1. Who we are
Unikem Pharmacy at SPAR (“Unikem Pharmacy”, “we” or “us”) is a community pharmacy and online shop inside SPAR at the A.K Centre, 364 Klipfontein Rd, Rylands, Cape Town, 7764, South Africa.
We are the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy, as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). This means we decide why and how your information is used, and we are accountable for it.
- Legal name
- [client to confirm]
- Registration number
- [client to confirm]
- Address
- A.K Centre, 364 Klipfontein Rd, Rylands, Cape Town, 7764, South Africa
- Phone
- +27 84 320 3993
This policy applies when you use our website, shop with us online or in store, contact us, subscribe to our newsletter, or use our pharmacy and clinic services.
2. Our Information Officer
Our Information Officer makes sure we comply with POPIA, and deals with requests and complaints about personal information.
- Information Officer
- [client to confirm name]
- [client to confirm Information Officer email]
- Phone
- +27 84 320 3993
- Address
- A.K Centre, 364 Klipfontein Rd, Rylands, Cape Town, 7764, South Africa
3. The information we collect
We only collect what we need. Depending on how you deal with us, this can include the following.
When you shop online or create an account
- Your name, email address and phone number.
- Your delivery and billing addresses.
- What you order, your order history and how you paid. We don’t see or store your full card details.
- Your account login. Your password is stored in a scrambled (hashed) form that we cannot read.
- The items in your cart and on your wishlist.
When you contact us
- Your name, contact details and message when you use our contact form, email us or phone us.
- Your name, number, messages and anything else you send us when you chat to us on WhatsApp.
When you subscribe to our newsletter
- Your email address and the date you subscribed.
When you use our pharmacy and clinic services
- Your prescriptions and dispensing records, which include information about your health.
- Your medical scheme details, if we submit a claim to your medical aid for you [client to confirm whether medical aid claims are processed].
- Notes and results from clinic services, such as blood pressure or glucose readings, and records of vaccines given.
When you visit our website
- Technical information such as your IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you visit, collected through cookies and our server logs. See Cookies.
We collect most of this information directly from you. We also receive booking details from RecoMed when you book a clinic service, and payment confirmations from our payment providers.
You don’t have to give us your information. But if you don’t give us what we need to process an order or supply a medicine, we may not be able to do so. Marketing is always optional.
4. How we use your information
We use your personal information to:
- process, deliver and support your orders, including orders you collect in store;
- take payments and process refunds;
- dispense medicines safely and provide pharmacist advice and clinic services;
- reply to your questions and messages;
- send you our newsletter and offers, if you have agreed to this or you are a customer who has not opted out (see Marketing);
- keep our website and shop secure, and prevent and detect fraud;
- keep the records the law requires, such as prescription, tax and accounting records.
We only process your information where POPIA allows it: to carry out our agreement with you, to comply with the law, to protect your legitimate interests, for our own legitimate interests (such as keeping our website secure), or with your consent. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
We won’t use your information for a new purpose that doesn’t fit the purposes above, unless we have told you first and, where the law requires it, asked for your consent.
5. Your health information
Information about your health is special personal information under POPIA, and we treat it with extra care. We may learn about your health from your prescriptions, from clinic services, from questions you ask our pharmacists, and sometimes from the products you buy.
We process health information only where POPIA allows it: mainly to give you proper treatment and care and to run our pharmacy practice, or with your consent. Our pharmacists are bound by professional confidentiality, our staff must keep your information confidential, and only the people who need your health information to help you can see it.
We handle prescriptions in store only. Please bring your prescription to the pharmacy rather than sending it to us online or on WhatsApp.
We don’t use your health information for marketing without your express consent.
6. Who we share it with
We don’t sell your personal information. We share it only when we need to, and only as much as is needed, with:
- Payment providers. Payfast and Peach Payments process your payments. If you choose Payflex or Mobicred, they also assess your application and manage your instalments or credit, under their own terms and privacy policies.
- Delivery. Our own riders receive your name, address and phone number so that they can deliver your order.
- RecoMed. You book our clinic services on RecoMed’s website. RecoMed handles your booking details under its own privacy policy (opens in a new tab) and shares them with us so that we can see you.
- Service providers. Companies that host our website, provide our email and IT systems, or support our shop software [client to confirm providers]. They may only use your information to provide their services to us.
