PRIVACY POLICY

1. Information about PIIRUS, the University of Warwick and the Privacy policy

1.1 The University of Warwick (“we”, “us”) welcomes you to www.piirus.com (our “Website”), on which we offer a research match service where researchers can set up a PIIRUS account, search for and make contact with other PIIRUS account holders with similar research interests and form fruitful research collaborations (the “PIIRUS Service”). Anyone who is granted a PIIRUS account is a user of the PIIRUS Service (“PIIRUS Member”). In providing the PIIRUS Service we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

1.2 This page sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us when using the PIIRUS service and our Website (the “Privacy Policy”). The Privacy Policy relates to both PIIRUS Members and any other visitors to our Website. There are provisions in this Policy which relate specifically to personal data collected from or provided to us by PIIRUS Members.

1.3 For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”), the data controller is The University of Warwick, University House, Kirby Corner Road, Coventry CV4 8UW.

1.4 Please read the Privacy Policy carefully before you start to use our Website to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. Once using our Website you indicate that you accept the Privacy Policy and agree to abide by it. If you do not agree to this, please do not use our Website.

1.5 We have general terms and conditions of use that you must abide by when using our Website and should be read in conjunction with the Privacy Policy. Please see our General Website Terms and Conditions.

1.6 We have certain rules when you use our Website as a PIIRUS account holder. These rules are contained in our PIIRUS Terms of Use.

2. Information we may collect from you

2.1 We may collect and process the following data about you:

  1. Information provided by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering an interest in our Website or the PIIRUS Service, applying for or subscribing to the PIIRUS Service or any other service offered from time to time by our Website, requesting further services, and reporting a problem with our Website. If you are a PIIRUS Member, this includes information provided at the time of registering as a PIIRUS Member and any information submitted by you or on your behalf to support any application (where necessary), and information used to build your PIIRUS account.
  2. If you are a PIIRUS Member, information or materials that you upload or submit onto our Website to your PIIRUS account.
  3. Information you provide if you:
    1. enter a competition or promotion run through our Website;
    2. interact with any advertising on our Website;
    3. install or use any PIIRUS applications; or
    4. complete surveys on our Website that we use for research purposes.
  4. If you contact us, a record of that correspondence.
  5. Details of any transactions you carry out through our Website.
  6. Details of your visits to our Website including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.
  7. Information received from third parties that we work closely with, including advertising networks, analytics providers and search information providers.

2.2 If you register as a PIIRUS Member, we will always collect the following information: name, e-mail address, password, the Institution where you are a researcher, the department in which you carry out research, the researcher type you are and your collaboration interests. You may then choose whether to provide additional personal information in addition to this to build up your PIIRUS account, including details of your personal website, job title, education details and further research details. Building up your PIIRUS account and profile allows you to build up your professional identity, allows more users to find you on our Website and will potentially open up more research opportunities for you.

2.3 We will update your information whenever we get the opportunity, to make sure that it is current, accurate and complete. Please let us know if there is any change to your information.

3. Sharing and disclosure of information

3.1 We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

  1. If our Website or any service on it, including the PIIRUS Service is acquired by a third party, in which case your personal information will be one of the transferred assets.
  2. If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply the terms of our Privacy Policy and other terms or agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of PIIRUS Members, The University of Warwick, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
  3. Where they are assisting us in developing the Website or any services on it, including the PIIRUS Service.

3.2 We may wish to share or disclose your personal information or make it viewable to other users of the website or third parties in certain other circumstances, for example using information to showcase PIIRUS to potential new members or to allow publication of articles or papers in research publications. We will always ask you in advance whether you are happy for us to use, share or disclose this information and make clear when we are doing so, and (where applicable) ask whether you wish to be identified as the author of such material.

3.3 If you register as a PIIRUS Member any information that you upload to your PIIRUS account and profile, including your username and profile picture, can be viewed by all other PIIRUS Members so that they can see and search for you. We will not disclose such material, except profile pictures in accordance with clause 3.4, to any other users of the Website, unless you have given your permission for them to view it pursuant to clause 3.2.

3.4 If you register as a PIIRUS Member the profile picture you upload to your PIIRUS profile can be viewed by all users of our Website on the home page .

4. Where we store your data

4.1 The data that we collect from you may be transferred to a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"), and/or processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

4.2 All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers and will be encrypted where necessary. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

4.3 Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

5. Uses made of your information

5.1 We use information held about you in the following ways:

  1. To ensure that content from our Website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer and to keep our Website safe and secure.
  2. To provide you, or permit third parties to provide you, with information, advertisements, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
  3. To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
  4. To identify you as the author of material that you post onto our Website.
  5. To make suggestions to you about our Website services and features.
  6. To communicate with you about any service offered on our Website from time to time, including the PIIRUS Service. Any notification will be clearly communicated on our Website, or sent to you by e-mail or internal message.
  7. To communicate with you about our website terms and conditions, policies and guidelines and any changes or updates to them. Any notification will be clearly communicated on our Website, or sent to you by e-mail or internal message.
  8. To allow you to participate in any features of our Website, including as part of the PIIRUS Service, when you choose to do so.

