Privacy Policy

These terms of use were last updated on October 26, 2023 (v2023.10.26)

Your use of the Lens is your business, not ours.

Information Collected

Information you provide

• Activate your account to enable your access and use of the Lens.org platform
• Respond to you when reporting a bug or asking a question about The Lens
• Engage you, should you wish, in the design of new Lens services
• Provide you with alerts, updates, or personalised services
• Communicate legal obligations regarding the use of the site and resolve disputes

We do NOT share your personal details including your email address, with anyone unless and until we get your permission.

Your choice: you can opt out of providing an email address and use the Lens as a guest user without registering for an account.

Information we collect

Logs

Whenever you visit Lens.org, we log the IP address, user-agent, referrer and the URL in our web server log files. These logs are for security and debugging purposes only, we use them to identify bots scraping the site which may be causing excessive system load and to debug any errors that may arise.

We don't use the log information anywhere within the Lens and the log files are deleted every 4 weeks. We don't record users IP addresses in our Lens application databases or on the Lens Web analytics server used to analyse site usage.

Search History

Web Analytics

The Lens uses its own self-hosted instance of the Matomo analytics platform to give you more control over your data and ensure your privacy is protected, while allowing us to gain anonymised aggregated data to improve user experience.

When we talk about The Lens user base or write about The Lens, we might say that "X number of searches are performed each day" or "Y percent of the people who visit the Lens use the Firefox browser, and Z percent of them use the Chinese language version." But that's it. Any non-personally-identifying information is disclosed in the aggregate only.

Your choice: If you don't want to be tracked, you can opt out of web analytics from your account page or change the settings on your browser to turn off tracking – as simple as that.

Bot Management

We use a third-party security service (see Privacy FAQs for a list of third-party service providers) to protect the lens.org platform against malicious attacks and to help detect and manage bots and automated crawling. We limit the information that the third-party has access to, but this does include your IP address, request URLs, user-agent and other HTTP headers, when required. Personal account information is never shared with this security provider and the service provider itself is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant.

We regret having to take this step and while we minimise the use of third-party security services as much as we can to protect the site against malicious attacks, our servers can't cope with the load placed on them by some crawlers and we have taken this step to ensure that the site remains accessible to all.

Cookies

The Lens uses cookies to provide the best possible user experience. These Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device to make it easier for you to use the dynamic features of the site (see Privacy FAQs for a list of cookies used on the lens.org platform).

This includes cookies and cached browser storage that are necessary for the functionality of the site, as well as third-party cookies that are also used for site functionality and web analytics. We do not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. Cached storage (Local Storage and Session Storage) are restricted to the user's browser, and no information is exchanged with the servers.

Your choice: If you wish to restrict or block cookies, you can do this through your browser settings - see allaboutcookies.org for detailed information on how to do this on a variety of browsers.

Data Protection

Confidentiality

Personal Data

We consider the use of the Lens to be your business not ours, and so we do not use the gathered information to identify you personally. Still, under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to request access to and rectification or erasure of your Personal Data from The Lens. For more information on your rights under the GDPR, see gdpr.eu.

Your choice: If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR or to delete your Lens account, just let us know by sending an email to dpo@lens.org

Privacy Policy Changes

Contact

• The Lens Data Protection Officer
• 133 Wickerslack Lane
• Karabar, NSW 2620, Australia

Privacy FAQs

• Question: Can a search in The Lens compromise a later patent filing, for example, by affecting novelty of a new DNA sequence by the submission to the PatSeq App?
• Answer: No, your submission to The Lens does not establish a public disclosure or prior art. We will maintain in confidence, and shall not disclose to any third party any information (including but not limited to any sequence information) submitted by you in the context of using The Lens.

• Question: What cookies does the Lens website use?
• Answer: The main cookies and cached storage used on the Lens.org platform includes:

• Question: What Third party service providers does the Lens use?
• Answer: The following third party entities are used in connection with Lens services to provide web hosting and infrastructure services, and customer support which may involve the handling of user data: