can I use it for?

A. Dropbox is a way of syncing and sharing files between computers and mobile devices www.dropbox.com It is free for up to 2GB of data. Here are some uses you could consider:

  • Files and folders that you need to share within the practice, for example your surgery price list, staff rotas, on call rotas, emergency plans, emergency drug dosages
  • Work documents or files that you need to share with a committee, training programme or working group
  • Share a Dropbox link with someone instead of sending large files by email.

The files stored in Dropbox are encrypted with 256-bit AES so your data is safe in the cloud. However, Dropbox holds the encryption key, so this is not a suitable location for patient identifiable information.