Security Policy & Cookie Notice

Last Updated: August 23, 2022

All references to our ”Website” or “Websites” in this Policy & Notice include all websites owned and operated by London Drugs Limited, including without limit: www.londondrugs.com (including photolab.londondrugs.com and pharmacy.londondrugs.com), www.ldhealth.com, www.ldextras.com and www.prolabcanada.ca.


Security of your Personal Information

London Drugs values our relationship with each of our customers and the trust you place with us, particularly when you provide personal information to us online. We work very hard to protect the security and privacy of any personal information you provide to us in accordance with this Security policy and our Privacy policy.

We take extensive measures designed to protect your privacy by safeguarding any personal information we collect, provide to third-party service providers and/or store during the course of doing business together.   All the information you provide to us is securely maintained and is kept strictly confidential to a level appropriate to the level of sensitivity of the information.

We use a variety of security measures such as restricting employee access to files, data centers, and using locked file cabinets. In addition we make use of electronic security measures such as passwords, personal ID numbers, tokenization and data encryption as appropriate.

Employees must conform to London Drugs’ privacy policies, procedures and code of conduct and observe the highest standards of confidentiality. We subscribe to the general principle that only those employees that need to know the information in order to provide you services have access to your information.

For certain types of online transactions, such as requests for prescription refills, we use a technology called TLS (Transport Layer Security). If your browser is capable of TLS (and most are), your personal information will be automatically encrypted, or encoded, before it is sent over the Internet. The encryption process protects your information, such as phone number, billing and shipping information by scrambling it before it is sent to us from your computer.

For other types of online transactions, and in particular those that involve providing personal financial information such as credit cards, London Drugs has also obtained a digital certificate from COMODO CA Limited, a leading provider of Internet trust services. When you enter a secured portion of our Websites, an image of a closed lock or a solid key should appear in the top bar of your browser window. If you click on this image, a small popup window displaying site-security information will appear. This certificate is confirmation that your personal information is being transmitted in secure (encrypted) form to our London Drugs web server, not to some unknown or unauthorized server.



COOKIES, TRACKING AND ONLINE INTEREST BASED ADVERTISING (OBA) NOTICE

This Notice supplements our Privacy policy, Legal Terms of Use, and any other terms that apply to your relationship with us.


Automatic online collection of information

When you visit our Websites, you are welcome to browse anonymously without providing personal information.   Like most companies, we automatically gather certain forms of aggregated or non-personally identifiable data when you interact with our digital or electronic properties and communications, such as our Websites, Apps, emails and texts (collectively referred to as “digital properties”).  To extent any such data is or becomes personally identifiable, we treat it as personal information in accordance with our Privacy policy.


What automated data we collect

We use cookies and other automatic data tracking technologies (see definition of “Tracking Tech” below) to collect certain information as you navigate through our Websites and digital properties.  The type of information we collect may include:

Social Media Platforms:  London Drugs may collect information through social media platforms, when you post or view information that mentions London Drugs, our products, services, events or promotions or when you interact with or like our content and social media channels.    Interactions on social media platforms are governed by the privacy policies of that platform.   Reports provided by social media platforms do not include personal information and contain only aggregated and de-identified data.


Why we collect this automated data:

The automated information we collect helps us to improve our Websites and to deliver a better and more personalized service.

Most of the information collected is aggregated and statistical and helps us to understand how visitors explore and interact with our Websites.   Automated data helps us estimate our audience size and usage patterns.  We may analyze website performance, administer services, track user movement for analytics, including purchasing and online behaviors, and gather aggregated demographic information.

Automated data we collect may also help improve the content, administration and delivery of services and understand how our customers prefer to use our Websites and services.  We may be able to prepopulate certain information so that you do not have to enter it multiple times and remember your preferences.  It may also help us to deliver relevant advertising and to measure and understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others.


