Privacy Policy

Research Use Only (RUO): All products sold by AFSBio Inc. are for Research Use Only. Personal information collected for RUO verification will not be used to validate the clinical safety of any product. The customer assumes all risk for non-research applications.

1. Personal Information We Collect or Process

When we use the term "personal information," we are referring to information that identifies or can reasonably be linked to you or another person. Personal information does not include information that is collected anonymously or that has been de-identified. We may collect or process the following categories of personal information, depending on how you interact with the Services, where you live, and as permitted or required by applicable law:

•       Contact details:

◦       Name, address, billing address, shipping address, phone number, and email address

•       Financial information:

◦       Credit card, debit card, and financial account numbers, payment card information, transaction details, and payment confirmation

•       Account information:

◦       Username, password, security questions, preferences and settings

•       Transaction information:

◦       Items you view, add to your cart, add to your wishlist, purchase, return, exchange or cancel, and your past transactions

•       Communications:

◦       Information you include in communications with us, such as customer support inquiries

•       Device information:

◦       Information about your device, browser, or network connection, IP address, and other unique identifiers

•       Usage information:

◦       Information regarding your interaction with the Services, including how and when you access or navigate the Services

Biotech and Professional Compliance Data

In addition to standard transaction details, we collect information necessary to comply with safety regulations and trade restrictions governing laboratory and research supplies. The legal basis for collecting this sensitive data is contractual necessity - without it, we cannot fulfill orders for restricted-use products or comply with applicable export controls.

• Professional Credentials:

◦       Institutional affiliations (e.g., University or Lab name), Principal Investigator (PI) names, and professional license numbers

•       End-Use Verification:

◦       End-Use Certificates or declarations to ensure products are used solely for legitimate research and comply with international export controls

•       Institutional Verification:

◦       Institutional information (such as university or company affiliations) to verify that the intended use of products aligns with our Research Use Only policy and to prevent unauthorized residential delivery

We may collect personal information from the following sources:

•       Directly from you:

◦       When you create an account, visit or use the Services, communicate with us, or otherwise provide us with your personal information

•       Automatically through the Services:

◦       From your device when you use our products or services or visit our websites, and through the use of cookies and similar technologies (see Section 4 below)

•       From our service providers:

◦       When we engage them to enable certain technology and when they collect or process your personal information on our behalf

•       From our partners or other third parties.

Depending on how you interact with us or which of the Services you use, we may use personal information for the following purposes:

•       Provide, Tailor, and Improve the Services:

◦       To process payments, fulfill orders, manage your account, arrange shipping, facilitate returns and exchanges, enable product reviews, and create a customized shopping experience

•       RUO Compliance and Export Controls:

◦       To verify your professional credentials and institutional affiliations, issue or collect End-Use Certificates, and comply with applicable international export regulations. This processing is based on contractual necessity and legal obligation

•       Marketing and Advertising:

◦       To send marketing, advertising and promotional communications by email, text message, or postal mail, and to show you online advertisements based on your activity on the Services. You may opt out at any time

•       Security and Fraud Prevention:

◦       To authenticate your account, provide a secure payment environment, and detect, investigate, or act regarding possible fraudulent, illegal, unsafe, or malicious activity

•       Communicating with You:

◦       To provide customer support, respond to your inquiries, and maintain our business relationship

•       Legal Reasons:

◦       To comply with applicable law, respond to valid legal process including requests from law enforcement, and enforce or investigate potential violations of our terms or policies

We and our service providers (including Shopify and our advertising partners) use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, and similar tracking technologies when you visit or interact with the Services. This section explains what these technologies are, what we use them for, and how you can control them.

Types of Cookies We Use

•       Strictly Necessary Cookies:

◦       Required for the Services to function. These include session cookies that keep you logged in and shopping cart cookies. These cannot be disabled.

•       Performance and Analytics Cookies:

◦       Help us understand how visitors interact with the Services (e.g., which pages are visited most). We use Shopify's analytics tools for this purpose.

•       Functional Cookies:

◦       Remember your preferences and settings (e.g., language, region, items you have previously viewed).

•       Targeting and Advertising Cookies:

◦       Used to deliver advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services and on other websites. These are placed by our advertising partners and are subject to their own privacy policies.

