Academia Centrum Limited ( “Academia Centrum”, “we”, “our”or “us”) is committed to ensuring that any personal data submitted through this website (on http://www.academiacentrum.com) (“the Website”) are handled in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Personal data (Privacy) Ordinance of the Laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

This Privacy Policy intends to explain the collection, retention, storage and sharing of your personal data in our interactions with you.

Throughout this Privacy Policy, the term “personal data” means any data relating directly or indirectly to you, from which it is practicable for your identity to be directly or indirectly ascertained, and in a form in which access to or processing of the data is practicable.

By visiting this website, you agree that Academia Centrum will collect, use, and store your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and forms part of the Terms of Service.

1. Collection of Personal Data

The Website does not automatically identify personal information. That means: Only by your active input of name, e-mail address, phone number, address, etc. you give Academia Centrum this data. In addition, the Website does not create any personal user profiles.

Academia Centrum stores and processes the personal data entered by the user on the website or made public by telephone, email or in person. We may collect your personal information through some of the following ways:

    • When you register or use the Website;
    • When you contact Academia Centrum by telephone or email;
    • When completing any surveys that we send to you for research purposes (although you are under no obligation to complete these);
    • When completing any forms for transactional, employment or other purposes;
    • When subscribing to newsletters, in order to receive offers and promotions via e-mail;
    • When information transmitted from thrid parties.

2. The Information We Collect

When you register or otherwise interact with the Services, you may be invited to provide personal information to facilitate the provision of Services. We may collect payment information where appropriate to process a financial transaction you have requested.

Academia Centrum also collects information that you provide us when you comment on articles, and submit images, photos, videos, or other content to the Services. We may ask you for additional information at other times, such as when you enter a survey or participate in a promotion or when you order products from us or otherwise engage with the Services.

In addition to personal details you directly provide to us, such as your name, date of birth, address, e-mail adress and telephone number, the Website may automatically store some of the following information about your use of our Services:

    • Device information, such as your hardware model, IP address, operating system version, browser type and settings.
    • Information about the Services you use, such as details of transactions you make from the Website, your shopping preferences, your visits to the Website and the resources you access, your contact with Academia Centrum by email, post or telephone, any information stored using cookies, and any other information from which we can identify you.
    • Location information, such as your computer’s IP address that may be transmitted to us when you use certain Services.

Academia Centrum uses various services which also use cookies. The cookie settings of third parties are not controlled by us. To learn more about the way Academia Centrum uses cookies and to configure them, please consult our Cookies Policy.

Academia Centrum may receive information about you from publicly and commercially available third-party sources, as permitted by law, which we may combine with other information we receive from or about you.

3. Purposes of Collecting Personal Information and Lawful Basis For Processing Personal Data

The collection and processing of personal data, with your consent, is for the performance of a contract with you, to comply with a legal obligation and for our legitimate interest in running our business and providing you with requested products and services where those interests do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms related to data privacy.

Academia Centrum uses the personal data directly collected to provide and manage the Services you request. This includes, for example, processing your subscription or enabling you to participate the training courses. It also includes providing personalized content and recommendations to you, including by email. Through such features, we are able to bring you information and content tailored to your individual interests and needs.

Academia Centrum also uses the personal data directly collected to contact you. We may periodically contact you with offers and information about the Services, including in connection with your accounts, online surveys, legal notices, new features that you are entitled to access, and other important information.

The information automatically stored by the Website is used to check system security, to technically administer the Website and to enhance the experience on Services.

The Services conduct research on users’ demographics, interests and behavior based on the information we collect to better understand and serve our users, and to improve our products and services.

When visitors leave comments on the Website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

Academia Centrum may use your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Services, its employees or agents, or other users and to comply with applicable law. We may otherwise use your information with your consent or at your direction.

4. Sharing Personal Information

Academia Centrum may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries.

We may share your personal information to hosting vendors, advertising service providers, and list managers providing contractual services to us. We also may share your information, including your payment information, as appropriate to process your payments for the Services or complete a transaction.

    • We accept payments made by deposits to our bank account, and you can also choose to pay with PayPal.  Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply if you opt to pay via PayPal. PayPal has their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check these policies before you submit your personal data to PayPal.

    • Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. When visitors leave comments on the Website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

We may also share your information with business partners to provide you with services that you request, and other parties when required by law or as necessary to protect our users and Services. Academia Centrum is not responsible for the privacy practices of these entities.

If you log into the Services with a social media service or if you connect a social media account with the Services, we may share your information with that social media service. The social media services’ use of the shared information will be governed by the social media services’ privacy policy and your social media account settings. If you do not want your information shared in this way, do not connect your social media service account with your Services.

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included becasue visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing.

Academia Centrum reserves the right to transfer any information we have about you in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which we may disclose your personal details to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets, and/or  if Academia Centrum or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal details held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.

