Privacy policy

Introduction

AUSTAR Group (refers to AUSTAR Lifesciences Limited and/or any of its affiliates, hereinafter referred to as "We" or "AUSTAR") are fully aware of the significance of privacy to you, and we will take appropriate security and protection measures, pursuance to the requirements of laws and regulations, to try our best to keep your personal information secure and controllable. Therefore, we hereby formulate this Privacy Policy (hereinafter referred to as the "Policy") and remind you:

We will provide you with more secure and reliable services in consistent with the following principles:

1. Secure and Reliable:

We will make every effort to prevent your information from being disclosed, damaged or lost, by means of reasonable and effective information security technology and management process.

2. Self-determined Options:

We offer you convenient information management options so that you can make appropriate choices to manage your own personal information.

3. Reasonable and Necessary:

We will collect only the information necessary to provide you and other users with a better service.

4. Clear and Transparent:

In introducing the Privacy Policy to you, we try to express it in a simple and understandable way, to enable you to clearly understand our information processing methods.

This Policy shall apply any collection of your personal information both online and offline when you interact with AUSTAR, such as when you visit AUSTAR's pages (including but not limited to AUSTAR's official website, social media page and other AUSTAR websites, products and services that display or link to this Policy), use or purchase products or services provided by AUSTAR, subscribe to AUSTAR's information or contact us for customer services either as a visitor, customer or potential customer, or acting on behalf of any of our suppliers or business partners. To the extent that a separate privacy policy applies when you use certain service(s) provided by AUSTAR, the policy corresponding to such service(s) will form a complete set of privacy policies together with this Policy.

It must be noted that this Policy does not apply to any other services provided to you by third parties, and that you may receive content or links from third parties in order to provide you with a smooth browsing experience. You are advised to choose carefully whether to access such links, content, products and services as provided by such third parties. Please carefully read the privacy policies of such third parties before submitting any personal information to them.

This Policy mainly describes to you how we collect, use, share, transfer, publicly disclose, protect and preserve such information, and the way we provide you with to access, update, delete and protect the same, to the extent it applies. You must thoroughly read and fully understand this Policy before using our products and/or services,  in particular those terms in bold/underlined in bold, which shall be read with emphasis and fully understood and agreed to before the use.

By starting to use or continuing to use our products and/or services after we update this Policy (you will be informed of any updates), you agree to the content hereof (including any update), and agree that we collect, use and preserve your relevant information in accordance with this Policy. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding the content of this Policy, please do not hesitate to contact us by email to info@austar.com.hk or by calling our Customer Services at 4008121586.

Contents

I. Definition

II. How do We Collect and Use Your Personal Information

III. How do We Use Cookie

IV. How do We Share, Transfer and Publicly Disclose Your Personal Information

V. How do We Protect and Preserve Your Personal Information

VI. How will You Manage Your Personal Information

VII. Protection of Minors' Information

VIII. How is Your Personal Information Transferred Worldwide

IX. Notices and Updates

X. Contact Us

I. Definition

Personal Information: refers to all kinds of information recorded by electronic or other means that can, either independently or when combined with other data, enable the identification of a specific natural person or reflect the activities of the same.

Personal Sensitive Information: refers to private personal information including, among others, ID card number, personal biometric information, bank account number, property information, whereabouts and tracks, transaction information, children's information (we will mark the specific personal sensitive information in bold in this Policy).

Personal Information Deletion: refers to the removal of personal information from the system involved in the implementation of daily business functions, to keep it in an unsearchable and inaccessible state.

II. How do We Collect and Use Your Personal Information

(I) Information We Collect

Following the principles of legality, propriety and necessity, we collect information depending on the environment in which you interact with us, your choices, the services and functions you use, and the applicable legal requirements:

• Information that you submit via AUSTAR's official website and/or by calling our Customer Services

Your name, location (city/country), email address, contact number, company name and other information you provide when you inquire via AUSTAR's official website and/or by calling our Customer Services.

• Information that you submit when participating in AUSTAR related activities (both online and offline)

Your name, location (city/country), email address, contact number, company name and the products and/or services you are interested in and other information you provide when you participate in online and offline activities such as training courses, exhibitions, industry conferences or seminars organized by AUSTAR or other organizers.

• Information that you provide for agreeing to receive marketing and promotion information

Your name, location (city/country), email address, contact number, company name and the products and/or services you are interested in and other information you provide when you agree to receive our marketing and promotion information, and your interaction with AUSTAR, such as subscription to such marketing and promotion information or cancellation thereof.

