1. General
At Access-Relief Clinic. (“Access-Relief“), we are committed to maintaining the accuracy, confidentiality, and security of your personal and health information. This Privacy Policy describes the Information that we collect from or about you, how we use it, protect it, and to whom we may disclose that Information.
In carrying out our services, you will need to provide Personal Information. Personal Information is any information which can be used to personally identify you. This means information, which is specific or unique to yourself, including but not limited to, your name, address, phone number, email address, gender, and date of birth. We also collect Health Information which relates to information about your health including your medical condition(s), medical history, medications, and health services that are being, or have been provided to you along with information collected. In this Privacy Policy we refer to your personal information and health information as “Information”.
2. Privacy Policy Effective for New Zealand
Access-Relief Clinic complies with the New Zealand privacy legislation. Your rights, and our obligations, are set out primarily in the Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. If you would like to learn more about your privacy rights, you can visit the website of the Privacy Commission. This Privacy Policy covers only those activities that are subject to the provisions of New Zealand’s privacy laws, as applicable. This Privacy Policy has a limited scope and application. Consequently, the rights and obligations contained in this Privacy Policy may not be available to all individuals.
3. What Information Do We Collect?
We collect Information which enables us to provide our services safely and efficiently. This includes:
When you seek to access our services, you will be required to create a user profile. In creating this user profile, we will collect Information relating, but not limited to, your: Name, physical address, phone number, email address, gender, date of birth, name of registered GP. When you attend a health consultation, including by video conference, the consulting clinician will talk to you and make notes in our PMS, which form part of the Information we have on record for you. Where you have consented to sharing your information with your registered GP or specialist a copy of the consult notes will be electronically sent to your GP and/or specialist.
Once you have created a user profile and at any time while we are providing services to you we may need to collect relevant Information including: relevant medical notes, test results, diagnosis, treatments, medications, and allergies; the record of any medications recently dispensed to you from NZePS; and your NHI number from the Ministry of Health to ensure we have identified you correctly and we can provide services safely to you.
If you do not provide this Information, or agree that we can collect this information from the relevant source (such as your GP or specialist, NZePs, Ministry of Health) we may not be able to provide you with our services.
4. How do we collect your Information?
In all cases we will do our best to collect your Personal Information directly from you. Where your Personal Information is required to be collected from a consultation. However, we also collect your information from third parties (such as your GP or specialist,
NZePS, your NHI from the Ministry of Health). If you do not wish for us to collect this information, please advise us. If you withhold your consent in this regard, we will not seek to obtain your Information from a third party, although this may mean that you cannot access our services.
You can visit our website without telling us who you are or revealing sensitive information about yourself, including your email address. Our web server may collect information related to your visit to our website, including the IP address and domain used to access our website, the type and version of your browser, the website you came from to access our website, the page you entered and exited at, any website page within our website that is viewed by that IP address and what country you are from.
In addition, we collect the Information that you submit to our website, such as your name, address and any other contact or other information that you choose to provide by, for example:
using the “contact us” portion of this website;
using the “book a consultation” portion of this website; or
using the “referrals” portion of this website; or
using the “take your free eligibility test.” portion of this website; or
corresponding with a representative of Access-Relief Clinic via email using the hyperlinks created for that purpose.
5. How Do We Use Cookies?
When you visit our website, we may place a “cookie” on the hard drive of your computer to track your visit. A cookie is a small data file that is transferred to your hard drive through your web browser that can only be read by the website that placed the cookie on your hard drive. The cookie acts as an identification card and allows our website to identify you and to record your passwords and preferences. The cookie allows us to track your visit to the website so that we can better understand your use of our website so that we can customise and tailor the website to better meet your needs.
Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. However, on most web browsers you may change this setting to have your web browser either:
notify you prior to a website placing a cookie on your hard drive so that you can decide whether or not to accept the cookie; or
automatically prevent the placing of a cookie on your hard drive.
It should be noted that if cookies are not accepted, you may not be able to access several web pages found on the website.
6. What about Links to other Websites?
Our website may contain links to or embedded frames of other websites that may be subject to less stringent privacy standards. We will not provide your Information to these third parties.
If you click on a link to such a third party website, a third party may also place a cookie on your hard drive. We cannot assume any responsibility for the privacy practices, policies or actions of the third parties that operate these websites. Access-Relief Clinic is not responsible for how such third parties collect, use or disclose your personal information. You should review the privacy policies of these websites before providing them with personal information.
7. How and Why do we use your Information?
We use your Information in a manner which allows for the safe, efficient and effective carrying out of our services.
To enable us to carry out the services you have requested, we will need to communicate with you using the Information you have shared with us. Primarily this will be via email, although we may also communicate with you via telephone or SMS. We will communicate with you on the following matters (but not limited to):
Appointments, responding to your enquiries, prescriptions, GP correspondence, payments, and payment confirmations.
If you have asked us to put you on an email mailing list to provide you with certain information on a regular basis, or if we send you information about our offers on products and services by email, you may ask us to remove you from the list at any time (using the unsubscribe instructions provided with each email and on the site where you signed up).
Where our web server has collected information from you visiting our website, we use this information to monitor our website’s performance (such as number of visits, average time spent, page views) and for our business purposes such as working to continually upgrade our website.
We may also use your Information, in an aggregate, anonymised form, for other purposes not related to your own immediate treatment, including:
Capacity planning and business management;
Developing improved models of care;
Improving clinical outcomes and patient care; and
Other ideas and opportunities for business development, as they arise.