5. Retention Period

    • Transaction-related data and documents

In order to be in compliance with legal obligations and accounting standards, we shall keep the related data and documents for 10 years from the date of transaction.

    • Contact

To allow Academia Centrum to manage relationship with clients and improve the Services,  we shall keep your contact information provided to us for 6 years from the last date on which you have interacted with us in any way.

    • Comment

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

    • User Profile

For users that register on the Website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

    • E-news

 In order to subscribe to the E-news service of Academia Centrum, we need at least your e-mail address to which the E-news is to be sent. Further information will be used to address you personally in the E-news or to provide further information. You can unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time by sending us an e-mail. The personal data will be stored and used for newsletter delivery until you unsubscribe.

    • Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, e-mail address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we shall set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we shall also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

6. Data Security

Academia Centrum would endeavour to protect your information against loss, misuse, abuse and alteration. However, as effective as these measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot absolutely guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet, and as such we cannot be held responsible for it.

7. Embeded Content From Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other websites. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Academia Centrum is not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites. We encourage you to review the privacy statements applicable to the third-party websites and services you use.

8. International Transfer

The Services is headquartered in Hong Kong SAR. Please be aware that information you provide to us or that we obtain as a result of your use of the Services may be collected in your country and subsequently transferred to Hong Kong SAR or to another country/region in accordance with applicable law. By using the Services, you consent to the collection, international transfer, storage, and processing of your information.

9. Rights of Revocation and Information 

You are entitled at any time to revoke your consent by e-mail to info@academiacentrum.com. Such a revocation causes the inadmissibility of the further processing of the data of the user and therefore results in the deletion of the user profile.

Further, if you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you are entitled to request access to your personal data held by Academia Centrum by email at info@academiacentrum.com. A reasonable fee for processing the requests may be charged.

Academia Centrum would provide the user with the relevant information within one month. However, the operator is entitled to obtain a proof of identity from the user in advance.

You are at any time entitled to delete, modify, correct or complete his personal data saved by  Academia Centrum by sending a corresponding request by e-mail to info@academiacentrum.com. Academia Centrum will also check such requests of the user within one month and if necessary comply. However, this does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

10. Protection of Your Information

Academia Centrum will never contact you by email to ask you to send or confirm any of your personal details, if we need any information of this nature, we shall contact you by telephone.​

Never send any sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card information, via email.​

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of the Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.  We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

11. Other Points of Note Regarding Your Personal Data

Please also note that:

    • If you do not provide your personal data to us, we may not be able to provide all of our services and features to you;
    • Subject to, we shall (a) only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the Purposes, and (b) erase any of your personal data that we have stored as soon as reasonably practicable, if you choose to delete your account with us (c) procure that data held by a third party if you choose to delete your account with us or terminate use of social media feature;
    • You may from time to time provide us with various third parties’ personal data.  You agree that you have procured the relevant third party’s consent to provide us with their personal data (to be collected, used and stored in accordance with this Privacy Policy) prior to such provision by you.

Separately, we may collect certain other data from you on the Website: ​

    • We automatically collect data relating to your online session to provide our services to you, to gather statistical information on our server’s usage and to help us better meet your demands and expectations.  This may include but not limited to your browser type and version, your operating system and your IP address and/or domain name.
    • If you are browsing the Website (whether as a guest or as a registered user), it may place a cookie on your computer that identifies your computer to us and allows us to personalize your shopping experience and provide you with various services.

12. Disclaimer

Academia Centrum may from time to time remove the service for indefinite periods of time or cancel the service at any time and without any notice.

The Website is not liable for any damages arising from the use of the Website, including but not limited to direct, indirect, consequential and punitive damages in accordance with the restrictions permitted by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s Control Disclaimer Ordinance (Cap.71) .

Academia Centrum and the Website expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any representations, undertakings, warranties or liabilities of any goods or services on the Website. Without limiting the general applicability of the above terms, we do not warrant that “Content” and “Product Descriptions” on the Website are accurate, complete, current or error-free.

Academia Centrum and the Website expressly disclaim any liability, either directly or indirectly, or in whole or in part, to you or to any person for any negligence in the promotion, composition, interpretation, editorial, reporting or distribution of the Website. In no event will Academia Centrum or the Website be liable to you or any person for any loss or damage, whether directly or indirectly, in connection with the goods or services, including loss of profits or loss of savings, Any claims relating to the goods or services on the Website. Academia Centrum and the Website also expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever arising out of or in connection with matters or circumstances beyond the control of Academia Centrum which cause the service or part thereof to be impeded or suspended.

The Website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers, affiliates.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these website have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check these policies before you submit your personal data to these websites.

13. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

Academia Centrum may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes to the Privacy Policy will become effective when the updated policy is posted on the Services. Your use of the Services or your provision of personal information to use the Services following such changes indicates your acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.

14. Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Policy are welcomed and should be addressed to info@academiacentrum.com.