Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Notice (hereafter the “Privacy Notice”) describes the Personal Data that we, the Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium, collect about you on this website (the “Site”); how we use and disclose that Personal Data; how we protect it; and the choices you may make with respect to it. We encourage you to review our Privacy Notice and click on the available links or select “Learn More” if you want additional information on a particular topic.

On this Site, you will also find a Privacy Notice for healthcare professionals (“HCPs”) in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and a Privacy Notice for the participants to one of our clinical studies.

Personal data

“Personal Data” is information that identifies you as an individual or relates to you as an identifiable individual. Example of this Personal Data : a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or a combination of these.

On this Site, we, the Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium, collect Personal Data in various ways, including through registrations, applications, surveys, in connection with your inquiries, and automatically when you browse our Site.

We may request basic Personal Data when you use our Site. If you are an HCP or a Participant to one of our clinical studies, we may request additional Personal Data.

Learn More

Personal Data that we may request includes:

• Name.
• Your preferred language.
• Photographs.
• Your interests (such as health conditions and topics about which you request information through the Site or indicate interest).
   

If you are an HCP, we also may request additional data related to our professional interaction with you:

• Professional biography/credentials.
• Data related to your licensures, specialties, professional affiliations, publications, credentials, and other professional achievements.
• Adverse event data.
• Data related to your use of our products, your interactions with us, and services for those you care for.
   

If you are a Participant to one of our clinical studies, we may also request:

• Information that directly identifies you such as your address, telephone number, e‑mail address, date and place of birth, national ID number.
• Your bank details.
• With your consent, the identification of your general practitioner.
• Sensitive personal data such as your medical history, data from this study (including study results from tests and procedures), demographics (for example, age and gender) and other sensitive personal data that is needed for this study such as ethnic origin, genetic information, sexual orientations, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, dietary preferences.
• Data from testing and analysis of biological samples (such as blood or urine) and images (such as X-rays, CT-Scans, and medical photographs). This may also include genetic information.
• Data captured from electronic devices, if you complete the consent process using the eConsent tablet or if you use a mobile application or other digital tool during the study.
   

We may also collect Personal Data from other sources, including data companies, publicly accessible databases, joint marketing partners, social media platforms and other third parties.

Learn More

If you elect to connect your social media account to the Site to enable social sharing, certain Personal Data from your social media account will be shared with us, which may include Personal Data that is part of your profile or your friends’ profiles.

We may receive Personal Data from other third parties to confirm contact or financial details or to better understand your interests by associating demographic data with the Personal Data you have provided.

When you are asked to provide Personal Data, you may decline. But if you choose not to provide data that is necessary to for us to provide requested services, we may not be able to provide you those services.

If you provide or permit us to collect any Personal Data relating to another person, you are telling us that you have the authority to share that data and to permit us to use the data as described in this Privacy Notice.

Who is responsible of your Personal Data

The Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium (the “PCRU”), located route de Lennik 808, 1070 Brussels, which is part of Pfizer SA, company located at Boulevard de la Plaine, 17, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, is the Data Controller of the Personal Data collected or processed through this Site or through relations that it has with you, and is therefore responsible for its collection, use and disclosure.

How we use personal data

We use Personal Data in order to:

• Provide Site functionality and fulfil your requests when we have a contractual relationship or a legitimate interest.

Learn More
 

Site functionality and fulfilling your requests includes:

• To provide customer service to you.

Learn More

• To respond to your inquiries and fulfil your requests and complete your transactions.
• To send administrative information to you, such as changes to our terms, conditions and policies, as well as marketing communications that we believe may be of interest to you.
• To facilitate social sharing functionality.
• To allow you to send messages to another person, such as a colleague, caregiver or friend or patient.
• Provide personalized services when we have your consent or a legitimate interest in providing you with information of interest to you.

