PRIVACY NOTICE FOR WEBSITE USERS

1.            Introduction

1.1          This Privacy Notice describes how Signia (hereinafter "WSA", "we", "us", "our") collects and processes your personal data when you visit and use this website. WS Audiology Australia & New Zealand established in New Zealand, is the entity providing this website in New Zealand.

1.2          WSA is established in the EU and must therefore comply with European legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (hereinafter "GDPR").

1.3          WSA controls the ways your personal data is collected and the purposes for which your personal data is used. WSA is therefore the “data controller” under GDPR.

1.4          We will only process your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable law to which we are subject, including the GDPR.

2.            Contact information

2.1          Questions or complaints regarding our processing of your personal data can be addressed to:

WS Audiology Australia & New Zealand

Central Park Corporate Centre, 666 Great South Road, Ellerslie, Auckland, 1061

email address: privacy@wsa.com

2.2          You can also directly contact our DPO, who is responsible for answering questions relating to our processing of personal data. Please use the following email address: dpo@wsa.com.

3.            The data we collect, the purpose and the legal basis for processing

3.1          When you visit and use this website:

3.1.1            When you visit and use this website, we use cookies and online identifiers to collect personal data about you and the way you use the website e.g. your browser type, search terms used on the website, your IP-address including your network location and information about your device.

3.1.2            The purpose of our processing is to optimise the user experience, the website's functionality including creating statistics and marketing. The legal basis for our processing of personal data is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) of GDPR) and our legitimate interest in providing a functional website (Art. 6(1)(f) of GDPR).  

3.2          When you use our Shop Finder to request an appointment:

3.2.1            When you use our Shop Finder to request an appointment or an enquiry with a specific Hearing Care Professional, we will process your name, contact information (email and phone number), your location, the identity of the Hearing Care Professional that we have arranged your appointment with and information about your meeting preferences as well as any information you include in your request.

3.2.2            The purpose of our processing is to facilitate your request for an appointment with a Hearing Care Professional. This processing of personal data is necessary for our legitimate interest in engaging with our website users and assist them with finding the right assistance in their country (Art. 6(1)(f) of the GDPR).

3.3          When you take an online hearing test:

3.3.1            When you take an online hearing test, we will process your answers to initial hearing related questions and the result of the hearing test.

3.3.2            The purpose of our processing is to provide you with a hearing test and facilitate your request for an appointment with a Hearing Care Professional. This processing is necessary for our legitimate interest in providing a hearing test for our website users and assist them with finding the right assistance in their country (Art. 6(1)(f) of the GDPR).

3.4          When you sign up to our newsletter

3.4.1            When you sign up for our newsletter, we will process your name, contact information (email and phone number) and information about the consent you have given us to send you newsletters.

3.4.2            The purpose of our processing is to be able to send you the newsletter. Our processing is based on your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) of the GDPR).

3.5          To the extent that we refer to our legitimate interest as the legal basis for the processing of personal data specified above, we have conducted a balancing test for those interests to ensure that our interest is not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. Please contact us by using the email provided in section 2 above if you wish to receive more information on the balancing test.

4.            How is your personal data COLLECTED?

4.1          We will collect some of the personal data about you directly from you, for example when you request an appointment with our Shop Finder or take an online hearing test. When you interact with our website, we will collect technical data about your equipment, browser activity, behaviour patterns etc. We collect these personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies.

5.            Disclosure of your personal data

5.1          With Hearing Care Professionals. When you use our Shop Finder to make an appointment request or an enquiry, we will share your personal data with the Hearing Care Professional you have selected to allow the Hearing Care Professional to contact you.

5.2          With service providers. Your personal data may be disclosed to third parties who process personal data on our behalf, and therefore act as our data processors, e.g. we use third parties as hosting providers. We have entered into data processing agreements that comply with article 28 of the GDPR with all our data processors to ensure that such data processors implement appropriate organizational and technical security measures in such a way that the processing complies with the requirements of the GDPR and ensures the protection of your rights.

5.3          With WS Audiology. WSA is a is part of a global group of companies known as WS Audiology. We may share your information with our subsidiaries or affiliated companies who handle your information as data processors in order to provide you with access to our services, improve and optimize the website etc.  

