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Privacy Policy

hear.com strives to provide the best service possible and as part of that, the more we know about your needs, the better we can customise our services. We respect your privacy and safeguard your information. To preserve your trust, we pledge to protect your privacy by adhering to the practices described below.

BY USING OUR SITE, YOU CONSENT TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  • Information Collection
  • Information Use And Sharing
  • What Are Lawful Grounds That We Rely On To Process Your Personal Information?
  • Third-Party Websites
  • Security
  • Notice Of Personal Information Privacy Practices
  • How We May Use And Disclose Your Personal Information
  • Your Rights To Access And Control Your Personal Information
  • International Data Transfers
  • Children
  • Newsletter
  • Contact Information

 

  • INFORMATION COLLECTION

We collect two types of information: personal information (including health information) and other information we get from your use of our services. We primarily collect information from you and shall inform you where required by law if we collect information about you from a third party.

Personal Information is information that is associated with your personal identity or can be used to personally identify you. We hear.com (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2020/221804/07 (“hear.com”) have the registered address of Mazars House, Rialto Road, Grand Mooring’s Precinct, Century City and our affiliates and subsidiaries are the responsible parties for purpose of the personal information that you submit to us and/or that may be collected through any communications with you.

hear.com is committed to comply with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act, No 4 of 2013 (“POPI”). It is not intended that any provision of this Privacy Policy contravenes any provision of POPI.  Therefore, all provisions of this Privacy Policy must be treated as being qualified, to the extent necessary, to ensure that the provisions of POPI are complied with.

We use personal information to understand your needs and interests, and to provide you with better products and services. Once you choose to provide us with personal information, we will only use it to support your customer relationship with hear.com. We take the trust you place in us seriously. We only collect as much information as we need. We will not sell, rent, or lease your personal information to any third-party. While using our site, we may ask you to provide us with certain Personal Information that can be used to contact or identify you. “Personal information” may include, but is not limited to your name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number or date of birth.

We may also collect and process any special Personal Information about you such as information about your health life. Where we process special Personal Information, we only do so where we have obtained your explicit consent or where such processing is necessary for purposes of carrying out our legal obligations and exercising specific legal rights.

Information we get from your use of our services is data about usage and service operation that is not associated with a specific identity and cannot be used to identify an individual.

We collect and analyse non-personal information to evaluate how visitors use our website. Aggregate data we collect may include pages visited on the site, unique URLs visited within the site, browser type. Most non-personal information is collected via cookies or other analysis technologies.

Cookies are files with a small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent; however, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our site. Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers); however, we have no access to or control over these cookies. You warrant that all information (including Personal Information) that you provide to us is accurate, truthful and current, and agree not to impersonate or misrepresent any other person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with anyone or entity.  Failure to adhere to this requirement will entitle us, among other things, to terminate your use of the site and our services.

  • INFORMATION USE AND SHARING

We will use your information to respond to you, personalise your experience, improve our website and improve customer service. Where you have specifically consented, we may contact you via mail and email in the future to tell you about specials, new products or services, or changes to this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”). You may withdraw your consent to receiving this type of information at any time by emailing us on service-za@hear.com.

  • WHAT ARE LAWFUL GROUNDS THAT WE RELY ON TO PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

When we process, collect or store your Personal Information, we do so on the following basis ―

  • where you have given your explicit consent for specific forms of processing of your Personal Information, which consent you may revoke at any time;
  • where it is necessary to process your Personal Information in connection with the performance of a contract that we have with you;
  • where we are required to use your Personal Information to comply with our legal obligations, a request from a regulator or court of law or otherwise permitted by law;
  • to pursue our legitimate interest provided that we only use your Personal Information to pursue our legitimate interests where your interests and fundamental rights or freedoms do not override those interests; and
  • for any other purpose that you have agreed with us.

We will only use your Personal Information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your Personal Information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your Personal Information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

  • THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES

This Privacy Policy only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you on www.hear.com/za. Other websites that may be accessible through this website have their own privacy policies and data collection, use and disclosure practices. If you link to any such website, we urge you to review the website’s privacy policy. We are not responsible for the policies or practices of third parties.

You agree that we are not liable for any of the following ―

  • the content, security, operation, use, accuracy or completeness of any such third-party websites; or the products or services that may be offered or obtained through them; or the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information obtained from a third-party website;
  • the ownership or right of use of any licensor of any software provided through any third-party website;
  • any content featured on a third-party website that are accessed through the links found on the site; and/or
  • any failure or problem that affects the products or services of a third-party website, for example any telecommunication service provider, internet service provider, electricity supplier, local or other authority.
  • SECURITY

We will treat your Personal Information as strictly confidential.  We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information and take appropriate legal, technical and organizational measures to ensure that your Personal Information is kept secure and is protected against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage, alteration, disclosure or access.

