Privacy Notice

This privacy notice sets out how The Endocrine Group Limited (trading as “ERH Associates”) (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collect, use, and disclose information collected through use of our website, mobile applications and other digital platforms (the “Platforms”), when you receive endocrinology services through one of our ERH Associates clinics (“Clinical Services”), and in any other interactions with you.

We may also collect, use and disclose information to the extent applicable law does not prohibit it.

1. What kind of Information do we collect?
Information we collect may include personal information about you. The personal information we collect may include your name, date of birth, address, email address, telephone number, gender, relationship status, disability status, NHI number, passport or birth certificate, or other information on your use of our services.

2. Health information:
With your consent, we may also collect health information (as defined in the Health Information Privacy Code 2020) to register you as a patient with ERH Associates and/or to provide Clinical Services to you. Where you wish to receive our Clinical Services, certain personal information is mandatory to be collected by us under law, such as your NHI number. We may also request certain information from you in order to register you as a patient or provide Clinical Services to you, such as:

a. information relating to your eligibility for publicly funded treatment and/or funding from your health insurer, if applicable;
b. information relevant to the health and wellbeing of children that may be born as a result of our Clinical Services, including information about children currently or previously in your care; and
c. optional information that you may choose to provide to us in order to optimise our provision of Clinical Services to you, such as your medical records, test results, information from your other health providers, and other information about your medical history, fertility and pregnancy history, medications, lifestyle, menstrual cycle; and
d any other information described in our Registration & Privacy Form and Health Questionnaire, which will be provided to you upon registering as a patient, for the purposes set out in those documents.
We may also collect health information from you in the course of providing the Clinical Services to you. All health information will be handled by us in accordance with our obligations under the Health Information Privacy Code 2020.

3. Collection of Information:
The information collected by us may also include personal information:
a. provided by you through registering an account on the Platforms, submitting an online form, request for information, survey or application through the Platforms or otherwise submitting information to us through the Platforms or post or upload to the Platforms;
b. relating to interactions and transactions you carry out on, or through, the Platforms;
c. through tracking your use of the Platforms, including the content you access and any services you utilise and information collected through automated technology as further detailed below;
d. provided by you when you register with one of our clinics, including when you complete our Registration & Privacy Form, and/or attend your first appointment;
e. provided by you in the course of receiving our Clinical Services; or
f. provided to us by you through any other method (including, without limitation, meetings, correspondence and discussions).

You may provide information to be published or displayed (“posted”) on public areas of the Platforms, or transmitted to other users of the Platforms or third parties (collectively “User Contributions”). If you use any discussion forum feature on the Platforms, be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be viewed and used by other users. Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. We cannot control the actions of those with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions.

4. Consequences for failure to provide:
You may decide not to provide your personal information to us. However, if you do not provide it, we may not be able to provide you with access to the Platforms or certain parts of the Platforms, or you may not be able to fully utilise all of our products and services. You acknowledge and agree that incomplete disclosure of information relating to your medical history may affect medical management going forward, and we are not liable for any adverse outcomes relating to incomplete disclosure of information requested by us in connection with our provision of Clinical Services.

5. Automatic Data Collection Technologies:
As you navigate through and interact with the Platforms, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. Some of this information may be linked to you personally. This information helps our Platforms function correctly, helps us understand the needs of our users and may be used for the other purposes set out in this privacy notice. Examples of this information include:

a. website related traffic data, location data, logs and other communication data;
b. data related to your use of the Platforms. This includes the pages you visit, the resources and services that you access; the time you spend on each page, the date and time of your visit, referring pages (pages you came from or go to) and statistical and other aggregated data derived from your use of the Platforms;
c. information about your device, computer and network connection, including your IP address, operating system, hardware version and browser type; and
d. if you allow our Platforms to deliver content based on your location (for example by enabling this feature on your mobile device) we may collect location data (such as through GPS, Bluetooth, or WiFi signals) including for the automated delivery of relevant content and advertising to you.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include log files, usage monitoring software and cookies. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on a user’s device that can identify the device you are working from. The cookie file gives us details such as your IP address, platform, browser and domain (whether you are accessing the Platforms from NZ or elsewhere). We may use the information generated by cookies to personalise your experience on the Platforms, make it easier for you to navigate our Platforms, and improve your experience by storing your search, posting and other viewing and usage history, and your login details (if you choose) enabling you to use certain services as a registered user without having to log on each time. We may also use cookies to provide you with certain advertisements which may be of interest to you. If you disable cookies it may limit your access to some of the Platforms’ content and features. You can choose to refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser and/or deleting them from your hard drive. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use our Platforms, but your experience may be affected.

6. Other Tracking Technologies:
We may advertise in a number of ways, including online through managed social media presences, and on other unaffiliated sites and mobile applications. To understand how our advertising campaigns are performing, and better understand the visitors to our Platforms, we may collect certain information via our Platforms through our advertising service providers. We or our vendors use several common online tracking tools to collect information about our users, such as browser cookies, web beacons, and other similar technologies. The information we collect includes IP addresses, the number of page visits, pages viewed via our Platforms, search engine referrals, browsing activities over time and across other websites following your visit to one of our Platforms or applications, and responses to advertisements and promotions on the websites and applications where we advertise.

