This site is owned and operated by Lab Group Services Ltd (hereafter referred to as “Lab”). Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Lab, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

INFORMATION WE GATHER AND TRACK

We gather two types of information about users:

• Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls, surveys and competitions
• Information we gather through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our site. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers'/users’ needs. Under no circumstances do we divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

We Gather User Information In The Following Processes: Optional Voluntary Information.

We offer the following services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

• Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches): We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. We gather the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management.
• E-mail this to a friend" policy: Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend". The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.
• Your participation on our Site may mean that we occasionally contact you with the opportunity to enter competitions. Entry to competitions is voluntary, and you are under no obligation to take up an invitation from us to enter. Should you choose to enter a competition, we will treat the information you provide with the same high standard of care as all other customer information, and use the information provided strictly within the entry terms of the competition and this Privacy Statement.
• Polling: We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. We may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.
• Surveys: We may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

USAGE TRACKING

We track user traffic patterns throughout our site. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. We break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

We sometimes track and catalogue the search terms that user’s enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our site users like and do not like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

COOKIES

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie cannot read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other site. We use cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you have set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling, surveys and competitions.

USE OF INFORMATION

We use any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our site or products, whether to provide interactive or personalised elements on the site or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, competitions, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. We never share newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners. When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our site users like and do not like based on traffic to those areas, we do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we do not track which terms a particular user enters.

We create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. Because we do not track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SHARING OF THE INFORMATION

We use the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SECURITY

We operate secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

OPT-IN / OUT POLICY

We give users options wherever necessary and practical.

Such choices include:

• Opting to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
• Opting to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users.
• Ability to opt-out of email newsletters.

YOUR CONSENT

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Lab. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

Image rights

This site uses images from Unsplash.

We thank and acknowledge the following photographers:

Tim Mossholder

SLR Lounge

Transly Translation Agency

Sean Pollock