Last Updated 2nd Jaunary 2024
Thank you for visiting our website.
1 Controller information
The entities in charge of the control of any information obtained through the use of first-party cookies on this website (together referred hereinafter as the “controller” or “Eurofins” or “we”) are:
AQL EMC Ltd
16 Cobham Road
Ferndown Industrial Estate
Wimborne
Dorset
BH21 7PG
This Cookie Notice sets out the basis on which all data that Eurofins collects on you through tracking technologies like cookies will be processed by Eurofins and provides you with information about these tracking technologies and especially about cookies. This information is intended to give you a better understanding of what cookies are and the role they play in your visit to our website. European legislation requires all sites that use cookies to ensure that you are well informed about this and that you give your express permission to collect and store information collected through the use of cookies.
If you have any questions regarding this Cookie Notice or if you want to lodge a request in relation to your personal information, please contact us via our contact point:
2 Which information does Eurofins collect about me?
Eurofins may obtain information about you when you use this website.
The information we collect about you includes:
• your identity (such as Internet Protocol Address);
• device event information such as browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL;
• your preferences such as language settings, website notifications, or alerts;
• your location;
• what content you view or pages you visit;
• search enquiries you make using our site search.
3 How does Eurofins collect information about me?
We collect information about you via our website, through the use of cookies
We collect information about you when you use our website or view content provided by Eurofins. Part of this information is automatically collected through cookies and stored in server logs. We also use various technologies to determine location, including IP address that may, for example, provide Eurofins with information on what country or city you are in.
3.2 What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the website. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you do not have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.
There are various sorts of cookies. Some cookies, as narrated below, extend the functionalities of our website and enhance your experience using our website, others are critical to its proper functioning and the website may not work without them.
3.3 What cookies does Eurofins’ website use, for which purposes and how long are they kept for?
Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential to move around a website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas. Without these cookies, services website users ask for, like shopping baskets or e-billing, cannot be provided. Strictly necessary cookies are used to store a unique identifier to manage and identify the user as unique to other users currently viewing the website, in order to provide a consistent and accurate service to the user.
These cookies enable services the website’s users have specifically asked for.
These cookies are first-party cookies, which are set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain. They are persistent and erased after one year.
Performance cookies: These cookies collect information about users such as page load speeds, internet connection speeds, browser type, device type, screen size, etc. for the purpose of assessing the performance of a website and allowing its improvement. Once collected, the information is directly anonymised. They are set by a third party service called Google Analytics. It collects information in an aggregated (i.e., anonymous) form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors come from and the pages they visited. These cookies are divided into session cookies, which are erased when the user closes the browser and persistent cookies, which remains on the user’s computer/device for a pre-defined period of time (usually two years).
Functionality cookies: These are cookies that automatically remember choices that users have previously made in order to improve their experience next time they visit the website (where users select their preferred language or remember settings such as whether or not they have logged in already for example). These cookies are also used to prevent a user being offered a service that had previously been offered and rejected. These cookies are persistent ones and generally kept for one year. Some are set after the appearance of a feature popup window to prevent it from appearing again on a specific page whereas others determine whether a banner appears centred at the bottom on all pages across the website.
These cookies are first-party cookies, which are set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain.
Targeting or advertising cookies: These cookies track users’ browsing activities on websites and collect information about user’s browsing habits. These cookies are used to deliver advertisements more relevant to the website users and their interests; to limit the number of times users see an advertisement and to help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. These cookies contain a unique key that is able to distinguish individual users’ browsing habits or store code that can be translated into a set of browsing habits or preferences using information stored elsewhere. They remember that a user has visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisations. The data contained in these cookies is generally set and controlled by these third-party organisations.
All cookies will only be only used for the purposes stated above and to provide better services to all our website visitors so we can present our website, services and products to you in the most appropriate manner.
Please note that on this website, Google Analytics code is supplemented by “anonymizeIP” to ensure an anonymized collection of IP addresses (so called IP-masking).
3.3.1 How to control cookies?
You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.
