Terms & Conditions

Introduction

These terms & conditions govern your use of this website; by using this website, you accept these terms & conditions in full. If you disagree with these terms & conditions or any part of these terms and conditions, you must not use this website.

You must be at least 18 years of age to use this website. By using this website, and by agreeing to these terms & conditions, you warrant and represent that you are at least 18 years of age.

This website uses cookies. By using this website and agreeing to these terms & conditions, you consent to Paternity For Life’s use of cookies in accordance with the terms of Paternity For Life’s privacy policy / cookies policy.

License to use website

Unless otherwise stated, Paternity For Life and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights in the website and material on the website. Subject to the license below, all these intellectual property rights are reserved.
You may view, download for caching purposes only, and print pages from the website for your own personal use, subject to the restrictions set out below and elsewhere in these terms & conditions.

You must not:

• Republish material from this website (including republication on another website);
• Sell, rent or sub-license material from the website;
• Show any material from the website in public;
• Reproduce, duplicate, copy or otherwise exploit material on this website for a commercial purpose;]
• Edit or otherwise modify any material on the website; or
• Redistribute material from this website, except for content specifically and expressly made available for redistribution.

Where content is specifically made available for redistribution, it may only be redistributed within your organisation.

Acceptable use

You must not use this website in any way that causes, or may cause, damage to the website or impairment of the availability or accessibility of the website; or in any way which is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful purpose or activity.

You must not use this website to copy, store, host, transmit, send, use, publish or distribute any material which consists of (or is linked to) any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious computer software.

You must not conduct any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) on or in relation to this website without Paternity For Life’s express written consent.

You must not use this website to transmit or send unsolicited commercial communications.
You must not use this website for any purposes related to marketing without Paternity For Life’s express written consent.

Restricted access

Access to certain areas of this website is restricted. Paternity For Life reserves the right to restrict access to areas of this website, or indeed this entire website, at Paternity For Life’s discretion.

If Paternity For Life provides you with a user ID and password to enable you to access restricted areas of this website or other content or services, you must ensure that the user ID and password are kept confidential.

Paternity For Life may disable your user ID and password in Paternity For Life’s sole discretion without notice or explanation.

User content

In these terms & conditions, “your user content” means material (including without limitation text, images, audio material, video material and audio-visual material) that you submit to this website, for whatever purpose.
Your user content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any third party’s legal rights, and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action whether against you or Paternity For Life or a third party (in each case under any applicable law).

You must not submit any user content to the website that is or has ever been the subject of any threatened or actual legal proceedings or other similar complaint.

Paternity For Life reserves the right to edit or remove any material submitted to this website, or stored on Paternity For Life servers, or hosted or published upon this website.

Notwithstanding Paternity For Life rights under these terms & conditions in relation to user content, Paternity For Life does not undertake to monitor the submission of such content to, or the publication of such content on, this website.

No warranties

This website is provided “as is” without any representations or warranties, express or implied. Paternity For Life makes no representations or warranties in relation to this website or the information and materials provided on this website.
Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing paragraph, Paternity For Life does not warrant that:

• This website will be constantly available, or available at all; or
• The information on this website is complete, true, accurate or non-misleading.

Nothing on this website constitutes, or is meant to constitute, advice of any kind.

Limitations of liability

Paternity For Life will not be liable to you (whether under the law of contact, the law of torts or otherwise) in relation to the contents of, or use of, or otherwise in connection with, this website:

• To the extent that the website is provided free-of-charge, for any direct loss;
• For any indirect, special or consequential loss; or
• For any business losses, loss of revenue, income, profits or anticipated savings, loss of contracts or business relationships, loss of reputation or goodwill, or loss or corruption of information or data.

These limitations of liability apply even if Paternity For Life has been expressly advised of the potential loss.

Exceptions

Nothing in this website disclaimer will exclude or limit any warranty implied by law that it would be unlawful to exclude or limit; and nothing in this website disclaimer will exclude or limit Paternity For Life liability in respect of any:

• Death or personal injury caused by Paternity For Life negligence;
• Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation on the part of Paternity For Life; or
• Matter which it would be illegal or unlawful for Paternity For Life to exclude or limit, or to attempt or purport to exclude or limit, its liability.

Reasonableness

By using this website, you agree that the exclusions and limitations of liability set out in this website disclaimer are reasonable.

If you do not think they are reasonable, you must not use this website.

