Data Privacy Statement

1. The issue of data protection and confidentiality is a topic we take very seriously and we follow the applicable national and European data protection regulations.

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2. Preamble

This Privacy Statement is addressed to all customers, vendors, suppliers, etc. (“Data Subjects”, “you”) who access this website, which is operated by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany (“we”, “us”). It is meant to help you understand what personal data we collect, why we collect it, and how you can exercise your data protection rights. "Personal Data" in this document includes all information that relates to a natural person and with which this person can be directly or indirectly identified.

We develop products and technologies in three different business sectors which are Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics to enable brilliant people to solve global challenges. In these contexts, we process your personal data in various ways, depending on your specific role, the way we communicate and the products/services you use. Section 4 of this Privacy Statement contains further details to guide you through each individual situation.

Should you have questions or queries regarding the processing of your personal data, please contact our Group Data Protection Officer via privacy@emdgroup.com or the other contact details provided below.

General information

This section informs you about the controller of your personal data, how you may contact the controller and which rights you have as a data subject in this context.

4. The Processing Activities in Detail

This section explains the different data processing activities in which we process your personal data.

4.1. Privacy Notice for the emdgroup.com website

This section explains the different data processing activities in which we process your personal data for the operation of the services provided on our website www.emdgroup.com and other EMD Group websites (collectively, “services”).

4.2. Processing of Your Personal Data in Other Contexts

We also process your personal data upon your interaction with us regarding the products and services we offer. This includes the processing of your personal data for marketing purposes, to communicate with you for commercial reasons, and in the course of our scientific researches. This usually involves the processing of data categories which we require to pursue these purposes, such as your contact data, preferences and payment details.

Such processing of your personal data is usually based on our legitimate business interest to develop and offer our products and services, learn more about your interests and continuously improve our offerings. Please refer to the below explanations and/or individual privacy notices which we provide in the context of our business communication with you to learn more about the corresponding processing of your personal data in this context.

5. Data Deletion, Data Transfers, etc.

Unless otherwise stated in this Privacy Statement, your personal data is regularly deleted when it is no longer required to meet our business interests, no statutory data retention obligations apply, or you withdrew your consent. If we make use of automated decision-making or profiling, you will be informed through a separate privacy notice.

In general, you are neither contractually nor statutorily required to provide your personal data for the above purposes, however your decision to not provide your data may lead to negative consequences, such as reduced features and functionalities, the impossibility to use our information and services offered in this context, the denial of access to our services and/or exclusion from our business activities to the extent the processing of your personal data is key in these contexts.

We might share your personal data with third parties, such as financial institutions to process payments, lawyers and auditors, our affiliates, etc. to the extent required to meet our business objectives. Please note that we enter into adequate data protection agreements with these parties to the extent legally required and in this context safeguard that these recipients agree on technical and organizational measures to protect your data adequately.

Should such data transfer involve the transmission of your personal data to countries outside the EU/EEA that do not have an adequate level of data protection compared to the EU, we usually safeguard such level of data protection by entering into standard contractual clauses with any such recipients. This ensures that your data protection rights are protected. You may download a copy of these standard contractual clauses at the following URL: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en

6. Your Data Protection Rights

Regarding the data processing in the European Union, you have the following data protection rights:

  • Right of access: You have the right to obtain information on the processing of your personal data and to receive a copy these data.
  • Right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to correct or complete your personal data to the extent they prove to be wrong and/or incomplete.
  • Right to erasure: Under certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to delete your personal data. 
  • Right to restriction of processing: You may also have the right to ask us to limit the processing of your personal data.
  • Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, common and machine-readable format and request that these data are transferred to another data controller.
  • Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data by us, in particular if the processing of your personal data is based on (i) the necessity of the performance of a task in the public interest, or (ii) legitimate interests. We will then stop the processing of your personal data unless we remain legally authorized to do so.
  • Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority against the processing of your personal data if you believe that the processing of your personal data violates data protection regulations.

In case you granted us your consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw this consent with effect for the future. We will then stop the processing of your personal data, unless we have a legal permission to do so. Please note that your withdrawal has effect for future processing operations only and does not make data processing operations, which we executed before such withdrawal, unlawful.

