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Privacy Notice

In our User Privacy Notice we have compiled all essential information about our handling of your personal data and your corresponding rights for you. This User Privacy Notice is effective from July 30, 2019.

• Data Controller
• Data protection officer
• Data we collect/process
• Legal basis for data processing
• International data transfers
• Storage duration
• Data Subject
• Cookies & technologies
• Data security

Data Controller

Who is responsible for the collection and processing of your personal data in connection with the provision of the stored method depends on how you use our Digital Repository.

Use of the Digital Repository

The following Sourcbranding Digital Agency (Pty) Ltd company is responsible for the collection and processing of your personal data in connection with the provision of Digital Analytical Methods Repository, depending on the region in which you are located:

• Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section : (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository)

Data protection officer and contact

We have appointed data protection officers to oversee the protection of your personal data. If you have any questions about this User Privacy Notice or about data protection in general, you can contact the data protection officer responsible for your country at any time. You will find the contact details of your data protection officer in the list of our data protection officers in our Privacy Center.

Furthermore, if you have any questions or complaints regarding this User Privacy Notice, our global privacy standards or our handling of personal data, you can also contact the AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) Privacy Team or the controller who is responsible for the processing of your personal data at any time (for further information, see the section on controller). This applies regardless of whether we have appointed a data protection officer in your country or not. You can find all necessary information and contact details including a contact form in our Privacy Center.

What personal data we collect and process

We collect your personal data when you use Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository, create a new membership account, provide us with information via a web form, add or update information in your  account, participate in online community discussions or otherwise interact with us.

In total, we collect the following personal data:

Personal data you provide when using Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository or Signing  as a member

Data that identifies you, such as your name, address, telephone numbers or email addresses, your user name that you provide when registering or at a later date, and additional identification data and institutional identification numbers that you provide when using our platform.

• Data regarding Analytical Methods, Papers/Documentation, or general information that you provide when registering or when making use of the platform.
• Content that you share with other users through our messaging tools (see filtering of messages sent via our messaging tools under section on other important information regarding data protection for more information).
• Financial information if any (e.g. credit card and account numbers, payment details) in connection with membership should any be available.
• In some cases: age, gender, country of birth, nationality, employment status, family status, interests and preferences.
• You may provide us with additional information through a web form or by updating or adding information to your membership, by participating in community discussions, member chats, inquiries, dispute resolution, or if you contact us for any other reason regarding the Digital Analytical Methods Repository.
• Other data that we are required or entitled by applicable law to collect and process and that we need for your authentication or identification, or for the verification of the data we collect.

Personal data we collect automatically when you use our Services or register as a member

• Data that is generated as part of one of your data submission (Analytical Methods Submission) or that is linked to your membership as a result of a Analytical Methods update/suggestion in which you are involved, such as ANALYTICAL METHODS INFORMATION INPUT IN
  Lab name, Method Reference, Country , Document type , Document title, Analyte, Analyte Group, Matrix, Matrix Group, Method principle, Sample preparation, Range, LOQ, UoM , CVR, CViR, MRL or Supporting document
• Data that is generated through your other actions when you use our platform and which is linked to your account, e.g. when make use of the FQA forms, Suggest an update on already submitted Method and comment on  any of the pages made available through the platform.
• Data regarding all other interactions with our systems, your advertising preferences, and your communications with us.
• Location data, including the location data of your mobile device. Please note that for most mobile devices, you can manage or disable the use of location services for all applications in the settings menu of your mobile device.
• Computer and connection information, such as statistics regarding your use of our system, information on data traffic to and from websites, referral URL, information on advertisements, your IP address, your access times, your browser history data, your language settings and your weblog information.

