Privacy Policy

WALKIN.CA PRIVACY STATEMENT

Last updated: February 22, 2022

Walkin.ca Health Inc., and its affiliates (collectively, “we”, “our” or “us”) recognize the importance of privacy.  The purpose of this privacy statement (“Privacy Statement”) is to inform you about our privacy practices, including how we collect, use and disclose your Personal Information.

Please review this Privacy Statement carefully.  By submitting your Personal Information or Personal Health Information to us, by registering for or using any of the services we offer, by using our website, or by voluntarily interacting with us, you consent to our collecting, using and disclosing your Personal Information as set out in this Privacy Statement, as revised from time to time.

WHAT THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT COVERS

This Privacy Statement covers the following topics:

• Meaning of Personal Information
• Your Consent to Collection, Use and Disclosure
• Personal Information We Collect
• How We Use Your Personal Information
• How We Share Your Personal Information
• Opting Out of Communications
• Retention of Personal Information
• Information Security
• Accessing and Updating Your Personal Information
• Withdrawal of Consent
• Third Party Websites and Services
• Privacy Statement Updates
• How to Contact Us

Meaning of Personal Information

“Personal Information” means information about an identifiable individual. This information may include, but is not limited to, your name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, and Personal Health Information.

“Personal Health Information” means health information about an individual that identifies the specific individual. This information may include, but is not limited to, your personal health number, healthcare billing and coverage information, and health information.

Personal Information does not include any business contact information that is solely used to communicate with you in relation to your employment, business or profession, such as your name, position name or title, work address, work telephone number, work fax number or work e-mail address.

Personal Information also does not include information that has been anonymized or aggregated in such a way that there is no serious possibility it can be used to identify an individual, whether on its own or in combination with other information.

Your Consent to Collection, Use and Disclosure

We collect, use and disclose your Personal Information with your consent or as permitted or required by Canadian privacy laws. How we obtain your consent (i.e. the form we use) will depend on the circumstances, as well as the sensitivity of the information collected.  Subject to applicable laws, your consent may be express or implied, depending on the circumstances and the sensitivity of the Personal Information in question.  

Typically, we will seek your consent at the time your Personal Information is collected. Where we want to use your Personal Information for a purpose not previously identified to you at the time of collection, we will seek your consent prior to our use of such information for this new purpose.

If you provide Personal Information about another individual to us, it is your responsibility to obtain the consent of that individual to enable us to collect, use and disclose his or her information as described in this Privacy Statement.

Personal Information We Collect 

The Personal Information we collect is generally in one or more of the following categories

Health Services. For individuals located in British Columbia, Canada, who use our services, the Personal Information we collect may include the following:

• Patient identification and contact information, such as name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, and personal health number;
• Identification and contact information for legal guardians, legal representatives, emergency contacts and next-of-kin;
• Healthcare billing and coverage information, such as provincial plan and/or private insurer information;
• Health information, such as information regarding symptoms, diagnosis, medical history, test results, reports and treatment; 
• Information about individual healthcare providers and Third Party Payers (as defined below); and

• We may also automatically collect usage data that is identifiable to you when you use our services.

Website. For individuals who visit our website located at https://walkin.ca or any of our related websites (collectively, “our website”), we may collect information from you or from your activities on our website.

• Like most websites and other Internet services, we may collect certain technical and device information about your use of our website.  Such information may include your Internet protocol address, information about your device, browser and operating system, and the date and time of your visit.
• We may use “cookies” or enlist third party services which use cookies to track your preferences and activities on our website.  Cookies are small data files transferred to your computer’s hard-drive by a website.  They keep a record of your preferences, making your subsequent visits to that website more efficient. Cookies may store a variety of information, including the number of times that you access a website, your language preferences and the number of times that you view a particular page or other item on that website.  The use of cookies is a common practice adopted by most major websites to better serve their users.  Most browsers are designed to accept cookies, but they can be modified to block cookies.  See your browser’s help files for more information.  You should note, however, that without cookies some of our website’s functions may not be available.
• We may also use “web beacons”, “page tags” and other data collection mechanisms to better understand how our website is being used and to enhance your online experience. Web beacons and page tags are Internet tools that help us determine, for example, whether a page of our website has been viewed.

Other Interactions. For individuals located in British Columbia, Canada who otherwise interact with us, whether in person, by phone or email, through social media or otherwise, including individuals who might be interested in acquiring our services, who sign-up to receive newsletters or other communications, who respond to surveys and questionnaires, or who submit testimonials or other feedback, we may collect information that you provide to us during these interactions. This information may include your name, e-mail address and other contact information.

How We Use Your Personal Information

We may use your Personal Information for purposes such as: 

• Providing healthcare and related services;
• Processing payments for healthcare and related services;
• Determining eligibility for coverage for healthcare and related services; 
• Monitoring the usage of our products and services to support their proper functioning and further improvement;
• Analyzing the needs and activities of our customers to help us better serve them;
• Generating de-identified data to conduct research and analysis related to our business and services;
• Responding to inquiries and other requests; 
• Collecting opinions and comments about our products and services;
• Investigating legal claims; and
• Communicating with you in relation to the purposes described above, and to provide you with information about our services that we think may be of interest to you.

We may use your Personal Information for purposes for which we have obtained your consent, and for such other purposes as may be permitted or required by applicable Canadian privacy laws.

