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- GENERAL
- This Privacy Policy and Agreement ("Privacy Policy") will tell you what information we collect about you and about your use of our website. It will explain how we protect that information and what choices you have about how it is used. We urge you to read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you will understand clearly how Argus Biosciences may collect and use information provided by you because, by using the Argus Biosciences website, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
- Please remember that any information (including information of a financial, medical, genealogical, and/or other personal nature) that you reveal in a Argus Biosciences ' public forum (such as a bulletin board, posting, chat room/event) is not protected by this Privacy Policy and that such postings will be seen by third parties not related to Argus Biosciences . Also, what you've written in a Argus Biosciences ' public forum could be used by others in ways we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. Also, if you access a third party site from a link on Argus Biosciences , please be aware that any information you reveal on that site is not subject to this Privacy Policy and, therefore, you should consult the privacy policies of each site you visit.
- Contact Information: Your contact information will not be released to any individual without your express consent. Contact information is not publicly displayed.
- Individual results and genealogical information where applicable are automatically included in the Argus Biosciences database (to provide extra copies of certificates or other products at a later time) unless otherwise requested by the client.
- DNA SPECIMENS, TESTING, SPECIMEN STORAGE, AND ANALYSIS RESULTS:
- Specimens: Our standard operating procedure requires that a tracking number and the customer's surname be assigned to an individual's biologic specimen. All laboratory processing and storage is conducted under this tracking number and name.
- The customer's DNA is destroyed after the sequencing is completed.
- All information that is received, used, or disclosed in connection with your obtaining services from Argus Biosciences and which involves a test for DNA analysis shall not be used by Argus Biosciences for any purpose except to provide the services and information you request through Argus Biosciences , and shall only be made available to those persons or entities you designate, as well as those personnel of Argus Biosciences and third parties who are hired or retained by Argus Biosciences to perform the services and provide the information you request. All Argus Biosciences ' and third party personnel shall be required to hold all this type of information in the strictest of confidence and to not use or disclose it except to fulfill the service we hired or retained them to perform.
- INFORMATION COLLECTED BY Argus Biosciences OR ON Argus Biosciences ' BEHALF.
- In General-Personally Identifiable Information is information that can be used to identify or contact you. We collect the Personal Information that you provide to us in two general and distinct ways: (1) when you choose to purchase various services or products offered by Argus Biosciences and/or its affiliated business partners, or (2) when you choose to participate in surveys or send e-mails to Argus Biosciences . We also collect non-personal information from you and about your use of our website, e-mails, special promotions and newsletters that we may send to you, and websites of selected sponsors and advertisers.
- Registration And Other Information-You may view or use our website without registering or submitting any Personal Information. In that case, the only information we collect will be non-personal information collected through the use of cookies or web beacons (see details below). However, in order to have access to certain services available on Argus Biosciences ' website, you are required to complete a registration form and provide other information reasonably necessary for us to perform the services for you. Some examples of the information we collect in the Registration form are:
- Your Name
- Street Address
- E-mail Address
- Phone Number
- Gender
- Age Range
- City/State
- Public Forums-This Privacy Policy does not protect you when you use Argus Biosciences ' public forums if and when they become available. As a service to our users, Argus Biosciences may feature chat rooms and bulletin boards where users can share information and support one another or where users can post questions for other users to answer. You should be aware that any information shared in a chat room, bulletin board, or other type of posting is public information and may be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. You should think carefully before disclosing any personal information in any public forum.
- E-mails to Argus Biosciences -This Privacy Policy does not protect you when you send business information, ideas, concepts or inventions to Argus Biosciences by e-mail to Argus Biosciences or its employees.
- DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION.
- Except as set forth in this paragraph II, or as specifically agreed to by you, Argus Biosciences will not use or disclose any Personal Information it gathers from you on our website unless reasonably required in order to answer your questions or to perform services you may request or purchase from our website without consent. We may release Personal Information to third parties under the following situations:
- To comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personal Information to a third party, we will notify you; unless doing so would violate the law or court order;
- We may disclose personal data to a third party organization processing credit/debit card transactions on our behalf in an effort to eliminate fraud;
- In special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others.
- Disclosure to Linked Sites-For your convenience there may be links to websites operated by companies other than Argus Biosciences ("Third Party Websites") that are not contractors who provide content or services through our website. These links may be found in advertisements, referenced within content, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors or affiliated business partners of Argus Biosciences . Argus Biosciences does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Websites without obtaining your consent. Argus Biosciences does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you choose to link to one of these Third party Websites, you should review the privacy policy posted on this other site to understand how that Third Party Website collects and uses your Personal Information.
