Bloom Hearing Specialists Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how bloom™ hearing specialists, 54 Fore Street, Saltash PL12 6JL ("we", "us", "our") collects and processes personal information that you provide us with, or that we ascertain from your hearing tests, online hearing test, enquiry forms or from any purchase of our products and services or any other interactions with us. We appreciate you trusting us with taking care of your hearing needs and we want you to know that you can trust us with your personal details.

These pages cover the following key areas:

1. bloom hearing specialists Privacy Commitment
2. What personal information do we collect?
3. Why we collect information
4. What choices do you have?
5. How we collect this information
6. Who we may share your information with
7. Third country transfers
8. How long is the information kept for?
9. What if you don’t provide personal information?
10. What rights do you have?
11. Security
12. Other sites
13. Google Analytics
14. Cookies and Log Files
15. Direct marketing
16. Management of changes
17. Legal disclaimer
18. Questions or comments

1. Bloom Hearing Specialists Privacy Commitment
In this Privacy Policy, references to you means the person whose personal information we collect, use and process. This includes anyone who contacts us in connection with the products and services we provide or otherwise interacts with us including, for example, via our website at www.bloomhearing.co.uk or in our stores.

Bloom Hearing was recently acquired by OutsideClinic, following the acquisition we'll be working together closely in order to bring customers the best possible service and range of products.

We will not use your information for purposes unrelated to our hearing care and optical services that we and (our parent company) OutsideClinic provide, unless your consent is first obtained. We understand that health and medical information falls under sensitive personal information under the UK GDPR and as a consequence we store it carefully.

You can find more information about how OutsideClinic process personal data at https://www.outsideclinic.co.uk/privacy-policy/

2. What personal information do we collect?
We may collect and process information about you including:

• your name
• your date of birth
• your contact telephone numbers (including mobile)
• your email and postal address
• your relevant health details including (a) current and past hearing health/conditions, general health condition and hearing prescriptions; (b) current medication details; and (c) correspondence between audiologist and your GP
• details of Next of Kin or appointed Deputies
• your hearing consultation and test results
• your payment details
• your employment/lifestyle/driving information
• details of any prescription supplied to you by your healthcare professional or medical practitioner
• details of your visit to our website using cookies and any transactions you carry out on our website shop which is powered by Shopify
• any other information voluntarily provided to us by you from time to time either in writing or on our website
• call recordings

3. Why we collect information
We may collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:

• your hearing care treatment
• providing our products and services to you
• letting you know when your next appointment is due and reminding you to book a test if you’ve not had one for a while
• marketing bloom hearing specialists’ products and services to you
• marketing OutsideClinic hearing and optical products and services to you
• undertaking customer service surveys to ensure we continually improve our services to you
• helping us review, develop and improve the products and services we offer, for example through research, analysis and planning
• notifying you about changes to our products and services
• responding to queries from you
• processing and retaining personal data relating to your credit/debit card and order details to enable the fulfilment of your order and to deal with any queries or refunds of payment
• responding to and addressing any claims made against us
• using cookies and traffic data as set out in our Cookie Policy
• to comply with our obligations under the NHS Hearing Loss Action Plan, the NHS Act 2006, the Equality Act 2010 and the Health & Social Care Act 2012
• to comply with laws or regulations applicable to bloom hearing specialists, including prevention and/or detection of non-compliance
• to respond to the relevant ombudsman and governing bodies for example the Information Commissioners Office, the Care Quality Commission and so on
• maintaining records for tax, compliance with laws, defence of claims and other corporate purposes
• managing and administrating insurance claims
• training and monitoring purposes

We might need to pass certain information on to the NHS if we find that you need additional treatment or advice, we’ll mostly do this after talking this through with you, in rare and serious cases this might be done to protect you (where it is in your vital interests).

We will always ensure that we have an appropriate basis in law to use your information, the key legal bases we rely on include:

• fulfilment of a contract with you, this may extend to steps taken before you enter in to that contract
• compliance with our legal obligation – where we are obliged to use your information in a certain way under UK laws
• fulfilment of a public task, we occasionally provide services on behalf of the NHS as a public body
• in accordance with ‘legitimate interests’ this includes considering benefits to the customer, Bloom Hearing, our Parent company OutsideClinic and our trusted partners... but don’t worry we balance your privacy rights as required by law!
• Consent, where its appropriate to do so, we will ask for your consent to ensure we are clear on your choices

4. What choices do you have?

• bloom hearing specialists may use your personal information to contact you in relation to our products and services.
• To ensure that you continue to receive excellent healthcare, we will send you non-marketing material, such as appointment reminders.
• You may change your marketing preferences at any time by writing to bloom hearing specialists, Customer Services, 54 Fore Street, Saltash, PL12 6JL, e-mail us on customerservices@bloomhearing.co.uk or call us at 0800 169 4651. Please remember to provide as much detail as you can as this will help us to find the information
• You can choose to stop receiving marketing emails from us by following the unsubscribe link and instructions on the respective marketing emails we send you.

