1. Introduction

We respect your privacy and take the protection of personal information very seriously. We are Ampath Laboratories and this is our plan of action when it comes to protecting your privacy. It describes how we collect, disclose, store, use, and protect information that can be associated with you or another specific natural or juristic person and can be used to identify you or that person (personal information).

2. Audience

This policy applies to you if you are:

• a visitor to our website;
• using our applications;
• a customer who has ordered or requested the goods or services that we provide; or
• our data subject.

3. Personal information

Your personal information includes information we collect:

• when you visit our depot for a pathology test or whilst in hospital when pathology tests are required.
• automatically when you visit our website;
• on registration (see below);
• on submission;
• through our applications;
• when you use Ampath services; and
• optional information that you provide to us voluntarily



but excludes:

• information that has been made anonymous so that it does not identify a specific person;
• permanently de-identified information that does not relate or cannot be traced back to you specifically;
• non-personal statistical information collected and compiled by us; and
• information that you have provided voluntarily in an open, public environment or forum including any blog, chat room, community, classifieds, or discussion board (because the information has been disclosed in a public forum, it is no longer confidential and does not constitute personal information subject to protection under this policy).

3.1 Common examples

Common examples of the types of personal information which we may collect and process include your:

• identifying information – such as your name, date of birth, or identification number of any kind;
• contact information – such as your phone number or email address;
• address information – such as your physical or postal address; or
• medical information – such as your test results
• demographic information – such as your gender or marital status.

3.2 Sensitive personal information

Depending on the goods or services that you require, we may also collect sensitive personal information including your:

• financial information – such as your medical aid and or bank account details;
• sensitive demographic information – such as your race or ethnicity;
• medical information – such as information about your physical or mental health;
• sexual information – such as information about your sex life or sexual orientation;
• genetic or biometric information - for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person;
• criminal information – such as information about your commission or alleged commission of any offence or about any related legal proceedings;
• race or ethnic origin;
• children’s information – such as your child’s first name and date of birth;
• employment information – including your membersh;
• beliefs – including your political or religious beliefs.

3.3 Your obligations

You may only send us:

• your own personal information if you are 18 years or older;
• someone else’s personal information if they are older than 18 and you have their permission to do so; or
• a child’s personal information provided you are regarded as a competent person under POPIA.

4. Acceptance

4.1 Acceptance required

You must accept all the terms of this policy when you order our goods or request our services. If you do not agree with anything in this policy, then you may not order our goods or request our services.

4.2 Legal capacity

You may not access our website, order our goods or request our services if you are younger than 18 years old or do not have legal capacity to conclude legally binding contracts.

4.3 Deemed acceptance

By accepting this policy, you are deemed to have read, understood, accepted, and agreed to be bound by all of its terms.

4.4 Your obligations

You may only send us:

• your own personal information if you are 18 years or over; or
• someone else’s personal information if they are older than 18 and you have their permission to do so.

5. Changes

We may change the terms of this policy at any time and will notify you of any changes by placing a notice in a prominent place on the website, through our application or by email detailing the changes that we have made and indicating the date that they were last updated. If you do not agree with the changes, then you must stop using the website or our goods or our services. If you continue to use the website and our goods or our services following notification of a change to the term

6. Collection

6.1 On registration or submission

Once you register on, or submit information through our website, you will no longer be anonymous to us. You will provide us with certain personal information when you register on our website.

This personal information will include:

• your name and surname;
• your email address;
• your telephone number;
• your company name, company registration number, and VAT number;
• your postal address or street address; and
• your username and password
• your practice number (if applicable)
• your HPCSA number (if applicable).

We will use this personal information to fulfil your account, provide additional services and information to you as we reasonably think appropriate, and for any other purposes set out in this policy

6.2 Automatically through website

We automatically receive and record Internet usage information on our server logs from your browser, such as your Internet Protocol address (IP address), browsing habits, click patterns, version of software installed, system type, screen resolutions, colour capabilities, plug-ins, language settings, cookie preferences, search engine keywords, JavaScript enablement, the content and pages that you access on the website, and the dates and times that you visit the website, paths taken, and time spent on sites and pages within the website (usage information). Please note that other websites visited before entering our website might place personal information within your URL during a visit to it, and we have no control over such websites. Accordingly, a subsequent website that collects URL information may log some personal information.

6.3 Web beacons

Our website may contain electronic image requests (called a single-pixel gif or web beacon request) that allow us to count page views and to access cookies. Any electronic image viewed as part of a web page (including an ad banner) can act as a web beacon. Our web beacons do not collect, gather, monitor or share any of your personal information. We merely use them to compile anonymous information about our website.

6.4 Through an order or request

When you order our goods or request our services, we ask you to provide us with certain information.

6.5 Optional details

You may also provide additional information to us on a voluntary basis (optional information). This includes content that you decide to upload or download from our website or respond to surveys, register to receive information, obtain certain additional goods or services, or otherwise use the optional features and functionality of our website.

6.6 Recording calls

We may monitor and record any telephone calls that you make to us, unless you specifically request us not to.

6.7 Purpose for collection

We may use or process any goods or services information, or optional information that you provide to us for the purposes that you indicated when you agreed to provide it to us. Processing includes gathering your personal information, disclosing it, and combining it with other personal information. We generally collect and process your personal information for various purposes, including:

• goods or services purposes – such as collecting orders or requests for and providing our goods or services;
• business purposes – such as internal audit, accounting, business planning, and joint ventures, disposals of business, or other proposed and actual transactions; and
• legal purposes – such as handling claims, complying with regulations, or pursuing good governance.
• administration and maintenance – such as records relating to our personnel, vendors, customers, consumers;
• management planning, forecasting, research and statistical analysis;
• audit and record keeping purposes;
• research purposes in accordance with the Informed Consent Form of the Study Participant, which will relate to the purpose of the Clinical Trial or research study;

We may use your usage information for the purposes described above and to:

• remember your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you access the website;
• monitor website usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages accessed; and
• track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities in connection with your usage of the website.

