GS Eye Center and Portzone Co., Ltd. process personal information collected through this English-language website in accordance with the Personal Information Protection Act of the Republic of Korea and related statutes. This policy sets out, article by article, what is collected, why, who handles it, how long it is kept, and the rights you can exercise.
Article 1 (The Parties That Handle Your Personal Information)
- GS Eye Center (Mijin Plaza, 390 Gangnam-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea) is the medical institution. Examinations, diagnosis, treatment and medical records rest with the clinic and its medical staff.
- Portzone Co., Ltd. is the clinic's international marketing and coordination partner and a foreign patient attraction agency registered in the Republic of Korea (registration no. A-2026-01-01-07030). Portzone receives international inquiries and handles replies, scheduling and coordination on the clinic's behalf. Contact for personal information matters: sales@portzone.co.kr.
References to "we" and "us" in this policy mean the two parties above, each acting within its role.
Article 2 (Purposes of Processing Personal Information)
We process your personal information for the following purposes:
- Replying to your inquiry and providing the consultation you requested.
- Preparing your pre-assessment with the clinic's medical team.
- Coordinating your exam, surgery and travel schedule if you decide to proceed.
- Coordinating aftercare follow-up if you become a patient.
- Producing aggregate usage statistics to improve this website (no individual identification).
Your information is not used beyond these purposes. If a purpose changes, we seek your separate consent first. We do not sell your personal information and do not use it for third-party advertising.
Article 3 (Items Collected and Methods of Collection)
- Consultation form: your name, email address, procedure of interest, and the message you write. What to include in the message - such as a prescription - is your choice.
- WhatsApp: your phone number and the messages and photos you send, delivered through WhatsApp's own service.
- Collected automatically: while analytics is active, usage data such as pages viewed, approximate region, and device and browser type (Article 12).
This website requires no account. It does not ask for passport or resident registration numbers; if identification details become necessary to book treatment, they are requested separately at that stage, with separate consent.
Article 4 (Processing of Sensitive Information - Health Information)
- Prescription details, eye conditions, surgical history and symptoms you choose to share are sensitive information under Korean law. The choice and the extent of what you share are yours.
- Such information is collected with your separate consent, given through the consent checkbox on the consultation form or by your sending it in a message.
- It is used to prepare your consultation and pre-assessment, is shared no further than Article 6 describes, and is destroyed under Article 11 once that purpose is achieved, subject to statutory retention.
Article 5 (Retention and Use Period)
- Inquiry information is kept for as long as needed to handle your consultation and any care that follows from it, and is then destroyed or anonymized.
- If you become a patient, medical records are retained by GS Eye Center for the periods set by Korean medical law.
- You may request earlier deletion at any time (Article 10); statutory retention duties take precedence where they apply.
Article 6 (Provision of Personal Information to Third Parties)
- Your information is shared between GS Eye Center and Portzone Co., Ltd. to the extent needed to handle your inquiry and coordinate your care - the purpose for which you submitted it.
- Beyond that, it is provided to no other party, except where a statute requires it or a competent authority lawfully demands it.
Article 7 (Outsourced Processing and Service Providers)
The following providers process data in the course of operating this website:
- Vercel Inc. - website hosting.
- Google LLC - web fonts and website analytics (Article 12).
- Meta Platforms (WhatsApp) - message delivery, when you choose that channel.
These providers process data under their own terms and safeguards; we entrust them with no more than their function requires.
Article 8 (Cross-Border Transfer of Personal Information)
- Your information is processed in the Republic of Korea, where the clinic and Portzone operate.
- The hosting and analytics providers in Article 7 operate servers in the United States and other regions, so data they process may be stored outside Korea under their safeguards.
- If you contact us from another country, you transmit your information to Korea by doing so. The protections in this policy apply wherever you write from.
Article 9 (Messenger Platforms)
WhatsApp is operated by Meta Platforms under its own terms and privacy policy. We are responsible for how we handle the content of your consultation once we receive it; the platform's own processing of your account and messages is governed by the platform.
Article 10 (Your Rights and How to Exercise Them)
You may ask us, at any time, to:
- tell you what personal information of yours we hold;
- correct it if it is wrong;
- delete it, subject to statutory retention duties;
- stop further contact from us.
Send any of these requests through the consultation form, the same WhatsApp line you used to contact us, or sales@portzone.co.kr. We may verify your identity before acting, and we confirm what was done.
Article 11 (Destruction of Personal Information)
When the retention period ends or the purpose is achieved, electronic files are permanently deleted so they cannot be restored, and printed documents are shredded. Information that a statute requires us to keep is stored separately and used for nothing else.
Article 12 (Cookies and Analytics)
- This website requires no login and sets no advertising cookies of its own.
- We use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate usage - which pages are read and roughly where visitors come from. Google Analytics sets cookies under Google's own policy.
- You may refuse cookies through your browser settings; the pages keep working without them.
- Web fonts load from Google Fonts when a page opens, which sends a standard font request to Google's servers.
Article 13 (Measures to Ensure Security)
Access to inquiry records is limited to the people who handle international consultations. Transmission between your browser and this website is encrypted (HTTPS), and printed materials, where they exist, are kept under corresponding physical care.
Article 14 (Children's Personal Information)
This website is addressed to adults considering treatment. Consultations about a minor - for example, Ortho-K for a child - must be made by a parent or legal guardian. We do not knowingly collect information directly from children under 14; if we learn that we have, we destroy it without delay.
Article 15 (Contact and Remedies)
Questions about this policy or about your personal information: write to us through the consultation form, by WhatsApp, or at sales@portzone.co.kr. GS Eye Center, Mijin Plaza floors 8, 15 and 16, 390 Gangnam-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea. If you believe your rights have been infringed and our response does not resolve it, you may contact the Personal Information Protection Commission of Korea or the Privacy Call Center (privacy.go.kr, 118 within Korea).
Article 16 (Amendment of This Policy)
If this policy changes, the updated version is published on this page with a revised date, and material changes are announced here in advance. Changes do not reduce the protection of information collected before them without your consent.