7. Third Parties, Advertising and third party links:
We may allow third-party companies to place ads and collect information when you visit our Platforms. This may include information that will not identify you personally (such as click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) and other information such as precise geo location and user device identification. This information is collected to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. The Platforms may also contain links to a variety of advertising and third party platforms and website sources. Some of these links may request or record information from users, use cookies or other methods to collect information from you. We have no control over the content or privacy notice practices of such sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of such sites before engaging in any activity with them.

8. Social Media and APIs:
Our Platforms include social media features such as the Facebook like button, twitter and widgets, the share button or interactive programs that run on our site. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you visit on our site, and how long for. If you’re a member of a social media site, the interfaces may allow the social media site to connect your visits to this site with other personal information. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Platforms. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy notice of the third party providing it and to the maximum extent permitted by law we accept no responsibility for the actions of those third parties.

a. We may provide an application programming interface (API) to enable third party applications to interface with our Platforms. Some applications enable you to interact with us through the API in a way that requires you to log in. To do this, most of these applications will direct you through a process where you are able to let the application connect to your account.
b. If you allow an application to connect to your account on our Platforms, including if you set up your account on our Platforms using an API with a third party social media platform, that application will be able to access information that you can see when you are logged into our Platforms. You should only allow applications you trust to access your account on our Platforms.
c. If you set up your account on our Platforms using an API with a third party social media platform, you also consent to us obtaining and using your information from such platform.

9. Use of information:
Your personal information (including health information) may be used by us (and our employees, officers, agents, contractors and affiliates) for any purpose which is stated to you at the time of collection or that you otherwise authorise and for the following purposes:
a. to register you as a patient;
b. to verify your eligibility for publicly funded treatment and/or funding from your health insurer;
c. to provide Clinical Services to you;
d. to manage claims for payment, including with your health insurer;
e. verification of your identity for use of the Platforms, and to assist you if you forget your username or password for any of the services we provide to you via the Platforms;
f. to assist in providing better services to you by tailoring them to meet your needs;
g. to provide you with further information about us or other platforms or goods or services offered by us or our related companies or third parties or which we consider may be of interest to you;
h. to carry out marketing, promotional and publicity purposes including direct marketing, market research and surveys;
i. to keep the Platforms relevant and of interest to users;
j. to customise the Platforms to your preferences and to show you advertising and information that is most relevant to you and your interests based on the information you have provided to us or we have otherwise collected;
k. to assist us in performing our functions and activities;
l. to communicate and manage our relationships with stakeholders;
m. analysis in aggregate form (identifiable characteristics removed so that you will remain anonymous);
n. to communicate with you; and
o. to comply with our legal obligations, including the requirements of external auditors or ethics committees.

10. Information Sharing and Disclosure:
We may disclose your personal information:
a. to third parties in accordance with the uses set out above;
b. to another clinic, if you are allocated to another provider of publicly funded endocrinology treatment and you agree to our disclosure of your medical records to that clinic;
c. to your partner, if you agree to the use of a joint medical file for fertility investigations and treatment;
d. if you have requested or authorised us to do so, including via our Registration & Privacy Form (and only to the third parties and for the purposes identified in that form);
e. to our contractors, suppliers and other third parties to enable them to provide services and products to us and you, including pathology labs, radiologists, allied health professionals, and other providers of services relating to the Platforms;
f. to other medical professionals for the purpose of obtaining advice, opinions and clinical input relating to the Clinical Services we provide to you;
g. by sharing aggregated demographic information about our user base with our affiliates, partners and advertisers;
h. when we believe it is appropriate to comply with the law, facilitate court proceedings or to protect our rights;
i. where we are authorised or required to do so by law.

You acknowledge and agree that, in accordance with paragraph 10h, in the event of your non-payment of valid fees relating to our provision of Clinical Services, we may disclose your name and contact details (including your address) to third party debt collectors for the purpose of debt recovery.

11. Data Access and Correction:
Under the Privacy Act 2020 and Health Information Privacy Code 2020, you have rights of access to and correction of personal information that we hold. This can be done by contacting us by email at endo@fa.co.nz or by mail to Fertility Associates Ascot Central, 7 Ellerslie Racecourse Drive, Remuera, Auckland.

12. Commercial electronic messages:
If you provide us with electronic contact details, you agree that we may send you commercial electronic messages (e.g. texts and emails) for any of the purposes set out in this privacy notice.

13. Changes in privacy notice:
We reserve the right to make changes to our privacy notice or alter our Platforms’ functionality, or the way in which we provide services to you. Any changes made will be updated in this privacy notice accordingly, so we encourage you to review the policy for the latest information on our privacy practices.

14. Contact Details:
If you have any questions about our privacy notice, or any other matter, please feel free to contact us. You can reach us in one of the following ways:
Contact: Privacy Officer: Dr Sasha Nair
Phone: (09) 520 9520
Email: endo@fa.co.nz 
Mail:Fertility Associates Ascot Central, 7 Ellerslie Racecourse Drive, Remuera, Auckland.

This privacy notice was last updated on 19/05/2023.