DATA PRIVACY STATEMENT
Who we are
The Golden Helix Foundation (GHXF) is an international non-profit scientific organization with interdisciplinary research and educational activities in the field of Genomic Medicine and has a UK Charity status. The GHF aims to transfer of knowledge and results from ground-breaking science among local researchers and internationally renowned scientists to the scientific community and the society through participation in collaborative scientific projects, a variety of scientific symposia and educational events, and establishment of public health policies in the field of pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine
Purpose
This Privacy Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about our members and other people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
It will be impossible for GHXF to provide you services if you refuse to allow GHXF to process your data. For this reason, by providing personal data to GHXF, you agree to be legally bound by and explicitly consent to this Data Protection Statement, as it may be amended from time to time. If you do not agree to this Data Protection Statement or cannot form a legally binding contract, GHXF would not be able to provide you services.
Our commitment
It is GHXF’s utmost concern to constantly improve its services in order to best meet the needs of its Clients. Therefore, GHXF may collect and store certain information, including personal data. GHXF takes the protection of your personal data very seriously in all of its business processes. This Data Protection Statement is meant to help you understand how data are collected, processed and stored to meet legal requirements and GHXF’s data protection standards
How do we collect personal information?
GHXF collects general and personal data concerning you:
• when you provide your details to GHXF; (when you register on our site, subscribe to our newsletter, or fill out a form)
• when you register to attend a conference that we organize worldwide;
What personal information do we collect?
The personal information most commonly collected to create your contact profile includes but is not limited to:
• – Name and job title
• – Nationality
• – Contact details (including address, business address, email – both work and personal, telephone number, mobile number)
• – Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
If you make a purchase via our websites, your card information is not held by us. It is collected by a third-party payment processor, who specializes in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions and follows the global PCI compliance standards.
How is your information used?
GHXF uses the data collected to provide, maintain, protect and improve the overall quality of its services. Data collection is also meant to protect GHXF and its users. GHXF does not collect more data than is necessary to fulfil such purposes.
In addition to creating contact profiles, GHXF uses your data for the following purposes and for which you give your consent:
a) Conference registrations: Contact profiles are processed to enable you to register for events organized by GHXF and respond to your queries.
b) New services: With the goal of improving services and based on the data given to GHXF, GHXF may send you additional information related to your current or future interests.
c) Promotion and marketing: GHXF may use your data to send you marketing communications that we believe may be of interest to you, including information about conferences, training opportunities, etc.
d) Technical data: GHXF may evaluate this data purely for statistical purposes and only in an anonymized form, in order to optimize GHXF’s website and increase user-friendliness, efficiency and safety. GHXF may in particular use technical data to measure the success of marketing campaigns, compile statistics about website usage and response rates, and use aggregated personal data.
e) Other purposes: GHXF may use your data as GHXF believes to be necessary or appropriate: (i) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (ii) to comply with legal process; (iii) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (iv) to enforce GHXF’s terms and conditions; (v) to protect GHXF’s operations; and (vi) to protect GHXF’s rights, privacy, safety or property, you or others.
Examples of processing activities
Processing is necessary for us to meet our legitimate interests as a provider of certain services, including:
1. The maintenance of our mailing database, and delivery of services we provide to attendees at our conferences,
• General administration for maintaining our mailing database
• Corresponding with members in respect of the delivery of our services within the terms of our conditions
• Independent review of abstracts submitted for conferences and papers submitted for consideration for publication.
• Providing customers with relevant news and updates which may be of interest to them
2. Consent
• Providing attendees of our conferences with relevant news and updates, marketing and other information.
Transfer and communication of data
You hereby agree and give your consent to GHXF to transfer and communicate your data as follows:
Electronic transfer of data
If you visit GHXF’s website your data will be transported via an open publicly accessible network. This involves notably the risk that your data may be intercepted and read by third parties, allowing such third parties to infer an already existing or future relationship between you and GHXF.
Furthermore, you are notified that information you transmit or allow to be transmitted to you by GHXF via an electronic medium, in particular via e-mail, SMS, etc. are usually unencrypted and therefore neither confidential nor secure. Even in the event of an encrypted transmission, sender and recipient remain unencrypted in each case. Third parties may therefore be able to infer an existing or future relationship between you and GHXF.
How long do we retain personal information?
The periods for which we retain personal information depends on the purpose for which the information was obtained but, in general terms, we will retain personal data for so long as required, or as may be required for record keeping and legal claims purposes.
Where do we store personal information?
The contact profiles that GHXF maintains are stored in a cloud-based central database at a third-party provider’s location.
Cookies
Our website makes use of cookie files to distinguish you from other users of our site, to provide you with a bespoke user experience tailored to your individual preferences.
If you’d like to delete cookies or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser:
For Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17442/windows-internet- explorer-delete-manage-cookies
For Safari: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201265
For Chrome: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
For Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-cookies-remove-info-websites-stored
For Opera: http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.20/en/cookies.html
Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, some features of the website may not work properly, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.
Your rights where we are processing your information
• Access to your information – you have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us at the address shown below.
• Correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete, and up to date, and so you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
• Deletion of your information (Under certain conditions) – you have the right to ask us to anonymize personal information about you where:
– you consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
– we are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent, see ‘withdrawing consent to using your information’ below.
• Withdrawing consent using your information – where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time, and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.
Please contact our Data Protection Officer provided in the “contact information” below if you wish to exercise any of these.
Security and organizational measures
To ensure the safety of your data on GHXF systems, GHXF has implemented appropriate technical, administrative, physical and organizational measures to protect your personal data from loss, destruction, unauthorized access, accidental or unlawful disclosure and manipulation. These measures are subject to continuous development in accordance with technological progress and are periodically reviewed to comply with all applicable privacy laws. However, we cannot and do not guarantee the security of your personal data and therefore cannot assume any liability in this respect.
Only authorized GHXF staff have access to your personal data. All GHXF staff who have access to your personal data are required to adhere to the staff confidentiality regulations.
Changes to our privacy policy
We keep this policy under regular review and will place any updates on this statement. This privacy statement was last updated in May 2018.
Contact information
If you need further assistance, please contact our Data Protection Officer:
Prof. Dr. Vasileios Fanaras,
email: v.fanaras@goldenhelix.org