We do not use the information we collect to advertise third party products and services or targeted advertising of Company products and services across third party websites or service offerings. 

You have a variety of tools to control the data collected by cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies. For example, you can use controls in your internet browser to limit how the websites you visit are able to use cookies and to withdraw your consent by clearing or blocking cookies.

How We Share Your Personal Information

Disclosure to other health care providers. We may share your Personal Information to other providers involved in your care, including (but not limited to) other physicians and specialists, pharmacists, lab technicians, nutritionists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

Disclosure authorized or required by law. There are limited situations where we are legally required to disclose your Personal Information without your consent. These situations include (but are not limited to) billing your Medical Services Plan, provincial health plans, reporting infectious diseases, reporting fitness to drive, child safety, or by court order.

Disclosures to all other parties. Your express consent is required before we will disclose your Personal Information to third parties for any purpose other than as set out in this Privacy Statement or unless we are authorized to do so by law. Examples of disclosures to other parties requiring your express consent include (but are not limited to) third parties who are conducting medical examinations for purposes not related to the provision of care, enrolment in clinical (research) trials and provision of charts or chart summaries to insurance companies.

Information shared with service providers. We rely on third party services providers to perform a variety of services on our behalf, such as account management, booking services, payment card processers, telephone and technical support providers, virtual telecommunication services, hosting, electronic medical record hosting, data storage and processing service providers, and research and analytics providers. 

We require our service providers to maintain the confidentiality of your Personal Information and to keep your Personal Information secure. We require that our service providers only use your Personal Information for the limited purposes for which it is provided.  When our service providers no longer need your Personal Information for those limited purposes, we require that they dispose of the Personal Information. In some circumstances, we may permit our service providers to retain Personal Health Information for regulatory purposes, and/or aggregated, anonymized or statistical information that does not identify you.  We do not authorize the service providers to disclose your Personal Information to unauthorized parties or to use your Personal Information for their direct marketing purposes.

If we otherwise intend to disclose your Personal Information to a third party, we will identify that third party and the purpose for the disclosure, and obtain your consent. If you have questions about the Information shared between us and any other party, please contact us as indicated below.

Opting Out of Communications

If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails from us, you may opt-out of receiving marketing-related emails by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email you receive from us.  You may also opt-out by contacting us directly using the contact information in the “How to Contact Us” section below. 

We will endeavour to respond to your opt-out request promptly, but we ask that you please allow us a reasonable time to process your request.  Please note that if you opt-out from receiving marketing-related emails, we may still need to send you communications about your use of our products or services, or other matters. 

Retention of Personal Information

We will use, disclose or retain your Personal Information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which that Personal Information was collected and as permitted or required by law. 

When Personal Information is no longer required, it is destroyed in an irreversible and secure manner, in accordance with laws and regulations that govern the destruction of Personal Information, including patient medical records.

Information Security

We have implemented physical, organizational, contractual and technological security measures with a view to protecting your Personal Information from loss or theft, and unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.  We have taken steps to ensure that the only personnel who are granted access to your Personal Information are those with a business ‘need-to-know’ or whose duties reasonably require such information.

Despite the measures outlined above, no method of information transmission or information storage is 100% secure or error-free, so we unfortunately cannot guarantee absolute security.  If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any information that you provided to us has been compromised), please contact us immediately using the contact information in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

Accessing and Updating Your Personal Information

We will not routinely update your Personal Information, unless such a process is necessary. We expect you, from time to time, to supply us with updates to your Personal Information, when required. You acknowledge that out of date Personal Information may lead to you missing essential health-related communications

You may make a written request to review any Personal Information about you that we have collected, used or disclosed, and we will provide you with any such Personal Information to the extent required by applicable laws.  You may also challenge the accuracy or completeness of your Personal Information in our records. If you successfully demonstrate that your Personal Information in our records is inaccurate or incomplete, we will amend the Personal Information as required.

We may require that you provide sufficient identification to fulfill your request to access or correct your Personal Information.  Any such identifying information will be used only for this purpose.

Withdrawal of consent:

You can withdraw your consent to us collecting and using your Personal Information or having your Personal Information shared with other health care providers or other parties at any time by giving us reasonable notice, except where the collection, use or disclosure is authorized or required by law. However, please discuss this with your physician first so we can explain the possible consequences of withdrawing consent. In some cases, withdrawal of your consent may mean that we will no longer be able to provide certain products or services to you.

Third Party Websites and Services

We may provide links to third party websites for your convenience and information. This Privacy Statement does not extend to any websites or products or services provided by third parties.  We do not assume responsibility for the privacy practices of such third parties, and we encourage you to review all third party privacy policies prior to using third party websites, products or services.

Privacy Statement Updates

This Privacy Statement is current as of the “updated” date which appears at the top of this page.  We may modify this Privacy Statement from time to time.  When changes are made to this Privacy Statement they will become immediately effective when published in a revised Privacy Statement posted on our website unless otherwise noted.  We may also communicate the changes through our services or by other means.  

How to Contact Us

All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your Personal Information or our privacy practices should be sent to our Privacy Officer as follows:

By mail:	Attention: Privacy Officer Walkin.ca Health Inc. 1 – 12818 72nd Avenue Surrey, BC V3W 2M9
By e-mail:	privacy@walkin.ca