Privacy Policy

First Step Podiatry (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and manage the personal information of visitors and customers on our website and servicesfirststepcare.ie. It also describes your rights regarding your data and how we comply with relevant privacy laws. By using our services, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

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Information We Collect

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We collect personal information in several ways, outlined below:

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• Information You Provide to Us: When you interact with our website or services, such as by filling out Wix forms on our site (for example, booking forms or contact forms), signing up for our newsletter, or contacting us via email, you may provide personal details. This includes information like your name, email address, phone number, and any other information you choose to provide. If you create a customer profile on our site, the details you enter (such as contact information and background information) are collected and stored. Additionally, if you schedule a consultation, we may ask for relevant health or medical information (e.g. your medical history, symptoms, or other health details) to better provide podiatry services. Providing health information is voluntary, but please note that if you do not provide certain details, we may not be able to offer the full scope of our consultation or advice.

• Information Collected During Consultations: If you participate in an online consultation (conducted via Zoom), we will collect the information you share during that session. This may include personal and health information you discuss with the podiatrist. We do not record video or audio of consultations without your explicit consent. However, the podiatrist may document notes or outcomes from the session in your client file. Any medical or health data collected during consultations is handled with a high degree of confidentiality and used only for the purpose of providing you with care.

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• Information from Communications: If you contact us by email or other means, we will collect the information in your correspondence (such as your email address and the content of your message). This information is used to respond to your inquiries and keep a record of our communications with you.

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• Information Collected Automatically: When you visit our website, some data is collected automatically through cookies and similar tracking technologies (see Cookies and Tracking below). This may include technical information such as your IP address, browser type, device information, and usage data (pages visited, date/time of visit, etc.). This usage data is generally collected anonymously and helps us understand how our site is used and improve the user experience.

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We do not collect any payment or financial information through our website at this time. If in the future we enable online payments for services, any payment details would be processed securely by a third-party payment processor, and we would update this policy accordingly.

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How We Use Your Information

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We use the collected information for the following purposes:

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• To Provide and Improve Services: We use personal and health information you provide to deliver our podiatry services. For example, we use your details to schedule appointments, conduct Zoom consultations, evaluate your condition, and give medical advice or treatment recommendations tailored to you. Health information is used only to support your care and treatment. We may also use information (like feedback or interaction data) to improve our services and develop new offerings.

• Communication: We use your contact information (such as email or phone number) to communicate with you about your appointments, send confirmations and reminders, respond to inquiries, and provide customer support. If you are an active client, we might send follow-up information related to your treatment or foot care advice as part of our service.

• Marketing and Newsletters: With your consent, we will use your email address to send you marketing communications, such as our newsletter, special offers, or updates about First Step Podiatry. These emails are intended to keep you informed about foot health tips, new services, or promotions we offer. You can opt out of marketing emails at any time (see Your Rights and Choices below for how to unsubscribe).

• Analytics and Site Improvements: We use information about how visitors use our website to understand website traffic and user behavior. For instance, we analyze aggregate usage data (like which pages are most visited or how users navigate the site) to make improvements to our site’s design, content, and functionality. This helps us create a better experience for our visitors and ensure our content is helpful.

• Security and Fraud Prevention: We may use data (particularly technical and usage data) to maintain the security of our website and services. This includes monitoring for suspicious or fraudulent activity and troubleshooting issues. This use helps protect our site and our users from malicious activities.

• Legal Obligations: In certain cases, we may need to process and retain your information to comply with legal and regulatory obligations. For example, as a healthcare service, we might be required to maintain certain medical records for a minimum period as required by health regulations. We also may use or disclose information as necessary to meet obligations under laws (such as responding to lawful requests by public authorities).

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We will only use your personal information for the purposes above or for closely related purposes. If we need to use your information for any substantially different purpose, we will notify you and, if required, obtain your consent.

