Privacy policy

Effective Date: March 2025

WIKA Instruments Ltd ("WIKA") operates under the WIKA.ca website which is hosted by WIKA.  All references to "we", "us", this "website" or this "site" shall be construed to mean WIKA. WIKA is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information which is collected, used, and disclosed in the conduct of our business.

1. Application

This Policy applies to WIKA’s use, collection and disclosure of personal information acquired from users of WIKA’s services, including access to WIKA’s website(s). WIKA collects, uses, and discloses all information in accordance with the relevant privacy legislation and regulations, as amended.

2. Consent and Rights

By using this website, you are consenting to this Policy and WIKA’s collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Policy. This consent is ongoing and continuous.

You may have the following rights related to your personal information collected from WIKA:

• to request a copy of your personal information;
• to request deletion of your personal information;
• to object to, or request a restriction of, WIKA’s use of your personal information;
• to request correction of your personal information;
• to request transfer of your personal information to another party for its use; and
• to not face discrimination in exercising your available rights.

You are entitled to withdraw your consent at any time, but such withdrawal of consent, or request for deletion or restriction, may affect your ability to access services from WIKA.

3. Amendments to Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Policy at any time, and without prior notice, by posting an amended Policy that is always accessible by clicking on the "Privacy Policy" link on this site's home page. Your continued use of this site indicates your acceptance of the amended Policy.

4. Collection of Personal Information

We collect information in connection with the use of our services and products and use of our website. We may also collect certain contact information from our clients, such as name, business address, business email address, business phone number or similar business information, which is generally considered to be business contact information.

Similarly, when we collect contact information from individuals acting on behalf of an organization, this information is also considered to be business contact information.

When business contact information is being collected, used, or disclosed for the purposes of contacting an individual in relation to their business responsibilities, it is not generally considered to be personal information and is not covered by this Policy. However, when the business contact information is being collected, used, or disclosed for another purpose, or personal information other than business contact information is being collected, used, or disclosed, it is treated as personal information under this Policy.

Non-identifiable information collected, such as browser types, computer operating systems, IP address, internet service provider, clickstream data, anonymized data, and other such related non-identifiable information, is not included in the definition of personal information and will be simply referred to as ‘information’ for the purposes of this Policy.

Personal information is considered information about an identifiable individual and is collected by us directly from you via our websites, telephone, mail, facsimile, e-mail and in person. This information may include, but is not limited to:

• Identifiers such as names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information.
• Usernames.
• Employment history, education information and other information provided by you in the context of registration or obtaining services.
• Your role in an organization if your interaction with us is on behalf of an organization.
• Credit card information.
• Your purchase or registration history with respect to our products, services, courses and/or training.
• Your personal identification documents, such as driver’s license; and
• Names of services, products, courses and/or training in which you are interested.

Our website may also collect information, such as capture computer information, navigation, and clickstream data. Some of the information collected does not identify who you are. Other information, such as your domain name or IP address, may identify you depending on the naming standards followed by your internet service provider. You may wish to ask them about their policies and practices as WIKA takes no responsibility for their privacy policies or naming conventions.

We reserve the right to monitor your use of this site.   As you navigate through this site, information may be passively collected (that is, gathered without your actively providing the information) using various analytics and reporting technologies, such as cookies and web beacons.

While we make no attempt to link the information captured to the identity of individuals, the information captured may identify the following:

• The Internet domain and IP address from which you access our websites.
• The type of browser and operating system used to access our websites.
• Screen resolution of your monitor.
• The date and time you accessed our websites; and
• The pages you visited on our websites.

This information is used to help us make our websites more useful to our audiences by learning about the number of visitors to our websites, and by monitoring traffic patterns and the types of technology that our visitors use. We do not track or record information about specific individuals and their visits, except to the extent this information is recorded using cookies. This Policy provides a more in-depth explanation of cookies and associated usage below.

You can manage cookies through your browser and limiting such information is not the responsibility of WIKA.

Our websites may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of other websites and encourage you to examine each site's privacy policy and disclaimers and make your own decisions regarding the accuracy, reliability, and correctness of material and information found.

5. Use of Personal Information

Personal information may be collected, used, or disclosed by WIKA for the following business purposes, without limitation:

• Providing you with products or services you have requested;
• Completing registration, management, and administration for courses and training you have requested;
• Providing you with information related to WIKA and its services;
• Creating a user profile which includes a record of services and could include other information about activities in which you have engaged in us and/or your purchase history;
• Communicating with you regarding any services in which you may be interested;
• Processing payments, refunds, and credits;
• Communicating with you and responding to inquiries made through the website;
• Optimizing the functionality of the WIKA website; and
• Such other collection, use, or disclosure as may be necessary, permitted or required by law.

When we use your personal information for the purposes described above, that use may include sharing your personal information within WIKA for business purposes and/or with a third-party service provider for processing or business purposes.