How we collect automated data:   Cookies and other Tracking Technology

We use various forms of technology to carry out our automated data collection (“Tracking Tech”), such as: 

Cookies. When you visit our Websites, you will be assigned a "cookie" (a small text file) to be stored on your computer or device.   Cookies consist of a unique number that distinguishes you from other visitors. Cookies don’t run code or contain viruses.  Cookies store bits of information that we use to help make our Websites work better.

Cookies help to identify you when you visit or return to our Websites. Cookies can be used to offer personalized web page content, remember your preferences, track your activity on the Websites, and to otherwise improve how you interact and experience our Websites. 

There are different kinds of cookies:

Some cookies are temporary and are erased when you close your internet browser and leave our Websites, and some are persistent cookies, that remain on your computer when you leave our Websites.

Cookies set by London Drugs on our Websites are called “first party cookies” and help provide a better user experience.  Cookies that we allow to be set by third parties on our Websites are called “third party cookies”.  Third party cookies allow third party features or functionality to be provided on or through our Websites, such as interactive content, analytics and for advertising purposes. 

Analytic cookies help us to understand more about how many visitors we have on our website and how they interact with it.  It helps gather information such as the pages you visit but not personal details such as your name or address. 

Google Analytics is an example of a third party analytic tool that London Drugs uses.  Google Analytics uses cookies and other Tracking Tech to analyze use of websites and provide reports on things like user demographics, how traffic reaches a website, and visitor activities on a website.  This information is collected through users’ Google ad settings and the reports provided are aggregated and do not include any personally identifiable information.   

You can refuse to accept most cookies or disable or delete individual cookies by activating the appropriate settings on your browser.    However, we recommend you leave cookies turned on if you wish to get the full benefits of our Websites, enjoy improved services and performance, like product and service recommendations, and to assist us in recognizing you, such as when you log into your London Drugs online account and showing items remaining in shopping cart from a prior visit to our Website . Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Websites.  

Web Beacons, Pixels & Tags. Web beacons are also known as clear GIFs, web bugs, tracer tags or pixels, and may be used alone or in combination with cookies.   These are small objects embedded into a web page on our Websites or other digital properties, and are used for many of the same purposes as cookies and allow us to gather aggregate statistics about website usage patterns, such as how many times a link or a page on a website is visited, how many of our emails were opened, activity generated by emails and support ongoing customer communications.   

Web beacons and pixels may also be used to help us optimize and tailor our Websites for customers and provide ads tailored to your interests.  They may tell us when an ad we run on another website has been clicked on by a visitor of our Websites and to help us know which ads are more appealing to users.  See also OBA section.

You may be unable to decline web beacons or pixels on our Websites, but going to browser settings to turn off cookies may render them ineffective.  There are also browser add-ons and extensions that may specifically block web beacons.  Please check the terms and privacy policy of the third party that placed the Tracking Tech for more information.    See also Control/Opt Out section.


Online Interest Based Advertising (OBA)

Online interest based advertising (OBA) is based on your online activities, such as the actions you take when you visit our Websites as well as other third party websites.  Tracking Tech collects information about your device (such as IP address) and online activities (such as products viewed) to help determine what types of products, services and advertisements may be of interest to you, rather than simply showing you random ads.   OBA allows us to serve you with ads from London Drugs and our vendor partners, that we hope you will find relevant.  

Tracking Tech facilitates the sharing of non personally identifiable information about Websites users with third party service and advertising providers, to serve you with relevant ads through their advertising platforms.    London Drugs engages with Google and Facebook (including the Facebook Pixel) for the purposes of OBA, in addition to other advertisers and social networking platforms from time to time. 

London Drugs may use information in a de-identified manner that our customers and LDExtras members have voluntarily provided to us (such as email address, phone number, name,  city or postal code) with social networking platforms we work with, like Google and Facebook, to create custom audiences for OBA.  No personal information is transferred from London Drugs to the social networking platforms; instead unique values are produced that these platforms can match to information their own users have provided directly to them.  The platform can then create custom audiences to serve ads for OBA purposes.   A similar process may be used to create custom ‘lookalike’ audiences of individuals who may not be current London Drugs customers, but who we think may also enjoy seeing our ads due to similar demographics and interests.   London Drugs does not know the identity of individuals included in custom audiences created for OBA on social networking platforms.

