PRIVACY NOTICE

Last updated on May 21st, 2020

Preamble

Kenes International Organizers of Congresses S.A (hereinafter also referred to as “Kenes”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is the congress secretariat and organizer for this event. As part of its physical and virtual (online) meeting services, Kenes operates the event website from which you have accessed this page.

Kenes respects your privacy and we are committed to protecting any personal information you may share with in adherence to the highest standards of data protection and in compliance with applicable law.

This Privacy Notice describes our practices as data controllers and /or data processors, regarding the collection, use and disclosure of information which we may obtain when you visit and interact with the event website from which you are accessing this Privacy Notice. This Privacy Notice also describes your choices regarding the use, access and correction of your personal information.

Before submitting any personal information to us, please read this privacy statement carefully to learn about our privacy practices.

 1.      WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU

  • Personal Information: We receive and store information you may provide us when using the event website or participating in any activities. This information includes information that personally identifies you, or that may, directly or indirectly, personally identify you, including your name, telephone number, postal address, workplace, professional interest & email address. Such information is referred to in this Privacy Notice as “personal information”, and comprises solely of information that is voluntarily provided by you (for example, when you register for an event, contact us through the “Contact us” form appearing on the event website or sign up for a newsletter or otherwise voluntarily participate in any activities). We are processing this information under the legal basis of our legitimate interest to provide you with the service you have requested. You can choose not to provide us with any personal information, but failure to do so may preclude us from providing our services to you, responding to any questions and comments you may refer to us on the event website or may otherwise preclude you from participating in certain activities.
  • Log Data: As is true of most websites, our servers automatically collect and record information that the browser on your computer or mobile phone, tablet or similar device you use to access the event website (a “Device“) sends whenever you visit the event website (“Log Data”). Log Data may include Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, referral and exit pages and URL’s, language information, the domain from which you are visiting and additional information in respect to your usage and browsing of the event website. We do not link this automatically collected data to other information we collect about you. We also may collect information about various aspects of your use of the event website or your participation in any activity, such as the dates and time of your login, the content you have viewed, the pages you have visited, the searches and/or registrations you may have made and any clickstream data.
  • Location Data: When you access the event website on a mobile Device (such as a tablet or a mobile phone), we may collect information about your location through location information accessible through your Device. You can change the privacy settings of your Device at any time, in order to turn off the functionality of sharing location information. If you have any queries about the privacy settings of your Device, we suggest you contact the manufacturer of your Device or your mobile service provider for help.
    Your physical presence at a particular hall or booth at the event may be recorded if you present your badge for scanning.
  • Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies. We collect certain information by automated means, using technologies such as cookies, pixel tags, browser analysis tools, server logs and web beacons “cookie” technology. For example, when you visit the event website, we place certain cookies on your computer. Please see below our detailed policy on how we use cookies and other tracking technology and your options relating to such use.
  • Social Media Widgets: The event website may also include some social media features, such as a Facebook “like” button, and widgets, such as a “share” button. These features may collect your Internet Protocol address, which page you are visiting on the event website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on the event website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy statement of the companies that provide them.

2.      THE PURPOSE OF THE COLLECTION

·    The personal information we collect from you is used to enable the organizing body, either the hosting society, the sponsoring company, or Kenes, to provide you with the educational service you have requested and facilitate your participation in meetings, courses and online educational resources. The organizing society may also utilize this information to offer you further services of the society.

3.      HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

Personal Information:

We may use your personal information for the following general purposes:

  • To process your activities such as event registration, abstract submission and CE accreditation.
  • to communicate with you in general, including for the purpose of providing you information about our products and services or responding to your questions and comments;
  • to measure interest in and improve the event website and/or our physical and virtual (online) meeting activities;
  • to enable some of our business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, researching and developing or improving new activities, enhancing the event website, and determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns relating to our products and services;
  • subject to applicable law, to send you marketing information that we believe may be of interest to you, regarding our products and services. You may choose not to receive such information and opt-out of such future communications. All such communications sent to you will contain the instructions for opting-out;
  • to prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities or handle and resolve legal disputes, for regulatory purposes, to enforce this Privacy Notice or our Terms of Use, or as we may otherwise believe to be necessary or appropriate: (i) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; and (ii) to protect our rights, properties or interests; and
  • as otherwise described to you at the point of collection.

Non-Personal Information:

Log Data and other non-personal information that we gather and collect is used mainly for the purpose of administering the event website; analyzing trends in the aggregate in the use of the event website (for instance, we may use such information to create user predicted preferences and social characteristics); enhancing user experience on the event website (for instance, we may use such information to determine which areas of the event website are more popular than others), estimating and reporting total audience size and traffic; for purposes of ad optimization (i.e., tailoring, targeting, analyzing, managing and optimizing of our ads), investigating, detecting, preventing or otherwise taking action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud or abuse; and providing analytics and reporting with respect to the use of the event website.