 

Your Cookie Choices

You can control and manage cookies in several ways:

•       Browser settings: Most browsers allow you to refuse or delete cookies. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Services.

•       Opt-out of targeted advertising: You may opt out of the use of your data for targeted advertising purposes here: https://afsbio.com/pages/data-sharing-opt-out (US clients) or directly with Shopify here: https://privacy.shopify.com/ (global clients). We also honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal - visit https://globalprivacycontrol.org/ for more information.

•       Shopify cookies: Shopify sets cookies on our behalf to enable core e-commerce functionality. For more information on Shopify's use of cookies, please visit the Shopify Consumer Privacy Policy: https://www.shopify.com/ca/legal/privacy/app-users

 

Do Not Track

Other than the Global Privacy Control, we do not currently recognize "Do Not Track" signals transmitted by web browsers or devices, as there is no industry-standard approach to responding to such signals.

In certain circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to third parties for legitimate purposes subject to this Privacy Policy. Such circumstances may include:

•       Service Providers:

◦       Vendors and other third parties who perform services on our behalf (e.g., IT management, payment processing, data analytics, customer support, cloud storage, fulfillment and shipping), including Shopify.

•       Business and Marketing Partners:

◦       To provide marketing services and personalized advertising. Our business and marketing partners will use your information in accordance with their own privacy notices. You may opt out of targeted advertising as described in Section 4.

•       At Your Direction:

◦       When you direct, request, or otherwise consent to our disclosure of certain information to third parties, such as through social media widgets or login integrations.

•       Affiliates:

◦       Within our corporate group.

•       Business Transactions:

◦       In connection with a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

•       Legal Requirements:

◦       To comply with applicable legal obligations, respond to subpoenas, search warrants, and similar legal process, enforce our Terms of Service, and protect or defend our rights or the rights of our users.

 

Order Fulfillment and Dropshipping

To fulfill your orders, we share necessary personal and professional information with our third-party suppliers and fulfillment partners. This includes:

•       Shipment Details: The name of the Principal Investigator (PI), the laboratory or institution name, Purchase Order Number (as needed), phone number (as needed), email address (as needed) and the specific delivery address.

•       Compliance Data: Professional credentials or End-Use Certificates required by the manufacturer to release restricted biotech products.

•       Logistics Providers: Information required for specialized handling.

We ensure our fulfillment partners are contractually obligated to use this information only for fulfillment and shipping purposes and are prohibited from using it for independent marketing or secondary purposes.

Manufacturer & Technical Support Disclosure

As a specialized reseller, we may disclose specific contact and transaction information to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of the products you purchase. This disclosure is strictly limited to:

•       Warranty & Support: To ensure equipment is properly registered for warranties and to facilitate direct troubleshooting between your staff and the manufacturer's technical experts.

•       Name and Address: To ensure products and services are delivered.

•       Updates & Documentation: To ensure you receive critical software or firmware updates and scientific documentation such as Certificates of Analysis (CoA) or Safety Data Sheets (SDS).

How long we retain your personal information depends on the type of data and the purpose for which it was collected. We retain information only for as long as necessary to fulfill those purposes, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by applicable law. The following specific retention periods apply:

•       Transaction and Order Records:

◦       Retained for a minimum of 7 years from the date of transaction to comply with financial, tax, and accounting obligations.

•       Professional Credentials and End-Use Certificates:

◦       Retained for a minimum of 5 years from the date of the relevant transaction to comply with export control regulations (including U.S. Export Administration Regulations where applicable) and other applicable regulatory requirements governing laboratory and research supply distribution.

•       Account Information:

◦       Retained for the duration of your account relationship with us, plus a reasonable period thereafter to allow for account reactivation or dispute resolution.

•       Marketing Data:

◦       Retained until you opt out of marketing communications or request deletion, subject to any legal hold or regulatory exception.

•       Device and Usage Data:

◦       Typically retained for up to 13 months for analytics purposes.

When personal information is no longer required, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it securely.

The Services are hosted by Shopify, which collects and processes personal information about your access to and use of the Services in order to provide and improve the Services for you. Information you submit to the Services will be transmitted to and shared with Shopify as well as third parties that may be located in countries other than where you reside.

