Privacy Policy
Island Hearing committed to ensuring
your personal information remains private. We know health
issues are private and need to be treated with the same level
of confidentiality as matters between doctor and patient.
As a hearing health care provider, we strictly adhere
to and are committed to confidentiality with regard to
the health and personal information we may gather in providing
services to our customers.
Island Hearing is responsible for personal information
under its control, including the personal information it
entrusts to third party service providers. To comply with
BC’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA),
we have a Privacy Officer to receive and respond to our
customers’ questions and complaints and to respond
to requests for personal files and correction of personal
information.
When given permission by you, we will provide hearing
health care information only to your physician(s) if requested
byyouEach employee of Island Hearing must sign
a Confidentiality Agreement as a condition of their employment.
Each employee is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality
of personal information they may have access to. (Pls explain
Privacy Promise earlier in the document).
Our Privacy Promise relates to all of our customers
and applies to:
- how we collect and use personal information
- when we may provide your information to other
persons
- how we protect your personal information
- how
you have access to the information we retain, and
- how we
respond to your privacy questions or concerns.
What is a customer?
For the purposes of this Promise, we define a “customer” as
any person who meets with any of our hearing health care
professionals and/or any person who purchases any of our
hearing health care products or services.
Why we ask for your information
The better we know you, the better we are able to serve
you. We ask you for your personal information in order
to:
- understand your needs
- determine
the best products and services for you
- make appropriate appointments with our hearing
health care providers
- provide you with
information and offers on products and services we think
may be of interest to you
- respond to your
inquiries regarding warranties, assistive listening
devices and our services, and to
- contact you
to ensure you are satisfied with our products and/or
services.
The nature of personal information we collect
may include: (note – need to edit this)
- information
we receive from you on our forms, such as name, date
of birth, gender, address and telephone number
- Iinformation we receive
from you on a voluntary basis when we are conducting
an assessment of your lifestyle, needs
or interests, and
- information regarding
your hearing health and hearing aid purchases.
How we obtain your personal information
Our personal information about you comes from you. We may
ask you for authorization to obtain certain types of
personal information. We request only the information
that allows us to serve you better.
How we protect your personal information
We do not disclose customer personal or demographic information
to third parties except where and as required by law.
We protect your personal information that
is in our possession, including that which has been received
from a third party
or personal information that may not be in our possession
but which has been transferred to a third party.
Do you have access to your personal information?
Of course. We will establish and maintain a confidential
file of personal information, both paper and electronic,
for each customer. Only our employees who need to access
your file in the course of their duties will have access
to your information. You have the right to access your
file and request rectification of any personal information
in the file that may be obsolete, incomplete or incorrect.
We want to make this as simple as possible for you. You
can obtain the ‘Customer Access to Personal Information
Request’ form from us by requesting it in person,
in a letter or by telephone. We will need to validate the
identity of anyone making such a request to ensure that
we do not provide your information to anyone who does not
have the right to that information. We may charge you an
administration free for providing access to your file in
accordance with your request. Normally, we will respond
to access or rectification requests within 30 days. Should
you wish to review your personal information at any time,
or find out to whom it has been disclosed to as permitted
by this Policy, simply ask one of our hearing health care
professionals for a Customer Access to Personal Information
Request form. A nominal fee may apply and you will be advised
in advance of the amount of the fee.
In some cases, we will not be able to provide
the information we hold about you. That will only occur if:
- it
contains references to other persons
- it
is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege
- it contains our own proprietary information
that is confidential to us
- it has already
been destroyed due to legal requirements or because we
no longer needed it for the purposes set
out in our Promise
- it is too costly,
in our determination, to retrieve
- it cannot
be disclosed for legal reasons.
Is your personal information up to date?
You play an active role in keeping us up-to-date. Should
your address or phone number change, for instance, we
would appreciate it if you would let us know so that
we can provide you with the best service possible.
Would we release your personal information?
We do not disclose customer personal or demographic information
to third parties except where and as required by law.
We do not sell personal information about our customers.
(We do not share personal information with) (any of the
companies that we do business with, for the purposes
of marketing or for any other reason)
In common with many other organizations, we
obtain some services from third party service providers,
such as hearing
aid manufacturers, and some of our information may be
provided to them on a limited basis. These service providers
must
sign a confidentiality agreement and may only use the
information disclosed to them for the specific purpose mentioned
in
the agreement.
Keeping your personal information confidential
We have comprehensive security controls to protect against
unauthorized review and use of your personal information.
We ensure the physical, organizational and electronic
security of your personal information through the use
of secure locks on filing cabinets and doors, restricted
access to our information processing and storage areas,
limited access to relevant information by authorized
employees only, and through the use of passwords and
the encryption of electronically transmitted information.
How long do we keep personal information?
We only keep your personal information during the time
it is required to serve you or while there are legal
requirements to do so. When destroying, deleting or disposing
personal information, we have strict procedures in place
to prevent unauthorized access.
Direct marketing
We will occasionally communicate with you by mail, telephone
or electronic means to offer you products or services
that may be of interest to you. You may withdraw your
consent to be contacted at any time as long as you give
us reasonable notice of withdrawal.
Consent
Your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your
personal information can be express and positive (may
be verbal, in writing or electronic) or implied, such
as by using one of our products or services, or by not
responding to our offer to remove your personal information
from our contact list, in which case we assume your consent.
Again, you may withdraw or refuse your consent at any
time for any purpose whatsoever, as long as you give
us reasonable notice of withdrawal.
Addressing your concerns
Please write us at the address in this document to file
a privacy complaint. Should we fail to resolve a complaint
to your satisfaction or within a reasonable delay, you
may contact our President and CEO, Marke Hambley.
To file an opt-out request, request access
to your information, report incorrect information or file
a complaint, please
write to:
Privacy Officer
Island Hearing
309 – 645 Fort Street
Victoria, BC V8W 1G2.
Our Privacy Promise
While information is the cornerstone of our ability to provide
superior services, our most important asset is our customers’ trust.
Keeping customer information secure and using it only as
our customers would want us to is a top priority. The following
is our promise to our customers.
- We will safeguard, according
to strict standards of security and confidentiality,
any and all information our customers
share with us.
- We will limit the collection and use of customer
information to the minimum we require to deliver superior
service to
our customers, which includes advising our customers
about our products, services and other opportunities, and
to administer
our business.
- We will permit only authorized employees,
who are trained in the proper handling of customer information,
to have access
to that information. Employees who violate our Privacy
Promise will be subject to our disciplinary process.
- We will not
reveal customer information to any external organization
unless we have previously informed the customer
in disclosures or agreement, have been authorized by
the customer, or are required by law.
- We will always maintain
control over the confidentiality of our customer information.
If we share limited information
with hearing aid manufacturers, they must have signed
a confidentiality agreement with Island Hearing.
- We will tell customers
how they may remove their names from our contact lists.
At any time, customers can contact
us to remove their names from such lists.
- Whenever we hire
other organizations to provide support services, we will
require them to conform to our privacy
standards and to allow us to audit them for compliance.
- We
will not use or share – internally or externally – personally
identifiable medical information for any purpose other than
the administration of a customer’s policy, claim
or account, or as disclosed to the customer when the information
is collected, or to which the customer consents.
- We will
attempt to keep customer files complete, up-to-date and
accurate. We will tell our customers how and where to
conveniently access their information (except where we’re
prohibited by law) and how to notify us about errors
which we will promptly correct.
We will continuously assess ourselves to ensure that customer
privacy is respected. We will conduct our business in a manner
that fulfills our Promise in the many provinces in which
we do business.
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