Data Retention

Your personal information is held in our systems for the duration of your interaction with our events, websites and webmail communications and up to one year after your last interaction with them, however please note that if you have registered as an attendee to one of our physical or virtual (online) events, your personal data must be retained by us for as long as local accounting regulations require us to keep it, and generally for 7 years. You may request to be removed from our systems at any time, and we will comply to the fullest extent permitted by law. 

4.      WITH WHOM WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

Personal Information

We may share your personal information under the following circumstances:

  • If the event you are participating in has been initiated by a third-party organization, such as a medical society, the  personal information you have provided at registration will shared with that third-party for the general purposes described under paragraph 2. 'How we use your information', and for provision of necessary services such as submitted abstract review and travel grant request processing.
  • In the course of operating our business and in order to perform our service to you, it may be necessary or appropriate for us to provide access to your personal information to others such as our affiliates (i.e., any company controlled by us, controlling or under common control with us), service providers, contractors and select vendors so that we can operate our business. Where practical, we seek to obtain confidentiality agreements that are consistent with this Privacy Notice and that limit others’ use or disclosure of such personal information.
  • Our meetings are of identified participants (i.e. no anonymous participation is allowed). By participating in any of our events you are required to identify yourself to us and to the other participants, by name and country of origin or company. These details will be  visible to other registered attendees (delegates and exhibitors) in both physical and virtual (online) events.
  • Voluntarily presenting your physical participant badge to be scanned by an exhibitor or sponsor representative at an exhibition hall or at a sponsored session, is sharing your registration data with them, as if you had handed them your business card with your personal information on it. Personal information that you have provided to us upon registration, such as your email address, will, in this case, be passed-on to that exhibitor or sponsor for statistical use and/or to communicate with you about their product/s.
  • Your full personal details may be shared with any industry partners of the event for marketing purposes if you had given your explicit consent for this on the registration form.
  • We may share your personal information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to enforce our legal rights, to defend against legal claims or in such circumstances where, in our judgment, a disclosure is necessary or appropriate in accordance with applicable law.
  • We may share your personal information if we believe it is necessary in order to investigate, detect, prevent or otherwise take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud or abuse, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our various terms of service or as otherwise required by applicable law.
  • As we continue to develop our business, we may sell all or part of our business. In such transactions, personal information collected from users is generally one of the business assets that will be transferred. The transferred personal information will remain subject to this Privacy Notice or subsequent policies which may be adopted in its stead.

Public Information:

  • We may share information that you voluntarily make public, including information that you post on any blogs, message boards, chat rooms or other similar forums, whether or not such forums are operated or owned by Kenes. Since such public information can be accessed by others and used by any member of the public, such use by third parties is beyond our control. To request removal of your personal information from any blog or community forum operated or owned by Kenes, please contact us at info@kenes.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.
  • We may also display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on the event website in addition to other endorsements. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at info@kenes.com.

Non-Personal Information:

We may share aggregated or anonymous information or statistics (which in any event does not contain any of your personal information) with third parties, such as the Client, our existing or potential agents, investors, affiliates, vendors, service providers and other business partners.

5.      COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES

  • Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies:

We collect certain information by automated means, using technologies such as cookies, pixel tags, browser analysis tools, server logs and web beacons “cookie” technology. For example, when you visit our website, we place cookies on your computer.

Cookies (sometimes referred to as browser cookies) are small packets of data that a website stores on your Device’s hard drive allowing your Internet browser to save and retrieve information about your visit to the website. You can find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.

We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your Internet browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your Device until you delete them) to help us collect non-personal information about various aspects of your use of the event website or your participation in any of the activities, and to enhance your experience using the event website. Cookies can also help enable the detection of certain kinds of fraud. If you do not want us to place a cookie on your Device’s hard drive, you may be able to turn that feature off on your Device. Please consult your Internet browser’s documentation for information on how to do this and how to delete persistent cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from us, the event website may not function properly.

Pixel tags and web beacons are tiny graphic images placed on website pages, emails and social posts that allow us to determine whether you have performed a specific action. When you access these pages, open or click an email, or share a post on social media, the pixel tags and web beacons generate a notice of that action. These tools allow us to measure responses to our communications and improve our web pages and promotions.

