Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Policy describes how Biogard Ltd. (Биогард ЕООД), company ID (EIK) 117665361, address: 14 Lyuben Karavelov St., 7078 Shtraklevo, Ruse Province, Bulgaria ("Biogard", "we"), as the data controller, collects, uses and discloses your information when you use the website biogard.bg (the "Site") and the services offered through it.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and processing your personal data in accordanceance with applicable data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of information:

• Personal information you provide to us: This is the data you send us through the contact forms: name, phone and the service you choose, plus email, subject and message in the form on the Contact page. It also covers the data you give us when you call us or write to us by email or on Viber.

  The legal basis for processing this data is taking steps at your request before entering into a contract and our legitimate interest in answering your enquiry. We keep form enquiries for up to 24 months after our last contact with you and then delete them automatically; database backups are replaced within 6 months. If you become a client, we keep contract documents and invoices for as long as accounting and tax law requires.

• Usage information: When you open the Site, our server records technical data: IP address, date and time, the page requested, browser and operating system. We use it for security and abuse prevention (for example rate-limiting the forms) on the basis of our legitimate interest and keep it for up to 90 days. After that we keep, without a time limit, only a summary record without the IP address: page, date and time, browser, where the visit came from, and actions such as tapping the phone number. It serves the Site's statistics and cannot be linked to you. Our own cookieless statistics (Umami) count every visit without storing IP addresses. Google Analytics and Meta Pixel collect data about how you use the Site (pages visited, time spent, where you came from) only if you accept cookies. Both are described below.
• Cookies and Tracking Technologies: For detailed information about the cookies we use, including analytical cookies like Google Analytics, and how you can manage your consent, please see our Cookie Policy.

How We Use Your Information

We use the collected information for various purposes, including:

• To provide and maintain our Site and services.
• To notify you about changes to our services.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Site when you choose to do so.
• To provide customer service and support.
• To provide analysis or valuable information so that we can improve the Site.
• To monitor the usage of the Site.
• To detect, prevent, and address technical issues.
• To respond to your inquiries, provide customer support, and fulfill your requests when you contact us via our forms or other communication channels. When you send the form on the Contact page, we send an automatic confirmation to the email address you gave.

Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information in the following circumstances:

• With service providers: Data is processed on our behalf and on our instructions by: Hetzner Online GmbH (hosting of the Site and its database on a server in Finland, EU); Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc., USA: sending the form emails and the newsletter, and keeping the newsletter subscriber list); Zoho (our mailbox contact@biogard.bg, in the EU); Google (Google Analytics, only with your consent); Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Meta Pixel and the Conversions API, only with your consent). Transfers of data to Resend in the USA rely on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
• For legal compliance: We may disclose your information if required by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court or a government agency).
• To protect our rights: We may disclose your information when we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, or situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation.

Newsletter

If you subscribe with the sign-up box on the blog or the checkbox in the form on the Contact page, we add your address to the newsletter list. We send new articles and seasonal tips, at most twice a month.

We process your email address, your language, the page you subscribed from, and when you subscribed. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The record of when and how you subscribed lets us demonstrate that consent. We do not track whether you open the emails or click their links.

The list is kept by Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc., USA), which sends the newsletter on our behalf. Transfers of data to the USA rely on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

You can unsubscribe at any time with the link in every newsletter or by writing to us. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of the emails sent before. After you unsubscribe, your address stays on the list marked as unsubscribed, so that no newsletter reaches you by mistake. If you want it deleted completely, write to us.

Visit statistics (Umami)

The Site counts visits with its own statistics tool, Umami, which runs on our own server. It uses no cookies and stores no IP addresses, so it works for every visitor, whatever you choose in the cookie dialog. It records the pages opened, where the visit came from, the device type, country and city, and actions such as a tap on the phone number or a sent form. The data stays with us, is not shared with third parties, and is processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the Site.

Website Analytics (Google Analytics)

To improve our website and understand how visitors interact with it, we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited ('Google'). Google Analytics helps us analyze website traffic, understand user behavior, and enhance our services and marketing efforts.