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Cookies and Tracking Technologies

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Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience and gather information about how our site is used. In particular, we use:

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• Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to collect data on how visitors interact with our website. Google Analytics places small data files (cookies) in your browser to gather information such as which pages you visit, how long you stay on our site, how you found our site, and what kind of device or browser you are using. The information collected through Google Analytics is generally anonymous and is aggregated – for example, it tells us overall usage patterns without identifying individual users. We use these analytics insights to understand website performance and visitor preferences, which helps us improve our content and services. Google Analytics may also use this information to place advertisements for our services on other websites you visit (a process known as remarketing), but we do not receive personally identifiable information from Google for this – we only see aggregate trends. Google Analytics cookies are controlled by Google; you can learn more about how Google processes this data in Google’s privacy policy. If you wish, you can opt-out of Google Analytics tracking by using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

• Facebook Pixel: We utilize Facebook Pixel on our site for analytics and advertising purposes. Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that allows us to track conversions from Facebook ads – for example, it helps us understand if someone who clicked on our Facebook advertisement later took an action on our website (such as booking a consultation). It also allows us to create targeted audiences for future ads and provides data for ad performance analytics. The Facebook Pixel may collect information such as your Facebook User ID (if you are logged into Facebook) and the pages you visit on our site. This helps us to show you relevant ads on Facebook or Instagram based on your interaction with our sitecookie-script.com. Like Google Analytics, the data we see from Facebook Pixel is aggregated and helps us measure ad effectiveness; we do not receive personally identifying information about individual users from it. You can control how Facebook uses your information for ads in your Facebook account settings (see Facebook’s Ad Preferences settings), and you can opt out of receiving targeted ads from Facebook by using the opt-out mechanisms provided by Facebook or industry sites (such as the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page).

• Wix and Other Cookies: Since our site is built on the Wix platform, Wix may employ its own cookies essential for site functionality (for example, to enable logins or remember your preferences) as well as cookies for performance. Some of Wix’s cookies are necessary for the website to operate and cannot be disabled (without affecting site functionality). Others (like the analytics and advertising cookies mentioned above) are non-essential and will only be set with your consent (particularly if you are visiting from regions where consent is required, such as the European Union). These cookies may collect device identifiers, browser information, and browsing patterns. We provide a cookie banner (or similar mechanism) to inform you about non-essential cookies and, where required, to request your consent before using them.

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Your Choices (Cookies): You have the ability to manage or disable cookies through your browser settings. You can set your browser to refuse all or some cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. However, please note that if you disable certain cookies, parts of our site might not function properly (for example, forms might not remember your details). For analytics and advertising cookies like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel, as mentioned above, you can use provided opt-out tools if you do not want to participate in those services.

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How We Share and Disclose Information

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We understand the importance of your personal information and treat it with care. We do not sell your personal data to third parties for their promotional use. However, we do share certain information with third parties in the following circumstances:

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• Service Providers: We may share information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf to run our operations. This includes:

  • Wix.com: Our website is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Wix provides us with the online platform that allows us to offer our services and maintain our site. Any data that you submit through our website (such as form submissions or account data) may be stored on Wix’s servers. Wix stores data on secure servers protected by firewallsdonnamichaelsauthor.com. Wix acts as a data processor on our behalf, meaning they handle your data only to support our website and services, and they are not permitted to use your data for other purposes. We trust Wix to maintain high standards of security and privacy. (For more about Wix’s privacy practices, you can refer to the [Wix Privacy Policy] which is available on their website.)

  • Zoom: We use Zoom to conduct our online video consultations. To schedule or host a Zoom consultation, we may provide Zoom with your name and email (to send you the meeting link/invite). Zoom may also process technical information during the call (such as your IP address or device info) to facilitate the video session. Zoom is a third-party service with its own privacy and security measures. We do not record Zoom sessions without your consent, and we advise you not to share sensitive documents via Zoom chat unless necessary. Any notes or health information recorded from the consultation are kept by us, not by Zoom.

  • Email and Newsletter Services: If we use an email service (for example, an email marketing platform or Wix’s email tools) to send out newsletters or notifications, your name and email address may be stored with that service provider solely for the purpose of sending emails on our behalf. We ensure any such provider has appropriate privacy safeguards and will not use your email for their own marketing. (For instance, if we use Wix’s built-in email marketing or a service like MailChimp/Constant Contact, your email is stored on those systems for our use only.)

  • Analytics and Advertising Partners: As described in the Cookies section, we use Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. These involve sharing certain data (through cookies or code) with Google and Facebook. For example, Google Analytics will receive your usage data and IP address, and Facebook may receive an identifier to know you visited our site for ad targeting. These partners process data according to their privacy policies, and we use settings that limit any collection of personally identifiable information wherever possible. We do not share any individual health or medical information with analytics or ad platforms.