To help protect, grow, and improve our business, we use certain Shopify enhanced features that incorporate data and information obtained from your interactions with our store, along with other merchants and with Shopify. In these circumstances, Shopify is responsible for the processing of your personal information, including for responding to your requests to exercise your rights for these purposes.

To learn more about how Shopify uses your personal information and to exercise your rights, visit the Shopify Consumer Privacy Policy or the Shopify Privacy Portal.

We implement and maintain commercially reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your personal information - including your professional credentials and institutional data - from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures include encrypted transmission of payment data via Shopify, access controls limiting who can view sensitive professional credentials, and contractual data security obligations imposed on our service providers.

Please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We recommend that you do not use unsecure channels to communicate sensitive or confidential information to us, and that you keep your account credentials confidential.

The Services may provide links to websites or other online platforms operated by third parties. If you follow links to sites not affiliated or controlled by us, you should review their privacy and security policies and other terms and conditions. We do not guarantee and are not responsible for the privacy or security of such sites, including the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of information found on these sites. Our inclusion of such links does not imply any endorsement of the content on such platforms or of their owners or operators, except as disclosed on the Services.

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the rights listed below in relation to your personal information. These rights are not absolute, may apply only in certain circumstances, and in certain cases we may decline your request as permitted by law.

•       Right to Access / Know: You may request access to personal information that we hold about you.

•       Right to Delete: You may request that we delete personal information we maintain about you, subject to legal and regulatory exceptions.

•       Right to Correct: You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.

•       Right of Portability: You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and ask that we transfer it to a third party, in certain circumstances and with certain exceptions.

•       Right to Opt Out of Targeted Advertising: Depending on where you reside, you may have a right to opt out of the use of your personal information for targeted advertising. You can exercise this right here: https://afsbio.com/pages/data-sharing-opt-out (US clients) or directly through Shopify here: https://privacy.shopify.com/ (global clients). We honor the Global Privacy Control signal.

•       Managing Communication Preferences: You may opt out of promotional emails at any time by using the unsubscribe option in our emails. We may still send non-promotional emails about your account or orders.

You may exercise any of these rights where indicated on the Services or by contacting us at . We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request. You may also designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf, subject to verification.

This section applies solely to residents of U.S. states with comprehensive consumer privacy laws, including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, and others. It supplements the general information above and is intended to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and related state frameworks.

I. Categories of Personal Information Collected and Disclosed

Within the preceding 12 months, we have collected and disclosed for business purposes (specifically order fulfillment, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance) the following categories:

•       Identifiers: Name, email address, shipping/billing address, phone number, and IP address.

•       Commercial Information: Records of products viewed, placed in carts, or purchased.

•       Financial Data: Credit/debit card numbers and transactional settlement details, processed securely via Shopify.

•       Internet or Network Activity: Browsing behavior, pages visited, and usage data collected via cookies and Shopify analytics.

•       Sensitive Personal Information: Professional credentials, institutional laboratory affiliations, Principal Investigator (PI) names, and professional license or account numbers required for RUO verification.

 

II. No Sale or Sharing of Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information for monetary compensation. While we utilize Shopify's backend systems to process analytics and facilitate order routing, we do not share your personal data or sensitive credentials with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising or independent corporate marketing.

III. Your California and U.S. State Privacy Rights

I.      Right to Know & Access: Request a disclosure of the specific categories and pieces of personal information we have collected about you.

II.    Right to Delete: Request deletion of personal information we have collected, subject to legal and regulatory transactional exceptions (e.g., maintaining records of specialized laboratory distribution).

III.   Right to Correct: Request correction of inaccurate professional or contact information.

IV.  Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Data: Limit our use of Sensitive Personal Information. Note that our processing of professional credentials and institutional data is strictly limited to verifying RUO status, which is necessary to fulfill our contract with you.

V.    Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights.

 

IV. How to Exercise Your Rights

To submit a verifiable consumer request, please email us at or use our web contact form. We will verify your identity using data associated with your professional or laboratory store account. We will respond within 45 days of receipt, or as otherwise required by applicable law.

 

12. Supplemental Notice for Canadian Residents

 

13. Supplemental Notice for Australian Residents

 

14. Supplemental Notice for New Zealand Residents

 

15. International Transfers

 

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

 

17. Contact