Privacy Policy


Welcome to our internet presence at www.heka.com (The Site), which is wholly owned and exclusively operated by Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH, an affiliate of Harvard Bioscience Inc. This Privacy Policy is designed to explain our practices regarding the collection and use of information received from you and/or your company.


The Site provides an opportunity for customers, prospective employees, investors, and other adults to learn more about our company. The Site is particularly geared to our customer base – academic and industrial researchers in the fields of electrophysiology and electrochemistry, drug discovery and development, and in contract research – to provide them with content, products, and services focusing on their fields of interest and to help them accomplish their research goals faster, more reliably, and in a cost-efficient manner.


Your use of The Site is subject to this Privacy Policy, which you may at any time print or download (or request a printed copy by contacting us as specified below). We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the revised policy at this location.



Consent and data transfer

By giving your personal information to us, which includes information furnished during an event registration, online order, or other registration or data capture process, you agree that we may collect and use such personal information and other information in accordance with the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.


For our customers in Switzerland and the European Union, please note that Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH and its affiliates have operations in countries outside of Switzerland and the European Union. If you use The Site, all information, including personal information, will be transferred to Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH and/or its affiliates, including subcontractors that may be maintaining and/or operating The Site. Although this may include countries where there may be a lower level of legal protection for your personal information than your location country, we will protect your information in accordance with requirements applicable to your information. By using The Site, you unambiguously consent to the transfer of your personal information and other information to Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH and affiliates for the purposes and uses described herein.



How we collect information about you


Personally identifying information

When you submit an inquiry via The Site, or when you register for events on external pages hyperlinked from The Site, you will be asked to provide personally identifying contact information (e.g., name, organization, address, phone number, email address, and country) and other information. On The Site, for example, we may collect and retain personally identifying and other information from you in a number of ways, such as when you request a quote, place an order, request email updates or other information, complete customer surveys, submit a feedback or contact form. If any third parties, including any companies owned by Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH, provide information to us about you, we may combine that information with other information we have about you, and if and to the extent we do, we will treat such combined information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.


Email address

Your email address is used to raise and respond to issues and inquiries of all types and to keep in contact with you generally. It is also used to distribute information about us and market our products and services as described herein.


Use of website data

The Site may collect various types of information from you in the course of your navigation of The Site, such as the URL of the web site you just came from, the browser version you use, your Internet Protocol (IP) address, IP ports, date/time of access, size of data transferred, pages you visit, and other "clickstream" data. We are typically not able to relate such data to you as an individual if you merely browse our Site and do not disclose your identity to The Site, such as you would in connection with a support request or a registration.


Information about our use of cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyze web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. We use traffic log cookies by utilizing Google Analytics to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyze data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:


Cookie Name Cookie Description
_ga Used by Google Analytics used to distinguish users
_gid Used by Google Analytics used to distinguish users
_gat Used by Google Analytics used to throttle request rate
cookieconsent_status Indicates the status of cookies agreements

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies. You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site. Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 30 days.-->



How we use information about you

We use information collected by clickstream data collection and cookies to store user preferences, improve web site navigation, make personalized features and other services available to you, compile and analyze aggregate statistics and trends, and otherwise help administer and improve The Site. Where you provide registration information, cookies can also be used to identify you when you log onto The Site or portions of The Site.


Except as otherwise stated, we may use information we collect from you and others to respond to your request, improve the content, services, and products that we provide, customize The Site to your preferences, communicate information to you (where you have not expressed a preference otherwise), for our marketing and research analysis, and for other purposes identified to you. Some marketing and research analysis may be conducted by third parties providing data collection and analysis services under contract with us, utilizing anonymous data collected from cookies. As noted above, you can reject such cookies by configuring your browser accordingly. We reserve the right to make full use of information that is not in personally identifiable form.


From time to time, we may use contact information obtained via The Site to send email and postal mail supplying customers with the most recent product and service information, as well as other information we think may be useful to you. If you provide your email address via The Site, we may contact you by email to send you information about your orders (e.g., order confirmations, shipment notifications, etc.). We may also contact Site visitors via email about changes to any relevant agreements or policies. We sometimes also use this data to establish a profile for your company, or collectively for some or all of our customers, to help us make business decisions, such as what kinds of new products we should be developing. We will also use it for other internal business purposes including aggregating information, data warehousing and mining, cross matching databases and pooling data for effective data management, to understand your needs, improve security of data, for statistical analysis, devising, deploying and measuring marketing campaigns and other reasonable business purposes and for operational efficiency improvement. We may remove information when it becomes out of date or inaccurate, or when requested by you – subject to any legal duty or requirement we may have to preserve it.


