We understand that privacy and the security of your personal information is extremely important. This policy clearly sets out what information we gather about you, what we do with that information and what we do to keep it secure. It also explains where and how we collect your personal information, as well as your rights over any personal information we hold about you.
This policy applies to you if you use our products or services in store, over the phone, online, through our mobile applications or otherwise by using our website or interacting with us on social media (our “Services”). This policy gives effect to our commitment to protect your personal information.
Any personal data collected will only be used as permitted by law and our privacy policy is based on the General Data Protection Regulation and The Data Protection Act.
Who we are
When we say ‘we’ or ‘us’ in this policy, we’re referring to
The Optical Factory Ltd,
registered office 27 Tennant Avenue, East Kilbride G74 5NA.
Company Number: SC393163
Practices at
27 Tennant Avenue, East Kilbride G74 5NA and
and the peripatetic Hearing Clinic
The Optical Factory Ltd is a registered data controller.
We collect and process patients’ personal data for the purposes of healthcare and marketing- this is detailed more below
Our legal bases for processing personal data for healthcare purposes, including appointment reminders, include public task or legitimate interests.
- When we provide services under the NHS General Optical Services contract (such as a sight test funded by the NHS) and private hearing care services our legal basis for processing personal data in respect of that service is public task
- Otherwise our legal basis is legitimate interests
Our condition for processing special category data is the provision of health or social care.
We process our patients’ personal data for marketing purposes with their consent or to meet a legitimate interest. This means we can tell you about eye care products and services that may be relevant to you. If you do not want us to process your personal data for marketing purposes, please let us know and we will stop.
What sorts of information do we hold?
- Information that you provide to us such as your name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address, possibly bank account and payment card details and any feedback you give to us, including by phone, email, post, or when you communicate with us via social media;
- Information about the Services that we provide to you (including for example, the things we have provided to you, when and where, what you paid, the way you use our products and Services, and so on);
- Relevant details including current and past general and ocular health and medication information and lifestyle information, your family medical and ocular history.
- Any relevant signs or symptoms you tell us about
- Details of the examinations and other healthcare checks and treatments we provide or advise.
- Details of medicines, spectacles and contact lenses prescribed for you
- Details of examinations and other healthcare checks and treatments we provide
- Information relevant to your continued care from other people who care for you or know you well, such as other health professionals and relatives
- Sensitive medical details that can include photographic imagery and test results, such as visual fields.
- We may store associated information such as your doctor or consultant and any information that we receive about your past or ongoing medical care.
- Information about any device you have used to access our Services (such as your device’s make and model, browser or IP address) and also how you use our Services. For example, if you use our website, we may try to identify when and how you use it.
- Your contact details and details of the emails and other electronic communications you receive from us, including whether that communication has been opened and if you have clicked on any links within that communication. We want to make sure that our communications are useful for you, so if you don’t open them or don’t click on any links in them, we know we need to improve our Services; and
- Information from other sources such as specialist companies that provide customer information (like credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies, claims databases, marketing and research companies, social media providers and the DVLA as well as information that is publicly available.
How do we use your information?
The information we collect may be used to:
- Form, update and maintain your clinical record;
- Make available our Services to you;
- Process your orders;
- Send you recalls/reminders for any appointments due;
- Take payment from you or give you a refund;
- Where required, refer you on to another healthcare provider, eg. Your GP, or specialist hospital department
- Personalise your shopping experience, for example by understanding your eye care needs to provide you with personalised offers or services;
- Help us ensure that our customers are genuine and to prevent fraud;
- Conduct market research, either ourselves or with reputable agencies;
- For statistical analysis;
- Help us understand more about you as a customer, the products and services you consume.
- Find ways to improve our Services and websites;
- Contact you about products and services from us;
- Provide you with online advertising;
- Provide for the safety and security of our colleagues and customers; and
- Help answer your questions and solve any issues you have.
- On extremely rare occasions where your clinician deems the health of yourself or others to be at serious risk the strict rules of patient confidentiality may be over-ridden by contacting certain agencies eg. DVLA, social services team or the safeguarding team.
