Privacy Policy
Our Site may use DentalAttendant™, an advanced technology including a chatbot that handles patient conversations digitally. DentalAttendant™ functions similarly to a member of the dental administrative staff, allowing you to schedule appointments and receive dental services. DentalAttendant™ can also provide answers to a range of topics related to dentistry and your dental needs. DentalAttendant™ is governed by a separate Privacy Policy, which will be presented to you when you interact with DentalAttendant™.
1. Scope
1.1 The Scope of This Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes the principles we use to protect the privacy of Personal Information and Personal Health Information in our possession or control, in accordance with the law. When we refer to “us,” “we,” or “our,” we mean Deep Dental Clinic. This Privacy Policy applies to you when you engage or interact with our Site as a patient, a potential patient, or when you otherwise engage or interact with us, other than through DentalAttendant™.
1.2 Changes to this Privacy Policy
In order to ensure that this Privacy Policy is kept up to date, we reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time, but we will give you notice if we do so.
2. Terms Used In This Privacy Policy
2.1 Personal Information
Personal Information means any information about an identifiable individual in oral or recorded form, such as its name, telephone number, address, email address and date of birth. For example, information like your name and phone number are Personal Information.
Any data that has been collected in which all personal identifiers have been removed, such that the information could not reasonably be used to identify the individual, is not considered Personal Information.
2.2 Personal Health Information
Personal Health Information means any Personal Information relating to the physical or mental health of an individual, including information that consists of the medical history of the individual’s family, and is consistent with the definition as set out in relevant privacy and health privacy legislation. For example, information related to your dental health or dental needs is Personal Health Information.
3. Collection And Use Of Personal Information
3.1 Accountability
Deep Dental has established policies and procedures to comply with this Privacy Policy, and has designated a Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) as the contact person who is accountable for our compliance. The CPO’s information is contained at the end of this document.
3.2 Obtaining Consent
We will obtain consent before or when we collect, use or disclose Personal Information about an individual, except where otherwise required by law. You can provide consent to the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information about yourself expressly, implicitly or through a substitute decision-maker, all as more fully described in the next section.
3.3 Information Collected
(a) Patient Registration and Communication:
If you would like to register as a new patient or identify yourself as an existing patient, we may require you to provide some Personal Information, including your name, email address, address, date of birth, and phone number. You may provide additional information needed to build your profile if you’re a new patient or access your profile if you’re an existing patient. A dental admin may contact you to:
- Respond to any enquiry, comment, or request for information.
- Schedule, modify, or cancel appointments.
- Send any requested information.
- Investigate any privacy breach.
- Track problematic situations.
- Help provide you with the services you request.
- Otherwise communicate with you.
(b) Dental Information:
Dental, medical, and health history, and other information that you provide to us or that we gather in relation to providing you services.
(c) Social Media:
We may share information about ourselves and our services on social media. Similarly, any person who sends or accepts our “friend request” on social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) or otherwise “follows” us on social media makes available to us any Personal Information that they share. We may see or consult information made available on social media, such as the name, age, city, and place of work, as well as any other information available on such page. You can always choose the audience that can see what you share by adjusting your social media settings.
(d) Site Improvement:
To better understand how our users access and use our Site, both on an aggregated and individualized basis, in order to improve our Site and respond to user desires and preferences, and for other research and analytical purposes.
(e) News and Offers:
We use your information to send you news and newsletters or special offers, subject to your consent and in accordance with applicable laws.
(f) Internet Information:
As you use our Site, we may collect Personal Information such as:
- Standard information from your web browser (such as browser type and browser language).
- Your Internet Protocol address.
- The actions you take on our Site or other services, such as the web pages viewed and the links clicked.
- Any other information described below through the use of commonly-used information-gathering tools.
Please note that while persistent cookies – such as preference cookies storing information like your preferred language and font size – can be blocked, temporary cookies – such as process cookies, session state cookies, and security cookies – are essential to ensure the integrity and security of your online session and cannot be blocked.