Personal data we collect in connection with the use of cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect data while you use our platform. We collect this data from the devices (including mobile devices) that you use our platform with. The data collected includes the following usage- and device-related information:

• Data about the pages you visit, the access time, frequency and duration of visits, the links on which you click and other actions you take as part of your use of our platform and in advertising and email content.
• Data about your activities and interactions with our community partners including data about the advertisements you were shown, how often they were shown, when and where they were shown, and whether you took any action, such as clicking on an advertisement.
• Your user segment.
• Model or device type, operating system and version, browser type and settings, device ID or individual device identifier, advertisement ID, individual device token, and cookie-related data (e.g. cookie ID).
• The IP address from which your device accesses the platform.
• Location data, including the location data of your mobile device. Please note that most mobile devices allow you to manage or disable the use of location services for all applications in the settings menu.

For more information about our use of these technologies and your choices, see Cookies & similar technologies.

Personal data from other sources

We also collect personal data about you from other sources and from third parties to the extent permitted by applicable law. In particular, this includes the following data:

• Data from public sources  
• Data from data providers 

We combine or connect the personal data we collect from you with data from these other sources. Where personal data is disclosed to us by third parties, we take steps to confirm that the information has been collected with your consent and/or that these third parties are otherwise legally permitted to disclose your personal data to us. We also receive access to personal data about you from other members of the AOAC International community.

Purposes and legal basis for data processing and categories of recipients

We process your personal data for various purposes and pursuant to various legal bases. We process your personal data primarily to provide and improve the Analytical Methods Repository, to provide you with a personalized user experience on the platform, to contact you about your membership, to provide updates, and to detect, prevent, mitigate and investigate fraudulent or illegal activity. We also share your information with third parties for these purposes.

Below you will find a summary of the purposes for which we process your Analysis data or personal data, including the categories of recipients to whom we transmit Analysis data or personal data for the purposes stated, sorted by legal basis:

We process your personal data in order to fulfil our aim for easy storing and sharing of Analytical Methods. This includes the following purposes:

• Processing of Analytical Methods data relating to you or your companies research for the purpose of storing and sharing it with the AOAC community.
• Provision of our platform, including but not limited to enabling and performing data upload/submission which is made available to registered  members/users, providing and enhancing features such as Analytical Methods processing, Storing and membership management, providing other digital aids you may use (as described in connection with such Analytical Methods Repository), and ensuring the functionality of our Analytical Methods Repository. In connection with the provision of systems, we will send you notifications relating to the use of our Analytical Methods Repository in accordance with the communication preferences in your membership account.
• Solution of problems with your membership account, arbitration of disputes, providing other aids within the scope of our organization. For these purposes, we may contact you via email, telephone, SMS, push notification on your mobile device or by mail. If we contact you by telephone, in order to ensure efficiency, we may use automatically dialed calls with tape announcements or automated text messages in accordance with our User Agreement, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

Where necessary, we transmit your personal data to processors and the following recipients for one or several of the purposes described above:

• Other Analytical Methods Repository Members/users
• AOAC International Community
• External operators of websites, applications and tools

We process your personal data in order to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject. This includes the following purposes:

• Participation in proceedings (including judicial proceedings) conducted by public authorities or government agencies, in particular, for the purpose of detecting, investigating and prosecuting illegal acts.
• Prevention, detection and mitigation of illegal activities
• Ensuring the information security of our platform where necessary.
• Retention and storage of your personal data to comply with specific legal retention requirements (for more information on our storage terms, see Storage duration and erasure).

Where necessary, we transmit your personal data to processors and the following recipients for one or several of the purposes described above:

• Third party service providers
• Third parties who are involved in judicial proceedings, in particular, if they submit a legal order, court order or equivalent legal order to us.

We process your personal data in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. This includes the following purposes:

• Prevention, detection, mitigation and investigation of unlawful activities that may result in impairment of your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person, unless there is a statutory obligation to this effect.

