Ostend Medical Centre is committed to enabling patients and customers to be able to use our services in a safe and efficient manner. During our interactions with you, there will be times when you share information with us.  We want you to be able to understand how we collect, store, share and use information from and about our site visitors, subscribers, customers and vendors.

This Privacy Notice (Notice), our cookie policy and other legal notices posted on this website, describes our collection, use and disclosure of personal and non-personal data (i) collected through our website (The Site), or (ii) when you subscribe to, or otherwise use our online services, or (iii) in the course of our business activities conducted elsewhere (e.g. at our offices), whenever we act as the controller of that data and when its processing is governed by NZ Privacy Laws.

This Notice does not apply to the information collected, stored, shared, or distributed by third-party sites. This Notice may be updated from time to time.

Last Updated : Sept 2021

  1. Information we collect
    1. Where applicable, when you register for an account or place an order / service request or contact us by email, phone, or face-to-face – we may request your personal information in order to communicate and deliver products and / or services to you.
    2. The information we collect may include, for example; name; address; email; business name; date of birth; government ID numbers; contact information, and any other distinguishable data about you, including if you contacted us online, your IP address, domain name and any other associated information – all that we deem necessary in order to carry out the fulfilment of the products and / or services and / or engagement or provision of any of these as agreed.
    3. If you have chosen to subscribe to a newsletter, or engage with us online on our website, we may also collect your name, email address, location and other optional information.
    4. We may collect non-identifiable information when you visit our site for visitor tracking and analysis (e.g., cookies) and to help us to improve your experience on our site.
    5. We may collect your IP address for the purpose of identifying your approximate location / ISP and the time and date of your visit for statistical tracking purposes.
    6. We may also collect information about the type of browser you are using, the type of software, your computer version, screen resolution size and device type for analysis and experience improvements.
  2. Use of ‘cookies’
    1. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.
    2. We may use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart (where we have one). They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer a better visitor experience in the future. We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf.
    3. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies through your browser settings.
    4. If you turn cookies off, some features will be disabled and this may affect the way the website functions.
  3. Google
    1. We may utilise one or more of Google’s services in the day-to-day running of our website and business.  The Google service(s) that we may utilise could be one or more of the following (not an exhaustive list);
      1. Google Maps / Google Adwords / advertising to provide a positive experience for users searching for us online.
      2. Google AdSense – not currently on our site but may be used in the future.
      3. Google Analytics – to help us understand visitor traffic and better serve our customers.
      4. Google reCaptcha – to assist us in the fight against spam bots and other malicious users.
    2. These and other Google services may utilise cookies and other tracking data that all have strict policies on privacy and data collection / usage which can be found here
  4. The use of your information
    1. We will primarily use your information to verify your identity, to communicate with you, to deliver product(s) and / or service(s) to you – or in the fulfilment of any order you have requested and in that respect, to collect payment/s from you for any such related service(s).
    2. We may use information collected to help us to understand and improve how we are doing, to improve the delivery of our services and for analysis e.g. statistics.
    3. From time to time, we may contact you in connection with transactions, or to inform you about events that may impact any product(s) or service(s) that you have purchased from us.
    4. We may occasionally contact you for general marketing purposes – e.g. our newsletter / email reminders to inform you of any important events and other news (if you have consented to receive these), to conduct customer surveys, or to collect site experience and / or general feedback from you.
    5. Where agreed by you, in the public areas of the site (for example, if you leave an online comment, or on our testimonials page, or in a case study), we may display your name or initials, but not your contact information (unless specifically agreed).
    6. We will never knowingly sell your information, pass it to others unlawfully or allow any external party to access it, except; (i) where we have a specific service agreement protecting any such transfer, (ii) or where we are required to do so by law or (iii) to protect and/or to enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim or where you have expressly requested this.
  5. Commercial electronic messages / SPAM 
    1. The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 prohibits the sending of spam with a New Zealand link (i.e. messages sent to, from, or within New Zealand). The Act refers to spam as ‘unsolicited commercial electronic messages’. The Act covers email, fax, instant messaging, and mobile/smart phone text (TXT). We collect your email address (and if relevant, an SMS number) in order to:
