Privacy Policy

1. COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may collect and use the personal information you provide us (unless otherwise stated below), including your personal health information, when you:

• Obtain our Services
• Create an account to access and use the Portal
• Book an appointment
• Pay for our Services
• Sign up to receive program updates and marketing emails about MWM resources, services, offers and events
• Agree to participate in research activities
• Attend one of our events
• Contact us

Our Services: We collect personal information from you, including personal health information, to enable MWM healthcare providers and other professionals (the "MWM Team") to provide you with medical and behavioural weight management support services through a virtual care setting. We may also collect relevant personal health information about you from your other healthcare providers, such as your primary care physician, for this purpose. Your information collected in connection with our Services is stored in your medical record, which is accessible to the MWM Team through our virtual care offering.

In order to provide customized patient support, we may collect your first and last name, gender, date of birth, weight, height, body mass index, family status, personal and family medical history (including information about any treatments, diagnoses, or prescriptions), metabolic lab work, the name of your primary care provider, physician and medical referral appointment information, health card number and other relevant information for the purposes of determining suitability for, planning and delivering our Services to you.

Virtual Care: Our non-urgent, non-emergency Services are offered remotely, either through real-time video or audio technology. If you choose to use our Services, you will be asked to verify your identity such as by showing us your government-issued photo ID at the start of your virtual care session. If you share personal information with your healthcare provider through the chat functionality in a virtual care session, that information may be stored in your medical record.

We do our best to make sure that any information you give to us during virtual care visits is private and secure; however, there may be circumstances in which your communications with us, including the transmission of certain sensitive personal health information, will be through unencrypted e-communication. As with all online communications, there is a risk that your personal health information may be intercepted or unintentionally accessed or disclosed, and this risk is increased when unencrypted e-communication is used. To help mitigate this risk, you should be in a private setting when receiving virtual care and should not use an employer's or someone else's computer or device.

Our Portal: As a MWM patient, you may create an online account to access and use the Portal in order to communicate with us, view scheduled appointments, complete questionnaires or assigned tasks, and access our tools and resources. In order to create and administer your account and authenticate you, we will collect your full name, email address, username and password, and phone number. You are required to keep your username and password secure and not share it with anyone else. We will never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication (such as letters, phone calls, or email messages).

Booking an Appointment: We collect personal information when you book an appointment or request virtual care, including a consultation, through the Website or by phone. This information may include your first and last name, email address, date of birth, height, weight, body mass index, phone number, reason for booking/requesting our Services, medical history, information regarding how you heard about MWM, and any other information you choose to provide us. We use this information to book an appropriate appointment and provide the MWM Team with the information they need to deliver services to you. You can view your past and upcoming appointment bookings through the Portal or by contacting us.

Payment: When you pay for our Services, our authorized third-party payment processor will collect your full name and payment information (including billing address, credit card number, expiry date and CVV code) in order to process the transaction and enable the MWM Team to provide you with the services you have purchased.

Program Updates and Marketing Communications: When you sign up to receive our Services or if we otherwise have your consent, we will collect and use your full name and email address to provide you with communications including information about MWM resources, services, offers, events and promotions. You can unsubscribe at any time by you can unsubscribe any time by contacting us at the contact information under "Contact Us" below. Please note that you may continue to receive transactional, informational or account-related communications from us even if you unsubscribe from marketing communications.

Research: From time to time, MWM may participate in medical research. All research projects undertaken by MWM will be approved by the applicable Research Ethics Board and have Health Canada approval, if required, and you will be asked to review and, if you wish to participate, sign a Patient Information and Consent Form prior to any study related interactions. We will not use or disclose your personal health information for these studies in a manner that can identify you without obtaining your consent in a manner consistent with applicable law.

Events: If you attend one of our events or webinars, we may collect your first and last name, email address, city, province, postal code, country, phone number, and any other information you may provide us in connection with the event or webinar. We collect this information so that we can communicate with you about the event and contact you about future events.

Contacting Us: You may get in touch with MWM, including by telephone or email. We record telephone calls for quality assurance and training purposes. When you contact us with a comment, question or concern, you may provide information that identifies you, such as your name, email and phone number, along with additional information we may need to help us promptly answer your question or respond to your comment. We may retain this information to assist you in the future.

