Privacy Policy
Who we are
We are M&S Opticians and are operated by Owl Optical Ltd on behalf of Marks & Spencer plc, London
At M&S Opticians, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, contact us via telephone, or visit one of our stores; how we use this information, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this policy from time to time, so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you are aware of any changes. By using our website, contacting us by telephone, or visiting one of our stores, you’re agreeing to be bound by this policy.
Any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to [email protected] or by writing to The Customer Care Team, M&S Opticians, 60 Islington Row Middleway, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 1PH. Alternatively, you can call us on 0330 135 5330.
Our responsibility to you as a healthcare provider
As a registered provider of eye care services we have a duty to follow the General Optical Council (GOC) guidelines relating to contacting our customers for essential healthcare check ups and the length of time we must keep patient records.
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in GOC guidelines:
GOC Guidelines
Type of record and recommended period of retention
Adults: 10 years, even if the patient has subsequently died
Children and young people: 10 years after they were last seen or until the patient’s 25th birthday if later. If the child or young person has died, keep the records for 10 years after they were last seen
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when:
You use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services, book an appointment, download a discount voucher, or if you register to receive offers and updates from us.
You contact us by telephone, for example, to book an appointment with us, or to enquire about our services and products.
You visit us in-store, for example, to book or attend an appointment, or to enquire after our services and products.
What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, age, address, telephone number, email address, IP address, your current or preferred store and information regarding what pages you accessed and when.
If you purchase a product from us online, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors (Barclaycard EPDQ), who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions.
If you purchase a product from us in-store using a credit or debit card, a copy of your credit card number will be kept with all paperwork relating to your order; the CVV number on your card is not kept.
How is your information used?
We may use your information to:
- process orders that you have submitted;
- advise you of the status of any order you have placed with us;
- email you discount vouchers you have requested;
- confirm appointments;
- confirm competition entries;
- process job applications;
- seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
- notify you of changes to our services;
- send you communications which you have requested or that may be of interest to you.
Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
M&S
M&S Opticians provides it’s optical service on behalf of M&S and when you opt-in to receiving offers and information from M&S Opticians you are also agreeing to receive information on other M&S products and services.
You can at any time choose to opt out of receiving communications from M&S Opticians by writing to The Customer Care Team, M&S Opticians, 60 Islington Row Middleway, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 1PH. Alternatively, you can visit your M&S Opticians store or call us on 0330 135 5330.
You can at any time choose to opt out of receiving communications from M&S by telephone on 0333 014 8555 or by email - customer.dpo@
Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf:
We may pass your information to our third party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf, (for example to manufacture glasses and to send you emails). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. We will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.
Third Party Product Providers we work in association with:
When you are using our secure online e-commerce pages, your payment is processed by a third party payment processor (Opayo – Formerly SagePay), who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.
We utilise the Bauer Pixel, powered by AdsWizz, to monitor instances where individuals hear digital audio ads and subsequently visit our website. It's important to note that the pixel does not retain or store any data. The following information outlines the functionality of the Pixel:
The Audio Pixel stands out as the first end-to-end attribution solution tailored for audio advertising, offering valuable insights into website conversions resulting from audio campaigns.
Described as a tracking pixel or attribution pixel, it consists of a snippet of HTML code that loads when a user accesses a website. Pixels play a crucial role in tracking user behavior and conversions. The Audio Pixel serves as a comprehensive measurement tool, capturing all website actions to meet various attribution requirements.
This pixel does not store any data. Instead, its primary function is to identify whether the user's ID landing on the website matches the ID that received the original digital audio advertisement. The data is only cross-referenced to confirm or deny a conversion, without retention.
Sale or Closure of our Business
We have a duty of care to ensure you have access to ongoing optical care. Should some or all of our business close or cease to trade, wherever possible we will arrange to transfer your records to another Optical provider chosen by us. If this happens, we will write to you with full details, including details of how you can request your records to be transferred to an alternative provider of your choice. In the unlikely event we cannot find a suitable alternative provider, we will make arrangements to transfer your records to the local Primary Care Organisation (PCO) or a person nominated by the PCO.
Legal and Other Obligations
We may also transfer your data to third parties if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our customers. However, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected and will inform you in the event of any of the above happening, so that you are aware of any changes that may affect you.
Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about any offers, products or services, you can manage your preferences by contacting your local store, or by calling our Customer Care Team on 0330 135 5330.