- Disclosure of Aggregate Information- Argus Biosciences may provide to third parties non-personal information about you that does not allow you to be identified or contacted and that is combined with the non-personal information of other users ("Aggregate Information"). For example, we might inform third parties regarding the number of users of our site and the activities they conduct while on our site. We might also inform a company that performs genealogical tracing services (that may or may not be a Argus Biosciences ' business partner or an advertiser on our site) that "25% of our users live in the Europe" or that "50% of our users are male." Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this Aggregate Information. We also may not limit the third parties' use of the Aggregate Information, except that we do require third parties to whom we disclose Aggregate Information to agree that they will not attempt to make this information personally identifiable by combining it with other databases or otherwise.
- PRIVACY AND SECURITY
- Argus Biosciences wants your Personal Information to remain as secure as possible. Only a limited number of Argus Biosciences ' personnel are authorized to access your Personal Information. All Argus Biosciences ' personnel must abide by our Privacy Policy and those who violate our Privacy Policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination. Although we will make every reasonable effort to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties, you should be aware that there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the Internet. There is also some risk that thieves could find a way to thwart our security systems.
- Security This Web site takes every reasonable precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web site, their information is protected both online and off-line.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with encryption software, currently SSL encryption. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just 'surfing'. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also protect user-information off-line. Access to all users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted to our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. The servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment, behind a locked cage at a professional hosting company. Although we endeavor to create secure and reliable Sites and to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy. You hereby acknowledge that Argus Biosciences is not responsible for any intercepted information sent via the Internet, and you hereby release us from any and all claims arising out of or related to the use of intercepted information in any unauthorized manner.
- YOUR PRIVACY CHOICES
- When you complete Registration, you may be given the option of receiving recurring informational/promotional e-mails from Argus Biosciences and/or third parties. You may opt out of receiving e-mails from or on behalf of Argus Biosciences at Registration by removing the automatic check mark from the statement that expresses a preference for receiving these e-mails and newsletters. You may also opt out of receiving these e-mails and newsletters at any time. When you have received a newsletter you wish to stop, click on the "reply" button in your mail program, then type in the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the "Subject" field and send. Argus Biosciences ' Customer Service will unsubscribe you.
- At Registration, you may also have the option of receiving e-mails or newsletters from third parties, participating in research or marketing surveys and participating in other activities. You may exercise these options by placing a check mark beside a statement that expresses a preference for receiving these communications or participating in these activities. You may change your decision at any time by following the directions regarding how to unsubscribe from these e-mails or newsletters.
- This privacy statement applies only to the Argus Biosciences ' website. The Argus Biosciences ' website does contain links to other sites. Once you enter another website (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that Argus Biosciences is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy statements of each and every website that you visit through a link or advertisement on Argus Biosciences ' website or any site that collects Personal Information from you.
- UPDATING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AND CONTACTING Argus Biosciences
- In addition to changing your own personal privacy settings directly via the Argus Biosciences website, you can always contact us in order to (1) delete your Personal Information from our systems, (2) update the Personal Information that you have provided to us, and (3) change your preferences with respect to marketing contacts or other activities, by e-mailing us at info@argusbio.com. Such changes will not have any effect on other information that Argus Biosciences maintains. If you have a complaint or problem you may e-mail us at info@argusbio.com for a response or resolution. We try to answer every e-mail in a timely manner but are not always able to do so.
- You should be aware that it may not be technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to Argus Biosciences from our servers. The need to back-up our systems to protect information from inadvertent loss means that a copy of your Personal Information may exist in a non-erasable form that may be difficult or impossible for us to locate. Nevertheless, upon receiving your request, we will endeavor to delete all Personal Information stored in the databases we actively use for research and daily business activities, as well as other readily searchable media.
- Privacy as it applies to the Internet is a dynamic, rapidly developing area. Therefore, in the future, we may make significant changes to our privacy policy affecting the use of the Personal Information you provide to us. Therefore, you need to ensure that you visit our website from time to time and read our Privacy Policy in effect to see if we have made any significant changes concerning our use of your Personal Information.
- We may also make non-significant changes to our Privacy Policy that generally will not affect our use of your Personal Information and, therefore, you should also check our posted Privacy Policy for any non-significant changes. Further, if you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy or any revised policy, you should exit the site immediately
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