We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment Gateway Providers database. This database is only accessible by those authorised to access such systems, and these individuals are required to keep the information confidential. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach or unauthorised disclosure where we are legally required to do so.

We will where legally required, promptly notify you if we become aware of any unauthorised use, disclosure or processing of your Personal Information; provide you with reasonable evidence of our compliance with our obligations under this Privacy Policy on reasonable notice and request; and upon your request, promptly return or destroy any and all of your Personal Information in our possession or control.

We will not retain your Personal Information longer than the period for which it was originally required, unless we are required by law to do so, or you consent to us retaining such information for a longer period.  Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure it is destroyed or deleted in a secure manner and, where required by applicable law we will notify you when such information has been destroyed or deleted.

We will do our best to protect your Personal Information, and we will use technology that will help us to do this, however, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information transmitted to our site.  Any transmission of your information on the site is entirely at your own risk.  Once your information is received by the site, we and/or our third party service providers shall use strict procedures and security features to try and prevent unauthorised access.

  • NOTICE OF SPECIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION PRIVACY PRACTICES

THIS NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES (“NOTICE”) DESCRIBES HOW SPECIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION INCLUDING MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU MAY GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

We are required by law to protect the privacy of Special Personal Information that may reveal your identity, and to provide you with a copy of this Notice which describes the Special Personal Information privacy practices of hear.com.

If you have any questions about this Notice or would like further information, please contact us at:

service-za@hear.com

  • HOW WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR SPECIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use and disclose your Special Personal Information for the following purposes:

Treatment. We may use and disclose Special Personal Information about you, including health or medical information such hearing test findings, in order to ensure that you receive proper medical treatment. For example, we may share your Special Personal Information to another physician, audiologist, or health care provider involved in your care.

Payment. We may use your Special Personal Information or share it with others so that we may obtain payment for your health care services. For example, we may share information about you with your health insurance company in order to obtain reimbursement after we have treated you. In some cases, we may share information about you with your health insurance company to determine whether it will cover your treatment.

Health Care Operations. We may use your Special Personal Information or share it with others in order to conduct our business operations. For example, we may use your medical information to review our treatment of you and the services we provided and to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you. Also, we may need to discuss your medical information with companies and individuals necessary to complete orders for hearing care devices and for the purpose of consultation and recommendation of said devices.

Appointment Reminders. In the course of providing treatment to you, we may use your Special Personal Information to contact you with a reminder that you have an appointment for treatment or services. We may also use your Special Personal Information in order to recommend possible treatment alternatives or health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you, where you have consented to receive such information.

Business Associates. We may disclose your Special Personal Information to contractors, agents and other business associates who need the information in order to assist us with obtaining payment or carrying out our business operations. For example, we may provide your name, address, and other Special Personal Information to a company that helps us mail important health communications to you. If we do disclose your Special Personal Information to a business associate, we will have a written contract with our business associate that ensures that our business associate also protects the privacy of your Special Personal Information.

As Required By Law. We may use or disclose your Special Personal Information if we are required by law to do so. We will also notify you of these uses and disclosures if notice is required by law.

Workers’ Compensation. We may disclose your Special Personal Information for workers’ compensation or similar programs that provide benefits for work-related injuries.

Public Health Activities. We may disclose your Special Personal Information to authorised public health officials so they may carry out their public health activities under law, such as controlling disease or public health hazards. We may also disclose your Special Personal Information to a person who may have been exposed to a communicable disease or be at risk for contracting or spreading the disease if a law permits us to do so. We may also release your Special Personal Information to government disease registries. Finally, we may release some Special Personal Information about you to your employer if your employer hires us to provide you with a physical exam and we discover that you have a work-related injury or disease that your employer must know about in order to comply with employment laws.

Victims of Abuse, Neglect, or Domestic Violence. We may release your Special Personal Information to a public health authority that is authorised to receive reports of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.

Health Oversight Activities. We may release your Special Personal Information to government agencies authorised to conduct audits, investigations, and inspections of hear.com. These government agencies monitor the operation of the health care system, government benefit programs, and compliance with government regulatory programs and the relevant laws.