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• Legal Compliance and Protection: We may disclose personal information when we believe it’s necessary to comply with a legal obligation or request. For example, if required by a court order, subpoena, or government investigation, we may have to provide relevant data as mandated by law. We may also share information if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, enforce our terms and policies, protect your safety or the safety of others, or investigate fraud or security issuesdonnamichaelsauthor.com. This kind of disclosure is rare and would only occur in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

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• Business Transfers: If in the future First Step Podiatry is involved in a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or other business transaction, user information (which could include your personal data) may be transferred to a successor or affiliate as part of that transaction. If that situation arises, we would ensure the new owners continue to honor the commitments we’ve made in this Privacy Policy, and we would notify you (for example, via email or a prominent notice on our site) of any change in data ownership or new uses of your personal information.

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Aside from the scenarios above, we do not share your personal information with any other third parties. Under no circumstances do we rent or sell personal data such as email lists to other companies for marketing.

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Data Storage and Security

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We take reasonable measures to protect the security of your personal information. Your data is stored through secure systems:

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• Wix Secure Storage: Data collected through our website (via forms or account sign-up) is stored on Wix’s secure servers. Wix implements advanced security measures to protect data, including encryption in transit (HTTPS on our site) and firewalls to safeguard stored datadonnamichaelsauthor.com. We rely on Wix’s security protocols and continuously monitor updates or patches that Wix provides to keep our site secure.

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• Internal Records: Any additional records that we maintain (for example, consultation notes or health records kept on file) are secured by us internally. Digital records are protected by passwords and accessible only to authorized personnel (such as our podiatrist and, if applicable, limited staff who need the information to assist in service delivery). If any physical records (paper files) are kept, they are stored in a secure location. We treat sensitive health information with strict confidentiality and in compliance with medical privacy standards.

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• Email and Communications: Communication via email or our site’s contact form is encrypted in transit by standard TLS encryption. However, please be aware that no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please take care in sharing sensitive information and understand that you do so at your own risk.

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• Zoom Security: For our Zoom video consultations, we use unique meeting links and may require passcodes to ensure only you and authorized personnel can join. Zoom communications are encrypted by Zoom’s platform. We follow best practices such as not sharing meeting links publicly and using the waiting room feature to admit clients. We also encourage you to ensure you are using an updated Zoom client for the best security.

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• Third-Party Security: We carefully select the third-party service providers we work with and review their security practices. For instance, Google and Facebook use industry-standard security for the data they collect via our site. However, these providers each manage their own systems. In the unlikely event of a data breach involving your information, we will follow all applicable laws regarding notification to affected users and take appropriate steps to remedy the situation.

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International Data Transfers: If you are located outside of the country where our business is based (for example, outside of Ireland/the EU if our operations are in Ireland), your information may be transferred to and stored in a country with data protection laws different from your jurisdiction. Specifically, data stored with Wix or sent through Zoom or other providers might be processed in the United States or other locations. We will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place for such transfers, in compliance with relevant laws (for example, using standard contractual clauses approved by the EU for data transfer, if applicable). By using our services, you acknowledge that your personal data may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it, as described in this policy.

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Data Retention

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We will retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of providing services to you and satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

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• If you are a client of First Step Podiatry, we will retain your information for the duration of our relationship (for example, for as long as you continue to use our services or have an active account with us).

• Even after you stop using our services or your account is deleted, we may need to keep certain data for a period of time. For instance, we might retain consultation records or health information for a number of years as required by healthcare regulations or professional liability purposes. Personal data that is no longer needed will be securely disposed of or anonymized so it can no longer be associated with you.

• For marketing emails (newsletter subscriptions), we retain your email on our mailing list until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it. If you opt out of marketing communications, we will remove your contact from our mailing list promptly, but we may keep a record of your request to ensure we don’t accidentally send you further communications.

• Any analytics data collected via cookies is retained as per Google’s and Facebook’s policies. These are usually aggregated data; Google Analytics retains data for a period (which we configure, e.g., 26 months or as per our settings) unless we delete it sooner. We do not have access to personal identifiers in analytics data that would allow us to trace it back to an individual, especially once it’s aggregated.

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When we have no ongoing legitimate need or obligation to process your personal information, we will either delete it or anonymize it. If deletion is not immediately feasible (for example, because the data is stored in backup archives), we will securely store it and isolate it

from further use until deletion is possible.

