Updated: 24th May 2018
The purpose of this notice
Advanced Vision Care Limited (“AVC”, “us” or “we”) is committed to maintaining the privacy and security of your personal data. This Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, share and protect your personal data.
This notice sets out our notice on the privacy of the individual. AVC takes your privacy seriously and information will be used in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 1998.
AVC is a “data controller” (collectively referred to as “Advanced Vision Care”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice). This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. Where we act as a data controller, we are required under data protection legislation to notify anyone who provides personal data to us, either directly or through a third party, of the information contained in this Privacy Notice.
It is important that you read this Privacy Notice so that you are aware of how and why we are using your personal data.
What is GDPR?
As of 25 May 2018, the EU General Data protection regulation (GDPR) comes into force. This strengthens the rights of individuals regarding their personal data and seeks to unify local data protection laws across Europe. GDPR requires new or additional obligations on organisations in the EU processing personal data and organisations outside the EU processing the personal data of EU residents.
What is personal data?
Personal data is any information about an individual from which that individual can be identified. Your name, address, and contact details are examples of personal data.
It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
Data protection principles
We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely.
The data we collect about you
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
- Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
- Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
- Medical and visual health data includes medical history and eye problems.
- Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
- Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
- Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
- Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
- Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
We do collect Special Categories of Personal Data about you such as medical and health data however we do not collect data includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your . Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
Cookies
AVC receives and records information, which may include personal data, from your browser when you use our Sites. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information please see our Cookie Policy.
How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform a contract we have entered into with you.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Where you explicitly consent to us using your personal data
We may also use your personal data in the following situations, which are likely to be less common:
- Where we need to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s interests).
- Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
Please see the table set out in the next section ‘Purposes for which we will use your personal data’ to find out more about the lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data. You can also contact our Data Protection Officer if you have any further questions in relation to these bases.
Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time using the contact details below.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
To register you as a new customer or patient | a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Medical | Performance of a contract with you |
To process and deliver our services to you including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction
| (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us) |
To manage our relationship with you which will include: – Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage | Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
To ask you to leave a review, take a survey and/ or leave a feedback about our website, products and services. | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our website, products and services) |
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical | (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation Where possible we will anonymise this information. |
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications (f) Technical | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy) Please refer our Cookie Policy for further information. |
To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | (a) Identity (b) Technical (c) Usage | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) Where possible we will anonymise this information. |
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about products or services that may be of interest to you | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile (f) Marketing and Communications | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products and services and to grow our business) |
Marketing
Where you have explicitly consented to do so, we may use your personal data to inform you of special offers and new or existing services that we believe may be of interest to you, to send surveys or questionnaires so that we can learn more about your needs and interests and also to ask you to leave a review about our website, products and services.
If you would prefer that we do not send such communications to you, please see the “Your rights as a data subject” section below.
Third-party marketing
We will not share your personal data with any company outside the Advanced Vision Care group of companies for marketing purposes.
Third-party links
Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
If you fail to provide personal data
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.
When and how we share your personal data with others
We may share your personal data with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to perform our contract with you or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so.
Such third parties may include the following:
- Our service providers: We may share your personal data with other companies that perform certain services on our behalf. These services may include processing payments, providing customer service and marketing assistance, performing business and sales analysis and supporting our website and IT functionality. These service providers may be supplied with or have access to your personal data solely for the purpose of providing these services to us or on our behalf. AVC is the data controller and will remain accountable for your personal data.
- Regulators: HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances. We may need to share your personal data if required by a regulator or to otherwise comply with law.
- Professional advisers: Including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in England who provide consultancy, marketing, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
- Others: We may share your personal data with other opticians and specialists in order to perform a contract with you.
- Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
Data security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Our storage and retention of your personal data
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. Please contact us using the contact details below if you would like more information.
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.
Your rights as a data subject
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data as set out below:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you (also known as right of rectification). This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where you withdraw your consent for processing and we have no other legal basis to rely on, where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you contest the accuracy of your personal data and we need a period to verify the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Your right to withdraw consent
In circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact us using the contact details below. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal data, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact us in writing using the contact details below.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
Data Protection Officer
We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this Privacy Notice. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO using the contact details below.
If you are unhappy with the way that we have dealt with a request from you to exercise any of your information law rights or if you think we have not complied with our legal obligations, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We reserve the right to update this Privacy Notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new Privacy Notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact:
Data Protection Officer: Dr. CT Pillai