Other parties

You accept that, as a limited liability entity, Paternity For Life has an interest in limiting the personal liability of its officers and employees. You agree that you will not bring any claim personally against Paternity For Life officers or employees in respect of any losses you suffer in connection with the website.

Without prejudice to the foregoing paragraph, you agree that the limitations of warranties and liability set out in this website disclaimer will protect Paternity For Life officers, employees, agents, subsidiaries, successors, assigns and sub-contractors as well as Paternity For Life.

Unenforceable provisions

If any provision of this website disclaimer is, or is found to be, unenforceable under applicable law, that will not affect the enforceability of the other provisions of this website disclaimer.

Indemnity

You hereby indemnify Paternity For Life and undertake to keep Paternity For Life indemnified against any losses, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including without limitation legal expenses and any amounts paid by Paternity For Life to a third party in settlement of a claim or dispute on the advice of Paternity For Life legal advisers) incurred or suffered by Paternity For Life arising out of any breach by you of any provision of these terms and conditions[, or arising out of any claim that you have breached any provision of these terms & conditions].

Breaches of these terms and conditions

Without prejudice to Paternity For Life other rights under these terms and conditions, if you breach these terms & conditions in any way, Paternity For Life may take such action as Paternity For Life deems appropriate to deal with the breach, including suspending your access to the website, prohibiting you from accessing the website, blocking computers using your IP address from accessing the website, contacting your internet service provider to request that they block your access to the website and/or bringing court proceedings against you.

Variation

Paternity For Life may revise these terms & conditions from time-to-time. Revised terms & conditions will apply to the use of this website from the date of the publication of the revised terms & conditions on this website. Please check this page regularly to ensure you are familiar with the current version.

Assignment

Paternity For Life may transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with Paternity For Life rights and/or obligations under these terms & conditions without notifying you or obtaining your consent.

You may not transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with your rights and/or obligations under these terms & conditions.

Severability

If a provision of these terms & conditions is determined by any court or other competent authority to be unlawful and/or unenforceable, the other provisions will continue in effect. If any unlawful and/or unenforceable provision would be lawful or enforceable if part of it were deleted, that part will be deemed to be deleted, and the rest of the provision will continue in effect.

Entire agreement

These terms & conditions constitute the entire agreement between you and Paternity For Life in relation to your use of this website, and supersede all previous agreements in respect of your use of this website.

Law and jurisdiction

These terms & conditions will be governed by and construed in accordance with Australian Law, and any disputes relating to these terms & conditions will be subject to the [non-]exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Australia.

Credit

This document was created using a Contractology template available at http://www.freenetlaw.com.

Refund Policy

Please select carefully when choosing your test, as we do not offer refunds simply for change of mind. All parties should agree to testing prior to applying for or purchasing testing.

Paternity For Life reserves the right to withhold up to 50% percent of the purchase cost for any cancelled test, cancelled within three months of the purchase date. Refunds will not be processed for testing kits that have been sent out. Due to hygiene and security reasons, we are unable to accept unused kits once they have been dispatched. If testing has commenced no refund will be issued. If the test is cancelled for any reason after 3 months no refunds will be processed.

Non-Standard Sample DNA Test – Additional Terms & Conditions

Paternity for Life will make every attempt to obtain a result from the samples that are submitted. However, due to the nature of Non-Standard Samples, Paternity for Life cannot guarantee that a DNA profile can be successfully obtain from these samples and the success rate noted above is a guideline only. Payment is required prior to submitting samples and no refund will be provided in the event a result cannot be obtained.

Paternity for Life always recommends that when submitting a sample for testing, it is collected using our specialised mouth swab collection kit.

Consent must be given by each person being tested and by a parent or guardian of the child if under 18. The person submitting the non-standard sample accepts full responsibility for submitting these samples and purchasing this DNA test from Paternity for Life. DNA testing will not be performed unless all parties have consented.

Clinical Testing

Due to the nature of clinical testing options offered by Paternity For Life (including Pharmacogenomics (Drug Response), Cystic Fibrosis Screening, Extended Carrier Screening and BRCA Testing), a written referral is required from the patient’s health care practitioner prior to commencing testing. Testing will only be released to the health care practitioner as nominated on the request form. Results for these tests cannot be released directly to the tested parties under any circumstances.

Clients should ensure they have a nominated health practitioner to sign the request form prior to ordering testing. Testing will not commence until a request form signed by the patients’ health care practitioner. Our refund policy applies should clients be unable to nominate a health care practitioner to refer them for this testing.