Non-Identifiable Information: We may modify or aggregate your personal information, including personal health information, such that it cannot reasonably be associated with you, for the following purposes:

(i) to protect your privacy and the security of your personal information; and

(ii) to conduct research and/or analytics with the goal of improving our Services, developing new offerings and improving weight management outcomes.

We may share such non-identifiable information or insights with certain limited third parties to assist in research, statistics, analytics, planning, or product and service development.

2. SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do not sell, rent or disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as described in this Privacy Policy or as required or permitted by applicable law.

Other Healthcare Providers: We may share your personal information with your other healthcare providers and facilities (e.g., your primary care physician, a pharmacy or laboratory) for the purpose of supporting your continuity of care.

Service Providers: Your personal information may be transferred (or otherwise made available) to third parties that provide services to us or on our behalf. We use third parties to provide services to us such as virtual care, laboratory testing, cloud storage services, and payment card processing. Our service providers are only provided with the information they need to perform their designated functions. They are not authorized to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes. Our service providers may be located in Canada, the U.S. or other foreign jurisdictions and your personal information, including personal health information, may be transferred outside of the jurisdiction in which you reside.

Legal and Compliance: We and our Canadian, U.S. and other foreign service providers may disclose your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or as otherwise may be required or permitted by applicable Canadian, U.S. or other law or legal process, which may include lawful access by U.S. or foreign courts, law enforcement or other government authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.

Sale of Business: We may transfer information we have about our patients as an asset in connection with a proposed or completed merger, acquisition or sale (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings) involving all or part of MWM or as part of a corporate reorganization or other change in corporate control.

3. STORAGE AND LOCATION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use service providers who may access or store personal information, including personal health information, in Canada, the U.S. and other foreign jurisdictions in the course of providing services to us. Your medical record is stored in data centers in Canada.

4. SAFEGUARDS AND RETENTION

We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures in an effort to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss and unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure. The only MWM employees and service providers who have access to our patients' personal information are those who "need to know" the information in order to carry out their job duties.

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes discussed in this Privacy Policy or to meet our legal or business requirements. Personal health information that forms part of your medical record will be retained in accordance with applicable regulatory retention guidelines.

MWM and any applicable third parties may retain non-identifiable information for the purposes outlined above under "Non-Identifiable Information".

5. YOUR CHOICES

Marketing Communications: If you have signed up to receive our email marketing communications, you can unsubscribe any time by contacting us at the contact information under "Contact Us" below.

Withdraw your Consent: If you have provided consent to our collection, use or disclosure of personal information, you can withdraw your consent at any time (subject to our legal or contractual restrictions) by contacting us at the contact information set out below. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. As set out under the "Safeguards and Retention" section above, even if you withdraw your consent, personal information that forms part of your medical record must be retained for a period of time to meet legal and regulatory obligations.

6. ACCESS TO AND UPDATING OF INFORMATION

Subject to limited exceptions under applicable law, you have the right to access, examine, update and ask to correct inaccuracies in your personal information, including personal health information, in our custody and control (and, in certain provinces, to authorize another person to receive a copy of your personal health information). You may make such requests by contacting us using the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information from you when you make such a request in order to verify your identity.

7. UPDATES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page to ensure you are familiar with those changes. We will indicate at the top of this Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated.

8. CONTACT US

If you have any questions, concerns or comments about this Privacy Policy or the manner in which we or our service providers handle your personal information, wish to request access to or correction of your personal information in our records or wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us at:

Privacy Officer
401-286 Sandford Ave N
Hamilton, ON
L8L 6A1
privacy@mwmcc.ca

If you have concerns with our Privacy Policy or privacy practices, we encourage you to first bring your concerns to us at privacy@mwmcc.ca. You may also seek advice from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the provincial Privacy Commissioner having jurisdiction, and, if appropriate, file a written complaint with the Commissioner's office.

To contact the applicable privacy commissioner, please visit the following websites:

Nova Scotia: https://oipc.novascotia.ca
Ontario: https://www.ipc.on.ca
British Columbia: https://www.oipc.bc.ca
Prince Edward Island: https://www.assembly.pe.ca/offices/information-and-privacy-commissioner
Federal: https://www.priv.gc.ca