Learn More

Personalized services include:

• To better understand you and personalize our interactions with you.
• To analyse or predict our users’ preferences in order to identify aggregated trend reports on how Pfizer digital content is used.
• To analyze or predict your preferences in order to improve our interactions with you, i.e., to deliver you the content, products and offers (via our Site, emails or digital tools) that we believe will be relevant to your interests.
• Engage with you as an HCP when we have a contractual relationship or a legitimate interest.
   

Engaging with you as a Healthcare Professional includes:

• To verify your eligibility to access certain products, services and data that may be provided only to certain licensed HCPs.
• To interact with you based on your professional expertise and opinion by digital or other means.
• To involve you in programs/panels of Healthcare Professionals.
• To reach out to you for your professional expertise, for example, in the context of surveys relating to products or services of a Pfizer entity or its business partner.
• To collaborate with you on medical events, publications, or advisory meetings.
• To seek your views on products and services promoted by us, an affiliate or business partner for development and improvement purposes.
• Allow you to participate in special programs, activities, events, or promotions as part of our contractual relationship with you or where we have a legitimate interest.

Learn More

In these cases, we may use your Personal Data in additional ways disclosed as part of these special program, activities, events or promotions.

• Operate our business to comply with our legal obligations and to meet our legitimate interests in maintaining our business.

Learn More

Our business activities include:

• To conduct data analysis and audits.
• To identify usage trends in the use of our Site and analyse the effectiveness of our communications.
• To detect, prevent, investigate fraud and including (cyber) security monitoring and prevention.
• To develop, enhance, improve or modify our products and services.
• To validate your ability to access or use certain products or services.
• To better understand how our products and services impact you and those for whom you care.
• To track and respond to concerns, including engaging in regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations related to adverse events, product complaints and patient safety.
• To operate and expand our business activities.

We may aggregate the Personal Data that you and other Site users provide. If we do, we may use and disclose such aggregated data for any purpose. Aggregated data does not personally identify you or any other individual.

How we use and disclose personal data

We disclose Personal Data as follows:

• To other Pfizer companies for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.
• We may disclose Personal Data to companies that were formerly wholly or partly included in the Pfizer family of companies to which we provide services during a transition period following separation.
• To our third party service providers, to provide services such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service, email delivery, auditing and other services.
• To other companies with which we collaborate regarding particular products or services. These may include our co-promote partners for products that we jointly develop and/or market.
• When you post data or materials on message boards, chat, profile pages, blogs and other services.

Learn More

If you elect to share data or materials through our Site, please be aware of the following:

• Anything you post will be available to other Site users and the general public.
• Be careful when deciding to disclose any data or materials through the Site or to link your social media account.
• When using the Site to send a message or disclose any data or materials (including using social sharing functionalities), the message, data or materials will be available to others (e.g., other Site users, your friends associated with your social media account, your social media account provider, and/or the general public).
   

We also use and disclose your Personal Data as we believe to be necessary or appropriate:

• To comply with applicable law and our regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations (which may include laws outside Belgium), to respond to requests from public and government authorities (which may include authorities outside Belgium), to cooperate with law enforcement, or for other legal reasons.
• To enforce our terms and conditions.
• To protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others.

In addition, we may use, disclose or transfer Personal Data to a third party in connection with any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

Exercise Of Your Individual Rights

If you have questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact us at the following email address : [email protected], or write to the following address:

Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium,

route de Lennik 808,

1070 Brussels, Belgium.

If you would like to exercise one of your individual rights, i.e. to review, correct, update, delete Personal Data that you have provided to us through the Site or to restrict their processing, or if you would like to receive an electronic copy of such Personal Data for purposes of transmitting it to another company, you may contact us writing at the following address:

Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium,

route de Lennik 808,

1070 Brussels, Belgium.

We will respond to your request within a delay of one month upon reception of your request (this delay can be extended to two months if the request is complex or in case of multiple requests received).

In your request, please tell us what Personal Data you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have it deleted from our database, or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of it. For your protection, we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

Please note that we may need to retain certain Personal Data for record keeping and audit purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion.