When you consent to analytics cookies, Google Analytics collects information about your visit: the pages you visit, the time spent on each page, the links you click, your browser, operating system and device type, and the website you came from. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. This is done through cookies.

We use Google Analytics based on your explicit consent, which you provide through our cookie consent banner. You can withdraw your consent at any time by adjusting your cookie preferences or through the mechanisms described in your Cookie Policy.

The information generated by Google Analytics cookies about your use of our website is usually transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google acts as a data processor on our behalf. Data transfers to the United States are safeguarded by Google's certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and/or by Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission. SCCs are legal commitments that ensure an adequate level of data protection when data is transferred outside the European Economic Area. For more information on how Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps, please visit Google's Privacy & Terms site. You can also learn more about Google's data transfer mechanisms here.

Data collected by Google Analytics is retained for a period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined above, in accordance with Google's data retention policies. For more details, please refer to Google Analytics documentation.

You have rights over your personal data, including the right to access, rectify, or erase your data, restrict or object to its processing, and the right to data portability. You can also withdraw your consent for Google Analytics at any time. To exercise these rights, or if you have questions about our use of Google Analytics, please contact us using the details provided in the 'Contact Us' section of this policy. For details on managing your consent and choices regarding Google Analytics, please see our Cookie Policy. Additionally, you can prevent Google Analytics from collecting your data by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, which is available here.

Meta Pixel (Facebook Pixel)

We use Meta Pixel, a service of Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Facebook), to measure, optimise and build audiences for our ads. The Pixel shows us what people do on the Site after seeing our ads on Facebook and Instagram, and lets us show the ads to the people most likely to be interested in them.

The Meta Pixel may collect data such as your IP address, web browser details, page interactions (like pages visited, buttons clicked), and information about the device you are using. It may also use cookies to track your activity across different websites that use Meta technologies. When you have given consent, our server also sends Meta events for enquiries, calls and viewed services (Conversions API); the email and phone from the form are sent only in hashed (irreversibly encoded) form.

The legal basis for processing data through Meta Pixel is your consent, which you provide by accepting analytics and marketing cookies through our cookie consent banner. You can withdraw your consent at any time by managing your cookie preferences.

Data collected by Meta Pixel is processed by Meta. This may involve transferring data to Meta's servers, including those in the United States. For more information on how Meta handles your data and their data transfer mechanisms, please see Meta's Data Policy and Meta's terms for business tools.

We do not directly control the retention period for data collected by Meta Pixel. Meta retains data according to its own policies. For information on how long Meta retains data, please refer to their documentation.

You can control the use of Meta Pixel and other tracking technologies through our Cookie Policy page, where you can adjust your cookie settings. You can also manage your ad preferences directly within your Facebook and Instagram settings, and explore opt-out options provided by Meta.

Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We implement technical and organizational measures, including encryption, firewalls, and secure access protocols.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Your Rights

In accordance with GDPR and applicable data protection legislation, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right to access: You can request a copy of your personal data that we hold.
• Right to rectification: You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data about you.
• Right to erasure: Under certain circumstances, you can request the deletion of your personal data.
• Right to restriction of processing: You can request restriction of the processing of your data under certain conditions.
• Right to data portability: You can request to receive your data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
• Right to object: You can object to the processing of your data under certain circumstances.
• Right to withdraw consent: You can withdraw your consent to analytics and marketing cookies at any time with the "Cookie settings" button at the bottom of every page. Withdrawing does not affect the lawfulness of processing before it.
• Right to lodge a complaint: If you believe we process your data unlawfully, you can complain to the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection, 2 Prof. Tsvetan Lazarov Blvd., 1592 Sofia, www.cpdp.bg.

To exercise these rights, contact us using the details at the end of this policy. We reply within one month. We do not make automated decisions, including profiling, that produce legal effects for you.

Links to Other Sites

Our Site may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of the document.

We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.