Smile Solutions Pty Ltd (ABN 28 193 514 103) is a provider of hygiene, general dental and specialist dental care services and is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act). We understand the importance of, and are committed to, protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we manage your personal information (that is, information, or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can be reasonably ascertained from the information or opinion).
When you accept our products or services, contact us, or visit the Smile Solutions website at www.smilesolutions.com.au you agree to the handling of your personal information according to this policy.
Note: ‘Smile Solutions’ ‘We’, ‘Us’, ‘Our’ refers to Smile Solutions Pty Ltd (ABN 28 193 514 103), Core Dental Group Pty Ltd (ABN 37 612 345 794), P S Formula Pty Ltd (ABN 45 095 802 798) and related entities and bodies corporate. ‘You’, ‘Your’ refers to patients or individuals who contact Smile Solutions or access the Smile Solutions website.
Types of information we collect
The types of information we may collect includes (but is not limited to):
- Your name and contact details including postal address, email address, phone numbers;
- Personal details such as age or gender;
- Medicare number and private health insurance details;
- Financial information (for example credit card numbers or bank account details for payment of services); and
- Sensitive information including health information, medical history, dental assessment and treatment plans.
Collection of personal information
Where it is reasonably practicable to do so, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may collect the personal information you directly give us through some of the following means:
- Where you lodge an enquiry through our website located at smilesolutions.com.au;
- When you contact us via telephone, facsimile or email;
- In administering and performing any contracts with service providers;
- From correspondence with you (whether in writing or electronically);
- While conducting customer satisfaction and market research surveys;
- When administering any of our services; and
- As otherwise required to manage our business.
We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent, or otherwise in accordance with the Privacy Act.
You have the right to either refuse to provide details about yourself or remain anonymous. However, some Smile Solutions’ services (for example responding to enquiries and provision of treatment) can be provided only if Smile Solutions has your personal information.
In certain cases we may collect personal information from publicly available sources and third parties such as your treating dental clinician, our business partners, your health insurance provider or Medicare. If we collect personal information about you from a third party we will, where appropriate, request that the third party inform you that we are holding such information, how we will use and disclose it, and that you may contact us to gain access to and correct and update the information.
Use and disclosure of your personal information
Smile Solutions’ primary purpose in collecting your personal information is to facilitate the smooth operation of its service and activities. We may use your personal information for a number of purposes including:
- The provision of dental services including contacting you in relation to dental services and managing your patient file;
- Responding to your enquiries;
- Internal purposes including administration, accounting and reporting statistical information about our products and services;
- To improve the content and layout of the Smile Solutions website and determine general marketplace information about visitors to the website;
- To send information to you about Smile Solutions;
- To comply with any legislation or regulations as required; and
- Otherwise to manage our business.
Smile Solutions may be required to disclose your personal information to third parties where necessary to complete a request from you or to carry out a service. Examples of circumstances where we may disclose to third parties include:
- To healthcare professionals (dentists, dental specialists) where required to provide you dental services;
- To organisations that provide us with technical and support services;
- To your nominated emergency contact;
- To government and regulatory bodies including Medicare;
- To third party health benefit providers and insurance companies (sensitive health information will not be provided);
- To our professional advisors;
- Where required by law.
Storage of personal information
We will hold personal information as either secure physical records, electronically on our dental software system, in cloud storage or on an offsite server. Smile Solutions will take all reasonable steps to ensure all personal information is stored securely and protected from unauthorised access or disclosure.
Your information may be accessed by our employees, dentists, dental specialists or other persons required to provide our services to you.
We maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical security for our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure or modification of personal information. This also applies to disposal of personal information.
We will destroy or de-identify personal information once it is no longer needed for a valid purpose or required to be kept by law.
Direct Marketing
From time to time, Smile Solutions may contact you with information about our products and services, offers, or information about our business partners. If you have chosen to register for email newsletters, Smile Solutions may use your email address to deliver additional information including about updates to the website, new loyalty offers, product launches, competitions, industry events and other such information.
You may opt out at any time if you no longer wish to receive commercial messages from us. You can make this request by contacting our Privacy Officer (see details below).
We will not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes without your consent.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file stored in your computer’s memory or on your hard disk for a pre-defined period of time. We may use cookies from time to time to record non-personal information such as the date, time or duration of your visit, or the pages accessed, for website administration, statistical and maintenance purposes. The default settings of many browsers, such as Internet Explorer, allow for cookies, but it is generally possible for users to erase cookies from their hard drive, block all cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. However, if you do any of these things you may not be able to access or use portions of the Smile Solutions website.
Cookies used on the Smile Solutions website do not and cannot infiltrate a user’s hard drive to gather any confidential information stored on the user’s hard drive.
The cookies used by our website are not “spyware”.
Smile Solutions will not use cookies or the anonymous web usage information it stores to identify you as an individual unless this is required by law.
Website Users
Smile Solutions may provide links to third-party websites that may have privacy policies different from that of Smile Solutions. Smile Solutions is not responsible for the privacy policies of such third party websites and encourages you to read the privacy policies of every website you visit.
Smile Solutions, with the help of Google site statistics, monitors the visitors to the website www.smilesolutions.com.au. Based on your visit to this website, Google and third-party sites may elect to show you similar materials (content, advertising) that directs back to Smile Solutions.
The Smile Solutions website is hosted in Australia. If you use the Smile Solutions website from outside Australia, you are voluntarily transferring content (potentially including personally identifiable information) to Australia and agreeing that Smile Solutions’ collection, use, storage and sharing of that content is exclusively subject to the laws of Australia rather than the laws of the country in which you are located.
If you choose to provide Smile Solutions with personal information, you are consenting to the collection, use and disclosure of that information and to the transfer of that information to our servers in Australia and anywhere else in the world where Smile Solutions may in future have facilities and to its storage in those places.
Accessing and correcting your personal information
You may contact our Privacy Officer to request access to the personal information that we hold about you and/or to make corrections to that information, at any time. On the rare occasions when we refuse access, we will provide you with a written notice stating our reasons for refusing access. We may seek to recover from you reasonable costs incurred for providing you with access to any of the personal information about you held by us.
We are not obliged to correct any of your personal information if we do not agree that it requires correction and we may refuse to do so. If we refuse a correction request, we will provide you with a written notice stating our reasons for refusing.
We will respond to all requests for access to or correction of personal information within a reasonable time.
Overseas transfers of personal information
From time to time we may engage an overseas recipient to provide services to us, such as cloud- based storage solutions. If we do, we will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information the overseas provider holds against loss, misuse and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. By providing us with your personal information, you consent to the storage of such information on overseas servers.
Resolving personal information concerns
If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Policy, or how we handle your personal information, please contact us on the contact details below.
The Privacy Officer, Smile Solutions
1/220 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Email: marketing@smilesolutions.com.au
We take all complaints seriously, and will respond to your complaint within a reasonable period. If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your complaint, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Update to this privacy policy
Smile Solutions may update this privacy policy from time to time in line with the need to accurately reflect its data collection and disclosure practices. An up-to-date copy of our Privacy Policy is available on our website. We encourage you to review this policy from time to time so you will know if it has been changed or updated.
This policy was last updated April 2022.