You may also contact our Data Protection Officer at the following address:

Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium,

route de Lennik 808,

1070 Brussels, Belgium.

Marketing controls

If you no longer want to receive marketing communications from us, contact us by writing to the following address: Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium, route de Lennik 808, 1070 Brussels, Belgium. In your request, please provide your name and the addresses where you no longer wish to be contacted. If you opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt-out.

Lodging a complaint with the Data Protection Authority

You may lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority competent for Belgium:

Data Protection Authority

Rue de la Presse 35, 1000 Brussels

Tel.: +32 (0)2 274 48 00

Fax: +32 (0)2 274 48 35

Email: [email protected]

https://www.dataprotectionauthority.be/contact-us

Data Security

We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect your Personal Data. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Retention period 

We will retain your Personal Data for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained and as outlined in this Privacy Notice. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include:
(i) the length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide the Site to you;
(ii) whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject; or
(iii) whether retention is advisable in light of our legal position (such as in regard to the enforcement of the Site Terms of Use, applicable statutes of limitations, litigation or regulatory investigations).

Cross-border transfer

The Personal Data we collect through the Site may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers, including in the U.S. and where our affiliates operate.

Some non-EEA countries are recognized by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of data protection according to EEA standards (the full list of these countries is available here). For transfers from the EEA to countries not considered adequate by the European Commission, we have put in place adequate measures, such as by ensuring that the recipient is bound by EU Standard Contractual Clauses, to protect your Personal Data. You may obtain a copy of these measures by contacting us as indicated in the Contact Us section.

Third-party services

This Privacy Notice does not address, and we are not responsible for, the data collection, use, disclosure, or security practices, or other practices, of any third party, including any third party operating a service to which the Site links. The inclusion of a link within the Site does not imply our endorsement of the linked service.

Use of the site by minors

The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of sixteen (16), and we do not knowingly collect Personal Data from such individuals. If you are under sixteen (16), you will need your parent’s or legal guardian’s permission to use the Site. Please consult with your parent or legal guardian before using the Site.

If you are providing us with Personal Data of individuals under the age of sixteen (16), you represent that you have the appropriate authority to do so, and that you can demonstrate such authority to the Pfizer Clinical Research Unit Belgium, upon request.

Updates of the Privacy notice

From time to time, we will update this Privacy Notice. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Notice on the Site. This Privacy Notice was last updated as of the “Last Updated” date shown here above.

Cookies

Cookies are a standard feature of websites that allow us to store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to our Site. Cookies help us learn which areas of the Site are useful and which areas need improvement.

You can find information about cookies that we use and change your settings for cookies and similar technologies by clicking on the Cookie Consent Tool in the lower right corner of each page of our Site. In addition, you can refuse or accept cookies from the Site at any time by activating the settings on your browser. Information about the procedure to follow in order to enable or disable cookies can be found on your Internet browser provider’s website via your help screen. Please refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html for information on commonly used browsers. Please be aware that if cookies are disabled, your experience on the Site may be diminished, and not all features of the Site may operate as intended. We may also use technologies similar to cookies, such as:

Pixel Tags. Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) are used to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Site, measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about usage of the Site and response rates.

Adobe Flash. Flash Local Shared Objects (also known as Flash cookies) (“Flash LSOs”) and other technologies are used to, among other things, collect and store information about your use of the Site. For your options with respect to Flash LSOs, please visit this page. Please note that setting the Flash player to restrict or limit acceptance of Flash LSOs may reduce or impede the functionality of some Flash applications.

Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). We use Google Analytics to collect anonymized statistics in order to improve the Site.

Learn more about Google Analytics and privacy. You can selectively disable Google Analytics by installing the opt-out component provided by Google on your browser. For more information, please refer to the links below:

Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on

Support Google Analytics

My Account Google Analytics

Browser or Device Information. Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (Windows or Mac), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, Internet browser type and version, and the name and version of the Site you are using. We use this information to ensure that the Site functions properly.

To the extent any Personal Data is collected through cookies or similar technologies, the other sections of this Privacy Notice apply.