Stay safe in the world of digital information

As we all enjoy more convenient and efficient new digital tools in all areas of life, such as shopping, transport, banking and medical scheme apps, we need to keep up with our online awareness and safety.

Learn how we manage and process your personal information

We explained in the past that, as a medical scheme, we need to manage and process your personal information, for us to be able to provide our services to you, to fund your healthcare needs and to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.

While we are doing this with great care, you also have certain responsibilities as a member. Please always keep your contact details up to date, learn how we process your personal information and how we keep it safe. If you have not familiarised yourself with our privacy policy, please do so. In the footer of the Scheme website, you will find a link to our Privacy page.

Don't share your membership information

You should never share your password to the Scheme website of the app, nor your membership information or card, whether it is the physical card or the virtual card in the Anglo Medical Scheme app. Remember that only you and your registered dependants may use the benefits of your membership. Should you let anybody else use your membership benefits it is considered fraud - a criminal offence with consequences. The law, in our case the Medical Schemes Act, is clear: members that defraud their Scheme will be terminated and the matter will be handed over to the relevant employer. You can imagine that employers would not want to continue employing a staff member that has committed a criminal offence.

Watch out for online fraud

According to the Surfshark Alert database, South Africa reached the top ten countries worldwide in terms of cybercrime density, affecting individual people, with phishing being the most common cybercrime experienced. Phishing is the attempt to trick the recipient of a message to reveal sensitive information or to deploy malicious software on to your device, such as ransomware. This could be an email from a source that looks similar to a trusted organisation, such as SARS or your bank, asking you to confirm your personal or log-in details. We have also seen an increase in scammers sending a link to WhatsApp users, claiming that users can win a reward, for example a voucher from a well-known retailer, by filling in a simple survey. A few red flags to look out for:

• If it looks too good to be true, or if senders are pushing for urgency, your alarm bells should ring.
• As soon as anybody is asking you for sensitive information like your bank information or log-in information, be alert!
• Random characters in the links or sender addresses, or misspelt words will also give it away, these are used to trick your spam filters.
• If it doesn't look professional, it probably isn't.

Just take it slow when reacting to unknown online requests, keep your antivirus software up to date to include the latest protection and keep up with online security knowledge. We are doing everything we can from our side to keep your information safe. If you ever have doubts about Scheme communication or suspicious transactions on your membership please call us on 0860 222 633.

Published: June 2022.