5. How we collect this information
This information will primarily be collected from you as voluntarily provided to us, but we may also collect it from other sources where it is lawful to do so, including but not limited to, the NHS or other healthcare providers, institutions or individuals you have authorised to provide information on your behalf (e.g. parents or guardians), third party service providers as listed in “who we may share your information with”, government, tax and law enforcement agencies.

If you contact us through a website, advert or landing page (and/or by email at customerservice@bloomhearing.co.uk) you will be providing us with personal information about yourself, including your email address, name and contact details. 

If you are simply browsing our website, we will collect information using cookies and/or traffic data which uses IP addresses or other numeric identifiers, which analyse navigation and use of the website.

Listed below are the different ways we might obtain your information.

1. From you when you register your details with us or give us the information; via phone, email, our website or when you visit us in our branches
2. When you make a purchase in one of our branches
3. When you complete an enquiry form on our website
4. When you take our online hearing test
5. When you call us to ask for information about our services
6. When you respond to any print adverts including newsletters, letters, leaflets and newspaper adverts
7. When you register your details with a third party where you have consented to their privacy policy

6. Who we may share your information with
We may pass personal details such as your name and address to companies who perform part of our service delivery. We might share your information with the following data processers and third parties:

• Insurance Suppliers - we may pass personal information to our insurers in the event that a claim is made or could be made against us or other members of the bloom hearing specialists company
• Third Parties for Legal Purposes - we may pass your personal information to third parties in order to comply with any legal obligation (including court orders), or to enforce or apply our website, terms and conditions of use of website or other agreements we have with you or to protect bloom hearing specialists’ rights, property and safety or those of our customers, employees or other third parties
• National Health Services - when necessary we may disclose personal information to health authorities, including NHS or national equivalent bodies
• Law Enforcement Services - we may pass personal information to external agencies and organisations, including the police and other law enforcement agencies, for the prevention and detection of fraud (including fraudulent transactions) and criminal activity. These external agencies may check the information we give them against public and private databases and may keep a record of such checks to use in future security checks
• Customer Service Surveys - we share information collection of customer feedback in order to identify strengths and weaknesses within our customer services
• Tele-Appointing Agencies - to help us process personal information but they may not use it for any other purposes. We may use the information we receive from third parties to supplement, improve and add to our databases of customer details
• Mailing Houses - we share information with print production and direct mail fulfilment organisations to enable direct mail printing and posting. All mailing houses will not share information anywhere else and will only use information for the purposes of the mailing.
• Mergers and Acquisitions - in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, we may disclose personal information about customers to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets. In October 2022 OutsideClinic became our parent company, we wrote to existing customers to notify them of this. Founded over 35 years ago, OutsideClinic is a UK based company who specialise in providing eye tests and hearing tests in customers’ homes. For more information about the company please visit https://www.outsideclinic.co.uk. We will continue to provide our services to you and our business may undergo further restructuring following our acquisition by OutsideClinic, which may involve our parent company (OutsideClinic) processing your personal data where it has a legal basis to do so.
• The relevant Ombudsman and Governing Bodies - for example the Information Commissioners Office, the Care Quality Commission and so on
• Dotdigital - to send communications where appropriate see https://dotdigital.com/terms/privacy-policy

7. Third Country Transfers
We are committed to ensuring that any international transfers comply with UK Data Protection Legislation. In most cases, it will be necessary for Bloom Hearing to implement the appropriate contractual safeguards prior to transferring such data.

From time to time we use Dotdigital services who process limited information within the United States of America to send you marketing updates. You can view more about processing details at https://dotdigital.com/terms/privacy-policy.

We also use Google Analytics who process limited cookies information within the United States of America. Google has developed a browser add-on to allow users to opt-out of Google Analytics across all websites which use it. This is also available in the Chrome web store. Click here to read Google's overview of privacy and safeguarding data.