Use of Cookies
When using our website theopticalfactory.co.uk we collect your information when you fill out our contact form. The information we collect includes your Name, company name, email address and phone number.
We use your information to contact you regarding your initial enquiry. We may also send you marketing emails as a prospective customer.
We store your emails, while your enquiry is current and delete these when your enquiry is complete. Should you become one of our clients, emails are stored on our servers while relevant.
We use cookies to collect analytics data of how you clicked through to our site and where you visited on our site. This data also gives us information of how long you visited pages for and what your exit point was from the site.
For the purposes of marketing, we may store your email address on a 3rd party mailing system that allows us to send out marketing emails. That information is held on our account and is not available for use by the 3rdparty, they act as a mailing service software provider.
A cookie is a small text file containing information that a web site transfers to your computer’s hard disk for record-keeping purposes. A cookie cannot give us access to your computer or to your personal information. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies; consult your browser’s manual or online help if you want information on restricting or disabling the browser’s handling of cookies. If you disable cookies, you can still view the information on our web site, but the functionality of certain areas may be reduced.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s past visit to The Optical Factory and Hearing Clinic web site. Ads can be served to you as you continue to browse online and visit other sites across the Internet. Ads may be specific to actions that you have taken or the pages that you have visited on the site.
You can opt out of being served ads by re-configuring your Google Ad Settings or by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page.
Who might we share your information with?
Healthcare Professionals
- The healthcare professionals working at this practice and those under their supervision
- Healthcare professionals and those under their supervision at other optical practices, but only if you have specifically asked us to pass your personal data (such as your prescription) to them
- Your GP, ophthalmologists and other healthcare providers and commissioners, and suppliers of optical appliances or similar products, in connection with your ongoing healthcare treatment.
Our service providers
We work with partners, suppliers and agencies so they can process your personal information on our behalf…but only where they meet our standards on the processing of data and security! We only share information that allows them to provide their services to us or to facilitate them providing their services to you. For example, some of our service providers may place advertising for us online, about our products and services and those of our retail partners, suppliers and third parties. As a result, where you have indicated you are happy to receive marketing from us, you might see online advertising that we have placed on the web sites you visit, or the interactive services you use.
Other organisations and individuals
We may transfer your personal information to other organisations in certain scenarios.
For example:
- External agencies and organisations such as the police for the prevention and detection of fraud and criminal activity. Should any claim be made, we may pass your personal information to our insurers.
- To our lawyers in the event of a legal claim
- If we’re discussing selling or transferring part or all of a business, we may share information about you to prospective purchasers – but only so they can evaluate that business
- If we are reorganised or sold to another organisation, we may transfer information we hold about you to them so they can continue to provide the Services to you;
- If required to by law, under any code of practice by which we are bound or we are asked to do so by a public or regulatory authority such as the Police or the Department for Work and Pensions;
- If we need to do so in order to exercise or protect our legal rights, users, systems and Services; or
- In response to requests from individuals (or their representatives) seeking to protect their legal rights or the rights of others.
- IT Providers in the case of a technical support issue relating directly to an issue you are having.
We don’t share or sell your data to any 3rd party company for them to use for their own purposes of marketing.
Keeping you informed about our products and services
We would like to keep you informed of offers and services that we think you might be interested in. Where you have consented to us doing so, we may do this through the post, by email, text message, online, using social media or by any other electronic means.
We will only send you marketing messages if you have opted in to receive them. If you wish to amend your marketing preferences at any time, you can do so by writing to us at The Optical factory and Hearing Clinic, 27 Tennant Avenue, East Kilbride G74 5NA or emailing theopticalfactory@outlook.com
Your rights
Access and correction of your personal information
You have legal rights in respect of the personal data we hold about you. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published guidance on the full range of rights. The rights that are most relevant to the way in which we use your personal data include:
- The right to be informed about how we use personal data – this privacy notice gives that information
- The right to object – if you object to us processing your data for marketing purposes, or for healthcare purposes where our legal basis is legitimate interests (see ‘why we collect and process your personal data’, above), we will then stop doing so, unless we are processing the data in respect of a legal claim or can otherwise show that our legitimate interest in processing the data overrides your rights and interests
- The right of access –You have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you in many circumstances. This is sometimes called a ‘Subject Access Request’. If we agree that we are obliged to provide personal information to you (or someone else on your behalf), we will normally provide it to you or them free of charge. Repetitive requests may incur a charge to cover costs.