In connection with customer experience programs or promotions, we use the information you submit to measure the benefits for our business and pursue other legitimate business purposes as described in this Privacy Policy and in the terms and conditions (where applicable) for the program or promotion.



How we share your information


Third parties. Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH does not provide the personally identifiable information you supply to us to outside mailing lists. We may share information about you with employees, affiliates, successors, and agents/representatives (e.g., consultants or service providers in e-commerce). We oblige such entities to comply with our privacy policy, and limit their access and use of your personal information to the extent necessary for the specific business purpose. Except as specifically described in this Privacy Policy, we will never sell, trade, or transfer information provided by you, whether personally identifiable or not, to unaffiliated third parties.

Mergers/acquisitions In the event of any prospective or actual merger, business or asset sale, divestiture, other changes in control or financial status, or re-organization we may share or transfer personal information with the other party or parties involved. We will require the recipient to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Disclosures required by law Occasionally, we may be required by law enforcement, government contract administrators, and/or judicial authorities to provide personally identifiable information to the appropriate judicial, governmental or regulatory authorities under applicable law, regulation or the terms of government contracts. We will disclose personally identifiable information upon receipt of a court order, subpoena, or if required to co-operate with law enforcement investigations or government contract compliance reviews. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we in good faith believe to be unlawful to the extent permitted by law.


How we protect your information


Information you send to us
We will comply with applicable patient privacy laws and regulations. We will employ commercially reasonable technical and administrative safeguards against unauthorized disclosure or access to personally identifiable information consistent with applicable law. Your data is protected once it reaches our network through the use of secure network firewalls. Portions of your data may also be encrypted on our storage server for additional security.

Because no system is 100% secure or error-free despite taking commercially reasonable steps, Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH and its affiliates do not promise, and you should not expect, that information you provide shall remain private under all circumstances. It is your responsibility to safeguard any passwords, ID numbers, or other special access features associated with your use of The Site. Keep in mind that the transmission of information to our servers is generally unencrypted and may be intercepted by unauthorized parties. Therefore, no financial specifics, such as credit card information, or no information that you prefer to remain confidential should be transmitted through support or quote requests forms on The Site, or by email to Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH or its affiliates. Should an online ordering system be implemented in the future, we will implement state-of-the-art technology to safeguard sensitive information during the transfer to our servers.



Opting out

If you do not wish to receive certain communications from us, or our affiliates or representatives, you may opt out by: (1) declining the service offered when registering or at other information collection points on The Site, or (2) informing us that you no longer wish to receive such communications. We will comply with such requests unless such communications from us are required by law. If you opt out from receiving information while you register for an event, we will still send you information in connection with that specific event. If you opt out of certain communications, you may not be able to access certain of our products or services. If you would like to opt out of receiving communications from affiliates or other third parties with whom we shared data in accordance with this policy, please contact such third parties directly.



Access, blocking, deletion, and correction of information you provide

You may at any time request access to a summary of your personal information held by us, and request corrections or updates to that information. We will make reasonable efforts to respond promptly to such requests for information in accordance with local laws. Our response to such requests may be limited to information under our direct control.


Please notify us of any changes in your name, address, title, telephone number or email address. You can have your personally identifiable information corrected by contacting us to request changes. You may ask to have the information on your account deleted or removed; however, because we keep track of certain transaction information, such as past purchases, and other similar information, for legal compliance purposes, we may not be able to delete certain information. If information we hold appears to be inaccurate we will block its use until the position is verified to our satisfaction.


If you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy or relating to the transfer of your personal data, please contact us at your local office [Contact]. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not provide us with your information.



Other websites

The Site contains links to the websites of other organizations. Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites, and unless otherwise specified, does not imply any relationship, sponsorship, or affiliation between Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH and these linked sites, or adoption or approval of the content of such sites. Since we do not control these websites, we encourage you to review the privacy policies posted on those, and all, third-party websites.



Children's privacy

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18.



How to contact us

For any requests or questions related to this Privacy Policy, or if you have concerns about how information you provide to Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH is being used, please contact us at webmaster@heka.com.



Revisions to Privacy Policy

Please check back for material revisions to this Policy.



Last Revised: 21 March 2023