Where necessary, we transmit your personal data to processors and the following recipients for one or several of the purposes described above:

• Law enforcement agencies, courts, government agencies or public authorities, intergovernmental or supranational bodies
• Third parties who are involved in judicial proceedings.
• AOAC International Community
• External service providers

We process your personal data where necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In order to reconcile our legitimate interests with your rights. On this basis, we process your data for the following purposes:

• Participation in proceedings (including judicial proceedings) conducted by courts, law enforcement agencies, government agencies or public authorities, intergovernmental or supranational bodies, in particular for the purpose of detecting, investigating and prosecuting illegal acts, unless there is a statutory obligation to this effect, and we may legitimately assume that the disclosure of the data is necessary to avert imminent disadvantages or to report a suspicion of an illegal act. In such cases, we will only disclose what we believe is necessary, such as your name, city, zip code, telephone number, email address, (previous) user names, IP address and data uploads.
• Prevention, detection, mitigation and investigation of fraud, security breaches and other prohibited or unlawful activities, including the assessment of corresponding risks (e.g. through the use of captchas or the telephone number stored in your members account for two-factor authentication), unless there is a statutory obligation to this effect.
• Monitoring and improvement of the information security of our Services, unless there is a statutory obligation to this effect.
• Performance of identity checks, and other standing checks, evaluation of applications and comparison of information for accuracy and verification purposes.
• Automatic filtering and, where necessary, manual review of messages sent through our messaging tools to prevent fraudulent or suspicious activity or violations of our User Agreement or policies, further explained under filtering of messages sent via our messaging tools (see section on other important information regarding data protection for more information).
• Provision of functions for users that make the processing of transactions easier or more convenient (e.g. administration of several delivery addresses).
• Analysis and improvement of the Services from AOAC International Community, corporate family members, e.g. by reviewing information from users about blocked or crashed pages in order to identify and solve problems and to provide you with an improved user experience, including as part of digital development.
• AOAC International Event Advertisements by mail (according to your communication preferences).
• To the extent permitted by applicable law without your consent, communications with you via electronic mail (e.g. email) or telephone to  inform you about our digital platform (according to your communication preferences). If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can also unsubscribe by clicking on the link in the email you received. For technical reasons, the implementation may take a few days.
• Evaluation of the quality and success of our email marketing campaigns (e.g. through analysis of opening and click rates).
• Assessment of the platform status (e.g. on the basis of tracking information if users use search for a particular method).
• Provision of shared content (such as member registration and data processing)
• Assertion of or defense against legal claims, including those asserted by one Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) user against another user.

Where necessary, we transmit your personal data to processors and the following recipients for one or several of the purposes described above:

• External service providers
• Other Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) users
• Law enforcement agencies, courts, government agencies or public authorities, intergovernmental or supranational bodies
• Third parties who are involved in judicial proceedings
• Other AOAC International members 

Information about your right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests can be found below under Rights as a data subject and, with regard to the use of cookies and similar technologies, below under Cookies & similar technologies.

With your consent, we process your personal data for the following purposes:

• For users within the European Economic Area (EEA): Personalization, measurement and improvement of our and third party advertisements if any. 
• Marketing communications by telephone or electronic mail (such as email or SMS), including communications by other Africa-AOAC International members or by third parties, unless these communications are permitted without your consent under applicable law.
• Processing of your personal data on the basis of your consent, which you have given so that we or third parties can enable you to use certain services or make them available to you.

You can find information about your right to withdraw your consent below under Rights as a data subject and information with regard to the use of cookies and similar technologies below under Cookies & similar technologies.

Where necessary, we transmit your personal data to processors and the following recipients for one or several of the purposes described above:

• External service providers
• Other third parties with whom we partner with for sharing of Analytical Methods
  to offer you up to date Date Repository (as described at the collection of the respective user consent)

Without your consent, we will not pass on your personal data to third parties, nor will we sell or otherwise make it available to third parties for a fee.