For more general information about cookies and how to disable them through your browser, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
You can easily accept or reject each of the cookies on this site by adjusting your preferences on the relevant link provided on each of Eurofins webpages titled “Cookies Preferences”.
3.4 We collect information about you via web beacons and parameter tracking
We also use software similar to cookies known as web beacons. A web beacon is one of a number of techniques used to track who is reading a web page or email, when, and from which computer. It can also be used to redirect the user client to a third party web service for tracking purposes.
It is not possible to refuse the use of web beacons. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies.
We also use ETag, which is an HTTP protocol header field mainly used to validate web caches and allow more efficient browsing. It has also been used for cookie-like purposes.
We also use Scripts (such e.g. JavaScript code) and components (such as browsers plugins like Adobe Flash) used to generate Web pages and to automate computer processes. You can disable the Scripts, such as JavaScript, through your browser (see your browser’s settings).
3.5 We collect information about you via third parties
We use Google Analytics’ 3rd-party audience data such as age, gender and interests to work with companies that collect information about your online activities to provide advertising targeted to suit your interests and preferences. For example, you may see certain ads on this website or other websites because we contract with Google and other similar companies to target our ads based on information we or they have collected, including information that was collected through automated means (such as cookies and web beacons). These companies also use automated technologies to collect information when you click on our ads, which helps track and manage the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.
You may opt out of the automated collection of information by third-party ad networks for the purpose of delivering advertisements tailored to your interests, by visiting the consumer opt-out page for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising at http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ and edit or opt-out your Google Display Network ads’ preferences at http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/. Because those opt-out and preference control pages are specific to the individual browser used to visit it, and because that page is not operated by Eurofins, we are unable to perform the opt-outs on your behalf.
4 Which processing ground(s) do you rely upon for processing my personal information?
Please refer to our privacy policy for details on the grounds for processing your personal information.
5 Who will my personal information be transferred to?
Your personal data might be transferred to any Eurofins affiliates (which can be found at https://www.eurofins.com/). We do not sell or otherwise disclose personal information about our website visitors to third parties except as described below:
• to trusted businesses or persons to process your personal information for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with applicable data privacy regulations;
• to service providers we have retained to perform services on our behalf;
• to companies, organizations or individuals outside of Eurofins if we have a good reason to believe that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
o execute and enforce contractual terms;
o meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request;
o detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues;
o protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Eurofins, our users or the public as required or permitted by law;
• to regulatory or law enforcement agencies if we believe in good faith that we are required by law to disclose it in connection with the detection of crime, the collection of taxes or duties, in order to comply with any applicable law or order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or in connection with legal proceedings;
• to third parties as part of a merger, acquisition or bankruptcy, in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets (including through bankruptcy).
6 Will my information be transferred outside the European Union?
Your personal data might be transferred outside the EU in case one of the recipients stated above is located outside the EU and only to countries for which:
• the European Commission has issued an adequacy decision (which guarantees that an adequate level of protection of personal data is offered in that country);
• you have given explicit consent;
• appropriate safeguards have been provided, such as standard data protection clauses (that can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/model-contracts-transfer-personal-data-third-countries_en) or Privacy Shield Certification (companies benefitting from this certification can be found at https://www.privacyshield.gov/list).
7 Which rights do I have over my personal data?
You have the right to ask for:
• accessing your data;
• rectifying your data;
• restricting the processing of your data;
• withdrawing your consent at any time as explained above;
• erasing your data.
You also have the right to complain to the relevant national data protection authority in case these rights are not complied with. An overview of the national data protection authorities is available at the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080.
8 Links to other sites
We provide links to other websites for your convenience and information. If you follow such links, this Cookie Notice will no longer apply. These websites may have their own privacy notice or policies in place, which we recommend you review if you visit any linked websites. We are not responsible for the content of linked websites or their use.
9 Changes to this Cookie Notice
We recognise that transparency is an ongoing responsibility so we will keep this Cookie Notice under regular review. We will always update this Cookie Notice on our website, so please try to read it when you visit the website (the ‘last updated’ reference on the top right tells you when we last updated this Cookie Notice).
