Privacy Policy

PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy describes the types of information that we collect from and about you when you visit this blog (“Blog”) or otherwise interact with us or request Services from us as described further in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy also explains how we may use and disclose such information, as well as your ability to control certain uses of your Personal Information.

The following policy applies to anyone who is not a resident of the European Economic Area (“EEA”).

By visiting our Blog or using any of our Services, you signify that you have read and understand this Privacy Policy and consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not, please do not use our Blog.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, Personal Information is defined under applicable law (including PIPEDA: Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information also known as “Law 25”), and includes information that identifies you or your device or can be reasonably associated with you.

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT OR RECEIVE

Collection of Personal Information When You Interact with Our Blog

We may collect the following categories of Personal Information about our customers, potential customers, and visitors to our Blog when you (i) use our search function, (ii) reach out to us through our online contact form  (iii) follow us on the social media as it’s available online on the Blog request information from us or otherwise contact us.

We may collect the following categories and specific pieces of Personal Information for the following business purposes:

We collect this Personal Information directly from you in a variety of instances, including through forms on our Blog, through cookies and other technologies, and through your interactions with us or our service providers in writing, in person, by telephone or other electronic means.

Information Collected from Third Parties or Other Sources

We may obtain Personal Information about you from third parties or other sources, and we may combine this information with the information we collect from and about you through our Blog. Such information may include, but is not limited to:

• Information obtained through communications that you make through a third party;
• Any other information obtained through companies that have business relationships with us, such as our licensees, affiliates, and business partners.

We may also collect information about you from other online sources, including when you connect with us through our official corporate pages on third party social networks (such as Facebook) or the “apps” on those pages. This information may include, but is not limited to, name, username, demographic information, updated address or contact information, interests, and publicly-observed data, such as from social media and online activity. We may combine this information with the information we collect from and about you through our Blog.

Our Collection of Information via Cookies and other Technologies

A cookie is a commonly used automated data collection tool. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or device by websites that you visit or HTML-formatted emails you open, in order to make websites work, or to work more efficiently. To learn more about cookies, including how to manage and delete cookies through browser settings visit www.allaboutcookies.org. Some web browsers provide settings that allow a user to reject cookies or to alert a user when a cookie is placed on the user’s computer, tablet or mobile device. Most mobile devices also offer settings to reject mobile device identifiers. Although users are not required to accept cookies or mobile device identifiers, blocking or rejecting them may prevent access to some features available through the websites. We may use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags or other similar technologies on our website to collect Personal Information about you and to better understand:

• Details of your visits to our Blog, including resources that you access and use on our Blog traffic data, location data, logs, language, date and time of access, frequency, and other communication data.
• Information about your computer, mobile devices and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, host domain, and browser type.
• Details of referring websites (URL).

We may also use third party cookies and other technologies to support our Blog, provide services on our behalf, facilitate business transactions on our behalf, or provide relevant advertising to you. Some of these third parties may use technology such as cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, log files, or Flash cookies on our Blog, which may send some of the above-referenced information to those third parties.

Combination of Information

We may combine the information we receive from and about you, including information you provide to us and information we automatically collect through our Blog, as well as information collected from other online sources or from third party sources to help us tailor our communications to you and to improve our Services.

Tracking Options

Certain parts of our Blog require cookies. You are free to set your browser or operating system settings to limit certain tracking or to decline cookies, but by doing so, you may not be able to use certain features on the Site or take full advantage of all of our offerings. Please refer to your web browser or operating system’s website or “Help” section for more information on how to delete and/or disable your browser or operating system from receiving cookies or controlling your tracking preferences.

This Privacy Policy does not cover the collection methods or use of the information collected by Third-Party Ad-Servers, and we are not responsible for cookies or other tracking technology in third-party ads. We encourage you to review the privacy policies or statements of these third-party advertising companies to learn more about their use of cookies and other technologies. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by third-party advertisers, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org and http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

 USING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use the information we collect from and about you for any of the following business or commercial purposes:

• To provide you with any information you would like to obtain on bioMerieux products, as well as related subjects such as Antibiotic Resistance, infection control, health IT solutions, laboratory efficiency or any other subject that you develop in the free field of the contact form, as well as offers, news about our products, services or events; To validate, confirm, verify, and track your account, products or Services (including to contact you about your account, products or services);
• To enhance your online experience, including as a way to recognize you and welcome you to our Blog, make the account usage faster and smoother and provide you with customized Blog content, targeted offers advertising on our Blog (including geo-targeted advertising), via email or to answer your requests and question submitted through the contact form online;
• To recognize your online activities over time and across different Blog and devices;
• To use your data in an aggregated non-specific format for analytical and demographic purposes;
• To review the usage and operations of our Blog, and improve our content, products, and services;
• To protect the security or integrity of the Blog and our business, such as by protecting against and preventing fraud, unauthorized transactions, claims and other liabilities, and managing risk exposure, including by identifying potential hackers and other unauthorized users; and
• As otherwise described to you at the point of data collection.
  We may also share user information with our co-sponsors, business partners and service providers to offer products or services which we believe may be valuable or useful to our visitors. They may use a pixel tag or other similar technology to collect anonymous information about your visits to sites, and they may use that information to target advertisements for our products and Services.

Additionally, if you use our Blog to connect with third party services you authorize us to use information from and about you, on your behalf, to interact with these third party services based on your requests.