6. Disclosure and Sharing of Personal Information

Our general policy is that we will not share, sell, rent, or provide access to your personal information to others, unless necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected or as required by law.. Such disclosure may include disclosure to:

• affiliate entities, being those entities we legally control or that control us;
• third party service providers who assist us with the operation and maintenance of the website;
• third party service providers who process payments, host our servers, provide security, and provide production, fulfillment, optimization, analytics, and reporting services; and
• other such third parties as may be necessary to provide the required services/benefits to be performed.

From time to time we may partner with or enter into arrangements with another party to provide specific benefits and/or services to our clients. As referenced above, this may include data processing or information technology services. WIKA will only disclose personal information to third parties to the extent necessary to allow the services to be performed.

7. Legal Process, Enforcement and Security Notice

We reserve the right to disclose your personal information if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary (i) to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request (such as for example, to comply with a subpoena or court order), (ii) to detect, prevent, and address fraud or other illegal activity, and (iii) to investigate, respond to, or enforce violations of our rights or the security of this site.

8. Third-Party Advertising Partners

We reserve the right to share non-personal information with third party advertising partners with which we have relationships.  We will display behavioral ads which will be targeted to your specific interests based on your browsing history on this site or activities on other websites.

These third-party ad servers or ad networks may also use cookies to track your activities on this site to measure advertisement effectiveness and other reasons that will be provided in their own privacy policies, and we have no access or control over these cookies that may be used by third party advertisers.

We may participate in the AdSense program of Google, Inc. (“Google”), which uses DART cookies to enable serving their behavioral ads.  To opt out of the DART cookies you may visit the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following url: http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/. Tracking of users through the DART cookie mechanisms are subject to Google's own privacy policies. We may also display contextual ads which will be based solely on the context of this site, and not will not be targeted based on your browsing history on this site or activities on other websites.

Any information that you provide in the process of registration or purchase from those sites are not collected or store by WIKA.

We have no responsibility or liability for the policies and practices of these sites.

You should review any privacy policies posted on any of these sites before providing information to them.

9. Specific Information about Cookies

To provide better service for our site, we may use Cookies and Web Beacons to collect information to store your preferences and information about what pages you visit and past activity at our site. We may also employ Web Beacons from third parties to help us compile aggregated statistics regarding the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns or other operations of our site.

"Cookies" are tiny pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive.  Cookies are also used to customize content based on your browser. Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you want to disable cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to turn off cookies. Please remember, however, that cookies may be required to allow you to use certain features of our site. We reserve the right to use third party web analytics services that use third party cookies (cookies passed by them, not by us) to collect Information about your use of this site. These web analytics services may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on the service's behalf.

Google Analytics - We reserve the right to use Google Analytics, a web analytics service of Google (defined above). Google will receive the information generated by its cookie regarding your use of our website (including your IP address) and store the information on Google’s servers located in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however, please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Flash Cookies - Third Parties, with whom we partner to provide certain features on our site or to display advertising based upon your Web browsing activity, also use Flash cookies to collect and store information. Flash cookies are different from browser cookies because of the amount of, type of, and how data is stored. Cookie management tools provided by your browser may not remove Flash cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for Flash cookies click here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html#117118.

Web Beacons - sometimes called single-pixel gifs or clear gifs - are used to assist in delivering cookies, and they allow us to count users who have visited pages of our site. We may include Web Beacons in promotional e-mail messages or our newsletters to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon.

By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google and other third parties in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

10. Data Security

We will implement reasonable and appropriate security procedures consistent with prevailing industry standards to protect data from unauthorized access by physical and electronic intrusion. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of data storage can be guaranteed 100% secure.  Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information by following generally accepted industry standards, we cannot ensure or warrant the absolute security of any information you transmit to us or archive at this site.

When you transmit personal information through our registration process or if you purchase products or services, we encrypt that information in transit using secure socket layer technology (SSL).

11. Onward Transfer Outside your Country of Residence

Any personal information which we may collect on this site may be stored and processed in our servers located in the United States or in any other country in which we, or our affiliates, subsidiaries, or agents maintain facilities. By using this site, you consent to any such transfer of personal information outside your country of residence to any such location.

13. Links to Other Sites

This site may contain links to other websites with whom we have a business relationship. These links may include online advertisements that we deem to be appropriate. If you do click on any of the links to their websites or accept any of their promotional offers, your click-through information and any information that you provide in the process of registration or purchase will be transferred to these sites. WIKA accepts no responsibility or liability for the policies and practices of these sites. As the personal information you provide to these sites is out of the custody and control of WIKA, you should be careful to review any privacy policies posted on any of these sites before providing information to them.

14. Children's Online Policy

We are committed to preserving online privacy for all of its website visitors, including children. This site is a general audience site. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we will not knowingly collect any information from, or sell to, children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian who has discovered that your child under the age of 13 has submitted his or her personally identifiable information without your permission or consent, we will remove the information from our active list, at your request. To request the removal of your child's information, please contact our site as provided below under "Contact Us", and be sure to include in your message the same login information that your child submitted.