• Information of Your Purchases and Registration

When you purchase products and/or services from AUSTAR, we may collect, among others, your name, location (city/country), email address, contact number, company name, delivery/invoice address, postal code, fax, invoice history (including the description of any AUSTAR product/service you purchased), details of the conversations you may have with the Customer Services regarding the product or service you purchased, and details of such product/service you purchased (such as the name of the product/service, product category, product model, purchase date, proof of purchase).

• Your feedback to us, including details of your comments/questions/requests/complaints

• Data generated during your use of all AUSTAR products, services and/or AUSTAR pages

We may collect information generated during your use of AUSTAR products, services and/or AUSTAR  pages (including Cookies), including in relation to computer, device and connection (such as IP address, type and version of the browser, operating system), as well as service data (such as the features you use, the settings you choose, including date and time stamps and reference and exit pages, the search terms you use, and the pages you visit or search on the service).

• Data obtained from other channels

We may also obtain your contact information and other information from our business units, affiliates and other third parties, including:

1) The social network on which you grant a license to the service to access your data on one or more networks;

2) Partners with whom we provide joint services or engage in joint marketing activities.

(II) How do We Use Personal Information We Collect

In order to provide you with better services, we will use the collected information for the following purposes in strict accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations and the agreement with users. If we use your information for purposes other than the following purposes, we will inform you again and obtain your consent.

• To provide you with services and/or products;

• To push marketing information to you;

We may use the personal information we have obtained to send you information that may be of interest to you regarding the launches of our new products/business, Webinar course invitations, market events (exhibitions, seminars, etc.), holiday greetings and other relevant information through email, SMS, and other digital channels (such as social media). You may withdraw your consent to receive the marketing information at any time, by means of the unsubscription link at the bottom of the promotional email you may receive or by any other means we send you. You may also contact us with the contact information described in the "X. Contact Us" section to do so.

• To enhance and improve the services and our other pages, products, activities and services;

• To determine usage trends and develop data analysis for research, auditing, reporting and other business purposes, including determining the effectiveness of our promotional activities and evaluating our business performance, or otherwise in accordance with customer agreements;

• To invite you to participate in the testing and investigation of our products and/or services;

• To respond to your needs, inquiries, comments and concerns;

• To notify you of modifications, updates and other announcements regarding the services and our other products and services; and/or

• To perform our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

(III) Please fully understand that we may collect and use personal information without your authorization in the circumstances where:

• It concerns national security or national defense security;

• It concerns public security, public health or major public interests;

• It concerns criminal investigation, prosecution, trial and execution of judgment;

• We do that for the purpose of safeguarding the life, property and other important legitimate rights and interests of the personal information subject or other individuals and it is difficult to get the consent and authorization therefrom;

• The personal information involved is disclosed to the public by the subject or guardian thereof;

• Your personal information is collected from lawful public disclosure, such as lawful news reports, government disclosure and other channels;

• It is required for execution and performance of certain contract upon your request;

• It is required to maintain the safe and stable operation of the products and/or services provided, such as identifying and resolving faults in the products and/or services;

• It is required for lawful news reporting;

• It is required for academic research institutions to carry out statistical or academic researches for purposes of public interest, provided that the personal information contained in the results of academic research or description is de-identified when provided to the outside world;

• Other circumstances as stipulated by laws and regulations.

III. How do We Use Cookie

When you use AUSTAR pages, we may use Cookies to collect your information,  for example, when you visit our website and receive our email. In most cases, we will not be able to directly identify you from the information we collect using these technologies.

Cookies play an important role in improving the user's Internet experience. They are usually used by AUSTAR for the following purposes:

1. Enable the normal operation of AUSTAR pages. These Cookies are necessary for you to browse and use the AUSTAR pages, otherwise you may not be able to use and access the same.

2. Help analyze the usage of AUSTAR pages, so as to measure and improve their performance. These cookies collect information about your behavior when you visit a website, such as which pages you visit frequently and whether you have received error notifications. 

You may also set Cookie management through your browser. Be aware, however, that if you disable Cookies, you may not be able to receive the best service experience and certain services may not work properly.