To withdraw your consent, you may e.g., send an email to privacy@emdgroup.com. If you withdraw your consent, you may no longer be able to use the services affected by the withdrawal. Apart from that, you will not suffer any further disadvantages.

If you do not specify your withdrawal to a specific processing operation, we will assume that you withdraw your consent regarding all processing of your personal data that is based on your consent.

 

7. California Consumer Privacy Act

The following terms apply to the personal information of California residents as defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act and regulations (“CCPA”). These provisions supplement the other sections of our Privacy Policy. Any terms that are defined in the CCPA have the same meaning here.

YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
The categories of personal information we may have collected from you, the sources of that personal information, and how and with whom we may have used or shared such personal information during the past year include the following:

 

 

Category of Personal Information Collected Source of Information Purpose for Collection Categories of Recipients
Contact information: such as your name, address, email address, telephone numbers, or other contact information From you, your authorized agent, or family member; from public data sources; from your health care provider or other caregiver; from other parties such as conference organizers or publishers which have received personal information from you. To communicate with you; to enroll you in programs or services; to send you catalogs, information, newsletters, promotional materials and other offerings from us or on behalf of our partners and affiliates; to offer you the chance to participate in contests or other promotional activities; when you contact us; when you request customer service or support; to complete your registration on our websites (“Sites”); to administer your account with us. Our service providers, and our co-marketing partners, including select partners and affiliates that we believe may have or facilitate offers that may be of interest to you.
Payment information: name, card issuer and card type, credit or debit card number, expiration date, CVV code and billing address. From you and your payment card issuer. To check that the right person is using the right card or account, meets the requirements of the card brands or account issuers, and to make sure we are paid for what you buy. Our service providers who process payments for us and who are contractually required to comply with laws and requirements applicable to payment processing, which may include Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.
Legal information: fraud checks or flags raised about your transactions, the payment card you want to use, payment card refusals, suspected crimes, complaints, claims and accidents. From you, the police, crime and fraud prevention agencies, payment card providers, the public, regulators, your and our professional advisors and representatives. To protect you, other customers and our business against criminal activities and risks, make sure we understand and can meet our legal obligations to you and others and can defend ourselves. Our service providers who help us with fraud protection and credit risk reduction, and law enforcement and other governmental authorities in accordance with applicable law.
Preference information: your marketing preferences, your account settings (including any default preferences), any preferences you have indicated, the types of services/offers that interest you, the areas of our Sites or Apps that you have visited or ways that you interact with our Sites or Apps. From you, from our website technology interaction with your browser/devices and cookies and other similar technologies tracking the pages you visit, the marketing messages you open and the links you follow. To enhance your online shopping experience, including as a way to recognize you and welcome you to the Sites or applications (“Apps”), to provide you with customized Site or App content, targeted offers from us or others, promotions and advertising on our Sites or Apps, through other third party sites or apps, via email, text messages, or App push notifications that are offered by us or others that might be of interest to you. Our third-party vendors and service providers that perform website analytic services for us or enable the customization of offers to you to improve your shopping experiences through our Sites, our Apps or elsewhere.
Communications: communications we have with you. Please note that we may record calls to our customer service team or other sites for quality assurance. From you To handle your requests, to contact you when necessary or requested, including responding to your questions and comments and providing customer support, and to obtain customer feedback and improve our customer service and customer shopping experience. Our service providers who assist us with customer service.
Voluntary information: any voluntary information you provide us with, such as responses to surveys or competitions and social media account details. From you and your social media account provider. To know you better, make our communications with you more personal, learn and improve from your survey feedback, organize events and pick competition winners. Our service providers who administer surveys and promotions, and our co-marketing partners.
Personalization: your journey online and how you use our Sites and Apps, whether and when you open our marketing emails and respond to our advertisements. From you, from our Sites or Apps technology interaction with your browser or devices and cookies tracking the pages you visit. To improve our Sites, Apps, products and services, customer service, and customer shopping experience. Our third-party vendors and service providers that perform website analytic services for us or enable the customization of offers to you to improve your shopping or website experience for our Sites, our Apps or elsewhere.
Device information: IP address, internet provider, operating system and browser used, type of device (such as laptop or smart phone), device cookie settings and other device details (such as MAC address and geolocation), if you use our Sites or Apps and permit them to obtain your precise geolocation. From you and from our website or app technology’s interaction with your browser or devices. To make sure our website and app technology works properly with your device and make sure you can see and use our intended website and apps on the device you are using, for analytical and demographic purposes, and to provide offers that may be of interest to you. We also will use this information to protect the security and integrity of the Site and our business, such as by protecting against and preventing fraud, unauthorized transactions, and managing risk exposure, including by identifying potential hackers and other unauthorized users. Our service providers who help us with fraud protection, and third-party vendors and service providers that perform website analytic services for us or enable more relevant offers to you on our Sites, our Apps or elsewhere.
Information automatically collected from your browser: when you use our Sites or Apps, some data is automatically transferred from your browser to our server, including your browser type, operating system type or mobile device model, viewed webpages, links that are clicked, IP address, mobile device identifier or other unique identifier, sites or apps visited before coming to our Sites or Apps, the amount of time you spend viewing or using the Sites or Apps, the number of times you return, or other click-stream or site usage data, emails we send that you open, forward, or click through to our Sites or Apps. From you and from our website or app technology’s interaction with your browser or devices. We will use this information in an aggregated non-specific format for analytical and demographic purposes. We also will use this information to protect the security or integrity of our websites and our business, such as by protecting against and preventing fraud, unauthorized transactions, and managing risk exposure, including by identifying potential hackers and other unauthorized users. Our third-party vendors and service providers that perform website analytic services for us or enable the customization of offers to you to improve your shopping or website experience and the relevance of offers to you on our Sites, our Apps or elsewhere.

YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
If you are a California resident, California law provides you with the following rights with respect to your personal information:

  • The right to know what personal information we have collected, used or disclosed about you.
  • The right to request that we delete any personal information we have collected about you.

NO SALE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We do not sell your personal information, as defined in the CCPA.

SUBMITTING REQUESTS
You may submit requests to delete and/or to know personal information we have collected about you by accessing our California Consumer Rights request portal at: https://privacyportal.onetrust.com/webform/e0f8496a-cdec-4d5c-8c10-313a8c4189a9/d2476ac7-0cf2-420c-8026-a452fe8d31d3
or by contacting our toll-free telephone number at:

+1 (888) 914-9661 (PIN 659429)

We will respond to your request in compliance with the requirements of CCPA or other applicable law.

VERIFICATION OF YOUR IDENTITY
When you exercise these rights and submit a request to us, we or our partners will verify your identity by asking you to authenticate your identity via standard authentication procedures. For example, we may ask for your email address, order numbers of previous orders of our products and services, the last four digits of a credit or debit card or bank account number used to make a purchase, or the date of your last purchase from us. We also may use a third-party verification provider to verify your identity.

NON-DISCRIMINATION
If you make a request under the CCPA, we will not discriminate against you in any way. For example, we will not deny you goods or services, charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, deny you discounts or other benefits or impose penalties on you, or provide you with or suggest that you will receive a different level or quality of goods or services.

AUTHORIZED AGENTS
You may permit an authorized agent to submit a request to know or to delete your personal information. If we receive a request on your behalf, we will ask that person to give us proof that you gave that person written permission to make a request for you. If that person does not provide us with written proof, we will deny their request so that we can protect your personal information.

 

 

This Data Privacy Statement is up-to-date and dates from September 2021. We reserve the right to amend the data privacy statement at any time with effect for the future, in particular to adapt it to a further development of the website or the implementation of new technologies.

2. Preamble

This Data Privacy Statement is addressed to all customers, vendors, suppliers, etc. (“Data Subjects”, “you”) of the Merck Group (“Merck”, “us”). It is meant to help you understand what personal data we collect, why we collect it, and how you are able to exercise your data protection rights. "Personal Data" in this document includes all information that relates to a natural person and with which this person can be directly or indirectly identified.

At Merck, we develop products and technologies in three different business sectors which are Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics to enable brilliant people to solve global challenges. In these contexts, we process your personal data in various ways, depending on your specific role, the way we communicate and the products/services you use. Section 4 of this Data Privacy Statement contains further details to guide you through each individual situation.