      • Send information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions;
      • Process orders and to send information and updates pertaining to orders;
      • Send you additional information related to your product and/or service;
      • Market to our mailing list or continue to send emails to our clients after the original transaction has occurred.
    2. To be in accordance with Act, we agree to the following:
      • Not use false or misleading subjects or email addresses;
      • If it is an advertisement, we will identify the message as an advertisement in some reasonable way;
      • Include the physical address of our business or site headquarters;
      • Monitor third-party email marketing services for compliance, if one is used;
      • Honour opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly;
      • Allow users to unsubscribe by using the link at the bottom of each email;
      • If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you can email us or follow the instructions at the bottom of each email and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.
  6. Data Protection
    1. Your information is held in the strictest of confidence and never willingly divulged to any unauthorised party.
    2. Our website uses a secure HTTPS / SSL encryption protocol to transmit your data to and from our website server database which in turn utilises multiple layers of security to protect stored data.
    3. Our website further obfuscates e.g. passwords (where these are in use) so that these cannot easily be seen.
    4. We do not hold or process any credit card data on our website because we use third party (external) payment processors that utilise encryption. Even if you are entering credit card information on our site, this data is highly encrypted.
    5. Our service providers (webhost, email providers, external data management or suppliers etc) have provided assurance that they utilise high security standards with best practice methods.
  7. Transfer of Personal Data
    1. Our direct service providers (e.g. webhost or email providers, server / IT support services) may utilise multiple data centres and additional third-party service partners in the delivery of their products and services, which ultimately allow us to deliver ours. In particular, through our partners, we may utilise a global network of servers (known as a CDN) where data exists “in the cloud” in multiple global locations.
    2. Such methods are used to provide the high-speed data transfer, along with data backup facilities and security screening / access restriction.  Our ultimate goal is to provide you, the end-user with convenient products and services – but with your data protected.  Where any personal data is stored or transferred outside of NZ, our service providers employ best-practice standards to ensure comparable safeguards exist in order to comply with New Zealand privacy laws (2020).
    3. We and our service providers take steps to ensure all data receives the same level of protection as if it remained within NZ, including by entering into robust data transfer agreements that satisfy NZ standards. The primary countries where personal data “in the cloud” may be transferred or stored, is Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA – although this list can change depending on different factors.
    4. We reserve the right to share any information that you provide which is not deemed personal data or is not otherwise subject to contractual restrictions – or where you have expressly indicated that you are OK with that.
  8. Retention of your Personal Data
    1. We apply a general rule of keeping personal data only for as long as required to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. We may choose to retain your personal data (in a safe and secure environment) where we believe it will benefit you as our ongoing customer and to maintain an accurate record of your dealings with us.
    2. In some circumstances, we may retain personal data for other periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, tax and accounting requirements, or if required to do so by a legal process, legal authority, or other governmental entity having authority to make the request, for so long as required.
  9. Your choices
    1. If any information we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us to request that it be updated.
    2. If you decide not to provide us with your personal information, we will not be able to provide products and or services to you.
    3. If at any time, you wish to be removed from our newsletter or public areas of our site, you may request that and we will respect your wishes.
    4. You also have the right to request a copy of the information we have on record for you. You may also request that data be deleted.
  10. Children
    1. The Site is not for use by children under the age of 16 years and we do not knowingly collect, store, share or use the personal data of children under 16 years. If you are under the age of 16 years, please do not provide any personal data, even if prompted by the Site to do so.
    2. If you are under the age of 16 years and you have provided personal data, please ask your parent(s) or guardian(s) to notify us and we will delete all such personal data.
  11. Security
    1. We make reasonable efforts to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party ‘hackers’ from illegally obtaining this information.
    2. We take all reasonable measures to prevent such breaches of security, but given the resourcefulness of cyber-criminals we are unable to guarantee 100% security. You assume the risk of such breaches to the extent that they occur despite our reasonable security measures.

Contact Us

You can contact us at any time with any questions or queries via our contact form.

If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us