WHAT INFORMATION WE SHARE

In order to provide you with our goods and services and for our business purposes, we may share your Personal Information with our affiliates and/or third parties that provide services to us and/or our affiliates, including the following categories of recipients:

• Our Affiliates: To other member companies that are affiliated with bioMérieux, SA.
• Our Service Providers: To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business or in connection with the administration and support of our business activities and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep Personal Information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them (e.g., database hosting providers, managed services providers, developers, consultants).
• In Connection with Corporate Events/Transitions: To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Information held by us about our Blog users is among the assets transferred.
• Third Party Servicers: To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you ask us to communicate information to a third in order to service a product affiliated with us.
• To Comply with Legal Requirements, Cooperate with Law Enforcement, Prevent Fraud or Other Crimes, and to Protect Our Legal Rights Your Legal Rights or the Legal Rights of Others: If we are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Information in order to comply with any legal and tax requirements, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; or to protect our or others’ rights, property, or safety. This may include exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
• Additional Third Parties as Directed or Disclosed: For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide your information or with your consent when required by applicable law and regulations.

We may also share aggregate or anonymous non-personal information with third parties for their marketing or analytics uses.

We do not sell Personal Information and do not have actual knowledge of any “sales” of Personal Information of minors under the age of 16. We will never disclose your Personal Information except as defined in this Privacy Policy.

YOUR DATA SUBJECT RIGHTS

The nature and scope of requests you may make are summarized below. Please note that depending on prevailing circumstances and your location, your ability to make such requests may be void or subject to restrictions:

• Access (Right to know): You may request to get a confirmation from us whether or not your Personal Information are processed by us and to get access to such information.
• Correction (Right to correction): You may request us to correct any inaccurate personal information as soon as practicable.
• Deletion (Right to deletion): You may ask us, to delete your personal information as soon as practicable. We shall delete your personal information as soon as practicable in the following cases:
• the personal information is no longer required for the purposes for which it was gathered or processed in another way;
• the personal information has been made subject of unlawful processing;
• the personal information must be erased in order to comply with a legal obligation provided for governing law.

However, erasure cannot apply in the following cases:

• the processing is required to exercise the right to freedom of expression and information;
• the processing is required in order to comply with a legal obligation provided for by governing law,
• the processing is required to establish, exercise, or defend rights in court.
• Portability: You may request to receive personal information that has been provided to us, in a readily readable format to enable you to transfer that personal information to another entity.
• Object/Opt Out: You may have a right to submit a complaint to us regarding the processing of your personal information, to withdraw your consent (subject to limitations) or to file a complaint with the relevant privacy regulator in Canada.

Where applicable, we will respond to any requests in accordance with governing law, and so there may be instances where we are not able to comply with your request.

It is your responsibility to determine whether the jurisdiction in which you reside in affords you such rights. If your jurisdiction does not afford you such rights, we do not have any obligation to comply to your request.

Exercising Your Rights: To exercise any of the rights described above, you or your authorized agent may fill the Data Subject’s Access Rights Form available here.

Non-affiliated third parties are independent from us and if you wish to receive information about your choices or rights in relation to those third parties or to stop communications from such third parties, you will need to contact those non-affiliated third parties directly.

We will endeavor to respond satisfactorily to any request, query, or complaint you may have in respect of your personal information, but if you are dissatisfied with our response and wish to make a formal complaint, or if you simply wish to learn more about your rights under PIPEDA and other Canadian privacy laws, you can contact either of the following bodies:

• Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec Bureau 18.200 500, boul. René-Lévesque Ouest Montréal, Québec H2Z 1W7 Canada http://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 30, Victoria Street Gatineau, Québec K1A 1H3 Canada https://www.priv.gc.ca

LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Our Blog and email messages from us may contain links to third-party websites, which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. You should be aware that the collection, retention and use of any data you provide on these websites will be governed by the privacy policy of the company providing the website and not by this policy. We are not responsible for the practices of such websites.

PUBLIC FORUMS

Any information you may disclose on our Blog, in blogs, on message boards, in chat rooms, or on other public areas on our Blog, or other third-party website that our Blog may link to, becomes public information. Please exercise caution when disclosing Personal Information in these public areas. We reserve the right to remove any posting or content in a posting at our sole discretion.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Protecting children’s privacy is important to us. We do not direct our Blog, nor do we knowingly collect any Personal Information from, children under the age of thirteen. If we learn that a child under the age of thirteen has provided Personal Information to us, we will use reasonable efforts to remove such information from our files.

DATA SECURITY

Although no system or website can guarantee the complete security of your information, we take commercially reasonable steps to ensure your information is protected in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, as appropriate to the sensitivity of your information. However, no electronic data transmission can be guaranteed to be secure from access by unintended recipients and Company will not be responsible for any breach of security unless this breach is due to its negligence. Although we are committed to employing reasonable technology in order to protect the security of our website, even with the best technology, no website is 100% secure. In transacting business with us through our website, you assume the risk inherent in transacting business online.

REVISIONS TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add, remove, or otherwise revise portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. If we do, we will make you aware of the change(s) on our Blog by including a link to the previous version of the Privacy Policy. Your continued use of our Blog following the posting of changes to these terms means you accept these changes. If we change this Privacy Policy in a material way, we will provide appropriate notice to you.

CONTACT US

We hope this policy answers your questions about our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information. If you have additional questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices described herein, you may contact us:

Data Privacy Officer: Laure Favier

Email: PrivacyOfficer@biomerieux.com.