Privacy, plainly.

Who is responsible

The practice of Op. Dr. Hasbi Mert Meral — a private medical practice authorised by the Turkish Ministry of Health under certificate ST-4695 — is the data controller for everything described on this page.

Processing follows Turkish data-protection law (KVKK, Law No. 6698). If you write to us from the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, the GDPR and the UK GDPR apply alongside it.

What this website collects: nothing

There are no cookies on this site. No analytics, no advertising pixels, no tracking of any kind — nothing is stored in your browser and no profile of your visit is built.

Typefaces are served from this domain rather than from a font network, so reading a page sends nothing to a third party. The Google map on the contact page stays switched off until you click to load it, because loading it would share your IP address with Google.

Our hosting provider keeps ordinary server logs — IP address, time, page requested — for a short period, as every web server does, to keep the site secure and available. Those logs are not used to identify visitors.

The consultation form

The form sends nothing to this website. It assembles a WhatsApp message on your own device and opens WhatsApp with the text ready; you decide whether to press send. Close the window instead and nothing leaves your phone or computer — we never learn you were here.

Health information, and why we ask for consent

What you are considering, and anything you tell us about your health, is special-category data under Article 9 of the GDPR and Article 6 of the KVKK. It may be processed only with your explicit consent, which is what the tick box on the form is for.

We use it for one purpose: to understand your enquiry, answer it honestly, and plan a consultation. It is never used for advertising, never sold, and never added to a marketing list.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by writing to us. Withdrawal stops any further processing; it cannot undo what was already lawfully done, and it does not reach medical records that health legislation requires us to keep.

Sending a message abroad

WhatsApp is operated by Meta, and email travels through servers outside Türkiye. Writing to us therefore carries your message beyond Turkish borders, to countries whose data-protection rules differ from Turkish and European ones. Under Article 9 of the KVKK that transfer rests on your explicit consent — which is why the form asks for it plainly.

If you would rather not use WhatsApp, telephone the practice instead, or ask us to reply by another route. Nothing about your care depends on the channel you choose.

Photographs

Clinical photographs are taken only with your explicit consent, stored securely within the practice, and never published, shared or used as before-and-after material without your separate written permission. Consent to treatment and consent to photography are two different things, and declining photography never affects your care.

How long anything is kept

Enquiries that do not lead to treatment are deleted once the conversation has clearly ended, or sooner if you ask.

If you become a patient, your medical file is kept for the period Turkish health legislation requires — an obligation we cannot waive, even at your request. Everything outside that file is deleted when you ask.

Who else sees it

Only those who must: the accredited hospital where an operation takes place and the clinical team involved in it, and public authorities where Turkish law obliges disclosure.

Your information is never sold, never passed to advertising platforms, and never used to market anything you did not ask about.

The patient survey

The satisfaction survey is anonymous by default. It records your ratings, your written comment and the language of the page, and nothing else — no IP address, no browser fingerprint, no identifier that could link a response back to you.

If you choose to leave an email address or a telephone number so that we can reply, that detail is stored only with the consent you give on that form, used solely to answer you, and deleted once the matter is closed. Quality reports to the health authority contain counts and averages only, and survey answers are never republished as testimonials.

Your rights

Under Article 11 of the KVKK you may ask whether we hold data about you, what it is and why, and to whom it has been passed; you may have it corrected, deleted or destroyed, and object to conclusions drawn about you by purely automated means.

Under Articles 15 to 22 of the GDPR you may in addition request a copy of your data in portable form, ask us to restrict processing while a dispute is resolved, and object to processing.

Write to us and we will answer within thirty days, usually far sooner. We may first need to confirm your identity, so that nobody else can ask for your medical information.

If you are not satisfied

Tell us first, so we have the chance to put it right. If that fails you may complain to the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority at kvkk.gov.tr and, if you are in Europe or the United Kingdom, to your own national supervisory authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.