Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how the University of Plymouth uses and protects your personal data.

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1) Important information and who we are

Privacy policy

This privacy policy gives you information about how the University collects and uses your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide when you register with us.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Controller

The University of Plymouth is the controller and responsible for your personal data ( referred to as “the University”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights please contact us at dpo@plymouth.ac.uk

2) The types of personal data we collect about you

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title.
• Contact Data includes email address and telephone numbers.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, photo, research interests, academic profile and educational history
• Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals’ Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature in order to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.

We do not generally collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). However, we may do so in order to facilitate any reasonable adjustments to enable attendance at our events. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

3)How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you
• create an account on our website;
• subscribe to our service or publications;
• request marketing to be sent to you;
• give us feedback or contact us.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below
• Technical Data is collected from the following parties:
  • analytics providers;
  • advertising networks; and
  • search information providers

4) How we use your personal data

Legal basis

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
• Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

5) Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your personal data above.

6) International transfers

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law, we always ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that appropriate safeguards in accordance with Article 46 EU GDPR are implemented

7) Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

8) Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see paragraph 9 below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9) Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. These essential cookies are always enabled because our website won’t work properly without them. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services. You can switch off these cookies in your browser settings but you may then not be able to access all or parts of our website.   
• Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose so that they can serve you with relevant advertising on their websites.

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

Please note that the following third parties may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These named third parties may include, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services. These third party cookies are likely to be analytical cookies or performance cookies or targeting cookies:

To deactivate the use of third party advertising cookies, you may visit the relevant consumer page to manage the use of these types of cookies [include link to consent management solution]].

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

You can choose which analytical, functionality and targeting cookies we can set by clicking on the button(s):

Strictly necessary cookies    ALWAYS ACTIVE

Analytical or performance cookies    OFF

Functionality cookies    OFF

Targeting cookies    OFF

You can also choose to “Reject All” cookies in the cookie banner.

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 website.

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of cookies, please send us an email at thomas.w.davies@plymouth.ac.uk

10) Your legal rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
• You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see in paragraph 4 for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications).
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (see the table in section 4 for details of when we rely on your consent as the legal basis for using your data). However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
• If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
• Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
• Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
• You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  
  

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at dpo@plymouth.ac.uk.

11) Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact dpo@plymouth.ac.uk

12) Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

13) Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes 

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated in March 2024

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.

14)Third-party links 

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.