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WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND HOLD?

We may collect the following types of personal information:

  • full name;

  • mailing or street address;

  • email address;

  • telephone number;

  • date of birth;

  • your lifestyle, occupation and hobbies;

  • health fund details;

  • your employer;

  • details of the products and services you have purchased from us or which you have enquired about, together with any additional information necessary to deliver those products and services and to respond to your enquiries, including but not limited to your prescription details and your medical history;

  • any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our websites or indirectly through use of our websites or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise; and

  • information you provide to us through our Customer Care team or our Customer Experience Surveys.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we may collect aggregated information about how users use our website.

We are required to collect your name, address and date of birth as part of our legal and regulatory obligations, including under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law as enacted in each state and territory of Australia and Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (NZ).
 

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. When collecting personal information from you, we may collect it in different ways including:

  • when you visit an VILLAGE OPTICS store for an eye test;

  • when you attend a vision screening organised by VILLAGE OPTICS at a public or industry event or a vision screening organised by your employer;

  • when you visit an VILLAGE OPTICS store to purchase eyewear products (such as sunglasses, frames, lenses and contact lenses) and associated products and services;

  • when you book an eye test using our website, our apps, over the phone or when you visit an VILLAGE OPTICS store or attend an VILLAGE OPTICS screening clinic;

  • when you contact us via our social media pages (such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram);

  • when you enter a competition;

  • when you contact us with an enquiry or complaint in relation to our products and services;

  • through your access and use of our website; and

  • when you apply for a job with us.

We may also collect personal information from third parties including:

  • from third party companies such as credit reporting agencies, law enforcement agencies and other government entities (such as the Department of Veterans Affairs);

  • from data analysis agencies;

  • from employment recruitment agencies;

  • from health funds;

  • from third party optometry practices which have been converted to VILLAGE OPTICS stores; and

  • from other optometrists and health practitioners with your consent.

When you use our website, we may use aggregated, anonymous analytic tracking via a third party to gather information about the way the website is used. In some cases we may also collect your personal information through the use of cookies. When you access our website by typing the address in your browser or by clicking on our advertisement on a third party website, we or a third party on our behalf may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer. This enables us to recognise your computer and greet you each time you visit our website without bothering you with a request to register or to log in. It also enables us to keep track of products or services you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about those products or services. We also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our online products and services. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them.

We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users’ movements, and gather broad demographic information.
 

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE CAN’T COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

If you do not provide us with the personal information described above, some or all of the following may happen:

  • we may not be able to provide the requested products or services to you, either to the same standard or at all;

  • we may not be able to process health fund discounts or rebates;

  • we may not be able to process any third party discounts or benefits;

  • we may not be able to provide you with information about products and services that you may want, including information about discounts, sales or special promotions; or

  • we may be unable to tailor the content of our websites to your preferences and your experience of our websites may not be as enjoyable or useful.
     

FOR WHAT PURPOSES DO WE COLLECT, HOLD, USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information about you so that we can provide you with the most appropriate eye care and eye wear products and services, and to provide you with a high quality of customer service.

We also collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

  • to provide products and services to you and to send communications to you;

  • to provide products and services to you as a result of a contractual arrangement with your employer;

  • to answer enquiries and provide information or advice about existing and new products or services;

  • to advise you on your eye care needs including when it’s time to come and see us for another eye test;

  • advise you if we or one of our optometrists relocate;

  • advise you if your store has merged rebranded, relocated or closed ;

  • to assess the performance of the website and to improve the operation of the website;

  • to assess our customer service and to improve our customer service to you;

  • to conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, franchisees, contractors, service providers or other third parties;

  • for the administrative, marketing (including direct marketing and marketing research), planning, product or service development, quality control, human resources, educational and research purposes of VILLAGE OPTICS, its related bodies corporate, franchisees, contractors or service providers;

  • to provide your updated personal information to our related bodies corporate, franchisees, contractors or service providers;

  • to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;

  • to process and respond to any complaint or enquiry made by you; and

  • to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority of any country.

We may also collect personal information about third parties from you, such as personal information about your family members, so that we can provide products and services to those third parties. If you provide personal information about a third party individual to us, you must ensure that the third party individual is aware of this Privacy Policy, understands it and agrees to accept it. If you provide personal information about a third party individual and that individual does not have the capacity to understand and agree to these terms (for example, a minor), we require a parent or guardian to acknowledge and agree to this paragraph.

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

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TO WHOM MAY WE DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION?

We may disclose your personal information to:

  • our employees, related bodies corporate, franchisees, contractors or service providers for the purposes of operating our website or our business, fulfilling requests by you, and to otherwise provide products and services to you including, without limitation, lens suppliers and manufacturers, contact lens vendors, web hosting providers, IT systems administrators, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators, debt collectors, archivists and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants;

  • suppliers and other third parties with whom we have commercial relationships, for business, marketing, and related purposes;

  • referees whose details are provided to us by job applicants;

  • to another company or business where our store or stores are acquired by, sold to or otherwise transferred to that company or business;

  • to government and regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies, ;

  • with your consent, to other health practitioners and medical practitioners and forward relevant information to that health practitioner or medical practitioner about your particular condition; and

  • any other organisation for any authorised purpose with your express consent, including your insurers and your solicitors.

We may combine or share any information that we collect from you with information collected by any of our related bodies corporate.

We are not responsible for the privacy policies of any third party. Third parties are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.

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DIRECT MARKETING

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our products and services that we consider may be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). You consent to us sending you those direct marketing communications by any of those methods. If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see the details below) or by using opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications, and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.

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HOW CAN YOU ACCESS AND CORRECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We require accurate personal information about you to ensure you receive the best possible service from VILLAGE OPTICS. You may request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Please ensure you are able to advise which store you last visited for eye care services and eyewear products. Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with a suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We may charge you a reasonable fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge you for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.

There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for any refusal.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is up-to-date whenever we collect it or use it. This may include, for example, using data obtained from third parties to verify the accuracy of your personal information.

If you find that current personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date, please contact us immediately and we will take reasonable steps to correct it.

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WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURELY

We take reasonable steps to ensure we protect any personal information that we hold from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

Your personal information may be stored in hard copy documents and electronically.

We maintain physical and electronic security over our paper and electronic data storage. We also maintain computer and network security. For example, we use firewalls (security measures for the Internet) and other systems such as user identifiers and passwords to control access to computer systems.

If the personal information we collect is no longer needed for any purposes and we are not required by law to retain it, we take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

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