8. How long is the information kept for?
Personal information will be retained by us for up to 7 years in order to provide products and services, including aftercare services, and to maintain records as required to satisfy tax and other legal or regulatory requirements, as well as to protect and defend against claims.

9. What if you don't provide personal information?
If you choose not to provide personal information when requested, we may not be able to provide you with the full range of services which include:

• hearing care assessment and provision of hearing aids
• letting you know when your next appointment is due and reminding you to book a test if you’ve not had one for a while
• special offers on our products and services
• notifying you about changes to our products and services
• responding to queries from you

10. What rights do you have?
You have certain rights under UK data protection legislation, including:

• You have the right to receive information about how we process your personal data as well as to receive a copy of the data we keep about you.
• You have the right to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate information that we hold about you.
• You have the right to ask us to delete your data where there is no good reason for us to keep it anymore. To the extent that we need to keep your data, for example in order for us to comply with our legal obligations or for legal requirements to be established, enforced or defended, we are not required to delete your personal data.
• You may have the right to ask us to restrict our processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend our processing, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• You have the right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, common and machine-readable format ("data portability") and the right to have this data transmitted to another person responsible if the requirement in Article 20 (1) of UK GDPR are present.
• If our processing is based on your consent and you want to withdraw your consent, please send an email to us. In that case, we will immediately delete all identifiable information about you, as mentioned in the section above. Withdrawal of your consent will not affect the legality of the processing of your data that has taken place before the withdrawal.

Data Protection Officer
We care so much about privacy that we have appointed data protection experts, Midland Data Protection to act as our registered Data Protection Officer. Their contact details are below:

• You can email: info@midlanddataprotection.co.uk
• Or call: 0333 577 0646

Please remember to provide as much detail as you can as this will help us to find the information.

If you believe that the processing of your personal data violates data protection law, you also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority of your choice. This also includes the data protection supervisory authority responsible for us:

Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

More details of how the ICO can be contacted can be found here.

11. Security
We will take all reasonable steps to store your personal information securely as we would like you to feel confident in dealing with us on the internet.

Whilst we will take all reasonable precautions to protect your information, please be aware that no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and as a result we cannot provide an absolute guarantee of the security of any information you provide to us.

12. Other Sites
We are not responsible for the privacy practices of sites that are linked to this site via hyperlinks, advertising or otherwise. Some of these sites include:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Google
• Online Directories including Yell
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube

Please take care at all times to check whose site you are visiting. Please note that if you disclose your personal information to third parties through such sites, this policy will not apply, and you will be subject to the privacy policy of that third party.

13. Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics features for Display Advertising. You can opt-out of Google Analytics and disable tracking using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on. The data provided by Google Analytics Demographics we will use to develop our website and content in line with our users’ interests.

14. Cookies and Log Files
Like most websites we may use cookies and web log files to track website usage. A cookie is a tiny data file which resides on your computer which allows us to recognize you as a user when you return to the website using the same computer and web browser. Cookies may also collect and store your personal information. This policy applies to personal information collected via cookies. You can find our cookie policy here.

15. Direct Marketing
If you do not wish to be contacted by us via phone, email, post (about special offers, discounts or other promotional events), write to bloom hearing specialists, Customer Services, 54 Fore Street, Saltash, PL12 6JL, e-mail us on customerservices@bloomhearing.co.uk, call us at 0800 169 4651 or update your preferences on our website.
 
16. Management of changes
From time to time and in line with customer expectations and legislative changes, our privacy policies and procedures will be reviewed and, if appropriate, updated. Such updates will be published on our website and made available in our branches. If you continue to use our services after notice of changes have been published on our website, you hereby provide your consent to the changed practices.

17. Legal Disclaimer
It is possible that we may need to disclose personal information when required by law. We will disclose such information where we have a good-faith belief that such disclosure is necessary to comply with a court order, ongoing judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us or to exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims. 

We also reserve the right to share personal information if we believe (in our sole discretion) it is necessary in order to investigate, prevent, or report illegal activities (including fraud) or situations involving actual or potential threats to the safety of any person or property.

18. Questions or Comments
We care so much about privacy that we have got a helping hand from some data protection experts, Midland Data Protection to act as our registered Data Protection Officer. Their contact details are below:

• You can email: info@midlanddataprotection.co.uk
• Or call: 0333 577 0646

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO):

• By post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
• By phone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number

Alternatively, visit ico.org.uk or email icocasework@ico.org.uk