Product Monitoring, Repair and Recall. We may disclose your Special Personal Information to a person or company that required by law to (1) reporting or tracking product defects or problems; (2) repairing, replacing, or recalling defective or dangerous products; or (3) monitoring the performance of a product after it has been approved for use by the general public.

Lawsuits and Disputes. We may disclose your Special Personal Information if we are ordered to do so by a court or administrative tribunal that is handling a lawsuit or other dispute. We may also disclose your information in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful requests by someone else involved in the dispute, but only if efforts have been made to tell you about the request or to obtain a court order protecting the information from further disclosure and only with a written certification by the party issuing the subpoena in accordance with the law.

Law Enforcement. We may disclose your Special Personal Information to law enforcement officials for certain reasons, such as complying with court orders, assisting in the identification of fugitives or the location of missing persons, or if necessary to report a crime that occurred on our property.

To Avert a Serious and Imminent Threat To Health or Safety. We may use your Special Personal Information or share it with others when necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety, or the health or safety of another person or the public. In such cases, we will only share your information with someone able to help prevent the threat. We may also disclose your Special Personal Information to law enforcement officers if you tell us that you participated in a violent crime that may have caused serious physical harm to another person, or if we determine that you escaped from lawful custody (such as a prison or mental health institution).

Inmates and Correctional Institutions. If you are an inmate or you are detained by a law enforcement officer, we may disclose your Special Personal Information to the prison officers or law enforcement officers if necessary to provide you with health care, or to maintain safety, security, and good order at the place where you are confined. This includes sharing information that is necessary to protect the health and safety of other inmates or persons involved in supervising or transporting inmates.

Coroners, Medical Examiners, and Funeral Directors. In the unfortunate event of your death, we may disclose your Special Personal Information to a coroner or medical examiner. We may also release this information to funeral directors as necessary to carry out their duties consistent with applicable law.

Organ and Tissue Donation. In the unfortunate event of your death, if you are an organ donor we will disclose your Special Personal Information to organisations involved in organ donation, organ and tissue procurement and transplantation, as necessary to facilitate organ, tissue, or eye donation and transplantation.

  • YOUR RIGHTS TO ACCESS AND CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Subject to certain exceptions, you have rights under POPI in relation to our use of your Personal Information including the right to ―

  • review, request access or copies of your Personal Information which is within our custody and control together with details about how we use that information. If you think any of the Personal Information that we hold about you is inaccurate, you may also request us to correct or rectify it;
  • in certain circumstances, to require us to stop processing your Personal Information;
  • to request that we delete or erase Personal Information in certain circumstances (such as in accordance with local data retention legal obligations);
  • withdraw any consent to processing that you have given us and prevent further processing if there is no other legitimate ground upon which we can process your Personal Information;
  • restrict processing: you can require certain Personal Information to be marked as restricted for processing in certain circumstances;
  • object to automated decision-making, including profiling; and
  • lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator whose physical address is 33 Hoofd Street Forum III, 3rd Floor Braampark, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa or email them on inforeg@justice.gov.za.

In relation to all of these rights, please email us at the email address at service-za@hear.com. Please note that we may, where permitted under applicable law, charge a small administrative fee and/or request proof of identity.  We will respond to your requests within all applicable timeframes.

In certain circumstances (for example where required or permitted by law), we might not be able to provide you with access to some of your Personal Information, but where appropriate we will notify you of the reasons for this.

  • INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

We primarily process your Personal Information within South Africa but we are part of an international group of companies and may, from time to time, transfer, store or host your Personal Information on servers outside of South Africa such as Germany or the United States of America. Should your Personal Information be transferred outside of South Africa, we will at all times ensure that appropriate security safeguards are in place to secure, protect such Personal Information and take measures to ensure that Personal Information handled will receive at least the level of protection as required by all applicable laws.

YOU HEREBY CONSENT TO US TRANSFERING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION OUTSIDE OF SOUTH AFRICA AS SET OUT IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY.

  • CHILDREN

The site is not intended for children and we do not knowingly or intend to collect Personal Information of children. If you are under the age of 18 (eighteen) years old do not use our site without the consent of your legal guardian.

  • NEWSLETTER

Should you no longer wish to receive our informative emails, you may click on the unsubscribe link located within each message received and/or you may contact us at service-za@hear.com.

hear.com/za is an official sister company and SA portal of audibene.

  • CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have additional privacy questions or if you are otherwise concerned with our personal information practices, then you may contact us here: Data-protection@hear.com

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on the site. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such changes.

This policy was last modified on 23 June 2021.