Privacy Policy

1. INTRODUCTION

The HeliosX group of companies is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of your information when you use our services. It also outlines your rights and choices with respect to your Personal Data, and how to contact us if you have any queries or concerns.

Across each of the services we provide, we are dedicated to maintaining the confidentiality and rights to privacy of all our patients, service users, and other individuals we engage with.

We take our responsibilities in relation to data protection and information rights seriously and maintain robust processes for safeguarding the Personal Data we hold in order to carry out our services and provide easy access to the information rights of individuals.

2. PURPOSE

This policy explains the situations where we may Process your Personal Data and the steps we take to protect it. We also use this Privacy Policy to give you information about how we handle information about you when you visit our websites, mobile apps, services and health services.

3. SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This Privacy Policy is published by HeliosX on behalf of itself and its subsidiaries (together “HeliosX”). The “controller” of your Personal Data for the purposes of the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR will depend on the HeliosX service you interact with as follows:

4. DEFINITIONS

Key terms used within this policy are defined in the glossary (Appendix 1)

5. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT

We may collect and process Personal Data about you in the ways outlined below. Where applicable, we indicate whether and why you must provide us with your Personal Data, as well as the consequences of failing to do so. If you do not provide Personal Data when requested, you may not be able to benefit from our services if that information is necessary to provide you with them or if we are legally required to collect it.

Information provided by you:

• Registration - When you register to receive a service provided by HeliosX (e.g., when you create an account on a website, or contact us by other means), we will collect Personal Data to provide you with access to the services you require. The information we collect may include your name, address, email, date of birth and phone number.
• Requesting Healthcare Services - If you request healthcare services from us including prescription-only medication, we may ask you to “complete a consultation”, or to otherwise provide us with information about you. We will collect sensitive Personal Data (special category data) about you when you complete the consultation form, including information about your body composition, medical conditions (including previous diagnoses you’ve received), ethnicity (if relevant to the prescription), current medications and allergies.
• Ordering Goods from Us - If you order goods or services from us, we will collect information we require to complete your purchase, including your payment details, address, email, date of birth and other contact details.
• Contacting Us - If you contact us via social media, email, telephone or otherwise, we will collect any Personal Data you choose to disclose to us. We use this information to help us respond effectively to your comments, questions, or feedback.
• Responding to Surveys and Prize Draws - We may collect information about you if you respond to surveys on our site, or otherwise enter any competition, promotion or survey we run.

This information may be combined with other information you provide to us.

Information we receive from other sources
We also work closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, service providers, advertising networks, analytics providers, and search information providers) and may receive information about you from them. If you choose to sign in using a third party (for example your Gmail account), we will also receive information from them.

This may be combined with other information you provide to us, as described above.

Information about other people
If you provide information to us about any person other than yourself, you confirm that you have made that person aware of how we may collect, use, and disclose their information, the reason you have provided it, how they can contact us, the terms of this Privacy Policy and that they have consented to such collection, use and disclosure.

Information collected via automated means
We use cookies and similar technologies (collectively “cookies”) to ensure that our Services function properly and to improve our products and Services. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive and record how you navigate this website on each visit.

These may include technical information about your computer or device, internet connection and browser, the country where your computer or device is located, your IP address, the pages viewed during your visit, the advertisements you clicked on, any search terms you may enter on our website and other information about your visit and how you used our website. We use this information to provide you with the best possible web experience.

To find out how we use cookies on this site, see our Cookie Policy.

6. HOW WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

All Personal Data that we obtain about you and/or any other person whose details you provide will be Processed in accordance with applicable data protection legislation, our Terms and Conditions, our Cookie Policy, and this Privacy Policy.

Purposes for Processing your Personal Data
We will primarily use your Personal Data for the following purposes:

• To register your account and keep it secure.
• To verify your identity.
• To create and maintain your patient record once you have registered.
• To help us make decisions about your medical diagnosis, healthcare or treatment.
• To process and fulfil any orders that you place with us (through our website). If we don’t collect your Personal Data during checkout, we won’t be able to process your order.
• To respond to any queries, refund requests or complaints. Handling the information you submit to us enables us to respond effectively. We keep a record of these queries to demonstrate how we communicated with you throughout. We do this based on our contractual obligations, legal obligations, and our legitimate interests as a business in providing you with the best service.
• To utilise third party suppliers/software for the dispensing of your prescribed medication.
• To carry out market research so that we can improve the services we offer.
• To communicate with you. We may use your Personal Data, preferences, and details of your transactions to keep you informed by email, web/social media, text and telephone.
• To send you promotional messages. We may contact you about relevant products and services including special offers, discounts, promotions, events, surveys, and competitions tailored to you. This may include promotions offered by other entities in the HeliosX group of companies. You can opt out of hearing from us about these at any time.
• To train our Machine Learning (ML) or Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. We may use your Personal Data to train our ML/AI models, which we use to improve, promote and provide our services, as well as for analytics. For example, we use AI to spot bad quality verification pictures uploaded by our customers.
• For clinical research. For example, we may use your Personal Data for the development of products used to diagnose and treat your symptoms or to study the effectiveness of our existing products and services.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our services when you choose to do so.
• To improve our products. For example, we may capture your product reviews when you buy goods and services from us by following up with an inquiry about your experience of the product to help us gauge customer satisfaction. We may also conduct customer surveys or otherwise conduct market research. You are not obligated to leave reviews or complete surveys, but this facility would enable you to get your views of the product across should you wish to do so.
• To personalise customer experience and inform marketing strategies.
• To continuously improve our service to our customers by monitoring telephone calls which we receive at our call centres for the purposes of staff training, quality control and service improvement.
• To track and analyse activity on our website.
• To communicate with you in the event that any services requested are unavailable or if there is a query or problem with your order.
• To notify you about any changes to our services and to send you service emails relating to the activities you have asked us to undertake on your behalf.
• As part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure.
• To comply with applicable law. For example, in response to a request from a court or regulatory body, where such request is made in accordance with law.

Lawful grounds for Processing
To Process your Personal Data, we rely on one or more of the following legal grounds:

• Your consent to Processing activities. For example, where you have consented to us using your information for marketing purposes. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us.
• We will process your Personal Data where it is necessary to perform a contract with you and fulfil your request for content, products or services from HeliosX.
• Legitimate interests we or a third party pursue as a business, except any overridden by your interests and fundamental rights. We may rely on this legal ground to, for example, keep business records, assert our legal rights and obtain professional advice.
• Compliance with any legal obligation to which we are subject. For example, we may process your Personal Data to comply with tax and accounting obligations.

To Process your Special Category (health and ethnicity) Data, we rely on the following legal conditions:

• It is necessary in connection with your medical diagnosis or for the provision of your healthcare or treatment. We never hold more health data than we need for these purposes and we have assessed that processing this data is a reasonable and proportionate way of providing your healthcare. Without this information, we would not be able to diagnose you, nor prescribe or send you your medication.
• You give us explicit consent to do so. This may be where you agree to us sending you marketing information or where you choose to participate in some of our market research.
• There is a reason of substantial public interest, for example preventing or detecting fraud.
• We are conducting scientific research in the public interest. We ensure that this is done in a reasonable and proportionate way, with appropriate safeguards in place.

Disclosing your Personal Data
In order to provide our products and services, we may, occasionally, appoint other organisations to carry out some of the Processing activities on our behalf. We will not share your Personal Data with any organisation, other than those directly involved in delivering these services.

We may also share your personal data with:

• Business entities within the HeliosX group where that business entity is providing a specific service as part of our service to you (including to dispense and deliver medicines you have ordered).
• Our advertising partners, including providers of social media platforms, who enable us to deliver personalised ads to your devices or similar advertising.
• Our outsourced service providers or suppliers to facilitate the provision of our products and/or services to you.
• Third party providers of healthcare services (e.g., your GP) where necessary to provide a service to you (e.g., verifying medical details to provide an appropriate prescription), or to prevent fraud.
• Our marketing partners, who may contact you by post, email, telephone, SMS or by other means. If you do not wish to be contacted, you may unsubscribe by clicking “unsubscribe” in the message concerned.
• Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our website.
• Our data centre provider for the safe keeping of your Personal Data and our webhosting provider through which your Personal Data may be collected and surfaced.
• Third party service providers and consultants in order to protect the security or integrity of our business, including our databases and systems and for business continuity reasons.
• HeliosX group companies who may contact you by email, phone or post about other products and services in which you may be interested (where you have consented to such communication).
• Another legal entity, on a temporary or permanent basis, for the purposes of a joint venture, collaboration, financing, sale, merger, reorganisation, change of legal form, dissolution, or similar event. In the case of a merger or sale, your Personal Data will be permanently transferred to a successor company.
• Public authorities and regulatory bodies where we are required by law to do so or to otherwise fulfil regulatory obligations.
• If required, in order to receive legal advice.
• Any other third party where you have provided your consent.