IV. How do We Share, Transfer and Publicly Disclose Your Personal Information

(I) Sharing

1. We will not share your personal information with any corporation, organization or individual outside AUSTAR, except that:

(1) Your explicit consent or authorization is obtained in advance;

(2) Only by sharing your personal information can we realize the core functions of our products and/or services or provide the services you need;

(3) Such sharing is consistent with relevant agreement signed with you or any other legal instrument;

(4) Other circumstances as stipulated by laws and regulations.

2. Affiliates and subsidiaries. We may share your personal information with our affiliates and subsidiaries within AUSTAR Group, but only as necessary and subject to the purposes stated in this Privacy Policy. If any of our affiliates requires to change the purpose of processing personal information, it will seek your authorization again.

3. Service providers and other third parties. We may share your personal information with our third-party service providers and business partners pursuant to the provisions of this Privacy Policy and applicable laws to enable our provision of certain services, such as selling products or providing services to you, E-mail sending, auditing and other services. We will oblige such service providers to protect your personal information by contract or otherwise.

(II) Transfer

We will not transfer your personal information to any corporation, organization or individual, except that:

1. Your explicit consent or authorization is obtained in advance;

2. In the event of a merger, acquisition, asset transfer or any other similar transaction involving the transfer of personal information, we will require the new corporation or organization receiving your personal information to continue to be bound by this Privacy Policy, or otherwise we will require them to re-seek your authorization.

(III) Public Disclosure

We will only publicly disclose your personal information under the following circumstances:

1. Disclosure of your designated personal information in a manner that you expressly agree to upon your request;

2. Your personal information is required by laws, regulations, mandatory administrative law enforcement or judicial requirements to be offered.

Please note that AUSTAR may share, transfer, publicly disclose personal information without your authorization in advance in the circumstances where:

(1) It is related to AUSTAR's performance of obligations prescribed by laws and regulations;

(2) It is directly related to national security or national defense security;

(3) It is directly related to public security, public health or major public interests;

(4) It is directly related to criminal investigation, prosecution, trial and execution of judgment;

(5) We do that for the purpose of safeguarding the life, property and other important legitimate rights and interests of you or other individuals and it is difficult to get your consent and authorization;

(6) Your disclosure of personal information to the public;

(7) Your personal information is collected from lawful public disclosure, such as lawful news reports, government disclosure and other channels.

According to the law, the sharing and transfer of any de-identified personal information that cannot be recovered and used to re-identify the subject thereof does not fall within the scope of external sharing, transfer and public disclosure of personal information.

V. How do We Protect and Preserve Your Personal Information

(I) Technologies and Measures to Protect Your Personal Information

1. Technologies and measures for data security

We will adopt security protection measures in accordance with laws, regulations and other normative documents to prevent your personal information from unauthorized access, use, modification, avoiding damage or loss of data. For example, certain sensitive personal information will be de-identified, anonymized or encrypted.

2. We will regularly test and evaluate the effectiveness of technical and organizational measures, to ensure the security of your personal information.

3. We will only allow employees and partners of AUSTAR and its affiliates who need to know the information to have access to such personal information. We also require all persons who may have access to your personal information to fulfill appropriate confidentiality obligations.

4. We will take all reasonable and feasible measures to ensure that irrelevant personal information is not collected.

5. Security incident management

In case of any personal information security incident that may cause serious harm to your legitimate rights and interests, we will inform you in a timely manner in accordance with the requirements of laws and regulations. Meanwhile, we will also report the management of the personal information security incident as required by regulators.

6. If you have any questions about our protection of personal information, you can contact us with the contact information set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you become aware that your personal information is disclosed, please contact us immediately with the contact information described in the "X. Contact Us" section hereof so that appropriate measures can be taken.

(II) Preservation of Your Personal Information

1. Your personal information will be preserved for the purposes stated in this Policy for a period of time, which will be determined in conjunction with the mandatory retention period stipulated by law. After the preservation period, we will delete or anonymize your personal information as required by applicable laws.

2. If we terminate the services or operations, we will inform you in advance, and delete or anonymize your personal information after such termination.

VI. How will You Manage Your Personal Information

AUSTAR attaches great importance to your attention to personal information. Unless otherwise stipulated by laws and regulations, you have the following rights:

1. To access and correct your personal information

Except as required by laws and regulations, you have the right to access and correct your personal information at any time. If you need to access or correct your personal information generated during the use of our products and/or services, please feel free to contact us. We will respond to your request in the manner and within the period specified in this Policy.

2. To delete your personal information

• Information that you can remove or delete directly from our product and/or service pages.