5.2 If you are a PIIRUS Member, we also use information held about PIIRUS Members in the following ways:

  1. To amend any PIIRUS Members’ profile.
  2. To allow other PIIRUS Members to find and view your profile and send you internal messages.
  3. To make suggestions to you about PIIRUS Service features, materials and other PIIRUS Members you may wish to connect to.
  4. To notify the educational establishment of which you are a member if there has been a serious breach of any website terms and conditions, policies or guidelines by or concerning you.

5.3 In certain circumstances we may also provide aggregate information about users of our Website (for example, number of PIIRUS Members signed up to the PIIRUS service in Ireland) to any advertisers who we are working with and use such information to help our advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target, or to PIIRUS Members or other third parties who wish to publish articles or papers in research publications to assist them with their academic studies. We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to PIIRUS Members or other third parties under any circumstances.

5.4 We also reserve the right to monitor all information that we hold about you including material that you post on our Website to ensure that you are complying with any of our website terms and conditions, policies or guidelines.

6. Retention of information

We will hold your personal information as long as is reasonably required to provide you with any services or features of our Website, including the PIIRUS Service if you are a PIIRUS Member, or to comply with any legal obligation; or in order to enforce or apply the terms of our website terms and conditions, policies or guidelines; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of PIIRUS Members, The University of Warwick, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

7. Your rights

7.1 You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes at any time, even if you have previously given consent. We will always inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data, or contacting us at any time at hello@piirus.com.

7.2 Our Website may, from time to time, contain links to and from our Websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites

7.3 If you create links to and from our Websites, for example to a Twitter account these other websites may be able to access your personal information and we have no control over this. Please make sure you are familiar with their privacy policies before linking to any other websites.

8. IP addresses

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to third parties. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

9. Cookies

9.1 When you visit our Website we may send "cookies" to the browser on your computer, even if you do not provide us with any personal data. Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a Website. Cookies are sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful as they enable us to recognise you (by a unique number allocated to you) when you return to our Website and so to personalise your return by, for example, customising web pages based on which areas of our Website were previously of interest to you. If you have previously provided us with personal data, then cookies may enable us automatically to fill in your name and other information when, for example, you complete an online form.

9.2 Cookies also enable us to compile anonymous, aggregated statistics which help us understand how our Website is used and how we may improve it. It is not possible for cookies to read personal information on your computer and/or to find out any personal information about you.

9.3 A list of the different cookies that are used on this Website are set out below, we have categorised these to help you understand the type of function the cookies are performing.

Strictly Necessary Cookies: These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our Website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of our Website. Without these cookies some of the services you have asked for could not be provided.

Performance Cookies: These cookies collect information about how visitors use a Website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies do not collect information that identifies a visitor and all information collected is aggregated and therefore anonymous. These cookies improve how a website works.

Functionality Cookies: These cookies allow our Website to remember choices you make (e.g. language setting, text size) and provide enhanced, more personal features. They can help provide services such as local weather reports by storing in a cookie the region in which you are currently located. These cookies may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information collected may be anonymous and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Targeting Cookies: These cookies are used to deliver content more relevant to you and your interests. You are required to consent to our use of cookies and by continuing to use our Website we will accept this as your consent to their use. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website.

Authentication Cookies These cookies allow our Website to link to third party applications and vice versa to allow authentication of users of our Website and to allow users to remain logged into our Website where necessary.

9.4 We use Google Analytics to help us analyse how users use our Website. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google, Inc. that uses cookies to transmit information about your browsing habits to Google for the purposes of compiling statistical reports.

10. Safety (PIIRUS MEMBERS)

10.1 We take your online safety very seriously. We have comprehensive policies in place that allow all users of our Website to report abusive behaviour and any concerns that they have over any of the content on our Website. See clauses 4.9 and 13 of our General Website Terms and Conditions and 7.1 of our PIIRUS Service Terms of Use for more information.

10.2 If there is a serious breach of the Privacy Policy we may disclose information held about you to the educational establishment of which you are a member.

11. Access to information

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

12. Changes to our privacy policy

We may revise these terms at any time by amending this page and, where appropriate, notify you of these changes by e-mail. You should check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we have made, as they are binding on you.

13. Closure and temporary deactivation of your account

A breach of this Privacy Policy could lead to a temporary suspension or permanent closure of your PIIRUS account or any other such action as we deem appropriate in accordance with clause 13 of the General Website Terms and Conditions.

14. Contact

Questions, comments, requests and disputes regarding the Privacy Policy are welcomed and should be addressed to Admin at hello@piirus.com.

15. Other matters

15.1 If any part of these terms is unenforceable, this will not affect the enforceability of any other part.

15.2 These terms, together with any document referred to in these terms, constitute the whole agreement between you and us.