Privacy policy

This policy explains how Spectrum Vision (registered as Spectrum Vision Center) handles information in connection with the website at spectrumvisionfl.com. It covers the website only.

It is not the practice’s Notice of Privacy Practices. How your medical record is used and disclosed by the practice is a separate document that the office provides to patients — ask the front desk or call 321-777-1800 for a copy.

This website has no contact form, no patient portal and no account sign-up. There is nothing on it that asks you to submit personal information, and nothing you type into it is sent to the practice.

What does get recorded:

• A count of page visits. When a page is opened, our own server adds one line to our own database: which page, the date and time, whether the visit came from a phone, tablet or computer, and — if you arrived by clicking a link on another website — the name of that website, such as “google.com”. That is the whole record. It is not tied to you, and there is no way to work back from it to a person.
• A count of appointment-button clicks. If you press a “Book appointment” button, we record that a booking button was pressed, which page it was on and where on the page it sits. Nothing about you, and nothing about the appointment. We keep this because those buttons hand you over to our scheduling software, so a click is the last thing this website can see.
• Server access logs. Like any web server, the server that hosts this site records ordinary technical details of each request — your IP address, the page requested, the date and time, the referring page, and your browser and device type. These logs are used to keep the site running and secure.
• Advertising cookies. Google and Meta (Facebook) set cookies in your browser through small measurement scripts on most pages of this site, so that the practice can see how many people book an appointment after clicking one of its ads, and can show its ads again to people who have visited. What those cookies hold belongs to Google and Meta, not to us. We do not send them your name, your contact details, or anything at all about your eyes, your health or an appointment. There is more about this below, including how to turn it off.
• A staff login session. The site has a password-protected area used only by practice staff to edit content and to read the visit counts described above. Signing in there sets a session cookie. It is not available to visitors and is not used for tracking.

The website does not collect your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, insurance details or any health information.

Counting visits — our own, and no cookie. We count visits ourselves. The counting is done by our own website on our own server, and the numbers are stored in our own database. No outside analytics company is involved in it: there is no Google Analytics on this site. Counting a visit does not set a cookie, does not store anything in your browser, and does not give you an ID that follows you.

To get a rough sense of how many different people visited on a given day — rather than how many pages were opened — our server scrambles your IP address and browser details together with a secret that we generate fresh every day and then delete when the day ends. The result is a short jumble of letters and numbers. It cannot be turned back into your IP address, and because yesterday’s secret no longer exists, today’s jumble cannot be matched to any other day. Your IP address and browser details themselves are never saved by the counter.

Advertising pixels — these are other companies’, and they do set cookies. This website also carries two small advertising measurement scripts, often called pixels or tags: one from Google (Google Ads) and one from Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. They run on most pages. When they run, Google and Meta set their own cookies in your browser, and they are able to recognise that browser again on other websites and apps that use the same services. Those cookies belong to Google and to Meta, not to us, and what is kept in them is governed by Google’s privacy policy and Meta’s privacy policy.

The practice uses them for two things and nothing else:

• Measuring bookings from advertising. Counting how many people press a “Book appointment” button after arriving from one of our ads, so the practice can tell whether the advertising is worth paying for.
• Retargeting. Showing our ads again, on Google and on Meta’s apps, to people who have already visited this website.

What we send them. When you press a “Book appointment” button, we tell Google and Meta one thing: that a booking was started. We also tell Meta which button it was — for example the one in the menu bar, or the one at the foot of the page — and which of the practice’s two websites it happened on. That is the entire message. We do not send your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, insurance details, appointment details, or anything at all about your eyes or your health, and we have deliberately switched off the Meta setting that would otherwise try to match you to a Facebook account.

Separately from that message, and as happens with any script a website loads, Google and Meta receive the ordinary things your browser tells every site it contacts: the address of the page you are on, your IP address, and general information about your browser and device. We cannot strip that, which is the reason for the paragraph below.

