This policy was last updated on 13th of May 2024.

The Wellington Eye Centre (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the www.wefixeyes.co.nz website (“our website”).

We comply with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (the “Act”) when dealing with personal information.  Our Privacy Officer also acts as data controller for the purposes of applicable data protection laws and regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) of 27 April 2016.  Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person).  This policy sets out what and how we will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information.

This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the Act.  If you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz.

1. Privacy Policy

We use industry-standard processes to protect our websites and your personal information.  When you interact with us you may share some personal data with us.  We may also receive personal data about you from third parties with whom you interact in relation to our products and services or your contractual arrangements with us.

2. Changes to this policy

This is our current Privacy Policy and may be updated from time to time.  We may change this policy by uploading a revised policy onto our website.  The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy.

3. Who do we collect from

We collect personal information about you from:

  • you, when you provide that personal information to us, including via our website and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, or through any contact with us.
  • third parties where you have authorised this or the information is publicly available. 

If possible, we will collect personal information from you directly. 

4. How we collect and hold information

Collection of personal data may arise in person, via our digital channels, by phone, email or other method.  Examples of direct collection of personal information are:

  • Filling out our enquiry or contact forms online;
  • Emailing, calling or contacting our customer service team;
  • Contacting us through social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram;
  • Interacting with our social media accounts
  • When you visit the Wellington Eye Centre for an assessment or other appointment;
  • When you provide customer feedback, surveys, or lodge a complaint; and
  • Entering competitions and promotions.

We may also collect personal information from third parties.  We may also collect or obtain your personal information that you manifestly choose to make public, including via online channels.

5. What personal information do we collect?

The kind of personal information we collect and hold includes:

  • Your full name, date of birth, NHI number and ethnicity;
  • contact details, including address, phone number and email;
  • health information, including eye test results, other optometric records, diagnostic images of the eye, past and present health conditions, prescribed medication, optical prescriptions and any other health information provided by you or your healthcare provider;
  • your payment details;
  • information about your lifestyle, occupation/ employment and hobbies;
  • preferences, website usage, and marketing information;
  • general inquiries and other feedback; and
  • any other information you have voluntarily provided to us.

Some personal information we collect is sensitive information such as medical history, prescriptions, and health conditions. We collect sensitive information to provide the best possible health services to you. This information will only be used and disclosed for the purpose for which it was provided, or a directly related secondary purpose unless you agree otherwise. There may be other limited circumstances that require us to share this information otherwise, for example if required by law or for the protection of a person/persons.

6. Storage and security

We hold your personal information at Level 4, 148 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington.  The information is usually stored electronically on servers owned by us or third party data storage providers engaged by us.  No data transmissions over the internet can be guaranteed as completely secure therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee the security of information transmitted from or to you, however once we receive your personal information we will use reasonable efforts to protect the security of your personal information.

We protect our customers from unauthorised access to or unauthorised alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold.

We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorised access to systems.

7. How we use your personal information

We will use your personal information: 

  • to verify your identity;
  • to provide information and services to you;
  • to improve the services and information that we provide to you;
  • to respond to communications from you;
  • to conduct surveys, market research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis);
  • to undertake direct marketing such as providing information to you about special offers, products or services that may be of interest to you;
  • to inform you of changes to our services that could affect you;
  • to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests;
  • for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those set out in this Privacy Policy.

Our website may also contain links from or to other sites where information practices may be different.  If you “click” on a banner advertisement or another company’s logo on our websites, the “click” may take you off our site.  This includes links to and from other companies such as advertisers, sponsors, retailers and partners that we may have joined with to offer or provide you with any products, services, competitions or promotions.  

We and the other company may share your personal information and may use it to identify future promotional opportunities or to fulfil promotional or contractual obligations.  When you arrive at our websites as a link from one of our partnering company’s website, we may share your personal information provided to us as a result of using that link with that other company.  

You should consult the other party’s website privacy notice as we are not responsible for and do not control the information once you are on a third party website.  

8. Disclosing your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes set out in the Privacy Policy. This may include: 

  • our employees, contractors and agents who need to know information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or employment terminated if they fail to meet those obligations;
  • any business that supports our services and/or products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide our website;
  • health insurers, health authorities and regulators as permitted or required by law;
  • other third parties (for anonymised statistical information);
  • Insurance companies and professional service firms providing services to us, such as legal, insurance or accountancy services;
  • As required by law, such as to regulatory agencies;
  • We may also share information about visitors in aggregate with third parties including advertisers, business partners and sponsors to understand visitor trends and patterns and to manage and improve our service.  Such information will be anonymous so that visitor’s privacy is protected;
  • any other person authorised by you.
9. Use of cookies and website analytics

We may use available technology to determine which areas of our websites you choose to visit and the activities which you elect to participate in. This information will be used for the purposes of managing your account, business development, trend analysis and marketing.  For this purpose we use cookies and web analytics.  Most websites allow you to disable or control cookies but this may affect your ability to use some of the features on our site.  

Cookies are small text files that are placed in your browser by our websites you visit.  They are widely used to help users navigate websites efficiently, to perform certain functions on the sites and/or to provide site owners with information about how their sites are used.

We also use tracking cookies for web analytics tools and to analyse non-identifiable web traffic data to improve our services.  It allows us to collect, hold and use statistical information about visits to help us improve our site and marketing.

Statistical information may include:

  • Your IP address;
  • The search terms you used;
  • The pages accessed on our site and the links you clicked on;
  • The date and time you visited the site;
  • The referring site (if any) through which you clicked through to this site. Your operating system (eg Windows, MacOS);
  • The type of web browser you use (eg Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox); and
  • The communication channel you may have chosen to use to connect with us (such as Facebook or Twitter) and the personal data you supply to us.

This type of data collected is aggregated and is not personally identifiable. Our web analytics may not apply “do not track” settings and you may wish to adjust your browser settings manually (see your specific browser instructions for further information). We may also use third party providers to provide us with these web analytics services.

10. Links to social networking services

We use third party sites such as media and social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to help communicate our messages and give you the best experience.  We may track your use of our pages and promotions on their sites.  

When you communicate with us using a third party site, that site may also collect your personal information for its own purposes.  The third party sites have their own privacy policies which are independent of ours.  The third party site may also track your use of our page or our link on their site and also any link they may display on our site. If you are logged in to those services (including any Google, YouTube or Facebook service) while using our site, their tracking will be associated with your profile with them.

11. Email and other electronic communications

We are committed to full compliance with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.  By subscribing to our email and/or text communications, or otherwise providing us with your email address and/or mobile number, you consent to receiving emails and/or texts which promote and market our products and services, or the products and services of others, from time to time.  

You can opt out of those communications at any stage by utilising the corresponding “unsubscribe” facility.  Once you have unsubscribed from our email or text communications, we will remove you from the corresponding marketing list as soon as is reasonably practicable.

12. Personal information about other people

You must not provide us with personal information about another person unless that person has given authorisation through you, for us to collect, use and disclose their personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

13. Transparency and choice

People have different privacy concerns.  Our goal is to be clear about what information we collect, so you can make meaningful choices about how it is used. 

14. Access to and correction of your personal information
  • You have the right to request access to your personal information and to request its correction.  If so, please contact our Privacy Officer on 04 385 8833.  Alternatively email us at admin@wefixeyes.co.nz or write to us by post to Level 4, 148 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011.
  • If you have any questions about this privacy policy, our privacy practices you can contact us at admin@wefixeyes.co.nz.