We will ensure that you are no longer identifiable from data before we use it in any way.
8. Analytics
We use third party analytics tools to help us measure traffic and usage trends for our website. These tools may use cookies and other technologies to collect information about your use of our website. These tools collect information sent by your device or our website and other information that assists us in improving our website. This information may be used to, among other things, analyse and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand your online activity.
For example, we may use Google’s Universal Analytics and Facebook Analytics to better understand who is using our website and how people are using it. Google and Facebook may use for example cookies, pixel tags and other technologies to collect and store information such as website pages visited, places where users click, time spent on each website page, IP address, type of operating system used, location-based data, device ID, search history, and phone number. We may use this information to improve our website and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy (including, for example, for the purposes of sending you marketing materials that we believe may be of interest to you).
9. Disclosure of your Information
Your Information is accessed by persons on a strictly need to know basis only. Where persons are granted access, they are only granted the level of access that they require to enable them to complete their role in our services.
The types of people that may have access to your Information, include:
Administrative staff, GP’s and nurses, IT providers, auditors, parent company?
We will only disclose your Information without your knowledge or consent where we are permitted or required to do so by an applicable law or regulatory requirement.
We hate PHOs too, so will never provide them with information about you. We scorn their back door information pilfering they achieve through Indici and will never use that piece of surveillance software.
10. How do we Protect and Store your Information
We take the security and confidentiality of your Information seriously. We have several measures in place to prevent unwarranted access, misuse, loss, or damage, to your Information. We enforce complex password authentication and undergo regular data security audits with a reputable 3rd party auditor.
Your personal Information is held on both domestic and overseas servers (on the cloud).
Health information is held on secure servers provided by MyPractice. You can visit MyPractice.nz for their privacy policy.
Payment information is managed independently by Windcave. We do not have direct access to your payment details.
We take our obligation to keep your Information secure from unwarranted access, misuse, loss, or damage. Whilst, we have measures in place to meet this obligation and ensure the security of your Information, we cannot guarantee your Information from all accidental or deliberate misuse, loss, or unauthorised disclosure. To the greatest extent permitted by law, we are not liable to you for any damage or loss in this context.
Your Information will be stored for the period required by legislation. Currently this is for a period of 10 years beginning on the day after the date shown in our records as the most recent date we provided you with health care services.
11. Your Consent is Important to Us
By using our website, you have consented to the collection, use and disclosure of your Information as explained in this Privacy Policy.
We may revise this Privacy Policy at any time by amending this page. You are responsible for checking this page from time to time to take notice of any changes made, and any continued use of our website or services will be deemed acceptance by you of any amendments to the current version of the Privacy Policy.
12. Choice/Opt-Out
You may change or withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual obligations and reasonable notice, by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact information set out below. All communications with respect to such withdrawal or variation of consent should be in writing and addressed to our Privacy Officer. In certain circumstances, the withdrawal of consent may render us unable to continue to provide products or services where the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information is necessary to provide the product or service.
13.Updating or Seeking Correction of Your Information
It is important that the information contained in our records is both accurate and current. If you believe any Information we hold is wrong or out of date you can ask for it to be corrected or updated. It is important that you inform us of any changes to your Information during our relationship.
In some circumstances we may not agree with your request to change Information we hold about you. If this happens we will explain why we are unwilling to correct the Information and give you an opportunity to provide us with a statement of the correction you are seeking which we will include on your file.
14. Access to Your Information
You can ask to see or obtain a copy of your Information. If you want to review, verify or correct your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer. Please note that any such communication must be in writing.
When requesting access to your Information, please note that we may request specific information from you to enable us to confirm your identity and right to access, as well as to search for and provide you with the Information that we hold about you. If you require assistance in preparing your request, please contact our Privacy Officer.
You have a right to access the Information that we hold about you in most situations. However, this right is not absolute, and there are instances where applicable law or regulatory requirements allow or require us to refuse to provide some or all the Information that we hold about you. In addition, the Information may have been destroyed, erased or made anonymous in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. In the rare event that we cannot provide you with access to your Information, we will endeavour to inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.
Inquiries or Concerns?
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or concerns about how we manage your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer by telephone, in writing or by e-mail. We will endeavour to answer your questions and advise you of any steps taken to address the issues raised by you. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may seek the assistance of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at PO Box 10 094, Wellington 6143, or by email at enquiries@privacy.org.nz.
Privacy Officer
We have appointed a Privacy Officer to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy. The contact information for our Privacy Officer is as follows:
Access-Relief Clinic
Attention: Privacy Officer
E-mail: admin@AccessRelief.co.nz
Revisions to this Privacy Policy
Access-Relief from time to time, may make changes to this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in its legal or regulatory obligations or in the manner in which we deal with your Information. We will post any revised version of this Privacy Policy on our website, and we encourage you to refer back to it on a regular basis.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on April 26, 2024.
Interpretation of this Privacy Policy
Any interpretation associated with this Privacy Policy will be made by our Privacy Officer
This Privacy Policy includes examples but is not intended to be restricted in its application to such examples; therefore, where the word “including” is used, it shall mean “including without limitation”.
This Privacy Policy does not create or confer upon any individual any rights or impose upon Access-Relief Clinic any rights or obligations outside of, or in addition to, any rights or obligations imposed by New Zealand’s privacy laws, as applicable. Should there be, in a specific case, any inconsistency between this Privacy Policy and New Zealand’s privacy laws, as applicable, this Privacy Policy shall be interpreted, in respect of that case, to give effect to, and comply with, such privacy laws.