Some web browsers may transmit Do Not Track signals to websites with which the browser communicates, telling the websites not to follow its online movements. Because of differences in how browsers interpret this feature, it is not always clear whether Users intend for these signals to be transmitted, or whether they are even aware of them. Therefore, the event website currently does respond to such Do Not Track signals.

  • Analytics and Remarketing Tools:
    • We may use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics, Marketo and CrazyEgg) to analyse your use of the event website, compile reports on activity, collect demographic data, analyse performance metrics, and collect and evaluate other information relating to the event website and mobile and Internet usage. These third parties use cookies and other technologies to help analyse and provide us this data. We do not have access or control over the cookies placed by these analytics providers. When you access and use the event website, your Log Data and other non-personal information may be processed by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice. More information about the analytics tools we use can be found in these links:
  • We may also use third-party remarketing services (including Google Remarketing and Marketo) to advertise on third party websites to previous visitors to the event website. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who have visited the event website or participated in any activity (for example sign-up to receive Congress newsletters). These third-party remarketing service providers use cookies to serve ads based on a past visit to the event website. Any data collected by such third-party remarketing service providers will be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice and the privacy policy of such third party remarketing services provider. More information about the remarketing tools we use can be found in these links:
  • General Opt Out Option. In addition to the opt out options mentioned above, you may also opt out of any of our third-party’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page, located at http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#!/.

6.      HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

We take commercially reasonable steps to protect your information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. When personal information is transferred over the Internet, we encrypt it using Transfer Layer Security (TLS) encryption technology or similar technology. You should note, however, that no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases or the databases of the third parties with which we may share such information, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet. In particular, e-mails sent to us may not be secure, and you should, therefore, take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail.

We use third-party vendors and hosting partners to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to run our activities. Where practical, we seek to obtain confidentiality agreements that are consistent with this Privacy Notice and that limit others’ use or disclosure of your personal information.

7.      ACCESSING AND MODIFYING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES

If you have provided us with any personal information, you have the right to access, remove, review, and/or make changes to the same by contacting us at privacy@kenes.com. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

In addition, you may manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any of our marketing e-mails.  Subject to applicable law, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to process such requests in a timely manner. You should be aware, however, that it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our subscription databases.

If you reside in the EU, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your habitual residence, place of work or place of infringement, if you feel that the processing of your personal data infringes the General Data Protection regulation (GDPR).

8.      EXTERNAL SITES

The event website may contain links to websites operated by third parties (“External Sites”). Be sure to read the privacy policies, supplemental notices, and settings of all websites or platforms that you visit so you can understand their privacy practices and your options. These External Sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these External Sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of the event website and welcome and feedback about these sites.

9.      CHILDREN’S PRIVACY PROTECTION

We understand the importance of protecting children’s privacy in the interactive online world. The event website is not designed for or intentionally targeted at children 18 years of age or younger.  We do not knowingly collect or maintain personal information from children under the age of 18 through the event website. If you are under 18, please do not give us any personal information. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and to help enforce our Privacy Notice by instructing their children never to provide personal information through the event website without their permission. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 18 has provided personal information to us, please contact us, and we will endeavour to delete that information from our databases.

10. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Notice is effective as of the date stated at the top of this Privacy Notice. We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time with or without notice to you. Any such changes will be posted on the event website. By accessing the event website after we make any such changes to this Privacy Notice, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of your information is governed by the Privacy Notice in effect at the time we collect the relevant information. Please refer back to this Privacy Notice on a regular basis.

11. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER OF INFORMATION

Please be aware that information you provide to us or we obtain as a result of your use of the event website may be processed and transferred to the country of the Client and all countries in which Kenes has offices and operations and be subject to applicable law. This information may also be processed by staff working for us or for one of our suppliers. The privacy and data protection laws in such countries may not be equivalent to such laws in your country of residence. By using the event website, or by providing us with your information, you consent to this collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in countries. Any data transfers from within the EU will be carried out only to locations with similar & adequate levels of data protection.

12. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83, California residents who have an established business relationship with Kenes may choose to opt out of our sharing their personal information with third parties for direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and (1) you wish to opt out; or (2) you wish to request certain information regarding our disclosure of your personal information to third parties for the direct marketing purposes, please send an e-mail to privacy@kenes.com with “Privacy Notice” in the subject line or write to us at:

Kenes Group
Rue François-Versonnex 7
1207  Geneva, Switzerland 

13. GOVERNING LAW

This Privacy Notice is construed in accordance with and shall be governed by the substantive laws of Switzerland, without regards to principles of conflicts of laws thereof.

14. QUESTIONS

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice or do not feel that your concerns have been addressed, please direct your questions at:

privacy@kenes.com