Data Sharing between AOAC International Members

As set out above under “Personal data from other sources,” we also receive access to personal data about you from AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section should you already be a member. This enables us, in particular, to provide you, with your consent as legally required, with information about our Digital Initiative, which we believe might interest you, and improve our repository, data input, and processing by analyzing your use of the Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository, in particular through the matching of certain data (e.g. cookie IDs). Furthermore, this allows us to better prevent, detect, mitigate and investigate, security breaches and other prohibited or unlawful activities, including the assessment of corresponding risks. We will also grant access to personal data about you to AOAC International community for the aforementioned purposes. To the extent that other AOAC International members have access to your personal data, they will follow practices that are at least as restrictive as the practices described in this User Privacy Notice.

Automated decision-making

We use technologies that are considered automated decision making or profiling. We will not make any automated decisions about you that would significantly affect you unless such a decision is necessary for entering into, or the performance of, a contract with you, we have obtained your consent, or we are required by applicable law to use such technology. You will find information on your right to object to this processing of your data below under Rights as a data subject.

International data transfers

Some recipients of your personal data are located outside your country where data protection laws may provide a different level of protection than the laws in your country. When transferring personal data to such recipients, we provide appropriate safeguards.

Data transfers to Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) members 

The transmission of personal data between different  members is based on our worldwide data protection principles, which are binding internal data protection, or on the basis of other appropriate safeguards. Through our Binding Corporate Rules, the Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) undertake to protect your personal data and to comply with data protection obligations. Further information on our binding company-wide guidelines and our worldwide data protection principles can be found in the Privacy Center.

Other data transfers (from the European Economic Area to third countries)

We will only transfer your personal data from the European Economic Area (EEA) to third countries, i.e. countries outside the EEA, on the basis of appropriate safeguards. Third countries providing an adequate level of data protection according to the European Commission currently include Andorra, Argentina, Canada (for companies covered by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act), Switzerland, the Faroe Islands, Guernsey, the State of Israel, the Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, New Zealand and Uruguay. Recipients in the USA can be partially certified according to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, so that appropriate safeguards for an international data transfer exist. In other cases, Africa-AOAC International – Sub Saharan African Section (Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository) provides the necessary safeguards, e.g. through the conclusion of data protection contracts adopted by the European Commission (e.g. standard data protection clauses (2010/87/EU, 2001/497/EC or 2004/915/EC)) with the recipients, or through other measures provided for by law. A copy of the documentation of the measures taken by us is available on request.

Storage duration and erasure

Your personal data will be stored by us and our service providers in accordance with applicable data protection laws to the extent necessary for the processing purposes set out in this User Privacy Notice (see section on Purposes and legal basis for data processing and categories of recipients for more information on the processing purposes). Subsequently, we will delete your personal data in accordance with our data retention and deletion policy or take steps to properly render the data anonymous, unless we are legally obliged to keep your personal data longer (e.g. for tax, accounting or auditing purposes). In Europe, the retention periods are generally between 6 and 10 years (e.g. for contracts, notifications and business letters). As far as legally permissible or required, we restrict the processing of your data instead of deleting it (e.g. by restricting access to it). This applies in particular to cases where we may still need the data for the execution or for the assertion of or defense against legal claims. In these cases, the duration of the restriction of processing depends on the respective statutory limitation or retention periods. The data will be deleted after the relevant limitation or retention periods have expired.

The specific retention periods for personal data are documented in our regional data retention guidelines. How long we retain personal data may vary depending on the system we provide and our legal obligations under applicable national law. The following factors typically affect the retention period:

• Necessity for the provision of our Analytical Methods Repository
  This includes such things as executing the Membership Agreement with you, maintaining and improving the performance of our Analytical Methods Repository, keeping our systems secure, and maintaining appropriate records. Most of our retention periods are determined on the basis of this general rule.
• Special categories of personal data
  If we store special categories of personal data, a shorter retention period is usually appropriate.
• Consent-based processing of personal data
  If we process personal data on the basis of consent (including consent to the extended storage), we store the data for as long as necessary in order to process it according to your consent.
• Statutory, contractual or other similar obligations
  Corresponding storage obligations may arise, for example, from laws or official orders. It may also be necessary to store personal data with regard to pending or future legal disputes. Personal data in notifications may be subject to statutory storage obligations depending on national law.

