Privacy notice

1. Who is responsible?

Microbac Europe B.V. is the controller for the processing described in this notice. BIOMICROBES is the brand name we use for this website.

This notice covers biomicrobes.com and its contact, advice, quotation and subscription forms.

2. What data do we process?

• Enquiries and correspondence: your name, business contact details, company name, country or region, and information you provide about your crop, growing system, product enquiry or application. We also process your message and subsequent correspondence.
• Article updates: your email address, chosen language, and subscription, consent and unsubscribe records.
• Technical use: IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, timestamps, and error or security records to the extent recorded when using and operating the website.
• Preferences: your cookie and language choices and, following any required consent, data from enabled optional features.

Most data come from you or your browser. If a colleague provides your business contact details for a joint enquiry, we may use them for that purpose and will explain their source when first contacting you.

Required form fields are clearly marked. Without the necessary contact or enquiry details, we may be unable to handle your request. Please do not provide special-category personal data or other sensitive information that is unnecessary for your enquiry.

3. Why do we use data and on what legal basis?

• Answering questions and providing business advice: our legitimate interest in handling enquiries and maintaining business contacts, balanced against your privacy interests.
• Preparing or performing a contract with you: performance of that contract or steps you request before entering into it. If you act on behalf of a company, we generally process your contact details on the basis of our legitimate interest in business communications.
• Sending article updates: your consent. Subscription is voluntary. A contact or quotation request does not automatically subscribe you. Unsubscribe through any update or by contacting info@biomicrobes.com.
• Operating and securing the website: our legitimate interest in a reliable website, resolving errors and preventing spam and abuse. Where optional cookies or similar technologies require consent, we obtain it in advance.
• Meeting legal obligations: where a specific legal obligation requires processing, such as retaining necessary financial records.

4. Cookies and preferences

Necessary cookies and similar storage may be used to operate the website and remember your choices. Optional technologies requiring consent are enabled only after you give that consent. Refusal does not prevent you from submitting an ordinary enquiry.

Use Cookie preferences in the footer to view the technologies used and their retention periods, change your choices or withdraw consent. Withdrawal is as easy as giving consent. Your browser also provides settings to delete or block cookies.

5. Who receives your data?

We use Vercel for hosting and technical processing of the website, and Brevo for sending form messages and article updates. Our email provider processes incoming and outgoing correspondence. These providers receive the data needed to deliver their services. We put the required processing agreements in place with parties processing on our behalf.

Authorised staff, appointed advisers and authorities may also receive access when necessary to handle your request, address a legal claim or meet a legal obligation. We do not sell or rent your personal data.

6. Processing outside the EEA

Our providers may process data outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States when Vercel is used. Such transfers require a valid international transfer mechanism: an applicable adequacy decision or appropriate safeguards, such as the European Standard Contractual Clauses and additional measures where necessary.

For the relevant Vercel transfers, its processing terms provide for Standard Contractual Clauses. You may request information about the applicable safeguards, or a copy with confidential information redacted where necessary, at info@biomicrobes.com.

7. How long do we keep data?

• Standalone contact, advice and quotation enquiries: up to 12 months after completion, unless a contract, legal retention duty or specific dispute makes further retention necessary.
• Customer and contract files: during the business relationship and afterwards to the extent necessary for statutory retention duties or establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
• Article updates: while you remain subscribed. Sending stops after you unsubscribe. We may keep a minimal suppression record for as long as needed to respect your unsubscribe request. Consent evidence is retained to the extent needed to demonstrate compliance or resolve a dispute.
• Ordinary technical logs: up to 30 days. Records relevant to a specific incident may be retained until the investigation and necessary follow-up are complete.
• Cookies and local storage: for the periods shown in Cookie preferences. Backups are overwritten on a limited rotation; deleted data are not returned to ordinary business use following restoration.

8. Security and automated decisions

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures, such as access controls and secure data transmission, proportionate to the processing risks. Access is restricted to people who need the data for their work.

We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you.

9. Your rights and complaints

You may request access, rectification, erasure or restriction of processing. Where the relevant conditions apply, you may request data portability and object to processing based on legitimate interests. You may always object to direct marketing.

You may withdraw consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal. Rights are subject to the conditions in the GDPR; a legal retention duty may, for example, prevent immediate deletion of certain data.

Send requests to info@biomicrobes.com. If we reasonably doubt your identity, we may request the additional information necessary to verify it. Please do not send an unsolicited copy of an identity document.

We respond without undue delay and within one month. If necessary because of the complexity or number of requests, this may be extended by up to two further months. We will explain any extension within the first month.

You may complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority or another competent authority, for example in the EU country where you live or work. You do not have to complain to us first.

10. Changes

We update this notice when our processing or applicable rules change. The current version appears on this page with the date of the latest substantive change. We will notify you separately where necessary. An update to this notice does not constitute consent to a new use of your data.