Privacy Policy
You have trusted us to take care of your eyes and/or your hearing needs. You can also trust us with your personal details. Blink’s Privacy Policy means that we respect any personal information that you provide us with, or that we ascertain from your eye or hearing tests, from any purchase of our products and services or any other interactions with us.
Who we are and our contact details:
Blink Bridge of Allan Ltd, 80 Henderson Street, Bridge of Allan FK9 4HS
We are a Data Controller as per UK Data Protection Regulations.
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.blinkbridgeofallan.co.uk (the website) or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/blinkbridgeofallan or in store.
What personal information is collected?
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 eye/hearing health/conditions, general health condition and spectacles, contact lens or hearing prescriptions; (b) current medication details; and (c) correspondence between optometrist and/or audiologist and your GP/ophthalmologist
your examination 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
information that you provide by filling in forms on website
details of your visit to the website and any transactions you carry out on the website
any other information voluntarily provided to us by you from time to time
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 health care providers, institutions or individuals you have authorised to provide information on your behalf (e.g. parents or guardians), third party service providers, government, tax or law enforcement agencies, and other third parties. Such information can also be combined with information from public sources.
How is that information used?
Blink may use your personal information for the purposes of:
your eye 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 Blink’s 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
carrying out security checks to protect against fraudulent transactions at or following any purchase or order you make to prevent and detect criminal activities. For example, we may undertake verification checks to identify any discrepancies with your payment details
responding to and addressing any claims made against us
to comply with laws or regulations applicable to Blink, including prevention and/or detection of non-compliance
maintaining records for tax, compliance with laws, defence of claims and other corporate purposes
managing and administrating insurance claims:
To provide you with the products and services described above, we hold copies of your personal information.
If you do not register as a customer online but contact us through the website (and/or by email at reception@blinkbridgeofallanco.uk) you will be providing us with personal information about yourself, including your email address, name, and contact details. This may also include medical information, where volunteered by you.
You may also be required to supply personal information (but not medical information) by entering a competition on our website. We will only use such information for the purposes of providing a reply, reviewing any feedback, or improving the website.
If you are simply browsing our website, we will not collect any information which will identify you by name. However, 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.
How long we’ll keep your data?
Your data will be kept in line with General Optical Council regulations and College Optometrists best guidance for storage of clinical records and contact data. Suggested lengths of time for retaining records are:
adult patients – 10 years, even if the patient has subsequently died
children and young people – 10 years after they were last seen or until the patient’s 25th birthday if later. If the child or young person has died, keep the records for 10 years after they were last seen
Data will be kept confidential and secure. There is also an obligation to satisfy ourselves that there is no further need of the record before destroying it.
If your personal data will be shared with anyone else?
We may from time to time disclose your personal information to third parties, including in the following circumstances:
We use third parties to help us process personal information, but they may not use it for other purposes. We may use the information we receive from third parties to supplement, improve and add to our databases of customer details
We may disclose personal information to health authorities, including NHS or national equivalent bodies
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
We may pass personal information to our insurers if a claim is made or could be made against us
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
If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party (or subject to a reorganisation within our corporate group), personal information held by us about customers will be one of the transferred assets
We may pass certain personal information to your employer, where you have been referred to us as a corporate eyecare customer
We may pass your personal information to third parties in order to comply with any legal obligation (including court orders)
How is personal information processed?
Your personal information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in one or more countries outside the EU. For transfers of your personal data to third parties outside of the EU, we take additional steps in line with data protection laws. In addition, we take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is adequately protected in accordance with the requirements of the UK data protection law.
How to update or amend personal information
You can update or amend your personal information our Blink practice or by notifying reception@blinkbridgeofallan.co.uk
What rights do you have?
You have certain rights under UK data protection legislation, including the option to:
access your personal information – we may charge a fee where we are permitted to do so by law
rectify your personal information if it is inaccurate or incomplete
erase your personal information and prevent further processing in specific circumstances and where there is no other lawful ground for continuing to retain and process that information. These include for example:
where the personal data is no longer necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was originally collected/processed
where you withdraw consent
where you object to us processing your personal information
block or suppress processing of personal information. While we are entitled to store your personal information, we cannot further process it if you request it to be blocked
move, transfer or port your personal information to another organisation; and
object to the processing of your personal information:
if processing is based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority
processed for direct marketing
processed for purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics
To request any of the above rights, please contact Blink.
Applicants acting on behalf of a patient, can access their data for the length of time that we will keep the records. Applicant must prove that they have a right to see the data, either because they have written authority from the patient or because they have Power of Attorney. Access to the record will be given within the time limit set out in the Act.
We will try to assist you to understand your record by explaining its content and abbreviations
What choices do you have?
Blink 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 and notices to remind you when your current prescription expires.
You may change your marketing preferences at any time or choose to stop receiving marketing emails from us either in store or by emailing reception@blinkbridgeofallan.co.uk.
Use of Cookies
A Cookie is a small text file containing information that a website transfers to your computers hard drive for record keeping purposes. A cookie can not give us access to your computer or to your personal information. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies: consult your browsers manual or online help if you want information on restricting or disabling the browsers handling of cookies. If you disable cookies, you can still view the information on the website, but the functionality of certain areas may be reduced.
Protecting personal information
We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access and use.
As effective as modern security practices are, no physical or electronic security system is entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the complete security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the internet. Any transmission is at your own risk.
In the event that there is an interception of your personal information or unauthorised access or use of our database, we will not be liable or responsible for any resulting misuse of your personal information.
We have no control over the contents of third-party sites or resources which are linked to our website, and we accept no responsibility or liability for them or the privacy practices they use or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such websites or resources.
How you can lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
If you have a complaint, you can use the services of the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) on:
e: enquiries@opticalcomplaints.co.uk
Privacy Policy updates
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any updates will take effect as soon as they are posted on our website. last updated February 2022