Rights as a data subject

Subject to possible restrictions under national law, as a data subject, you have the right to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing and data portability with regard to your personal data. In addition, you can withdraw your consent and object to our processing of your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests. You can also lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Your rights in detail:

• You can withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data by us at any time. As a result, we may no longer process your personal data based on this consent in the future. The withdrawal of consent has no effect on the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
• You have the right to obtain access to your personal data that is being processed by us. In particular, you may request information on the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, the categories of recipients to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed, the envisaged period for which the personal data will be stored, the existence of the right to request rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing of personal data or to object to such processing, the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, any available information as to the personal data’s source (where they are not collected from you), the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling and, where appropriate, meaningful information on its details. Your right to access may be limited by national law.
• You have the right to obtain from us without undue delay the rectification of inaccurate personal data concerning you. Taking into account the purposes of the processing, you have the right to have incomplete personal data completed, including by means of providing a supplementary statement.
• You have the right to obtain from us the erasure of personal data concerning you, unless processing is necessary for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information, for compliance with a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest or for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims. The right to erasure may be limited by national law.
• You have the right to obtain from us restriction of processing to the extent that
  • the accuracy of the data is disputed by you,
  • the processing is unlawful, but you oppose the erasure of the personal data,
  • we no longer need the data, but you need it to assert, exercise or defend legal claims or
  • you have objected to the processing.
• You have the right to receive the personal data concerning you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to another controller (“right to data portability”).
• You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. As a rule, you can contact the supervisory authority of your usual place of residence, your place of work or the registered office of the controller.

If your personal data is processed on the basis of legitimate interests, you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation. This also applies to profiling. If your personal data is processed by us for direct marketing purposes, you have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for such marketing, which includes profiling to the extent that it is related to such direct marketing.

The exercise of the above data subjects’ rights (e.g. right to access or erasure) is generally free of charge. Where requests are manifestly unfounded or excessive, in particular because of their repetitive character, we may charge an appropriate fee (at most our actual costs) in accordance with the applicable statutory regulations or refuse to process the application.

Exercising your rights and managing your settings

You can exercise your rights as a data subject via our contact forms. In addition, you are of course free to contact us in any other way.

If you would like to change your preferences regarding Africa Digital Analytical Methods Repository notifications (including marketing communications), you can do so at any time in your membership section under “Communication Preferences”. If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can also unsubscribe by clicking on the link in the email you received. For technical reasons, the implementation may take a few days. For information on how to manage your cookie and similar technology preferences, see the next section Cookies & similar technologies.

Cookies & similar technologies

When you use our Analytical Methods Repository, we and selected third parties may use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better, faster and safer user experience. Cookies are small text files that are automatically created by your browser and stored on your device when you use the digital platform. You can find detailed information about our use of cookies and similar technologies and your choices in our User Cookie Notice.

Our cookies and similar technologies have different functions:

• They may be technically necessary for the provision of our Analytical Repository
• They help us optimize our Analytical Methods Repository technically (e.g. monitoring of error messages and loading times).
• They help us improve your user experience (e.g. save font size and form data entered).

We use cookies and similar technologies that remain on your device only as long as your browser is active (session cookies), as well as cookies and similar technologies that remain on your device longer (permanent cookies). Where possible, we take appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized access to our cookies and similar technologies. A unique ID ensures that only we and/or selected third parties have access to cookie data.

Your choices regarding cookies

You are free to disable the use of cookies and similar technologies if this is supported by your device. You can manage your cookie settings in your browser or device settings. In addition, you can decide whether we may use cookies and similar technologies to show you personalized data.

Data security

We protect your personal data through technical and organizational security measures to minimize risks associated with data loss, misuse, unauthorized access and unauthorized disclosure and alteration. To this end we use firewalls and data encryption, for example, as well as physical access restrictions for our data servers and authorization controls for data access. You can find further information on data security in our Security Center.