Trust and Compliance
How White Bench earns trust, and how it keeps every engagement inside the rules.
White Bench, a division of Fresh Box Media Private Limited · Engagement, on the record.
Trust is not a feature of White Bench. It is the product. Pharmaceutical companies, doctors and medical associations come to this platform for one reason: every engagement here is genuine, documented and defensible. This page explains what each of you can rely on, the machinery that makes it true and the rules we hold ourselves to.
1. What each stakeholder can rely on
If you are a doctor
| Our commitment | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| You never pay | White Bench is free for doctors. Registration, the Certificate Wallet, event access and your CME ledger cost nothing, today and always. |
| You are never the product | We do not sell your data. We do not run advertising. We do not share your contact details with anyone. Companies reach you only through a formal engagement request on the platform. |
| You choose freely | Every invitation can be accepted or declined. Declining leaves no mark on your profile and does not affect future invitations. |
| Your work is paid cleanly | Every engagement has a written scope and an agreed honorarium before work begins. Payment comes through a regulated channel with tax deducted correctly and a TDS certificate issued to you. |
| Your credentials stay yours | Certificates in your wallet are verified against your registration in the National Medical Register. You control what is shared, every share link can be revoked and you may export or erase your data under the DPDP Act. |
If you are a pharmaceutical or healthcare company
| Our commitment | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| UCPMP 2024 by design | Every engagement runs on a written scope of work, mutual acceptance and a fair, documented honorarium. The record your auditors and the annual self declaration need is created automatically as the work happens. |
| Verified counterparties | Every doctor you engage is identity checked against the National Medical Register. You never pay an unverified person. |
| Your money is never with us | Funds rest in a regulated account with an RBI authorised payment partner until the engagement completes. White Bench never holds client money. |
| Tax handled correctly | TDS under Sections 194J and 194R is computed, deducted and documented on every payment. GST invoicing is clean. |
| A record that stands | Engagement records are complete, time stamped and tamper evident. If a regulator, auditor or the Ethics Committee for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices asks, you can answer in minutes. |
If you are a medical association
| Our commitment | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Your authority is respected | Associations and councils award CME credits. White Bench never does. We verify attendance and keep the record, and we stay inside that lane. |
| Attendance you can defend | Venue and online attendance is verified through QR or OTP scans on the day, ending proxy attendance. Your credit records stand up to council scrutiny. |
| Your certificates gain weight | Certificates you register carry a QR code and become verifiable, permanent credentials. Only verified issuers can register certificates, so your name keeps its value. |
| Your events reach further | Broadcasts carry your programme to doctors across India, with sponsorship clearly disclosed and recordings restricted to registered doctors where appropriate. |
2. The compliance architecture
These are not policies on paper. They are controls built into the software, which means they cannot be skipped, forgotten or quietly overridden.
| Control | How it works |
|---|---|
| Identity verification | Doctors are verified against the National Medical Register with OTP confirmation. Companies are verified against their corporate identity. Associations are verified against their registration. Unverified accounts cannot transact. |
| Written scope, always | No engagement can begin without a scope of work accepted by both sides on the platform. Informal or verbal arrangements simply cannot exist here. |
| Maker checker controls | Critical actions such as approving engagements, releasing payments and onboarding issuers require a second authorised person. No single individual can push a transaction through alone. |
| Append only audit logs | Every material action is written to a log that can be added to but never edited or deleted. What happened is permanently what the record says happened. |
| Regulated payment rails | All funds move through an RBI authorised payment partner. White Bench holds no client money and takes no custody of honorariums at any point. |
| Automated tax treatment | TDS under Sections 194J and 194R is calculated by the system on every payment, with certificates issued on schedule. Human error is removed from tax compliance. |
| Sponsor disclosure | Every broadcast displays its sponsor on screen. Sponsored scientific content is labelled as such, and recordings can be restricted to registered doctors only, keeping promotional content inside UCPMP boundaries. |
| Verified issuers only | Only verified organisations can register certificates. A bad issuer is removed and visibly marked, so the credential wall stays clean. |
| Fair value guidance | Honorarium benchmarks by specialty and engagement type help companies pay fair market value, the standard UCPMP expects, rather than amounts that invite questions. |
3. The rules we operate under
| Framework | What it requires | How White Bench complies |
|---|---|---|
