Privacy Policy

INTRODUCTION 

1. Introduction

Owlstone Medical Limited (referred to as “OML”, “We, “Our” or “Us”), is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. We take care to protect the privacy of clinical trial volunteers, prospective clinical trial volunteers, our clients and their staff, our suppliers/partners and their staff, investors, health care professionals, professional advisors, researchers, physicians, prospective employees and all other users or parties that otherwise interact with us or visit our website.

We have therefore developed this privacy notice to inform you of the data we collect, what we do with your information, what we do to keep it secure as well as the rights and choices you have over your personal information.

We may provide additional privacy notices to you at the time we collect your data. For example, we provide additional privacy information to clinical trial participants to describe our privacy practices in connection with conducting clinical trials and we also provide additional privacy information to prospective job applicants when they apply for a job with us. Such notices will govern how we process the information you provide at that time.

Throughout this document we refer to Data Protection Legislation, which means the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and any legislation implemented in connection with the aforementioned legislation. Where data is processed by a controller or processor established in the European Union or comprises the data of people in the European Union, it also includes the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR). This includes any replacement legislation coming into effect from time to time.

DATA CONTROLLER

2. Data Controller

OML is the controller for the personal information we process as identified in this privacy notice. In some circumstances, OML will conduct trials on behalf of other organisations. In such circumstances, the other organisation will be the controller and so you should refer to their privacy notices for details of how your data is processed.

Occasionally, OML will be a joint controller with one of our partner organisations. Such processing may be communicated to you in a separate privacy notice.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO) with registration number ZB023504.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to help us monitor internal compliance, inform, and advise on data protection obligations, and act as a point of contact for data subjects and the ICO.

Our Data Protection Officer is:

The DPO Centre Ltd.
50 Liverpool Street
London
EC2M 7PY
www.dpocentre.com

We have also appointed an EU Representative to act on our behalf for EU GDPR matters

Our EU Representative is The DPO Centre Europe Ltd.

For further details on how you can contact us or our EU Representative, please see the contact us section below.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT 

3. The information we collect and when

We only collect personal information that we know we will genuinely use and in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation. The type of personal information that we will collect on you depends on the nature of the relationship that we have with you. We may collect the following:

  • Personal and business contact information (such as name, job title and employer name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and emergency contact information).
  • Health and medical information (such as information about physical and mental health conditions and diagnoses, treatments for medical conditions, genetic information, family medical history, weight, height, diet, smoking status, alcohol intake, information relating to your breathing and breath samples, risk of exposure to infectious diseases, medications an individual may take, including the dosage, timing, and frequency, and other samples, which may include blood, urine, sputum, breath condensate, saliva or tissue), in connection with managing clinical trials and conducting research.
  • Biographical and demographic information (such as date of birth, age, gender, and information regarding any parents or legal guardians).
  • Your photograph, social media handle or digital or electronic signature.
  • Cookies and IP addresses. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy.
  • Professional credentials, educational and professional history, and institutional affiliations.
  • Where you are one of our investors, your investor profile information, and interactions.
  • CCTV images if you visit one of our sites.
  • Your experiences, opinions, feedback or reviews on our products and services. For example, when you take part in usability testing.
  • We may, in further dealings with you, extend this personal information to include services used, and subscriptions, records of conversations and agreements and payment transactions.
  • Other information that we may collect that is not specifically listed here but that we will use in accordance with this privacy notice or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.

In most instances, you are under no statutory or contractual requirement or obligation to provide us with your personal information; however, we will often require elements of the information above in order to provide our services to you in an efficient and effective manner.

INFORMATION USE

4. How we use your information

4.1 Collection

In most instances we collect personal information directly from you. In other instances, we may collect personal information from our website, public forums (e.g., social media), when you have or intend to attend an event to which we are affiliated, from contact research organisations, hospitals, healthcare professionals and so on.

We may also collect your information from other studies or trials that you have previously or are currently participating in for use as part of our own medical research and scientific studies Please see section 4.6 below. You will be informed should this occur prior to you participation in any such study and provided with our privacy information where required by Data Protection Legislation. Data from these studies will be pseudonymised so that you cannot be directly identified, and, to the extent practical, anonymised, so that you cannot be identified at all.

In other instances, one of our partner organisations may ask whether you would like to participate in a trial or usability testing with us. In these instances, should you confirm your interest, OML and our partner organisation will be independent controllers of your information. Any processing of your information by OML will be covered in this notice, or as part of other information provided to you.

4.2 Lawful basis

We only process, store or transfer your personal information when we have a legal basis for doing so. The legal basis we rely on to process the information identified in this notice are as follows:

  • Legitimate Interest: processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests (i.e., our business interests), except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.
  • Consent: You have given consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes. You may withdraw this consent at any time, either through the channel in which you provided your consent, or by getting in touch via the contact us section below.
  • Legal obligation: processing is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations.
  • Vital interests: processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person.
  • Contractual obligation: processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract.