Please note that as a healthcare provider we are obliged to contact you when you are due or overdue for your next scheduled appointment for eye care.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy and availability of your personal information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, or you would like a copy of the information we hold about you, please email us at: [email protected], or write to us at: The Customer Care Team, M&S Opticians, 60 Islington Row Middleway, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 1PH. Alternatively, you can telephone our Customer Care Team on 0330 135 5330.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. M&S Opticians are fully committed to adhering to all principles of GDPR and as such, we have conducted a formal DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) of all our main systems. No unmitigated risks have been identified as a result of this.
Website Security
When using our website any sensitive information, (such as credit or debit card details), is encrypted When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given, (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Profiling
We may analyse your transactional information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk. We do not, however, use any automated decision making based on such profiling. If you wish to be excluded from all profiling, please email, write to, or telephone our Customer Care Team using the contact details given above.
Use of ‘cookies’
This website uses cookies to better the users’ experience while visiting the website.
Cookies are small files saved to the users’ computers hard drive that track, save and store information about the users’ interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server, to provide the user with a tailored experience within this website.
This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computer hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy here for further information.
Other cookies may be stored to your computer’s hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.
| COOKIE name | COOKIE Description |
|---|---|
| GOOGLE _utma _utmb _utmc _utmz |
These cookies collect information regarding how visitors use this site. Information is used to compile reports and to help us improve the customers experience. The cookies collect information in an anonymous way. No identifying or personal information is collected in this process. |
Owl Optical Ltd Cookies
| COOKIE name | COOKIE Description |
|---|---|
| CART | The association with your shopping cart. |
| CATEGORY_INFO | Stores the category info on the page, that allows to display pages more quickly. |
| COMPARE | The items that you have in the Compare Products list. |
| CURRENCY | Your preferred currency |
| CUSTOMER | An encrypted version of your customer id with the store. |
| CUSTOMER_AUTH | An indicator if you are currently logged into the store. |
| CUSTOMER_INFO | An encrypted version of the customer group you belong to. |
| CUSTOMER_SEGMENT_IDS | Stores the Customer Segment ID |
| EXTERNAL_NO_CACHE | A flag, which indicates whether caching is disabled or not. |
| FRONTEND | You sesssion ID on the server. |
| GUEST-VIEW | Allows guests to edit their orders. |
| LAST_CATEGORY | The last category you visited. |
| LAST_PRODUCT | The most recent product you have viewed. |
| NEWMESSAGE | Indicates whether a new message has been received. |
| NO_CACHE | Indicates whether it is allowed to use cache. |
| PERSISTENT_SHOPPING_CART | A link to information about your cart and viewing history if you have asked the site. |
| POLL | The ID of any polls you have recently voted in. |
| POLLN | Information on what polls you have voted on. |
| RECENTLYCOMPARED | The items that you have recently compared. |
| STF | Information on products you have emailed to friends. |
| STORE | The store view or language you have selected. |
| USER_ALLOWED_SAVE_COOKIE | Indicates whether a customer allowed to use cookies. |
| VIEWED_PRODUCT_IDS | The products that you have recently viewed. |
| WISHLIST | An encrypted list of products added to your Wishlist. |
| WISHLIST_CNT | The number of items in your Wishlist. |
How to disable cookies in your web browser.
Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computer hard drive, they should the take necessary steps within their web browser security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.
For Microsoft Internet Explorer:
- Choose the menu “tools” then “Internet Options”
- Click on the “privacy” tab
- Select the setting the appropriate setting
For Google Chrome:
- Choose Settings> Advanced
- Under "Privacy and security," click “Content settings”.
- Click “Cookies”
For Safari:
- Choose Preferences > Privacy
- Click on “Remove all Website Data”
For Mozilla Firefox:
- Choose the menu “tools” then “Options”
- Click on the icon “privacy”
- Find the menu “cookie” and select the relevant options
For Opera 6.0 and further:
- Choose the menu Files”> “Preferences”
- Privacy
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations (eg M&S.com). This Privacy Policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites, even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
If you are 16 or under
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.
Website recording
At certain periods, our website may also use specific website recording software. This software may record mouse clicks, mouse movements, page scrolling and any text keyed into certain website forms. The information collected will not include bank details or any sensitive personal data. Any data collected by this software is for M&S Opticians’ internal use only. The information collected is used to improve our website usability and is stored and used for aggregated and statistical reporting.
Review of this Policy
We keep this policy under regular review. This policy was last updated in October 2022.