| UCPMP 2024 | Documented, fairly paid, audit ready engagements between companies and doctors. Annual self declaration by company leadership. No gifts or inducements to doctors. | Written scopes, fair value honorariums, complete records generated automatically, self declaration support and a hard rule that nothing on the platform gives a doctor a benefit outside documented work. |
| DPDP Act 2023 and DPDP Rules 2025 | Clear notice, valid consent, purpose limitation, data principal rights, breach reporting and accountable grievance handling. | Consent taken at every collection point, a published Privacy Policy, working rights requests including export and erasure, a named Grievance Officer and breach procedures aligned to the Rules. |
| NMC and professional conduct regulations | Doctors must observe the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations 2002 and any regulations that replace them, including rules on accepting benefits. | The platform only supports documented professional work at fair value. Nothing encashable, no gifts, no travel or hospitality benefits routed to doctors. |
| Income Tax Act, Sections 194J and 194R | Tax must be deducted at source on professional fees and on any benefit provided to a doctor, and reported correctly. | TDS computed automatically on every settlement, deposited through the payment rail and evidenced with certificates. |
| RBI payment regulations | Client money must be handled by authorised, regulated entities under escrow and settlement rules. | All funds sit with an RBI authorised payment partner in a regulated account. White Bench needs and seeks no banking licence because it never touches money. |
| Information Technology Act 2000 and IT Rules 2021 | Reasonable security practices, a published grievance mechanism and defined timelines for acknowledging and resolving complaints. | Security practices described below, a Grievance Officer published on this site and complaint timelines honoured: acknowledgement within 24 hours and resolution within 15 days. |
| Anti bribery and anti corruption law | No payment or benefit may be given to obtain an improper advantage, including through intermediaries. | Fair value engagement records, maker checker approvals and audit logs make the platform structurally hostile to disguised inducements. |
4. How we protect data
The platform handles the professional and financial data of doctors, which deserves the strictest care Indian law contemplates.
| Practice | Detail |
|---|---|
| Minimal collection | We collect only what verification, engagement and settlement genuinely require. No prescription data, no patient data, no clinical records, ever. |
| Encryption | Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Financial identifiers such as bank details and PAN are stored masked and access controlled. |
| Access control | Role based access with least privilege. Company users see doctor profiles only through engagement workflows, never contact details. |
| Data residency | Personal data is stored on servers located in India. |
| Sub processor discipline | Every vendor that touches personal data is bound by contract to the same standards, and the current list is published in our Privacy Policy. |
| Retention with reasons | Data is kept only as long as the purpose or the law requires, against a published retention schedule. Erasure requests are honoured, with statutory records retained in anonymised form where the law demands. |
| Breach response | A tested incident response plan, with notification to the Data Protection Board of India and affected users as the DPDP Rules require. |
5. What we will never do
Some rules are absolute. They do not bend for revenue, growth or any client.
- We will never sell or rent personal data. Doctor data is not inventory. There is no advertising business here and there never will be.
- We will never hold client money. Funds move only through an RBI authorised partner.
- We will never route a hidden benefit to a doctor. No gifts, no encashable rewards, no pharmaceutical money behind any partner offer.
- We will never award CME credits. That authority belongs to associations and councils alone.
- We will never edit the record. Audit logs are append only for everyone, including our own administrators.
- We will never run unlabelled sponsored content. Every sponsor is disclosed on screen, every time.
6. Accountability you can test
Commitments mean little without a way to hold us to them. These mechanisms exist so that you can.
| Mechanism | Detail |
|---|---|
| Named Grievance Officer | A Grievance Officer is published on this site with a direct email. Complaints are acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within 15 days. [● Name, designation, email and address to be published] |
| Report a concern | Any user who suspects a compliance breach, a fake credential or an improper inducement can report it confidentially from within the platform. Reports go to the compliance function, not to sales. |
| Independent audit | White Bench commits to an annual independent audit of its compliance controls and information security, with certification to recognised standards on our public roadmap. [● Insert standard and timeline, for example ISO 27001 by a stated date] |
| Regulator cooperation | Where a regulator, council or the Ethics Committee for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices makes a lawful request, we cooperate fully and our records are ready. |
| Transparency | Material changes to this page, the Privacy Policy or the Terms of Use are notified to users in advance, with an archive of previous versions available on request. |
Questions about anything on this page can be sent to compliance@whitebench.co. We answer them the way we run the platform: on the record.