4.3 Purpose

We may use your data in the following ways:

Processing activityLawful basis
To contact you, following your enquiry, reply to any questions, suggestions, issues, or complaints you have contacted us about.Legitimate Interest
To communicate with you and send B2B marketing communications, including where you have attended events or webinars. See also section 7 of this notice.Legitimate Interest
To determine whether you are eligible to take part in a clinical trial.Legitimate Interest
To perform and administer clinical trials and research.Legitimate Interest
To meet our high security standards in managing your personal data, our systems and our website.Legitimate Interest
Where your data has been collected as part of a study or trial, we may process the data for additional scientific or statistical research purposes (i.e., a secondary use of the data) where this is compatible with the primary purposes of collection. You can object to such secondary use of data at any time. See also 4.6 below.Legitimate Interest
To run usability testing and use your experiences and feedback to improve our devices, products, and services.Legitimate Interest or Consent
To generate marketing/analytics from our website using cookies.Consent
To negotiate and/or enter into and/or fulfil a contract with you, or the organisation for which you work.Contractual Obligation or Legitimate Interest
To fulfil pre-contractual steps, such as supplier questionnaires, as part of our onboarding process.Contractual Obligation or Legitimate Interest
To comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal process, where appropriate/necessary.Legal Obligation
To comply with regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations, where appropriate/necessary.
To share your data with healthcare professionals if you are taken ill or involved in an accident while visiting our office or sites, and are unable to provide your consent.Vital Interest

4.4 Sensitive data

As well as the lawful bases identified above, when the data we are processing is considered ‘special category data’, such as your health information, we ensure that the processing is necessary for one of the following: 

  • Purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services.
  • Public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of health care and of medicinal products or medical devices.
  • Archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes. 

In addition to the three lawful bases above, in limited circumstances, such as when you submit your health data for usability testing, we will process special category data based on your explicit consent. You may withdraw this consent at any time through the same channel by which you provided your consent, or by contacting our Data Privacy Team using the contact details below.

4.5 De-identified data

In addition, we may create anonymous, aggregated, or de-identified data from your personal information and other individuals whose personal information we collect. We do this by excluding information that makes the data personally identifiable to you and use that anonymous data for research purposes.

4.6 Breath Biopsy® VOC Atlas

With the support of our clinical partners and customers, we are setting up a scientific database and research resource named the Breath Biopsy® VOC Atlas (BB VOCA). BB VOCA serves as our internal scientific research resource which enables us to deliver more reliable study results and/or to learn where improvements may be required. BB VOCA is intended to help us achieve our mission to detect illness earlier, increasing chances of finding cures and saving lives. This means that, should you participate in a trial with us, or one of our partners, your data may be stored as part of BB VOCA and used for secondary research purposes. You will always be informed if this is the case and provided the opportunity to object to this additional processing. All BB VOCA data will be pseudonymised and subject to our usual high standards of security.

We see BB VOCA as a natural extension of our trials, and a way of making better use of the data provided to us or our partners by volunteers such as you.

Our lawful basis for BB VOCA does not differ from our usual lawful bases for clinical trials – i.e. we rely on legitimate interest to process data for BB VOCA, and Article 9(2)(j) of UK GDPR exception for processing special category data for scientific research purposes. We thank all BB VOCA participants for helping us positively contribute to our research. For more information or to exercise your rights please contact us using the details below.

SHARING INFORMATION 

5. Who we might share your information with

We may share your personal data with trusted third-party organisations, subject to written agreements, as follows:

  •  With business partners and corporate affiliates to support our services, as outlined in this notice.
  • With third party companies or individuals (data processors) to perform services on our behalf. This could include contract research organisations; data storage and analytics companies; technology support and services (email, web hosting, marketing, and advertising providers, etc.).
    We only share your data with data processors that can provide sufficient guarantees that they will process your data securely and in accordance with Data Protection Legislation. Our data processors are not legally permitted to do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They have provided us with written agreements that they will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us or further sub-processors (supporting an aspect of the same service, study, trial or otherwise) which must process your personal to the same high standards.
  • With partners with whom we jointly process your data.
  • With health care professionals, researchers, academics, public health organisations, and publishers for purposes consistent with this privacy notice.
  • With professional advisors, such as lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.
  • With government or law enforcement officials or private parties as required by law and disclose and use such information as we believe necessary or appropriate.