• You may request removal of personal information from us in the following situations:

(1) Where we process your personal information in violation of laws and regulations;

(2) Where we collect and use your personal information without your consent;

(3) Where we process your personal information in violation of our agreement with you;

(4) Where we terminate the services and operations.

• If we respond your deletion request, we do not guarantee that the relevant information will be removed from the backup system immediately, but we will remove it when the backup system is updated.

3. To withdraw your authorization or change its scope

You may change the scope that you authorize us to continue collecting personal information or simply withdraw your authorization by deleting the information or by means provided by us.

Your decision to withdraw your consent or authorization, however, will not affect the processing of personal information previously carried out on the basis of your authorization.

4. If you do not want to receive any marketing information we send to you, you may unsubscribe at any time in the following ways:

(1) Unsubscribing marketing information from the mail through the mail subscription menu.

(2) Unsubscribing the mobile marketing messages we send to you by following the prompts of the content thereof.

5. To apply free of charge under European and certain other privacy and data protection laws (where applicable), for:

• Access to your personal information;

• Modification or deletion of your personal information;

• Restrictions on our processing of your personal information, or to raise objections to our processing; and

• Portability of your personal information.

To exercise any of the foregoing rights, please submit a written application to us with the contact information described in the "X. Contact Us" section. We will respond to your application in accordance with applicable laws. To protect your privacy and security, we may ask to verify your identity.

6. If you are unable to access, correct or delete your personal information by the above methods, or you need to access, correct or delete other personal information generated during your use of our products and/or services, or if you believe that AUSTAR has any violation of laws and regulations or the agreement with you on the collection or use of personal information, you can contact us with the contact information in this privacy policy.

For security purposes, we may require a written request or identification documents from you, and we will respond to your request within 15 working days after receiving your feedback and verifying your identity. In principle, we do not charge you a fee for a reasonable request, but we will do so for repeated requests that exceed reasonable limits as the case may be. We may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, that risk the legitimate rights and interests of others, or that are unrealistic.

According to the provisions of laws and regulations, we will not be able to respond to your request under certain circumstances.

VII. Protection of Minors' Personal Information

We do not actively collect information from, or provide services to, minors.

VIII. How is Your Personal Information Transferred Worldwide

As AUSTAR does business in more than 50 countries and regions around the world, your personal information collected by AUSTAR may be processed in, or accessed from, the country/region where you use the products or services, or other countries/regions where AUSTAR or its affiliates, subsidiaries, service providers or business partners have establishments. Data protection laws may differ in these countries/regions.

In the event of outbound transfer, we will take steps to ensure that the information we collect is handled in accordance with the requirements of this Policy and applicable law.

IX. Notices and Updates

1. This Privacy Policy is subject to changes, we will not however impair your rights hereunder without your express consent. We will issue the updates on the AUSTAR pages and remind you of the update of the relevant content through the website announcement or in other appropriate ways before taking effect, please kindly visit the AUSTAR pages and learn about the latest version hereof.

2. In case of material changes, we will also provide more prominent notice (we will explain the specific changes hereto by means including but not limited to email, SMS or special prompts on the browsed page).

A "material change" referred to herein shall include without limitation when:

(1) Our service model is changed significantly, such as the purpose of processing personal information, the type of personal information to be processed and the way of using personal information; 

(2) We have major changes in ownership structure, organizational structure and other aspects, such as business restructuring, change of ownership caused by bankruptcy mergers and acquisitions; 

(3) The main objects of sharing, transfer or public disclosure of personal information are changed;

(4) Your right to participate in the processing of personal information and the way you exercise it are changed significantly;

(5) The contact information and complaint channels of our unit responsible for personal information security change;

(6) Personal information security impact assessment report indicates that there is a high risk.

3. We will then also file an old version of this Privacy Policy for your reference.

X. Contact Us

1.If you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal information, please contact us by:

Responsible contact for personal information protection by E-mail: info@austar.com.hk

Address: 18th Floor, Chaowai MEN Building B, No. 26 Chaowai Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing

You can also contact us at any time by visiting the contact page of the AUSTAR's official website or dialing our contact number (4008121586) and other ways.

2. In general, we will respond to your request within 15 working days. If you are not satisfied with our response, especially if our personal information processing behavior has damaged your legitimate rights and interests, you can also complain or report to the network information, telecommunications, public security and industry and commerce and other regulators.

Issued on: 15th April, 2021