- WhatsApp. If you chat to us on WhatsApp, WhatsApp (owned by Meta) also processes your messages under its own privacy policy (opens in a new tab).
- Healthcare providers and medical schemes. Your doctor or other healthcare providers, or your medical aid, where this is needed for your care or to process a claim you asked us to submit.
- Authorities. Regulators, law enforcement or other public bodies, when the law requires it, or when we need to protect our legal rights.
We require the service providers who process information for us to keep it confidential and secure, as POPIA requires.
7. Information sent outside South Africa
Some of the services we use, such as email, website hosting or messaging services like WhatsApp, may store or process information on servers outside South Africa [client to confirm which providers store data outside South Africa, and where].
We only allow this where POPIA permits it. For example, where the recipient is bound by laws, binding corporate rules or an agreement that protect your information to a similar standard, where the transfer is needed to carry out our agreement with you, or where you have agreed to it.
8. How long we keep it
We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for, unless the law requires or allows us to keep it for longer.
- Order, payment and invoice records: [client to confirm period], to meet tax and accounting laws.
- Prescription and dispensing records: for as long as the laws on medicines and pharmacy practice require [client to confirm period].
- Your online account: until you ask us to close it, subject to the records above.
- Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe.
- Messages sent through our contact form, by email or on WhatsApp: [client to confirm period].
When we no longer need your information, we delete or destroy it, or remove anything that identifies you.
9. How we protect it
We take appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational steps to keep your personal information safe, and to prevent it from being lost, damaged or accessed without permission. For example:
- Our website uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.
- Card payments are handled by our payment providers on their own secure systems, which meet the card industry’s PCI DSS security standard. We never see or store your full card details.
- Only authorised staff can see customer and patient records, and they must keep them confidential.
If we have reason to believe that someone has accessed or acquired your personal information without authority, we will tell you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.
10. Marketing and how to opt out
We send you our newsletter and offers by email or other electronic messages only if you have subscribed, or if you are a customer and we are telling you about similar products or services of our own. You can say no when you give us your details, and in every message after that.
Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link. You can also email us or tell us in store, and we’ll stop.
We don’t sell or give your details to other businesses for their marketing.
11. Your rights
Under POPIA, you have the right to:
- ask us, free of charge, whether we hold personal information about you;
- ask for a copy or a description of that information, including who has had access to it. A prescribed fee may apply. If it does, we’ll give you a written estimate first;
- ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or obtained unlawfully, or that we are no longer allowed to keep;
- object, on reasonable grounds, to us processing your information for our legitimate interests;
- object at any time to direct marketing, and withdraw your consent where we rely on it;
- complain to the Information Regulator (see Complaints).
How to make a request
Contact our Information Officer using the details in section 2. To protect your information, we’ll ask you to prove your identity before we act on a request. We may ask you to use the forms prescribed under POPIA, and we’ll help you with them.
We’ll respond as soon as reasonably possible, and within 30 days for requests for access to records.
Our manual under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) explains how to request our records: [client to confirm link to PAIA manual].
12. Complaints
If you’re unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Information Officer first, so that we can try to put it right.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator:
- POPIA complaints
- POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
- General enquiries
- enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
- Phone
- 010 023 5200
- Address
- Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
13. Cookies
Cookies are small files that a website saves in your browser. We use:
- Essential cookies that keep your cart, checkout and login working and help keep the site secure. The shop can’t work properly without them.
- Preference cookies and similar browser storage that remember your choices, such as your wishlist, or that you have closed our newsletter pop-up.
- Analytics cookies that show us how visitors use our website, so that we can improve it [client to confirm whether analytics tools are used, and which].
Our payment providers, and other services you use through our website, may set their own cookies.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block essential cookies, parts of the shop, such as the cart and checkout, may stop working.
14. Children
Our online shop is meant for adults. If you are under 18, please ask a parent or guardian to shop for you.
We only process a child’s personal information with the consent of a parent or guardian, or where the law otherwise allows it.
15. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time, for example when the law or our services change. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed. If we make important changes, we’ll let you know on our website.
Questions about this policy?
Contact us and we’ll help. For requests about your personal information, please ask for our Information Officer.
A.K Centre, 364 Klipfontein Rd, Rylands, Cape Town, 7764, South Africa