In some situations, we may have a separate agreement or relationship with you with respect to a specific type of processing of your data, such as if you participate in a clinical trial. These situations will be governed by specific terms, privacy notices, or consent forms that provide additional information about how we will use your information.  We will honour these additional terms with respect to your information and thus, strongly recommend you review the additional terms prior to participating.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION TRANSFERS

6. International transfers of information

Whenever we transfer your personal information outside of the UK to countries not deemed by the ICO (and/or European Commission as relevant) to provide an adequate level of personal information protection, the transfer will be based on safeguards that allow us to conduct the transfer in accordance with the data protection legislation, such as the specific contracts approved by the ICO (or European Commission as relevant) providing adequate protection of personal information. 

KEEPING YOU UPDATED 

7. How we keep you updated on our services

As a business contact, we will send you relevant news about our services or products in a number of ways including by email, but only if we have a legitimate interest to do so. Marketing communications will be sent from our own domain.

Each email communication will have an option to object to the processing, if you wish to amend your marketing preferences, you can do so by following the link in the email and updating your preferences or by calling us on the number displayed on our website.

We make every effort to ensure that we only send such communications to those acting in a business capacity and do not send such materials to consumers via personal email addresses if it is clear they are not acting in such a capacity.

YOUR RIGHTS 

8. Your rights over your information

The right to be informed about our collection and use of personal data

You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data. We ensure we do this with our internal data protection policies and through this and other privacy notices. These are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure these are accurate and reflect our data processing activities.

Right to access your personal information

You have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you in many circumstances, by making a request. This is referred to as a ‘Data Subject Access Request’. If we agree that we are obliged to provide personal information to you (or someone else on your behalf), we will provide it to you or them free of charge and aim to do so within one month from when your identity has been confirmed.

We would ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interactions with us that we can locate your personal information.

If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to rectify your personal information

If any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date, you may ask us to correct it.

If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to object or restrict our processing of your data

You have the right to object to us processing your personal information for particular purposes or have its processing restricted in certain circumstances.

If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to erasure

You have the right to have personal data erased. This is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. The right is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances.

If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to portability

The right to portability gives you the right to receive personal data you have provided to a controller in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. It also gives them you the right to request that a controller transmits this data directly to another controller.

This right is unlikely to apply to OML’s use of your data, but if you would like to discuss this right, please contact us as set out below.

For more information about your privacy rights

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regulates data protection and privacy matters in the UK. They make a lot of information accessible to consumers on their website and they ensure that the registered details of all data controllers such as ourselves are available publicly. You can access them here https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public.

You can make a complaint to the ICO at any time about the way we use your information. However, we hope that you would consider raising any issue or complaint you have with us first. Your satisfaction is extremely important to us, and we will always do our very best to solve any problems you may have.

INFORMATION RETENTION 

9. How long we keep your information for

We will retain your personal information in order to provide you with a high-quality service, in accordance with Data Protection Legislation and for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you).

YOUR REVIEWS AND OPINIONS 

10. Giving your reviews and sharing your thoughts

When using our websites, you may be able to share information through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. For example, when you ‘like’, ‘share’ or review our Services. When doing this, your personal information may be visible to the providers of those social networks and/or their other users. Please remember it is your responsibility to set appropriate privacy settings on your social network accounts, so you are comfortable with how your information is used and shared on them.

SECURITY 

11. Security

Data security is of great importance to OML and to protect your data we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure your collected data. 

We take security measures to protect your information including:

  • Limiting access to our buildings to those that we have determined are entitled to be there (by use of passes, key card access and other related technologies).
  • Implementing access controls to our information technology.
  • We use appropriate procedures and technical security measures (including pseudonymisation, strict encryption and archiving techniques) to safeguard your information across all our computer systems, networks, websites, mobile apps, offices, and stores.
IF WE CHANGE HANDS 

12. What happens if our business changes hands?

We may, from time to time, expand or reduce our business and this may involve the sale and/or the transfer of control of all or part of our business. Any personal data that you have provided will, where it is relevant to any part of our business that is being transferred, be transferred along with that part and the new owner or newly controlling party will, under the terms of this privacy notice, be permitted to use that data only for the purposes for which it was originally collected by us.

POLICY CHANGES 

13. Changes to Our Privacy Notice

We may change this privacy notice from time to time (for example, if the law changes). We recommend that you check this notice regularly to keep up to date.

CONTACT US 

14. How to contact us

For general enquiries please use our contact form.

If you would like to exercise one of your rights as set out above, or you have a question or a complaint about this notice, or the way your personal information is processed, please contact us by one of the following means:

By email: privacy@owlstone.co.uk
By post: Owlstone Medical Limited, 183, Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Milton, Cambridge, CB4 0GJ
By phone: 01223 428200

If you are based in Europe, you can contact our EU Representative, The DPO Centre Europe Ltd: By email: EuRep@owlstone.co.uk 
By post: The DPO Centre Ltd, Rue des Poissonniers 13, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
By phone: +32 2 786 19 61

Thank you for taking the time to read our privacy notice.

This notice was last updated on 21st September 2022

Let’s work together to advance early detection and precision medicine through Breath Biopsy.