Should you have questions or queries regarding the processing of your personal data by Merck, please feel free to contact our Group Data Protection Officer via privacy@merckgroup.com or the other contact details provided below.

3. General information

This section informs you who is the controller of the processing of your personal data, how you may contact the controller and which rights you have as a data subject in this context.

4. The Processing Activities in Detail

This section explains the different data processing activities in which we process your personal data.

4.1. Privacy Notice for the Merckgroup.com website

This section explains the different data processing activities in which Merck processes your personal data for the operation of the services provided on our website www.merckgroup.com (“services”).

4.2. Processing of Your Personal Data in Other Contexts

We also process your personal data upon your interaction with us regarding the products and services we offer. This includes the processing of your personal data for marketing purposes, to communicate with you for commercial reasons, and in the course of our scientific research. This usually involves the processing of data categories which we require to pursue these purposes, such as your contact data, preferences and payment details.

Such processing of your personal data is usually based on our legitimate business interest to develop and offer our products and services, learn more about your interests and continuously improve our offerings. Please refer to the below explanations and/or individual privacy notices which we provide in the context of our business communication with you to learn more about the corresponding processing of your personal data in this context.

5. Data Deletion, Data Transfers, etc.

Unless otherwise stated in this Data Privacy Statement, your personal data are regularly deleted as soon as we do not need them any more to meet our business interests, no statutory data retention obligations apply, or you withdrew your consent. If we make use of automated decision-making or profiling, you will be informed through a separate privacy notice.

In general, you are neither contractually nor statutorily obliged to provide your personal data for the above purposes, however your decision to not provide your data may lead to negative consequences, such as reduced features and functionalities, the impossibility to use our information and services offered in this context, the denial of access to our services and/or exclusion from our business activities to the extent the processing of your personal data is key in these contexts.

We might share your personal data with third parties, such as financial institutions to process payments, lawyers and auditors, other Merck-entities, etc. to the extent required to meet our business goals. Please note that we in ensure to enter into adequate data protection agreements with these parties to the extent legally required and in this context safeguard that these recipients agree on technical and organizational measures to protect your data adequately.

Should such data transfer involve the transmission of your personal data to countries outside the EU/EEA, and this country does not have an adequate level of data protection compared to the EU, we usually safeguard such level of data protection by entering into standard contractual clauses with any such recipients. This ensures that your data protection rights are protected. You may download a copy of these standard contractual clauses under the following URL: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en

6. Your Data Protection Rights

Regarding the data processing in the European Union, you have the following data protection rights:

  • Right of access: You have the right to obtain information on the processing of your personal data and to receive a copy these data.
  • Right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to correct or complete your personal data to the extent they prove to be wrong and/or incomplete.
  • Right to erasure: Under certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to delete your personal data. 
  • Right to restriction of processing: You may also have the right to ask us to limit the processing of your personal data.
  • Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, common and machine-readable format and request that these data are transferred to another data controller.
  • Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data by us, in particular if the processing of your personal data is based on (i) the necessity of the performance of a task in the public interest, or (ii) legitimate interests. We will then stop the processing of your personal data unless we remain legally authorized to do so.
  • Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority against the processing of your personal data if you believe that the processing of your personal data violates data protection regulations.

In case you granted us your consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw this consent with effect for the future. We will then stop the processing of your personal data, unless we have a legal permission to do so. Please note that your withdrawal has effect for future processing operations only and does not make data processing operations, which we executed before such withdrawal, unlawful.

To withdraw your consent, you may e.g., send an email to privacy@merckgroup.com. If you withdraw your consent, you may no longer be able to use the services affected by the withdrawal. Apart from that, you will not suffer any further disadvantages.

If you do not specify your withdrawal to a specific processing operation, we will assume that you withdraw your consent regarding all processing of your personal data that is based on your consent.

This Data Privacy Statement is up-to-date and dates from August 2021. We reserve the right to amend the data privacy declaration at any time with effect for the future, in particular to adapt it to a further development of the website or the implementation of new technologies.

Group Data Protection Officer

at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

+49 6151 72-0