The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

Introduction

This policy covers Harlaxton College's use of personal information that the we collect when you use harlaxton.ac.uk. The policy also gives you information about cookies and how you may reject such cookies.

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include registration information, newsletters and travel booking services..

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the Harlaxton College to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. When using your personal information Harlaxton College will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

Visitor Information

During the course of any visit to harlaxton.ac.uk, the pages you see, along with a short text file called a 'cookie', are downloaded to your computer. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Information supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better online user experience and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to our academic pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight academic information on your second and subsequent visits. Some cookies also help us by showing how our users use and move around the site and which services they like or don't like. When looking at this information, we do so on an anonymous and aggregate basis without viewing any of your personal details.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Cookies record information about your online preferences. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the harlaxton.ac.uk features. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

If you have set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse harlaxton.ac.uk anonymously until such time as you wish to register for harlaxton.ac.uk services. For further information on cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org.

Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to harlaxton.ac.uk (e.g. for on-line registration or harlaxton.ac.uk membership) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use those data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else.

In general, any information you provide to Harlaxton College will only be used within Harlaxton College. Your information will be disclosed where we are obliged or permitted by law. Also, if you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to harlaxton.ac.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on harlaxton.ac.uk, Harlaxton College can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school e-mail/Internet provider and law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of harlaxton.ac.uk membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a harlaxton.ac.uk member. For safety reasons, however, Harlaxton College may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of harlaxton.ac.uk community services such as The Harlaxton Blog for a period of six months. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other harlaxton.ac.uk services (e.g. travel bookings), that information will be held as long as is necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you are notified on a harlaxton.ac.uk site that your information may be used to allow Harlaxton College to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that Harlaxton College may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on harlaxton.ac.uk unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information on the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional information.

Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information Harlaxton College holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer, Harlaxton College, Harlaxton, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG32 1AG, UK (enquiries@harlaxton.ac.uk).

Users 16 and under

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to Harlaxton College's website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

How to find and control your cookies

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Privacy Tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Click on the 'Advanced' button
6. Check the 'override automatic cookie handing' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:

1. Choose View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Scroll down to the yellow exclamation icon under Security and choose one of the three options to regulate your use of cookies.

If you're using Internet Explorer 3.0:
You can View, Options, Advanced, then click on the button that says Warn before Accepting Cookies.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Set your options in the box that says Cookies.

How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies
5. Click the View Cookies button

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the General tab
4. Click Settings
5. View Files

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Under the tab General (the default tab) click
4. Settings
5. View Files.

If you're using Internet Explorer 3.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. View
2. Options
3. Advanced
4. View Files.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:
Netscape bundles all cookies into one file on your hard drive. You'll need to find the file, which it calls Cookie.txt on Windows machines.

How to see your cookie code

Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.