Third Party Collection Appointments

For some testing types, including Legal Admissible Paternity Testing clients may require the services of a qualified third party to collect the required samples for testing, such as a doctor, nurse, phlebotomist, or trained sample collector.

Please note, there may be a fee charged for the collection by your nominated collector. This fee is not included in the cost of testing and must be paid directly to your sample collector. It is the responsibility of clients to nominate a qualified collector. Clients will not be eligible for a refund should their nominated sample collector be unable to collect the samples. If an error is made during the collection process, resulting in a recollection of the sample, any associated recollection fees are the responsibility of the client.

Accuracy of Results

I understand that for legal paternity tests, results are usually above 99.9999% when the mother, alleged father and child are tested. Results may be lower if the mother is not tested. For extended relationship testing and ancestry testing, results may be weak or inconclusive. This is not due to laboratory error but in difficulty in comparing individuals in extended relationships. This can occur in approximately one in five cases. No refund will be given for inconclusive results.

Turn Around Times

Results will be available in 5 – 7 working days for most tests, calculated from the time all samples reach the laboratory for testing. Some forms of Extended Relationship testing, such as Y-STR, will be available in 10 – 15 working days. Working days include Monday through Friday, and do not include public holidays, bank holidays and weekends.

While Paternity For Life endeavours to have results out within the above turnaround times, these turnaround times are a guideline only, and may be subject to change depending on the circumstances of the test and the samples received. We are not obliged to provide results within the turnaround time and will not compromise the quality of the results to deliver a faster result.

Turnaround times are estimated provided that all paperwork is completed correctly by the client at time of collection, the sample was taken properly by the collector and/or client, and no events outside Paternity For Life’s control, such as shipping delays, power failure, equipment failure or natural disaster, interfere with sample processing. In a small amount of cases, repeat sequencing or additional analysis may be required to due biological variations in the DNA of the persons tested.

If it is anticipated that your results will not be out within the suggested turnaround time, Paternity For Life will endeavour to advise you as soon as possible. Please note that no refunds will be provided in the event of delayed testing.

In some cases where the forms have not been completed correctly or the sample has not been collected properly, the sample will need to be recollected at an additional cost to the client. If a recollection is required, Paternity For Life will endeavour to advise clients as soon as possible.

Conduct Towards Paternity For Life Staff

Paternity For Life reserves the right to refuse testing to customers who are verbally or physically abusive or threatening towards Paternity For Life staff, whether via telephone, email, social media or other communication methods. Customers who engage in any behaviour that is seen to harass, abuse, insult, harm, defame, slander, disparage, intimidate, or discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, national origin, or disability, any member of Paternity For Life staff, Paternity For Life will immediately stop testing and no refund will be provided.

Online Applications

All personal and financial information provided is true to the best of my knowledge. I have consent from all persons over 18, or from parent/guardian of all persons under 18 involved, in testing. I have contact or means of contacting (through solicitor or legal aid) other parties involved in testing, and understand that Paternity For Life will not seek out other parties on my behalf.

Retention of Data

I acknowledge that my DNA sample may be securely disposed of after 6 months of report release by Paternity For Life. DNA profiles and reports will be stored indefinitely by Paternity For Life.

Results policy

For non-legal cases results will be emailed or posted to the nominated persons, however any person whose DNA is tested is entitled to a copy of their results, and may request a copy of their results even if they are not nominated.

Use of results

I understand that any non-legal reports produced by Paternity For Life cannot be used for any legal purpose, such as changes to birth certificates, child support, estates and wills or any other matter relating to the family law court.

Re-collections

In a rare few cases, insufficient DNA is obtained from a sample and the sample must therefore be re-collected to obtain a result. Paternity For Life will try multiple methods to obtain a profile from a weak sample, however if unsuccessful, re-collections will be at the expense of the client. If a client or collector is unsure of how to collect the sample to ensure sufficient DNA is collected they should contact Paternity For Life.

In the event that a sample is contaminated, a re-collection will also be required at the expense of the client.

Tampering of Samples

Paternity For Life reserves the right to discontinue or refuse testing if it is suspected or evident that tampering of samples has occurred. If tampering of samples is suspected, no report will be issued, and no refund will be given. It will be recommended to clients suspected of tampering that samples be collected under legal, chain of custody collection procedures at an additional cost to the client.