Where these pixels are deliberately not loaded. Because the address of a page can itself say something about why you are reading it, we keep these scripts off any page that could. They do not load on pages about a condition or a treatment — dry eye, ocular disease, emergency care, myopia management and medical testing among them — and they do not load on the individual articles in our blog, on this privacy policy, on our accessibility page, or anywhere in the staff-only area of the site. On those pages nothing whatever is sent to Google or Meta.

If your browser asks not to be tracked, they never load at all. When your browser sends a “Do Not Track” or “Global Privacy Control” signal, no advertising script is loaded on any page, no advertising cookie is set, and no visit or button click is counted by us either. The site works exactly the same either way.

How to stop the advertising cookies. Any of these works, and nothing on this website stops working if you do them:

• Switch on Global Privacy Control or Do Not Trackin your browser’s privacy settings. Some browsers have it built in; others need a free extension. This is the most complete option — the scripts are then never loaded.
• Block third-party cookies in your browser settings, or use any content or tracker blocker.
• Turn off ad personalisation with the companies themselves: Google My Ad Center and Meta ad preferences.
• Use the industry opt-out pages at optout.aboutads.info and optout.networkadvertising.org.

What we do not do. We do not build our own profiles of visitors, we do not try to work out who you are, and we do not sell or rent information about visitors to anybody. The information described above is the only information that leaves this website, and it goes only to the companies named here for the purposes named here.

One more third party worth knowing about: the map on our contact page is embedded from Google Maps. When that map loads, your browser contacts Google directly, and Google may receive your IP address and set its own cookies under Google’s privacy policy. We do not receive that information. Blocking third-party cookies or scripts in your browser prevents it; the rest of the page still works.

• Weave— the practice’s patient communication software. Our “book an appointment” and “new-patient forms” links take you to pages hosted by Weave, not to pages on this site. What you enter there goes to Weave and then to the practice, and is handled under Weave’s terms and the practice’s privacy practices. Read what is on the Weave page before you submit it.
• Google Maps— used for the embedded map and the “get directions” links, as described above.
• Google Ads— measures how many appointment bookings start after someone clicks one of the practice’s ads, and lets the practice show its ads again to people who have visited. It sets cookies. It is given no personal or health information; see the section above.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram)— the same two jobs for advertising on Meta’s apps. It sets cookies. It is given no personal or health information, and the feature that would try to match you to a Facebook account is switched off.
• Our web host — the company whose server delivers this site, keeps the access logs described above, and holds the database the visit counts are stored in. The counts are not shared with them or with anyone else.

Links to other websites — including Weave, Google Maps and any social-media pages — leave this site. We are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices.

This website is not a channel for medical records or protected health information. Do not use it — or email — to send symptoms, test results, prescriptions, insurance claims, or anything else about your care. Email is not a secure channel and nothing sent to this site is monitored in real time.

For anything clinical, and for any request involving your medical record — a copy, a correction, or a restriction on how it is used — call the office at 321-777-1800 during office hours. Those requests are handled through the practice’s records process, not through this website.

If you are having a medical emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.

This website is aimed at adults arranging eye care for themselves or their family. It is not directed at children, and because it asks no visitor — of any age — for personal information, it does not knowingly collect information from children online.

Because this website does not collect personal information — the visit and button counts described above are not linked to any person and cannot be traced back to one — there is normally nothing held by the site to look up, correct or delete on request. If you believe we hold information about you and you want it corrected or deleted — including anything you sent through a booking or intake form — contact the office and tell us what you are asking for:

• By phone: 321-777-1800
• By email: info@spectrumvisionfl.com — for administrative questions only, never for medical information
• By fax: 321-777-7504
• By mail: Spectrum Vision, 2000 South Patrick Drive #7, Indian Harbour Beach, FL 32937

Requests about your medical record are handled under the practice’s Notice of Privacy Practices rather than this policy, and we will tell you what we need in order to act on one.

Anything held in a Google or Meta advertising cookie is held by those companies, not by us, so we cannot look it up or delete it on your behalf. The links in the advertising section above are the way to reach their own settings and controls.

If how the site works changes — for example if a contact form is added, or if the way visits are counted changes — this policy will be updated and the “last updated” date at the top will change with it. The version published here is the one that applies.