You can opt out from receiving ads relevant to your interests from "third parties" that participate in the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC) program and are identified on their opt-out page https://youradchoices.ca/en/tools. If you elect to opt out of OBA, you will still receive the same number of ads, but they may not be as relevant to you. Opting-out is generally cookie-based and may only affect the specific computer and browser on which the opt out is applied. If you delete your browser cookies and then want to continue to be opted out of interest-based ads, you will need to opt out again.
You can check the applicable third party websites directly to learn more about controlling their use of cookies and Tracking Tech for OBA purposes.  For more information about how you can control or opt out of OBA, see our Control/Opt Out section.


How to Control or Opt Out of Tracking Tech and OBA

To Control or Opt Out of:  

First party Cookies (cookies placed on our Websites by London Drugs)

You can refuse to accept most cookies or disable or delete individual cookies by activating the appropriate settings on your browser.    However, if you turn cookies off, you may not be able to enjoy all function and services of our Websites. 

Third party Cookies (third party cookies found on Websites)

See above.   Also go to the third party’s terms and privacy policies for more information on how to control or opt out of their cookies and Tracking Tech.

Online Interest Based Advertising (OBA) 

You can opt out from receiving tailored ads relevant to your interests from third parties registered with the non-profit Digital Advertising Association of Canada.  See http://youradchoices.ca/choices/ for more information.
Opting out in this manner will not prevent advertising from appearing online, but such advertising will not be targeted based on your online activities and interests.
You can also adjust your preferences and privacy settings with specific social media platforms you engage with by going directly to their sites. 

Google analytics 

To prevent data from being used by Google Analytics, download and install the opt-out add-on for your web browser  located at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

For information on Google Analytics privacy see:  https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en-GB

For information about managing Google cookies see:
https://policies.google.com/technologies/managing

Google advertising

Google users can control how their data is used by adjusting their ‘Web and App Activity’ settings in ‘My Activity’.
For more information see:
https://adssettings.google.com/ 
https://policies.google.com/technologies/managing 
https://policies.google.com/privacy
https://policies.google.com/privacy#infochoices

Facebook Pixel
or Facebook Custom Audiences

Adjust your social advertising settings at https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings, use the opt-out features in the Facebook advertisement.
For information on Facebook’s advertising privacy policies and how to opt out see facebook.com/about/privacy/

To request to be excluded from London Drugs custom audiences created through social media platforms like Facebook and Google 

Contact London Drugs privacy officer via email at: privacy@londondrugs.com.

Opt out of other London Drugs subscribed services, emails, electronic communications or programs

Click on ‘unsubscribe’ in any electronic communications you receive from London Drugs. 
You may also go to our Privacy Policy at:
https://www.londondrugs.com/london-drugs-privacy-policy/PrivacyPolicy.html
or our Email Subscription Settings for further information and options at: https://www.londondrugs.com/email-subscription-settings/enewsletter-settings.html


The Tracking Tech used by London Drugs is subject to change, and the above table may not contain all Tracking Tech used by London Drugs at a given time.  This table may be updated by London Drugs at any time, without notice.


When reading this Security Policy & Cookie Notice:

Where the words “include”, “including” or “such as” is used, it means “including but not limited to” and is not intended to be an exhaustive listing.  

There may be times when our Websites contain links to other websites or internet resources.  You are encouraged to read and understand the privacy and security policies of those sites prior to your use as London Drugs has no control, responsibility or liability for or over those sites.   Outside of allowing some third parties to place cookies or Tracking Tech on our Websites for analytical and OBA purposes, we do not control third party Tracking Tech or how they are used by those third parties. If you have any questions about third party Tracking Tech or targeted advertisements, you should contact the responsible provider directly.