Security of Personal Data
We take the security of your Personal Data seriously.

HeliosX has appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all data we hold.

Testimonials
If you provide us with a testimonial, which may include Personal Data such as your name or alias, location, age, treatment details, and photographs, we will retain this data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. We will always process this data in accordance with our data retention policies, and you may be contacted after a certain period to ask if you wish to provide an updated testimonial.

The primary purpose of collecting and using testimonials (including related photographs, and data) is for marketing purposes. This may include displaying the materials on our website, social media platforms (including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit), and within marketing emails. Additional marketing channels may also be utilised as part of our broader marketing strategy and business needs.

International Transfers of Personal Data
In the course of our operations, your personal data may be Processed within our group of companies located in the United Kingdom (UK).

Some of our partners to whom we may disclose Personal Data are located within the European Economic Area (EEA). For transfers within the EEA and UK, we rely on adequacy decisions made by the United Kingdom Government or the European Commission, confirming that the data protection standards in those countries are sufficient.

For transfers to third countries outside the UK and EEA and which are not covered by an adequacy decision, such as the United States, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These safeguards include using the UK’s International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the UK Secretary of State or the European Commission, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum (UK Addendum) or other mechanisms permitted under Article 46 of the UK or EU GDPR (which now include self-certification to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or UK-US Data Bridge).

Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected and in line with industry standards. When it is no longer necessary, we take measures to delete your personal data, or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying you.

We also store your personal data where we have a continued legitimate and lawful purpose to do so, as required by law. This includes, but is not limited to, complying with tax requirements, meeting regulatory requirements, resolving disputes, preventing fraud and abuse, and enforcing our terms and conditions.

When determining the specific retention period, we take into account various criteria, such as the type of service provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, mandatory retention periods provided by law and the relevant statute of limitations. For example, we retain your medical records for 10 years from the last time we dispensed medication to you. These records contain personal and medical data, contact details and messages exchanged with clinicians and patient advisory teams. If you wish for your account to be closed before the 10-year retention period, we can deactivate it for you.

Your Rights

If you wish to exercise any rights that you may have under the UK GDPR or the EU GDPR, you can do so by contacting us at hello@medexpress.co.uk:

• Right to Make Subject Access Request (SAR).
  You may request a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you. For example, this could include a copy of your medical record, a transcript of a phone call, and so on.
• Right to rectification.
  You may request that we rectify any inaccurate and/or complete any incomplete Personal Data.
• Right to erasure.
  You may request that we erase your Personal Data and we will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so. For example, there may be an overriding legitimate ground for keeping your Personal Data, such as, a legal obligation that we have to comply with, or if retention is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations.
• Right to restrict and withdraw consent.
  You may, as permitted by applicable law, withdraw your consent to the Processing of your Personal Data at any time. Such withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of Processing based on your previous consent. Please note that if you withdraw your consent, you may not be able to benefit from certain service features for which the Processing of your Personal Data is essential.
• Right to data portability.
  In certain circumstances, you may request that we provide your Personal Data to you in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and have it transferred to another provider of the same or similar services. We will comply with such transfer where required by law as far as it is technically feasible. Please note that a transfer to another provider does not imply erasure of your Personal Data which may still be required for legitimate and lawful purposes.
• Right to object to Processing.
  You have the option, as permitted by applicable law, to request that we stop Processing your Personal Data. In certain situations where our service may not be suitable for you, we use automated Processing and profiling to support our clinical team. Occasionally, this involves automated decision-making without direct input from a clinician. You have the right to object to this Processing and request that a clinician reviews the decision.
• Your right to log a complaint with the supervisory authority.
  We suggest that you contact us about any questions or if you have a complaint in relation to how we Process your Personal Data. However, you do have the right to contact the relevant supervisory authority directly. To contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the supervisory authority in the United Kingdom, please visit the ICO website for instructions.

7. MONITORING AND COMPLIANCE

We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time. Any changes we may make will be posted on this page, so please check back frequently. Your continued use of our website and our services after posting will constitute your acceptance of, and agreement to, any changes.

8. APPENDICES

Appendix One – Terms and Definitions