Privacy and Cookie Policy

What is this Privacy Policy for?

This privacy policy is for this website http://biopronetuk.org/ and served by BioProNET Network and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it.

The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.

The Website

This website and it’s owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website comply’s to all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy.

Use of Cookies

This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer / device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for website’s to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a users computer / device.

Cookies are small files saved to the users computers hard drive that track, save and store information about the users interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through it’s server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website. Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and it’s external serving vendors.

This website uses tracking software to monitor it’s visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computers hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy here for further information.

Other cookies may be stored to your computers hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

Control and Delete Cookies

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our website, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your device as well as more general information about cookies. Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.

If you wish to view 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.

For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual. To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.

Types of Cookies

There are effectively four different variants of cookies that websites create:

  • Session cookies – These types of cookies are only valid when the user browses a site and are expired when the user leaves a website. Session cookies are used to remember if a user has logged into a website for example.
  • Persistent cookies – Persistent cookies are not cleared when a user closes their browser. They are used to remember if the user has visited the site before, whether they ticked a ‘remember me’ type checkbox when logging into the site or where the user visited the website from. These types of cookies generally have a fixed time-frame before expiring, for example a year.
  • First party cookies – First party cookies are examples that are only used within one particular website. Data from the cookie isn’t accessible to other websites.
  • Third party cookies – These cookies do contain data that third party websites can access. Examples include social media sharing controls or analytics based websites.
Cookie
Type
Duration
Description
WordPress First Party / Persistant 1 Year WordPress is the Content Management System (CMS) that runs this website. It uses a cookie when logging in and out and is essential for proper website operation. It is only set if you are a registered user, so for most people it is not set at all. User data is all anonymous.
Cookie Policy First Party / Persistant 1 Year At the footer of our website you will have seen a message alerting you of our privacy and cookie policy. Once you have seen this message, you probably won’t want to see it again. We use a cookie to remember this setting. User data is all anonymous.
__utma Third party cookie / Persistent 1 Year This cookie is part of Google analytics and keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred.
__utmb Third party cookie / Persistent 1 Year This cookie creates a timestamp of the exact moment when a visitor enters the site. This cookie is part of Google analytics and works with the _utmc cookie.
__utmc Third party cookie / Persistent 1 Year This cookie creates a timestamp of the exact moment when a visitor leaves the website. This cookie is part of Google analytics in conjunction with the _utmb cookie.
__utmz Third party cookie / Persistent 1 Year This cookie is part of Google Analytics and keeps track of where in the world visitors come from, what search engine they used, what link they clicked on and what keyword they used.

Contact & Communication

Users contacting this website and/or it’s owners do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act 1998. Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to email submission process but advise users using such form to email processes that they do so at their own risk.

This website and it’s owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products / services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a product or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.

Email Newsletter

This website operates an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products and services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through prior agreement with the user.

Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. No personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies / people outside of the company that operates this website. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to the business address at the bottom of this policy. Our newsletter subscription is managed and stored with Mailchimp.

Email marketing campaigns published by this website or it’s owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity (this is by no far a comprehensive list).
This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity.

In compliance with UK Spam Laws and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 subscribers are given the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email. If an automated unsubscription system is unavailable clear instructions on how to unsubscribe will by detailed instead.

External Links

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links users should always adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website.

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and it’s owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Adverts and Sponsored Links

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will tracks the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computers hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and it’s owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and it’s owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website nor it’s owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

This website and it’s owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy url’s aka web addresses, an example such as: http://bit.ly/VtEnK1

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened url’s published on social media platforms by this website and it’s owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine url’s are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and it’s owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Resources & Further Information

Free Website Privacy Policy written by Jamie King Media – SEO Pembrokeshire © 2013 – v.2.0 April 2013 | Edited & customised by: BioProNET Network Manager, BioProNET, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester.

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