- The right to rectification – if you ask us to correct personal data about you that is inaccurate or incomplete, we will do so within a month (unless we need longer, in which case we will discuss this with you)
- The right to erasure – also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. If you ask us to delete your personal data, we will do so if there is no compelling reason to continue processing the data, such as meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.
- We will not usually delete healthcare data before our usual time limit (see ‘how long we keep your information for – below) where we have a duty to keep accurate records – for example, to comply with a legal obligation, or in connection with a legal claim. If you ask us to delete such data we will discuss this with you
Before providing personal information to you or another person on your behalf, we may ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interactions with us that we can locate your personal information.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights please contact us as set out below.
How and how long will we keep your information for?
To provision and manage our services, your data is stored and processed by xeyex Ltd based in Bellshill Scotland. We still hold a number of paper records and these are stored securely in an upstairs area accessed by staff only.
We retain your information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide our products and services and to maintain records to satisfy tax and other legal requirements.
In accordance with legislation data contained within patient records are required to be kept as follows;
- At least 7 years from the last appointment date for any adult patient. Electronic records may be kept for longer.
- For a patient last seen under the age of 16 records must be held until they reach the age of 25.
- Full details must be retained so long as the patient is actively engaging our services.
Sharing your thoughts
When using our website or social media pages you may be able to share or comment. For example when you ‘like’, or review our Services. When doing this your personal information may be visible to the providers of those social networks, their other users and/or us. Please remember it is your responsibility to set appropriate privacy settings on your social network accounts so you are comfortable with how your information is used and shared on them.
Security
We take security measures to protect your information including:
- In response to requests from individuals (or their representatives) seeking to protect their legal rights or the rights of others.
- limiting access to our buildings to those that we believe are entitled to be there (by use of passes, key card access and other related technologies);
- implementing access controls to our information technology, such as firewalls, ID verification and logical segmentation and/ or physical separation of our systems and information;
- never asking you for your passwords;
- advising you never to enter your password into an email or after following a link from an email.
Contact us
Updating your communication preferences
You may ask that we do not send you communications using any of the contact details we hold on our records, this may include your email, SMS, telephone and postal information. You may also request we restrict our communications to clinically necessary messages. Your personal preferences can be changed at any time by contacting us as detailed below.
If you would like to exercise one of your rights as set out above, or you have a question or a complaint about this policy, the way your personal information is processed, please contact us by one of the following means:
By email: theopticalfactory@outlook.com
By post: The Optical Factory and Hearing Clinic
27 Tennant Avenue
East Kilbride
G74 5NA
You have the right to complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner if you have a concern about our handling of your personal data, which you do not think we can resolve.
Go to ico.org.uk/concerns to find out more.
Policy updates
We reserve our right to make any changes and updates to this privacy policy without giving you notice as and when we need to e.g. when there are changes in the privacy laws, or we have information to add about the way we deal with your personal data,
The most up to date version of our privacy policy is available on the website.
Policy last updated: 11/04/2021
Privacy of your data is very important to us.
Any personal data collected will only be used as permitted by law and our privacy policy is based on the General Data Protection Regulation and The Data Protection Act.
nolly Opticians is a registered data controller. This privacy notice sets out our privacy policy.
We collect and process patients’ personal data for the purposes of healthcare and marketing.
Our legal bases for processing personal data for healthcare purposes, including appointment reminders, include public task or legitimate interests.
- When we provide services under the NHS General Optical Services contract (such as a sight test funded by the NHS), our legal basis for processing personal data in respect of that service is public task
- Otherwise our legal basis is legitimate interests
Our condition for processing special category data is the provision of health or social care.We process our patients’ personal data for marketing purposes with their consent or to meet a legitimate interest. This means we can tell you about eye care products and services that may be relevant to you. If you do not want us to process your personal data for marketing purposes, please let us know and we will stop.