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Privacy policy

Who are we?

In this document, all references to ‘ihear’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ means Southern Hearing Investments Pty Ltd (ABN 91 118 110 222) and our related businesses.

Our commitment to protect your privacy

We understand how important it is to protect your personal information.  This document sets out our privacy policy commitment in respect of the personal information (including health information) we hold about you and what we do with that information.

We recognise that any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes we have collected it or as allowed under the law.  It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way which ensures protection of your personal information.

Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), the Privacy Act and any other relevant law.

All information which is held by ihear is governed by the latest version of this privacy policy at all times. ihear may change this Privacy Policy at any time without notice. We encourage you to check our privacy policy regularly so that you are aware of any changes.

This privacy policy also applies to all employees and contractors of ihear in relation to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information in the workplace.

Personal information

When we refer to personal information we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent.  This information may include information or an opinion about you.  The personal information we hold about you may also include health information.

The kinds of personal information we may collect about you include (but are not limited to):

  • full name,
  • contact details (mailing address, street address, email address, phone number and/or facsimile number
  • date of birth
  • lifestyle, occupation and hobbies
  • health fund details
  • your employer
  • details of the services or products you have purchased or enquired about (including any additional information necessary to deliver the product or provide you with the service and respond to your enquiries, including but not limited to your prescription details and medical history)

Sensitive information

Some personal information we collect is “sensitive information”. Sensitive information includes health information, which we will routinely collect from you. Sensitive information will be used and disclosed only for the purpose for which it was provided, or a directly related secondary purpose, unless you agree otherwise, or where certain other limited circumstances apply (for example, where required by law).

We collect personal information to provide you with the services that you have requested (including for example, telemedicine visit services), for the purposes of determining your medical history, assessing your suitability for particular services, responding to your requests or enquiries and other customer care related activities, advising you of an upcoming hearing examination appointment, establishing your identity, contacting you, processing and sending related communications, managing our risk and to comply with our legal obligations.  We may also collect your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing and managing our relationship with you.  Improvements in technology also enable organisations like ours to collect and use information to get a more integrated view of our customers.  From time to time we may offer you other products and services.

If you apply to become a healthcare professional with us or apply for employment with us, we will collect information about you to assist us to decide whether to appoint you (this includes your medical specialty, clinical interests and your involvement with our products and services).

Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this privacy policy.

How do we collect your personal information?

Where reasonable and practical we will collect your personal information directly from you.  We may collect information about you that is publicly available, for example from public registers or social media, or made available by third parties.  We may also collect your personal information from authorised people or organisations that provide us with your personal information on your behalf.

Information collected from visitors to our website

For each visitor to reach the site, we expressively collect the following non-personally identifiable information, including but not limited to browser type, version and language, operating system, pages viewed while browsing the Site, page access times and referring website address. The information collected is used only by us for the purpose of gauging visitor traffic, trends and delivering personalized content to you while you are at this Site. From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future, we will use for these new purposes only, data collected from the time of the policy change forward will adhere to our updated practices.

Do we disclose your personal information?

We may disclose your personal information:

  • to other organisations that are involved in managing or administering our products and services;
  • to associated businesses that may want to market products to you;
  • to companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us, including, for example, the telemedicine platform provided to us by VSee;
  • to our agents, contractors, referrers, hearing aid providers, external service providers to outsource certain functions, for example, data processing and information technology support;
  • to any person or entity who represents you;
  • to any person or entity, where you have provided us consent;
  • to our auditors, insurers, re-insurers and health care providers;
  • to claims related providers, such as assessors and investigators who help us with claims;
  • where we are authorised to do so by law, government and law enforcement agencies or regulators;
  • to investors, agents or advisers or any entity that has an interest in our business;
  • to financial institutions, for example to process a claim for mistaken payment;
  • organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us; or
  • to your employer, former employer, referees or identity verification services.

Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:

  • the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment, or
  • you have consented to us making the disclosure.

Direct marketing

From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about our products and services, changes to our organisation, or new products or services being offered by us or any company with whom we are associated.

If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may at any time decline to receive such information by telephoning us on 02 8823 9012 or email [email protected]. If the direct marketing is by email you may also use the unsubscribe function.  We will not charge you for giving effect to your request and will take all reasonable steps to meet your request at the earliest possible opportunity.

Business without identifying you

In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order provide you with the services you have requested, however, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will give you the option of not identifying yourself or of using a pseudonym.

Updating your personal information

It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date.  During the course of our relationship with you we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed. 

If you wish to make any changes to your personal information, you may contact us.  We will generally rely on you to ensure the information we hold about you is accurate or complete.

Accessing Your Personal Information

You have a right to access your personal information, subject to exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to do so, please let us know. You may be required to put your request in writing for security reasons. ihear reserves the right to charge a fee for searching for, and providing access to, your information on a per request basis.

Depending on the type of request that you make we may respond to your request immediately, otherwise we usually respond to you within seven days of receiving your request.  We may need to contact other entities to properly investigate your request. 

There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal information, for example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, if your request is vexatious or if the information is commercially sensitive.

An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access to the personal information we hold about you.

If appropriate we will correct the personal information at the time of the request otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request.  Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected the personal information within 30 days.

If we refuse to correct personal information we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information. 

Using government identifiers

When we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we do not use or disclose this information other than as required by law. We will never use a government identifier to identify you.

How safe and secure is your personal information that we hold?

We will take a range of measures and reasonable steps to protect your personal information.  Your personal information will always be stored in a secure environment.  We may store your personal information in paper and electronic form. We will also take reasonable steps to protect any personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act, you may contact our Compliance Manager on 02 8823 9012.

We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days and aim to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible.  We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days.

If you are dissatisfied with the response of our Compliance Manager you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner which can be contacted via the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner website (www.oaic.gov.au) or on 1300 363 992.

Contacting us

ihear welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and would like further information, please contact us by any of the following means during business hours Monday to Friday. Call: 02 8823 9012 or email [email protected]. ihear will handle such requests in accordance with the Privacy Act.

Further information

You may request further information about the way we manage your personal information by contacting us.

We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations.  Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and market place practices.

As a consequence we may change this policy from time to time or as the need arises. We will post any changes to this policy on our website.

You may request this policy in an alternative form by telephoning us on 02 8823 9012 or by email to [email protected].

Updated June 2021