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Your Rights and Choices

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You have certain rights regarding your personal data, especially if you are in a jurisdiction with comprehensive privacy laws (such as the European Union under the GDPR, or California under the CCPA). We are committed to honoring your rights and giving you control over your information. These rights may include:

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• Access and Correction: You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you and to receive a copy of it. You also have the right to request that we correct or update any information about you that is inaccurate or incomplete. For example, if you change your email address or notice that we have an incorrect phone number, you can ask us to update our records.

• Deletion: You can request that we delete the personal information we have collected from you. For instance, if you no longer want us to have your data, you may ask us to remove it from our systems. We will honor such requests to the extent possible. Please note that there may be situations where we cannot immediately delete data – for example, if we are required by law to keep records (such as medical records for a certain time) or if the data is needed to complete an ongoing service (like an active treatment plan). We will inform you of any such retention if applicable.

• Objection and Restriction: You have the right to object to certain processing of your data or request that we restrict processing. For example, you can ask that we not use your data for marketing purposes. You can also object to processing based on our legitimate interests unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue (such as an overriding need to ensure site security).

• Data Portability: For data that you provided to us and which we process by automated means based on your consent or in performance of a contract, you have the right to request a copy in a common machine-readable format (for example, a CSV file) and/or request that we transmit it to another service provider if technically feasible.

• Withdraw Consent: If we are processing your personal information based on your consent (for example, your consent to receive marketing emails or to collect sensitive health data), you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, and it won’t affect processing of your data under other legal bases (for instance, this will not remove your consultation data that we processed under a medical service basis). If you withdraw consent for marketing emails, we will stop sending them.

• Opt-Out of Marketing: As noted, every marketing email we send will contain an unsubscribe link at the bottom. You can click that to opt out of future emails. You may also contact us directly to be removed from our mailing list. We will promptly honor opt-out and unsubscribe requests.

• Cookies Choices: As described in the Cookies section, you can control or delete cookies through your browser settings. If you prefer not to accept any cookies, you can also set your browser to reject cookies. Additionally, you can use industry opt-out tools for targeted advertising cookies (such as through YourAdChoices for relevant networks).

• Non-Discrimination: If you exercise any of these rights, we will not treat you differently. For example, if you opt out of marketing or request deletion of data, we will not deny you services or provide a lower level of service (except of course that we cannot provide services that rely on processing of data we no longer have).

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To exercise any of your rights, please contact us (see Contact Us below). We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests (for instance, we might ask you to confirm some details we have on file to ensure the request is legitimate). This is to protect your privacy by ensuring someone else isn’t attempting to access or delete your data.

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If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom and believe we have not adequately respected your data rights, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. In Ireland, for example, this would be the Data Protection Commission (DPC). In the UK, it would be the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We encourage you to contact

us first so we can address your concerns directly.

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Children's Privacy (Minors)

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Our services are not intended for individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 years old. If you are under 18, please do not use our website or services, and do not provide any personal information to us. We understand the importance of protecting children’s privacy, especially in a healthcare context, and our policy is to strictly limit our services to adults.

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In the event that we discover we have collected personal information from a minor under 18, we will take immediate steps to delete that information from our records. If you are a parent or guardian and you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 18, please contact us so that we can promptly investigate and address the issue.

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(Note: For general awareness, in some jurisdictions children’s privacy laws (such as COPPA in the United States which applies to children under 13) impose specific requirements on data handling. Although our service is not directed to minors at all, we take care to comply with all applicable laws regarding minors' data.)

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Changes to This Privacy Policy

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We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we update the policy, we will change the “Last updated” date at the top of this document. If the changes are significant, we may provide a more prominent notice, such as a notification on our website or an email to clients, to inform you of the update.

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We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information. Your continued use of our website or services after any modifications to this Privacy Policy will constitute your acknowledgment of the changes and agreement to be bound by the updated policy.

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Contact Us

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If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us. We are here to help and will respond as promptly as possible.

Contact Information for Privacy Inquiries:

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• Email: kelsmac2@gmail.com – You can email me with questions about this policy or requests related to your personal data.

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(Replace the placeholders above with your actual contact details. Providing a contact email is important for users to reach out regarding privacy concerns.)

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By using First Step Podiatry’s website and services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policyfirststepcare.ie.

 

We value your trust and are committed to safeguarding your personal information. Thank you for choosing First Step Podiatry for your foot care needs.