3.4 Limits for collecting Personal Information
We collect Personal Health Information and other Personal Information about you only by fair and lawful means, either from you directly or, should you subscribe to our services, from the health information custodians that you have visited and in accordance with your consent form(s). We will keep Personal Information only as long as necessary for the identified purposes.
4. Sharing Of Personal Information And Other Data Collected
4.1 Personal Information
(a) We will use Personal Information and/or Personal Health Information only for the reasons it was collected, unless you give consent to use or disclose it for another reason or the law authorizes such other use or disclosure.
(b) We may share your Personal Information and/or Personal Health Information with affiliates and service providers involved in delivering our services, providing technical or customer support, and conducting customer research or surveys. These service providers are obligated to protect your Personal Information and are only given the information necessary to perform their designated functions on a “need-to-know” basis. We do not authorize any service providers to use or disclose your Personal Information for their own marketing or other purposes. If required, we may also share your Personal Information with our financial, insurance, legal, accounting, or other advisors that provide professional services to us, provided that such third parties are bound to preserve the confidentiality of any Personal Information and to use it only to provide such services and for no other purposes.
(c) We may share your Personal Information and/or Personal Health Information to communicate with other treating health-care providers, including specialists and general dentists who are the referring dentists and/or peripheral dentists. This allows us to maintain communication and contact with you, distribute health-care information, and book and confirm appointments. It also allows us to efficiently follow up for treatment, care, and billing; for teaching and demonstration purposes on an anonymous basis; to complete and submit dental claims for third-party adjudication and payment; to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, including delivering patients’ charts and records to the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario in a timely fashion, when required, according to the provisions of the Regulated Health Professions Act; to comply with agreements/undertakings entered into voluntarily by the member with the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario, including the delivery and/or review of patients’ charts and records to the College in a timely fashion for regulatory and monitoring purposes; to deliver your charts and records to the dentist’s insurance carrier to enable the insurance company to assess liability and quantify damages, if any; and to otherwise assist this office in complying with all regulatory requirements and to comply generally with the law.
(d) Despite the foregoing, your Personal Information and/or Personal Health Information may be transferred to a potential purchaser or other corporation in connection with a business transaction or corporate reorganization. For example, if Deep Dental Clinic is to be sold, merged, amalgamated, or if substantially all of its assets are to be sold or disposed of, the communication of such information may be necessary for the purposes of deciding whether to proceed with the sale or other transaction.
(e) Finally, we reserve the right to use or disclose Personal Information if we reasonably believe that such use or disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, comply with a judicial proceeding, a court order, or a legal process, or for any other purpose set forth in the law allowing or requiring the disclosure of Personal Information.
4.2 Aggregated and de-identified information
We may use and share aggregated and de-identified Personal Information and Personal Health Information for training, research and other purposes. Aggregated and de-identified information is designed to not be traceable to you in any way.
5. Storage Of Personal Information
6. Security Of Personal Information
6.1 Safeguarding Personal Information
(a) The safety and privacy of your information are our top priority. Your information will be protected by security safeguards appropriate to the nature and format of the information being stored. We strive to protect your information from theft, loss, and unauthorized access, copying, modification, use, disclosure, and disposal. We conduct audits and complete investigations to monitor and manage our privacy compliance. We ensure that all of our officers, employees, and agents protect your privacy and only use your information for the purposes you have consented to.
(b) We operate with several safeguards to ensure the privacy of your information, including administrative, physical, and technical safeguards:
(i) This Privacy Policy governs the way in which all employees manage patient information. Concern for your privacy is our top priority and is an important part of our culture. In addition, all employees that interact with you must sign a confidentiality agreement as a condition of employment.
(ii) We take reasonable and appropriate technical and operational measures to protect the Personal Information and Personal Health Information we collect and hold from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.
(c) While we strive to put in place all measures required to protect and ensure the confidentiality of your Personal Information, no method of transmission of Personal Information, including those on the Internet, is completely secure. Hence, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of such Personal Information.