5.4          For Legal use. We may disclose and use your personal information when we reasonably believe it's necessary to: (a) Satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; (b) enforce our Terms of Service and other agreements, policies, standards, or other legal rights, including the investigation of potential violations; (c) Detect, prevent, or address illegal or suspected illegal activities, including payment fraud, security or technical issues; (d) Protect against harm to our rights, property, safety, security or that of our users or the public, as required or permitted by law; (e) protect infringements to third-party intellectual property rights which we have been legally licensed / authorized to act on behalf of. This disclosure may involve sharing information with law enforcement agencies, public authorities, the third-party intellectual property holders, or other organizations as strictly necessary. 

5.5          Merger or acquisition. In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or similar occurrences, your personal data may be transferred to advisors and the succeeding entity. We will make efforts to provide advance notice, share pertinent details about the event and the successor, and request the successor to handle your personal data in alignment with this Privacy Notice. Should the successor need to process your personal data beyond the authorized scope in this Privacy Notice, they will be responsible for notifying you, providing details about their intended processing, and obtaining your consent, and/or the consent of your parent and/or guardian (if applicable), as required by applicable laws and regulations.

6.            Transfer of your Personal data to third countries

6.1          Your data may be transferred to our data processors or group companies established outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), which, from the perspective of the European Union ("EU"), do not guarantee an "adequate level of protection" for the processing of personal data in accordance with EU standards. In this case, before we transfer the data, we always ensure that the recipient of your personal data remains subject to a level of protection comparable to what is required under the GDPR (and in any event, in line with our commitments in this Privacy Notice).  Specifically, we ensure that such recipient either has an appropriate level of data protection and that the requirements of art. 44 of GDPR are met, e.g. due to an adequacy decision by the EU Commission for the respective country in accordance with Art. 45 of the GDPR, or that the so-called EU standard contractual clauses prepared by the European Commission have been agreed with the recipient in accordance with art. 46 of GDPR.

If you require further information on the above data transfers, including a copy of any agreed EU standard contractual clauses, you can request it from us - please send your request to us as laid out above in Section 2.

7.            Your rights

7.1          As a data subject you have the following rights:

7.1.1            You have the right to request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it (art. 15 in the GDPR).

7.1.2            You have the right to request correction of your personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected (art. 16 in the GDPR).

7.1.3            You may have the right to request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. To the extent that continued processing of your personal data is necessary, for example in order for us to comply with our legal obligations or for legal requirements to be established, enforced or defended, we are not required to delete your personal data (art. 17 in the GDPR).

7.1.4            You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground (art. 21 in the GDPR).

7.1.5            You may have the right to request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it (art. 18 in the GDPR).

7.1.6            You have the right to receive the registered personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and, in certain cases, to have it transferred from one data controller to another without hindrance (also known as data portability) (art. 20 in the GDPR).

7.1.7            If the processing of your personal data is based on your consent, you are entitled to revoke such consent at any time. Revocation of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out prior to your revocation of consent. You are entitled to withdraw your consent at any time (art. 7 (3) in the GDPR). If you wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us by using the contact information in section 2.

7.1.8            If you believe that the processing of your personal data violates data protection law, you also have the right under art. 77 of GDPR to complain to a data protection supervisory authority of your choice, including the one in your country.

8.            Data retention

8.1          We store your personal data related to cookies and online identifiers for as long as it is necessary for the purpose(s) for which the data is/are being processed. For more information about how the individual cookies are stored, you can read our cookie policy.

8.2          Personal data collected as part of your request for an appointment via Shop Finder or via the online hearing test, c.f. section 3.2 and 3.3, will be deleted 12 months after you have submitted the information.

8.3          Personal data collected as part of you signing up for our newsletter will be processed until you withdraw your consent.

8.4          We reserve the right to retain your personal data for an extended period if deemed necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim or in order to meet our legal obligations.

9.            Changes to this privacy notice

9.1          This Privacy Notice was last updated 01/04/2025 and will be continuously updated in accordance with current rules and practices as well as in accordance with adjustments in our business procedures. You can always access the latest version on our websites.