6.8 Consent to collection

We will obtain your consent to collect personal information:

• in accordance with applicable law;
• when you provide us with any registration information or optional information.

7. Use

7.1 Processing

We may process your personal information to fulfil our obligations to you. We will only process your personal information:

• with your explicit consent;
• where it is necessary to carry out actions for the conclusion or performance of a contract with you;
• where it is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation; or
• where we can show legitimate grounds for processing your personal information.

7.2 Our obligations

We may use your personal information to fulfil our obligations to you.

7.3 Messages and updates

We may send administrative messages and email updates to you about your pathology results and the website. We may wish to provide you with information about new goods or services in which we think you may be interested. This means that in some cases, we may also send you primarily promotional messages. We will not send you promotional messages unless you have chosen to opt-into them. But, we may send you one message asking you to opt-into promotional messages without you having opted-into promotional messages.

7.4 Targeted content

While you are logged into the website, we may display targeted adverts and other relevant information based on your personal information. In a completely automated process, computers process the personal information and match it to adverts or related information. We never share personal information with any advertiser, unless you specifically provide us with your consent to do so. Advertisers receive a record of the total number of impressions and clicks for each advert. They do not receive any personal information. If you click on an advert, we may send a referring URL to the advertiser’s website identifying that a customer is visiting from the website. We do not send personal information to advertisers with the referring URL. Once you are on the advertiser’s website however, the advertiser is able to collect your personal information.

8. Disclosure

8.1 Sharing

We may share your personal information with:

• Your referring doctor and any copy doctor requested by your referring doctor to receive your pathology results.
• other divisions or companies within the group of companies to ensure that your referring doctor has all the information they need for your medical diagnosis and treatment;
• our goods or services providers under contract who help provide certain goods or services or help with parts of our business operations, including fraud prevention, bill collection, marketing, technology services (our contracts dictate that these goods or services providers only use your information in connection with the goods or services they supply or services they perform for us and not for their own benefit);
• our contractors who help us meet our obligations to you, including those that help us understand your personal information;
• other third parties or regulators as required by applicable law.

8.2 Honour this policy

We will require anyone that we share your personal information with to honour this policy whenever possible in terms of applicable law.

8.3 Regulators / Mandatory disclosures

We may disclose your personal information as required by law or governmental audit.

8.4 Law enforcement

We may disclose personal information if required:

• by a subpoena or court order;
• to comply with any law;
• to protect the safety of any individual or the general public; and
• to prevent violation of our customer relationship terms.

8.5 No selling

We will not sell personal information. No personal information will be disclosed to anyone except as provided in this privacy policy.

8.6 Marketing purposes

We may disclose aggregate statistical information that we derive from your and other people’s personal information to our advertisers or business partners.

8.7 Personnel

We may need to disclose personal information to our personnel to do their jobs, but will not do so unnecessarily. These include our responsible management, human resources, accounting, audit, compliance, information technology, or other personnel.

8.8 Change of ownership

If we undergo a change in ownership, or a merger with, acquisition by, or sale of assets to, another entity, we may assign our rights to the personal information we process to a successor, purchaser, or separate entity. We will disclose the transfer on the website. If you are concerned about your personal information migrating to a new owner, you may request us to delete your personal information.

9. Security

We take the security of personal information very seriously and always do our best to comply with applicable data protection laws. We host our website in a secure server environment that uses a firewall and other advanced security measures to prevent interference or access from outside intruders. We authorise access to personal information only for those personnel who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities. We implement disaster recovery procedures where appropriate.

10. Access

You may ask us to provide you with a description of the personal information that we hold on you, correct or update it or delete it (provided that we do not need it to fulfil our obligations to you or applicable law does not require us to keep it). We will take all reasonable steps to verify your identity before doing so. We may charge a fee to recoup our costs associated with this request if there is a cost to us associated with it and provided that applicable law allows us to do so. Please contact us with your name and any other information needed to identify you correctly if you want access to information or want us to correct, update or delete it.

11. Accurate and up to date

We will try to keep the personal information we collect as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for the purposes defined in this policy. From time to time we may request you to update your personal information on the website. You are able to review or update any personal information that we hold on you by accessing your account online, emailing us, or phoning us. Please note that in order to better protect you and safeguard your personal information, we take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your account or making any corrections to your personal information.

12. Retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes explicitly set out in this policy, unless:

• retention of the record is required or authorised by law; or
• you have consented to the retention of the record.

During the period of retention, we will continue to abide by our non-disclosure obligations and will not

share or sell your personal information.

We may retain your personal information in physical or electronic records at our discretion.

13. Transfer to another country

We may transmit or transfer personal information outside of the country in which it was collected to a foreign country and process it in that country. Personal information may be stored on servers located outside the country in which it was collected in a foreign country whose laws protecting personal information may not be as stringent as the laws in the country in which it was collected. You consent to us processing your personal information

14. Updating or removing

You may choose to correct or update the personal information you have submitted to us, by submitting a contact us request on our website.

15. Notification of breach

Where we have reasonable grounds to believe that an unauthorised third party has accessed your personal information and if required by law, we will notify the relevant Regulator and you of the breach. If the law requires us to notify you, we will provide you with sufficient information to allow you to take protective measures against the potential consequences of the breach.

16. Limitation

We are not responsible for, give no warranties, nor make any representations in respect of the privacy policies or practices of linked or any third party websites.

17. Enquiries

If you have any questions or concerns arising from this privacy policy or the way in which we handle personal information, please contact us by email at popia@ampath.co.za